Literature, Japanese philosophy in modern

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Anderer
Keyword(s):  
Japanese Literature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Confucian Ethics ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
Modern Japanese Literature ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
And Function

Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, virtually all major lines of Western thought and the works of both major and minor Western philosophers have been explored and used by Japanese writers in an effort to forge a modern Japanese literature. The history of translation alone reveals a concern to bring over synoptic summaries of Western philosophy, as well as the primary works of specific thinkers. Academic philosophy as a discipline of advanced study was established in the 1880s, the decade which corresponds to the beginnings of widespread literary reform and the often-cited creation of the first modern Japanese novel, Futabatei’s Ukigumo (Floating Cloud) in 1889. However, Japanese novelists, dramatists, poets and critics did not assimilate philosophical influences naïvely or passively, nor was Japanese literature made over in the shape of specific Western ideas regarding the nature and function of the self, society or literary aesthetics. Indeed, the avid translation and discussion of Western ideas frequently provoked a nativist reaction or modification. The revival of traditional tropes, the language of Confucian ethics, Buddhist practice and Shintō legends), itself often reflects the pervasive presence of Western ideas on the modern literary scene.

scholarly journals Soul searching: a brief history of the mind/body debate in the neurosciences

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

✓Anatomical and physiological understandings of the structure and function of the brain have worked to establish it as the “seat of the soul.” As an organ of reflection, meditation, and memory, the brain becomes synonymous with what defines the “self” through the existence of consciousness—of mind. Thus, the brain has been associated with a range of transcendent concepts—the soul, spirit, mind, and consciousness—that all relate in fundamental ways to each other both in terms of their perceived location within the brain and because of the way each works ultimately to define the person to whom the brain belongs. In this article, the author provides a brief exploration of how interrelated these categories have been when seen in the context of ancient, Renaissance, early modern, and modern philosophical and medical concerns; how the brain has variously been perceived as home to these intimate states of being; and how practitioners from the neurosciences have reflected on these questions. The author provides novel insights into the interrelationships of philosophy, theology, and medicine by examining these issues through the lens of the history of neuroscience.

scholarly journals Meditative Revolutions? A Preliminary Approach to US Buddhist Anarchist Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-179
Author(s):  
Enrique Galvan-Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Revolutionary Praxis ◽  
The Way

This article discusses the various shapes, inner structures and roles given to transformative and liberative practices in the work of US Buddhist anarchist authors (1960-2010). Unlike their Chinese and Japanese predecessors, who focused more on discursive parallelisms between Buddhism and anarchism or on historical instances of antiauthoritarianism within the Buddhist tradition(s), US Buddhist anarchists seem to favour practice and experience. This emphasis, characteristic of the way Buddhism has been introduced to the West,sometimes masks the way meditative techniques were used in traditional Buddhist contexts as oppressive technologies of the self. Whereas the emphasis on the inherently revolutionary nature of Buddhist practice represents a radical departure from the way those practices have been conceptualised throughout Buddhist history, it also involves the danger of considering Buddhist practice as an ahistorical sine qua non for social transformation. This is due to the fact that most early Buddhist anarchist writers based their ideas on a highly idealised, Orientalist imagination of Zen Buddhism(s). However, recent contributions based on other traditions have offered a more nuanced, albeit still developing picture. By assessing a number of instances from different US Buddhist anarchist writers, the article traces the brief history of the idea that meditation is revolutionary praxis, while also deconstructing and complicating it through historical and textual analysis.

Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Self ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Concrete Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
Italian Philosophy

Best known as the self-styled philosopher of Fascism, Gentile, along with Benedetto Croce, was responsible for the ascendance of Hegelian idealism in Italy during the first half of the twentieth century. His ‘actual’ idealism or ‘actualism’ was a radical attempt to integrate our consciousness of experience with its creation in the ‘pure act of thought’, thereby abolishing the distinction between theory and practice. He held an extreme subjectivist version of idealism, and rejected both empirical and transcendental arguments as forms of ‘realism’ that posited the existence of a reality outside thought. His thesis developed through a radicalization of Hegel’s critique of Kant that drew on the work of the nineteenth-century Neapolitan Hegelian Bertrando Spaventa. He argued that it represented both the natural conclusion of the whole tradition of Western philosophy, and had a basis in the concrete experience of each individual. He illustrated these arguments in detailed writings on the history of Italian philosophy and the philosophy of education respectively. He joined the Fascist Party in 1923 and thereafter placed his philosophy at the service of the regime. He contended that Fascism was best understood in terms of his reworking of the Hegelian idea of the ethical state, a view that occasionally proved useful for ideological purposes but which had little practical influence.

