Category Archives: Comparative philosophy

Van Norden Interview

Bryan Van Norden is interviewed about his new book Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto by Dan Kaufman. Some of the topics:

  • Just how Euro-centric are American philosophy departments, anyway?
  • Is racism baked into Western philosophy?
  • A brief account of Western dalliances with Eastern thought
  • Why new movements in philosophy must kill their ancestors
  • Why do philosophy departments stay white? Subtle self-selection, Bryan says
  • Is philistinism killing philosophy as a discipline?

Submissions on Comparison solicited by JWP

From the Journal of World Philosophies Facebook page:

Professor Nathan Sivin (Pennsylvania) would like to engage with the journal’s readers on the topic ‘Why Some Comparisons Make More Difference than Others’. We invite readers to submit their own short takes on the topic via the OJS site by 15 January 2017. Together with Professor Sivin, the journal’s editorial team will select about 4 respondents on the basis of the submitted abstracts. Abstracts should not exceed more than 250 words. They should include a title, 5-8 keywords, and a short bio.

Obryk Reviews Lan, Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric

From the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Version at BMCR home site):

Haixia W. Lan, Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth: The Form and the Way. London; New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. 228. ISBN 978147287360. $149.95.

Reviewed by Matylda Amat Obryk, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf (matylda.amat.obryk@uni-duesseldorf.de)

Publisher’s Preview

In Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth. The Form and the Way, Haixia Lan (henceforth Lan), a specialist in the field of comparative rhetoric, follows the latest trend of comparing Aristotle’s and Confucius’ thought.1 Her objective is quite ambitious. The author wants to “to help foster better communication between East and West today”. To achieve this she challenges the view that Eastern and Western thought differ beyond comparison. She fights against stereotypical assumptions that e.g. Aristotle’s concept of essence (which Lan conflates with “truth”) is static and Confucius’ dao-the-way is decentered and therefore incompatible with inferential / discursive thinking (cf. p. 14).

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New Book: Manifestos for World Thought

Rowman & Littlefield has published Lucian Stone and Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, eds., Manifestos for World Thought. The publisher’s description:

This book brings together prominent scholars from varying disciplines to speculate on this obscure question and the many crossroads that face intellectuals in our contemporary era and its aftermath. The result is a collection of “manifestos” that contemplate a potential global future for thinking itself, venturing across some of the most marginalized sectors of East and West (with particular emphasis on the Middle Eastern and Islamicate) in order to dissect crucial issues of culture, society, philosophy, literature, art, religion, and politics. The book explores themes such as as universality, translation, modernity, language, history, identity, resistance, ecology, catastrophe, memory, and the body, offering a groundbreaking alignment of texts and ideas with far-reaching implications for our time and beyond.

More information (including a Table of Contents) is available here.

CFP: NECCT / MCCT

Northeast/Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought
April 27-29, 2018
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

The sixth annual Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought and the 14th annual Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought will be holding their first ever joint conference from Friday, April 27 through Sunday, April 29 2018, at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, CT.

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