The latest issue of T’oung Pao has come out, with several religion-related articles, including an unpublished piece by the late Robert van Gulik! Please read below for the table of contents.
Category Archives: Buddhism
Post-doctoral fellowship at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Philosophy and Religion Program in the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology invites expressions of interest for the RGC Junior Research Fellow Scheme (JRFS). The scheme provides funding to cover up to 36 months full-time post-doctoral fellowship. The starting date of the fellowship is usually 1 July 2025 the earliest, 31 January 2026 the latest, and is negotiable.
The annual stipend is around HK$420,000 (inclusive of travel allowance at around HK$13,300).
Research Interests: Chinese Philosophy, Buddhism, Comparative/Intercultural Philosophy
Please read below for details regarding the application.
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New Book: Xiong Shili’s Treatise on Reality and Function
This is the fourth translation in the Oxford Chinese Thought book series, which is devoted to providing high-quality translations of important philosophical and religious texts, for scholars and for classroom use. A free sample chapter is available here (free until April 1, 2024). A short description follows below the fold.
Hayes Reviews Garfield, Buddhist Ethics
Jay L. Garfield, Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford University Press, 2022, 231pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780190907648.
Reviewed by Richard P. Hayes, The University of New Mexico
This book is a contribution to the series “Buddhist Philosophy for Philosophers,” which so far also has a monograph on Buddhist epistemology and one on Buddhist metaphysics. As with the other books in the series, Jay Garfield’s book is written primarily for philosophers who are open to exploring Buddhist approaches to ethics rather than for philologists or historians of Buddhist thought, although scholars in Buddhist studies also stand to benefit from reflecting on Garfield’s presentation. As the author makes clear from the outset, Buddhists have not until recently written much that could be considered metaethical in nature. Ethicists accustomed to…
Lecture: Li, The relationship between Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism
The Glorisun Global Network for Buddhist Studies is pleased to present:
The relationship between Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism in Song Dynasty taking Zhu Xi as an example
By Professor Li Chunying 李春穎, International Confucian Academy at China University of Political Science and Law
Date: Monday, December 6, 2021, 10:00 AM PST
Webpage: https://glorisunglobalnetwork
Registration: https://ubc.zoom.us/meeting/r
New Book: The Daodejing Commentary of Cheng Xuanying
This is now the third translation in the Oxford Chinese Thought book series, which is devoted to providing high-quality translations of important philosophical and religious texts, for scholars and for classroom use. A short description follows below the fold.
ToC: APA Newsletter on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies
Special Issue on Buddhist Philosophy: Book Symposium on Why I Am Not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson
From the Editors
“Editors’ Introduction: Buddhist Modernism and Its Discontents,” A. Minh Nguyen and Yarran Hominh
Articles
“Précis of Why I Am Not a Buddhist,” Evan Thompson
“On Pursuing the Dialogue Between Buddhism and Science in Ways That Distort Neither,” Christian Coseru
“On Being a Good Friend to Buddhist Philosophy,” Bronwyn Finnegan
“Buddhism after Buddhist Modernism: Comments on Evan Thompson’s Why I Am Not a Buddhist,” Jonardon Ganeri
“Throwing Out the Buddha with the Offering Water: Comments on Evan Thompson’s Why I Am Not a Buddhist,” Jay L. Garfield
“Free to Be You and Me: Cosmopolitanism, Pluralism, and Buddhist Modernism,” Laura P. Guerrero
“Some Questions for Friends of Buddhism,” Sonam Kachru
“Thompson Is Not a Buddhist, But What about the Rest of Us?,” Constance Kassor
“Deconstructing Buddhist Modernism Without Postmodern Orientalism?,” Abraham Velez de Cea
“Buddhist Modernism: Let’s Be Suspicious But Not Because It Lacks Faith,” Louise Williams
“Replies to Critics,” Evan Thompson
Click here for the full text of these essays and more information
On-line Lecture: Tillemans, Methodology: Meditations of a philosophical Buddhologist
The Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, is hosting a series of lectures titled “Method and Region.”
The aim of this initiative is to reflect on the relationship between method and region. Here, methodcomprises the entire apparatus that enables us to conduct scholarly studies, including non-European theories and concepts. Region stands for what is contextually specific, such as language, history or thought. The full program is available here.
The first lecture in the series will be on Tuesday, 30 March, 18:00–19:30 CET:
Tom J.F. Tillemans (Emeritus – University of Lausanne) — Methodology: Meditations of a philosophical Buddhologist
Topic: There was a famous incident in the 1980s that sent shivers down spines, and probably still does. A prominent Princeton philosopher put a notice on his office door that philosophy students should just say “No” to the history of philosophy – Western and Eastern alike, I suppose. It may well be that the Princeton philosopher was a bit misinterpreted, but the echo of Nancy Reagan’s right-wing method to combat drug addiction – just say “No” – was unmistakable. I am going to turn the tables and look at some arguments by historians for nay-saying to philosophy, in particular those of historians of Asian thought and specialists in Buddhist Studies. Such arguments, too, don’t fare well. I will close with an instructive example from another field, linguistics, and will add a few morals to the story.
The lecture will be held online and is open to the public. To register, please write to office.ikga(at)oeaw.ac.at.
Upcoming lectures in the series Method and Region are:
Ivanhoe and Garfield among “Influential Philosophers”
The website Academic Influence has released a ranking of the top “influential philosophers” today, and two scholars working in non-Western traditions, P. J. Ivanhoe and Jay Garfield, appear among the list’s “honorable mentions.”
Wu Reviews Makeham, ed., Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi
Jiang WU has reviewed John Makeham, ed., The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought (Oxford, 2018) in the latest Journal of Chinese Religions; see here. One excerpt:
The current volume under review is thus a welcome step towards reevaluating the Buddhist influence on the formation of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian philosophy. Not only will it rekindle interest in philosophical issues among China specialists, it also helps to correct the previous tendency, or even bias, to overemphasize the social, intellectual, and historical aspects. This dominant approach tends to reduce philosophical arguments to a set of ideological dogmas conditioned by their social and cultural contexts, such as the competition for literati patronage. (p. 304)