The Buddha of the North: Swedenborg and Transpacific Zen

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Devin Zuber
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
William Blake ◽  
Japanese Literature ◽  
Modern Japanese Literature ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Emanuel Swedenborg ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Buddha

AbstractThe Scandinavian scientist-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) has had a curious relationship to the history of how Western literature has responded to Buddhism. Since Honoré de Balzac’s claim in the 1830s that Swedenborg was “a Buddha of the north,” Swedenborg’s mystical teachings have been consistently aligned with Buddhism by authors on both sides of the pacific, from D. T. Suzuki to Philangi Dasa, the publisher of the first Buddhist journal in North America. This essay explores the different historical frames that allowed for this steady correlation, and argues that the rhetorical and aesthetic trope of “Swedenborg as Buddha” became a point of cultural translation, especially between Japanese Zen and twentieth-century Modernism. Swedenborg’s figuration in the earlier work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Blake, moreover, might begin to account for the peculiar ways those two Romantics have particularly affected modern Japanese literature. The transpacific flow of these ideas ultimately complicates the Orientalist critique that has read Western aesthetic contact with Buddhism as one of hegemonic misappropriation.

scholarly journals NON SIBI, SED OMNIBUS: MOKSLINGASIS PROFESORIAUS R. PLEČKAIČIO PAVELDAS

Problemos ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 44-55
Author(s):  
Marius P. Šaulauskas ◽  
Mindaugas Kubilius
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Vilnius University ◽  
Research Standards

Straipsnyje aptariamas profesoriaus Romano Plečkaičio, iškiliausio Lietuvos filosofijos raidos tyrėjo, mokslinis palikimas. Lietuvoje ir pirmiausia Vilniaus universitete dėstytas bei plėtotas filosofines doktrinas ir pažiūras jis tyrė visuotiniame šimtmečiais besiplėtojančios filosofijos ir iš jos kylančios mokslo žinijos kontekste. Esminė prof. Plečkaičio metodologinė nuostata, teigianti Apšvietos mokslo idealų primatą, išliko nepakitusi per visą jo akademinės veiklos laikotarpį. Mokslo ir jo progresyvios raidos principų bei mokslingumo standartų esminė nepriklausomybė nuo ideologinių, religinių bei kitokių paramokslinių istorinių aplinkybių – šis motyvas buvo visų svarbiausių Plečkaičio veikalų – nuo visuotinės filosofijos istorijos tyrinėjimų iki tolerancijos teorijos – šerdis. Todėl ir Lietuvos filosofijos mokslo raidą nuo pat jos atsiradimo XVI a. pradžioje iki XXI a. pradžios jis nuosekliai suvokė kaip sudedamąją pasaulinės mokslo žinijos sklaidos dalį.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Plečkaitis, Lietuvos filosofijos istorija, Vilniaus universitetas.Non sibi, sed omnibus: The Sciential Legacy of Professor R. PlečkaitisMarius P. Šaulauskas, Mindaugas Kubilius SummaryProfessor Romanas Plečkaitis (1933–2009) is the most prominent figure in the scholarship of the history of philosophy in Lithuania. In the universal context of centuries long history of philosophy and whereof unfolding scientific knowledge he scrutinized the large variety of philosophical doctrines and views, which were taught and developed in Lithuania and, first and foremost, at Vilnius university. The fundamental methodological posture of prof. R. Plečkaitis, which persisted unshakably throughout his whole academic carrier, affirmed the unsurpassable supremacy of Enlightenment scientific ideals. At the heart of all his most important works embracing studies in history of western philosophy as well as theory of tolerance lies his conviction that the progressive advance of scientific edifice and its research standards must not depend on any ideological, religious or other parascientific circumstances. Therefore he consistently treated the development of the academic philosophy in Lithuania since its very the beginning in the XVI century up to the dawn of XXI century as a part and parcel of the growing universal knowledge of science.Keywords: Plečkaitis, Lithuanian history of philosophy, Vilnius University.

scholarly journals Religion and Reason in the Grasp of Basic Models

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Klapwijk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
The Self ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Considerations ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

How do religious faith and human understanding relate to each other? On this question there is no consensus, nor has there ever been in the past. The history of Western philosophy confronts us with a complex diversity of views that grew into more or less indisputable standard positions. These positions are not the strict result of theoretical reflection. Their acceptance is largely based on pre-theoretical considerations, the self-evidence of a spiritual intuition or religious motivation. The different views of the realtionship of religion and reason can be grouped into a limited number of basic models or motifs. This essay will discuss seven of them as they arose in the Christian tradition. I will name them as follows: identification, conflict, subordination, complementarity, foundation, authenticity and transformation. For the sake of brevity the text focuses on the origins and first manifestations of these models. But we will add again and again fragments of further developments to make clear how resilient these models are. They continue to assert themselves even in new periods of time. Their diversity keeps on challenging us, up to the present day, to reconsider the self-evidence of our own position in the debate on religion and reason.

scholarly journals Japanese Philosopher Seiichi Hatano (1877–1950) on the Problems of Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Liubov B. Karelova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Western Intellectual

The name of Seiichi Hatano (1877–1950) is still not so widely known outside of Japan. At the same time, he belongs to those outstanding Japanese thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century, who not only introduced to their compatriots the history of Western philosophy, but also acted as generators of original concepts created on the basis of deep critical understanding of the Western intellectual heritage. The article deals with the reconstruction of Seiichi Hatano’s theory of time, formulated in his monograph “Time and Eternity” (1943), which crowned his creative career. The starting point of Hatano’s philosophy of time were studies of the basic human experience, which he interpreted in terms of the flow of life and the interaction of the Self and the Other. The subject of the Japanese thinker’s special interest was the problem of overcoming temporality. Hatano’s original contribution to the theory of time was the creation of the three-fold scheme of temporality, considered on the main levels of life – natural, cultural, and religious, conclusions about the divergence of time at the natural and cultural levels, and the idea that the past in history is governed by the perspective of the future.

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