1st Edition

Culture And Self Philosophical And Religious Perspectives, East And West

By Douglas B. Allen, Ashok Malhotra Copyright 1997
    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    Traditional scholars of philosophy and religion, both East and West, often place a major emphasis on analyzing the nature of "the self." In recent decades, there has been a renewed interest in analyzing self, but most scholars have not claimed knowledge of an ahistorical, objective, essential self free from all cultural determinants. The contributors of this volume recognize the need to contextualize specific views of self and to analyze such views in terms of the dynamic, dialectical relations between self and culture. An unusual feature of this book is that all of the chapters not only focus on traditions and individuals, East and West, but include as primary emphases comparative philosophy, religion, and culture, reinforcing individual and cultural creativity. Each chapter brings specific Eastern and Western perspectives into a dynamic, comparative relation. This comparative orientation emphasizes our growing sense of interrelatedness and interdependency.

    Preface -- Introduction -- Multiple Asian and Western Perspectives -- Social Constructions of Self: Some Asian, Marxist, and Feminist Critiques of Dominant Western Views of Self -- How Universal Is Psychoanalysis? The Self in India, Japan, and the United States -- Chinese and Western Perspectives -- Ethics, Relativism, and the Self -- Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications -- Buddho-Taoist and Western Metaphysics of the Self -- Indian and Western Perspectives -- Reducing Concern with Self: Parfit and the Ancient Buddhist Schools -- Sartre and Samkhya-Yoga on Self -- Japanese and Western Perspectives -- Nietzsche and Nishitani on Nihilism and Tradition -- Views of Japanese Selfhood: Japanese and Western Perspectives

    Biography

    Douglas B. Allen