Atman in Advaita Vedanta: Variations on a theme from the Principal Upanishads”
PRABHU, Joseph (California State University, Los Angeles)
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PRABHU, Joseph (California State University, Los Angeles) “The Dialectic of Topos and Universality in Panikkar’s Hermeneutics” XXXXX PRIEST, Graham (CUNY Graduate Center/University of Melbourne, Australia) “Marxism and Buddhism: Not so Strange Bedfellows” Marxism and Buddhism might seem unlikely bedfellows. However, they have at least this much in common. Both say that contemporary life is unsatisfactory. Both have a diagnosis of why this is. Both offer hope of making it better. Buddhism has always been strong on ethics, its ground and its rationale; generally speaking, it is weak on political theory. By contrast Marxism has always been strong on political theory, but weak on an articulation of ethics. In this talk, I will show how aspects of Buddhist ethics and aspects of Marx’ critique of capitalism are mutually complementary, and can be combined to produce a much more rounded picture. PURI, Bindu (Jawahrlal Nehru University, India) “Transforming Sacred Space into Shared Place: Gandhi and Ambedkar on Temple Entry” This paper looks at confrontations about sacred spaces that were open to a select, rather chosen, few. In this context it examines an issue which was one of the points of contention in the debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar-temple entry. The discussion moves from these confrontations to re-constructions of the confrontations in the memories of the excluded and oppressed. In this context the paper examines the memory and re-interpretation of arguments made by Gandhi and Ambedkar around temple entry in the work of two contemporary dalit scholars Gopal Guru and the late D. R Nagraj. The paper attempts to use the debate about temple entry between Gandhi and Ambedkar and indeed, between the caste Hindu reformer, the oppressive upper caste Hindu self and the oppressed classes, to bring out the significance of transforming sacred space into shared place. This significance is philosophically unpacked in terms of the role played by such transformations in helping divided communities break out of the hermeutics of suspicion. It also brings out the importance of the significance retrospectively attached to the role played by those who attempted to recover and transform sacred space in terms of locating a moment of trust. This moment of trust is important because the hermeneutics of suspicion paralyses not only the practise of communication in politics but also the possibilities of understanding in social science theory. It is hoped that the philosophical foray into this aspect of the debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar would bring out the significance of the relationship between space, experience justice and trust. RAGHUNATH, Thill (College of Southern Nevada) “After Snowden: The US Surveillance State and the ‘Place of the Personal’” This paper draws from the work of courageous and dissident American journalists Glenn Greenwald, Robert Scheer, and Chris Hedges, who were all inspired by the heroism of Edward Snowden and his revelations on the draconian NSA methods of gathering personal data on individuals en masse , on the US surveillance state and its corporate colluders. It explores the implications of this expanding surveillance state for our constitutionally guaranteed, but severely threatened “place of the personal”, or privacy, on the internet and elsewhere. The interrelations among the triadic values of privacy, freedom, and human dignity, will be explored and the case for the view that the US surveillance state undermines these foundations of “the place of the personal” will be examined. RAJU, C. K. (Centre for Studies in Civilisations, Delhi, India) “The Place called India” For the Greeks, Inde or Hind was the land on the other side of the Indus or Sindhu river. For William Jones it was land spread up to Cambodia (Kambhoj), where the ruined temples of Angkor Wat still attract hordes of tourists. For K. M. Munshi and others it was and is Akhand Bharat, and includes all the places from Kandahar to Sri Lanka, mentioned in the epics. Which is it? The answer is important since the notion of the place called India is a potential cause of tension today. The parting blow of colonialism was to partition the former India, and two of the resulting nations are today nuclear armed and hostile to each other. The concept of India is also needed to understand Indian history. We cannot just proceed with present-day political boundaries, for political boundaries are ephemeral on a historical time scale, expanding or contracting with each war. Bangladesh did not exist 50 years ago, and a 100 years ago, both Dhaka and Lahore were very much part of India. Surely, Mohenjodaro is part of Indian history? Can India then be understood in religious terms a la Toynbee? That is problematic, because a multiplicity of religions have always flourished in