Authors:Emmanuel Ofuasia Abstract: Victoria Harrison’s Eastern Philosophy of Religion is a short book which seeks to guide scholars who are unfamiliar with some of the basic philosophical discourses original to Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. The ‘Eastern,’ in the title of Harrison’s book refers to the philosophic-religious ideas peculiar to these philosophical traditions. I explore the contents of this book as a scholar committed to facilitating intellectual exchanges between philosophers of religion in the African traditions and the ones mentioned earlier. This is because some of these ideas she explores parallel some reflections which hitherto, I assumed to be original to African philosophy of religion. Specifically, I outline how the discourses on personhood, immortality and Jaina perspectival pluralism share similarities and can be more appreciated when assessed from an African perspective. Based on this conviction, I call to divest philosophy of religion away from Christian-and eurocentric assumptions so that it can attain a truly global character. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Rajan Abstract: This review critically examines Sanatan Gandhi: Bapu Se Vaishwik Samvād by Ambika Dutt Sharma and Vishwanath Mishra. The review will assess the authors’ contribution to the discourse on peace, violence, and Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, while exploring intersections with selected modern thinkers. It highlights the book’s strengths in critiquing modernity and presenting Gandhi as a relevant guide in today’s world, including as a cultural analyst. It suggests potential challenges regarding cultural bias and oversimplification, urging a more inclusive exploration of Gandhi's philosophy and ideals rather than limiting him to Advaitin persona. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Fasil Merawi Abstract: In this essay, I recount my intellectual journey in teaching philosophy at three Ethiopian universities. Such a recounting focuses on from the time I was assigned to the Department of Philosophy at Addis Ababa University through a quota system as an undergraduate student, to teaching philosophy at Wollega University, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University and Addis Ababa University. Through such a discussion, I show the foundations of my conviction that philosophy needs to play an active role in the emancipation of the individual. I also believe that a philosophy that is grounded on the analysis of societal predicaments can serve as a foundation of an Ethiopian critical theory that is developed as a critical engagement with the question of modernity. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Hanétha Vété-Congolo, José Cossa, Denise Ferreira da Silva Abstract: Vété-Congolo’s challenges us to consider alternative ways of understanding the self and the world outside of racial and other hierarchies. One such alternative she examines in this symposium is formed around the Creole term “moun” (‘human person’) and the phrase “tout moun sé moun” (“all human persons are human persons”). Developed under enslavement on Caribbean plantations, this radical epistemic resistance drove, she argues, Caribbean Pawòl or Caribbean Ethics. Vété-Congolo’s respondents José Cossa and Denise Ferreira da Silva, agree that this black resilience under enslavement needs to be acknowledged as an alternative way of understanding the self’s relation to the world. However, while Cossa clearly distinguishes ‘moun’ from its contemporary European humanistic counterparts, Ferreira da Silva argues that ‘moun’s’ ethical moment should not be considered as belonging to the post-Enlightenment political architecture of equality and freedom, but as an act of rebelry. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Shuchen Xiang, Sungmoon Kim, Bryan W Van Norden, Don J. Wyatt Abstract: This author-meets-readers discussion centers Shuchen Xiang’s synopsis of her recent book Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea (2023a), which argues against assumptions that European global colonization and racial atrocities were consequences of human nature. Sungmoon Kim, Bryan W. Van Norden and Don J. Wyatt engage with Xiang about her thesis that historical China upheld a worldview that underscored cross-cultural exchange, mutual flourishing, and growth through cultural encounter. This worldview did not drive it to colonize the world. In contrast, its European counterpart fought difference and therefore sought to conquer the world. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Jarrod Brown Abstract: Hòa Hảo is a tradition that emerged in the early part of the twentieth century in Vietnam with its principle canon, the Sám Giảng (The Oracles), authored by its founder, Huỳnh Phú Sổ. Its principle philosophical innovation is foregrounding moral practices within an ethicized relational ontology. The conditioned world is constituted by relations that have both metaphysical and moral correlates, but as relations, are empty of intrinsic being. The development of moral epistemic abilities leads to metaphysical insights, and paired with its karmic benefits, moral practice, giới, is taken to be both necessary and sufficient for liberation, albeit with the possible intermediate step of a Pure Land rebirth. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Raquel Ferrández Formoso Abstract: The ideal of “freedom-as-omnipotence” pointed out by Daya Krishna in its interpretation of the Yogasūtra is undoubtedly present throughout the history of yoga. This ideal of omnipotence is also at the basis of the contemporary transhumanist program through the ideal of human perfection, and there are already transhumanist versions that defend the use of meditative techniques from India as complements to a program of human enhancement. In this essay I argue that transhumanism and bioliberalism seek to free us from biological conditioning at the cost of making us more and more dependent on science and technology, presenting a sort of “derivative freedom” that many premodern yogas would never accept. Instead, contemporary yogas, which no longer contemplate the ideal of yogic powers, are much more amenable to the idea of human enhancement through external devices, partly because they have adopted diluted versions of the models of freedom advocated in premodern yogas. We are already witnessing the evolution of a post-human yoga in which technological devices are incorporated into the practice and virtual practice communities are created, some even made up of avatar-practitioners, in which the human factor is progressively lost.Finally, ChatGPT takes issue with some of the ideas in this essay for reasons that ChatGPT’s own existence contradicts. While offering me detailed postural yoga routines, it reminds me that the “spiritual component” of yoga is important and concludes that the alliance between yoga and technology will pose a great challenge to the “yogic community” of the 21st century. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Mona Jahangiri Abstract: This article conducts a comparative analysis of the seventeenth-century Iranian philosopher Mullā Ṣadrāʼs perspective on identity and change with that of the German philosopher, neuroscientist, and psychiatrist Georg Northoff. A key element of Mullā Ṣadrāʼs philosophy is the concept of substantial movement (al-ḥaraka aljawhariyya). By bridging neuroscientific considerations with Islamic philosophy, this study ventures into uncharted territory, presenting an innovative, interdisciplinary, and transcultural approach to the topic. The projectʼs uniqueness lies in its juxtaposition of Mullā Ṣadrāʼs and Northoffʼs perspectives, fostering a framework for interdisciplinary discourse and cross-cultural dialogue. Bridging neuroscientific considerations with Mullā Ṣadrāʼs philosophy enhances our understanding of consciousness and allows for a deeper exploration of the relationship between mind and body. With its emphasis on the unity of being and the dynamic nature of reality, this philosophy provides a rich framework for interpreting neuroscientific findings about brain function and consciousness. Integrating empirical evidence with metaphysical insights cultivates a comprehensive, holistic and enriched perspective. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Gregory Doukas Abstract: This article addresses problematic interpretations of African decolonial thought. It begins by responding to a recent challenge to efforts at decolonizing knowledge in political theory and philosophy, arguing Olúfémi Táíwò raises profound questions about what it means to do so. These problematize the market commodification of decolonial thought and highlight reasons for interpreting African philosophy as modern, universalist, and creolizing in Jane Anna Gordon’s and Michael Monahan’s senses. It next discusses the pathbreaking work of the late Ghanaian intellectual and Akan philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu, whose political thought I situate within a genealogy I call anticolonial West African liberalism. Subsequently, I examine Wiredu’s method of conceptual decolonization, which remains an effective model for decolonizing knowledge production in philosophy. To show why, finally, I thematize Wiredu’s writings on truth and philosophy of mind, concluding they should continue orienting African decolonial theorists of the present generation as they struggle to advance the frontiers of knowledge beyond what Wiredu witnessed in his lifetime. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Eduardo Duarte Abstract: This paper will explore the aesthetic experience that can occur with music, and the potentially transformative existential education that can unfold from that experience. First and foremost, the paper explores the ways W.E.B Du Bois engages with music in The Souls of Black Folk. Drawing on the African-American tradition of the spirituals, but also European symphonic music, Du Bois shows the different ways music can captivate a listener. But Du Bois also complicates what is meant by “listening” to music. This can happen when music is used as a literary device, symbolically as a way of setting the mood for the reader, but also when it is “heard” as arriving from the future. Secondly, this paper turns to Jean-Luc Nancy, whose writing on listening, music and philosophy has captured the attention of musicologists, literary theorists, educators, and, of course, philosophers. For Nancy, listening includes both the embodied experience of hearing and processing sound, as well as the hermeneutics of listening to the sound of ideas. Thinking is musical, music is philosophical, and the distinction between the two is not always entirely clear. Together, Du Bois and Nancy help us to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding for the diverse ways that “music” and “listening” can be experienced. PubDate: 2024-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
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