India. Should India, then, be understood in racial terms, as in the Aryan race thesis which sought to divide India into Aryans and Dravidians? This paper will address these questions and provide a new answer. RAUD, Rein (University of Helsinki, Finland/Tallinn University, Estonia) “Spatiality and the Praxis of Being in Dōgen’s Sansuikyō” A strong consciousness of place has been a characteristic feature of Japanese cultural practices from ancient times to the present day. Notions of embeddedness and betweenness, derived from the attitudes toward nature and the sacred of the Japanese indigenous worldview have interacted with Buddhist concepts of reality and subjectivity to form a cultural framework that has shaped both Japanese social practice and philosophical thought, in which, in modern times, “place” has even been elevated by Nishida Kitarō into one of the central categories of his system. But this move has a long history behind it. My paper will look at how the relations between spatiality/nature and the praxis of being are viewed in the thought of Dōgen (1200-1253), in particular the Sansuikyō fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō. Elsewhere in his work, Dōgen has developed a theory of Buddha-nature as the fundamental characteristic of all being and in this text he conjoins this theory with a non-dualist view of nature. Sansuikyō, or “Mountains and waters sutra” also deals with the textualising of landscape — with the construction of culturally domesticated nature out of nature “out there”, resulting in the loss of an authentic view of things as they are. Antedating landscape theorists such as Dennis Cosgrove and Anne Cauquelin, Dōgen strongly articulates the view that “nature” becomes “landscape” through the assertion of a particular, personal perspective, which limits the experience of it. One way to read the text is precisely as an attempt to approximate praxis/enlightenment to a direct approach to nature and reality bypassing their conceptualisations, achieved from within, not from without the environment with which the subject interacts. The paper will present several close readings of key passages and analyse them in the broader context of Dōgen’s work. RAVEH, Daniel (Tel Aviv University, Israel) “Body as Place: A Short Philosophical Improvisation” The nearest and most essential place in which we live, or dwell, or simply are, is the body, the human body, my body. The short improvisation proposed here attempts to look into selfhood, subjectivity and the body. I work with the famous hagiographic episode of Śaṅkara in the king's body (in Mādhava's 17th or even 18th century Śaṅkara-digvijaya). This captivating story (consisting of suspense, humor, and even implicit erotica) raises questions about identity and identification, embodiment and disembodiment, borders and border-crossing, knowledge of body and body of knowledge. I intend to read and think of the story through three contemporary Indian philosophical essays - Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya's chapters on the subjectivity of the body (in his acclaimed treatise "The Subject as Freedom", 1930), Badrinath Shukla's "Dehātmavāda or the Body as Soul: Exploration of a Possibility within Nyāya Thought" (1988), and Daya Krishna's "The Realms of Between" (1995). Each of these thinkers, in his own way and context, provides us with a lucid insight into what it means to be (in) a body. Finally, I will make a brief visit to Patañjali of the Yogasūtra and his commentators, to look at two sūtras which speak of the capacity of "entering" someone else's body (YS 3.39) and mind (YS 3.19). Technical as Patañjali is, speaking of these extra-ordinary capacities in the same matter-of-factness as one would currently talk about changing the bulb in the kitchen, he nevertheless provides yet another vantage point from which to reflect upon the (dis)connection of self and body. RO, Young-chan (George Mason University) “Experience of Space: Dialogical Dialogue of Cosmologies in Panikkar” Raimon Panikkar, one of the pioneers of intercultural dialogue, developed the idea of “dia-topical hermeneutics” to explore the significance of “place” (topos) in understanding and interpreting religious and cultural traditions. For Panikkar, “place” or “space” plays a critical role in “understanding” and “interpretation” by crossing different geographical boundaries, cultural contexts, and religious traditions of the world. According to Panikkar, “dia-chronical hermeneutics,” interpretation across different periods of time through history within a socio-religious and cultural tradition, is commonly practiced, however, we are now facing a new challenge to cross the cultural regions, and geographical territories and relate different cultural “places” in order to engage in intercultural dialogue. In light of Raimon Panikkar’s “dia-topical” approach, the panel will discuss the following topics: 1. The significance of “place” in “understanding” and “interpretation” of religious and cultural traditions. 2. Finding the importance of “dia-topical” approach in engaging in the interpretation of different religions, cultures, and civilizations. 3. Discovering different cosmologies found in different cultures and religions, and engaging in a cross-cultural dialogue and a “dia-topical” interpretation. One’s way of relating to “space” shapes one’s way of understanding the universe or the cosmos, beyond a mere scientific cosmology, what Panikkar calls “kosmology.” 4. The panel will also explore a broader and larger implication of Panikkar’s thoughts in relating to how the idea of “space” shapes the concept of “time.” ROBBIANO, Chiara (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) “The Foregrounded Background: The Undivided Place in Parmenides, Śańkara and Contemporary Phenomenologists” A fundamental reality prior to any division, description, or opinion. Both Parmenides (5th cent. BCE) and Śaṅkara (8th cent. CE) and contemporary phenomenologists refer to a fundamental reality that is prior to and contrasted with divisions, descriptions, opinions, stories we tell. I will look at similarities in the ways ancient and contemporary philosophers refer to the presumed fundamental reality, focussing especially on the spatial metaphors they use. Words: deceptive and transformative. A problem faced by ancient and contemporary philosophers alike is that words seem unsuited to refer to the supposed fundamental reality, which is undivided. Parmenides and Śaṅkara tell us that words, even their own, can be “deceptive”, since they make us believe in the reality of the boundaries they trace around the items they describe by distinguishing each item from all the rest (Parmenides, DK B8,52, Śaṅkara, BSB II,1,27). Luckily, words can also be transformative (Robbiano 2006). They may trigger a realization that reveals how all divisions pointed to by words are fundamentally unreal (Ganeri 2007). Distinctions that do not point to ontological separations. Whereas words are always carriers of distinctions, distinctions do not always point to ontological separations. For instance, Parmenides distinguishes being from ‘knowing’, ‘being aware’ (noeîn), but does not regard them as separate: being is the same as noeîn (DK B3), which does not mean ‘having mental states with cognitive contents’: cognitive contents are secondary; they are fruit of human words and opinions (DK B8, 38-41). Śaṅkara explicitly states that the self is the only fundamental certainty one can have and nobody can deny (BSB I.1.1), whereas every further elaboration on it is superimposition. Superimpositions are clearly distinguished from the self, but not separated from it: there is not separate, second reality next to the self (ātman) that is Brahman. Same words for Śaṅkara’s self, Parmenides’ being and pre-reflective self-consciousness. Especially intriguing is that Parmenides (cf. especially DK B8, 1-49) and Śaṅkara use words and phrases that are very similar to the ones used by 20th and 21st century phenomenologists to refer to pre-reflective self-consciousness: an ubiquitous self-awareness that accompanies all mental states and makes them possible (Zahavi 2006, 125). Such self-consciousness is more fundamental than any experiential content (Gallagher 2000, 15 in Krueger 2010, 38), unchangeable and constant (Zahavi 2005, 132, in Krueger 2010, 47), invariant (Tagini & Raffone 2010), unitary and continuous (Zahavi 2010, 76). It might possibly be quite invulnerable (Damasio 1999, 118, in Krueger, 2010, 40) and with no boundaries (Albahari 2010, 81-82). It might also be non-individualized: Ganeri among others has pointed out that pre-reflexive self-consciousness fails to individuate thinkers (Siderits, Thompson & Zahavi 2010, 21) and “is somewhat akin to the impersonal Advaitic ātman, present equally in all” (Ganeri 2010, 182). The foregrounded background: spatial metaphors. One of the things that distinctions can do when used by philosophers that want to point to an undivided reality is foregrounding what is usually in the background (Sokolowski 1998, 516-518). Foregrounding the fundamental background can be attempted by means of spatial metaphors that suggest lack of divisions and continuity of reality across what seem to be boundaries. E.g. Śaṅkara suggests that our self is like ether or space (ākāṡa), which is the same notwithstanding its apparent enclosure in jars and pots: we are fundamentally self (ātman) that is Brahman, but we mistakenly identify with our different bodies and minds (BSB. I.1,5; BSB I,2,6). E.g. Parmenides visualises being as undivided and safely protected as if by an ultimate boundary (peîras pumatón, DK B8,42), i.e. a limit which does not separate two domains but whose function is to signal the invulnerability of what is inside, since there is nothing outside, which could endanger it. Pre-reflexive self-consciousness is also prone to spatial metaphors: it can be visualized in terms of “background”, “one coherent space”, which is not separated from the single experiences, like space is not separated —only distinguished— from objects in space (Fasching 2010, 204-206). Pre-reflexive self-consciousness, just as Parmenides’ being, which is noeîn, and Śaṅkara’s self, which is Brahman, can be foregrounded and pointed to as an undivided space, which is prior to —and on neither side of— the distinction between subject and object, since it is the condition of this and any other distinction. ROBINSON, David P. (Curry College) “A Place within Uechi-Ryu” The notion of place is one that affects the worlds of the individual and the interpersonal. Place is a sense of belonging and connection and can be experienced through physical location, community, and within the self. Traditional martial arts engage these very concepts. This paper will explore the topic of place as it relates to the philosophic and spiritual traditions inherent in the study of Uechi Ryu karate-do. The cultural and spiritual perspectives of Okinawa are incorporated in to the training precepts of karate-do such as the concept of “no first attack” and “respect” being intrinsic to the process. The goal of this work is to effectively articulate the value of such a study and to demonstrate its applicability and value beyond the practical methods of self-defense and towards the aim of creating a positive and useful personal place. The development of this system, and its philosophy, has taken root across the world, allowing for many students to find their own place within this style. Particular attention will be paid to the way this notion of place has been challenged and developed as Uechi Ryu has spread globally. This work will use the author’s experiences as a practitioner of Uechi Ryu as a framework for engaging this topic. ROMANO, Carlin (Ursinus College) “Long-Distance Love as Philosophical Place: What Hu Shi Learned from Edith Clifford Williams”
In 2009, Susan Chan Egan and Chih-p’ing Chou published A Pragmatist and His Free Spirit: The Half-Century Romance of Hu Shi and Edith Clifford Williams (Chinese University of Hong King), a biographical account that opened up the little-known love affair of Hu Shi and Williams to the world. Between 1914 and 1962, they exchanged some 300 letters in which they both challenged and dissected each other’s ideas. Hu Shi (1891-1962) needs little introduction. Sometimes called "the father of the Chinese Renaissance," he was Dewey's most prominent Chinese disciple, as well as an enormously important and influential force in the turmoil of the early 20th century. As President of Peking University, he became one of the founders of China's modern educational system and a champion of everyday speech as a legitimate form of intellectual communication. In the Mao years, he was denounced for his promotion of independent, experimental thinking.
Edith Clifford Williams (1885-1971) is much less well known. An avant-garde painter, Ithaca native, and long-term veterinary librarian at Cornell University, she met Hu Shi when he was a student at Cornell. Their love affair began in the early 1930s. In my presentation, which will include a serious analytic interpretation of the material provided in A Pragmatist and His Free Spirit, I’ll examine how this at times tortured relationship, born in romantic idealism but tempered by the reality of their times, helped form Hu Shi’s idiosyncratic worldview and peculiar version of pragmatism. ROSENLEE, Li-Hsiang Lisa (University of Hawaii – West Oahu) “The Place of Friendship in Spousal Relationship: You 友 and Philia” This paper intends to propose a hybrid conceptual paradigm incorporating both Confucian you 友 and Greek philia to replace the spousal relationship. So in response to the question of “What is a spouse for?” the answer is friendship. And in rethinking spousal relationship as a hybridized Confucian you 友 with a blend of Greek philia, the functionary and oppressive aspects of marriage are thus made incompatible with this friendship based marital union. At the same time, by incorporating marital relationship into friendship, the concept of friendship is made ever more perfect. Just as in a good marriage both spouses are lifted up by their marital union, the union between marriage and friendship uplifts both conceptually as well. Spouses, in short, should be best friends who lead one another to moral goodness through mutual cutting and polishing one’s critical moral sense with penetrating understanding and enduring faith, and the spousal relationship, in turn, is also the best friendship that is perpetual and complete in its form and content by building a truly shared life with all aspects of human capacities, eros and all. In short, a feminist marriage should be a marriage of moral friendship and passionate love. It is a new conceptual paradigm of marriage that is made in a Confucian image for feminists; it is also a practical feminist paradigm that we mortals can strive for and realize in our human all-too-human life. SAAL, Britta (University of Vienna, Austria) “About the Taking Place of Intercultural Philosophy” With the emergence of comparative and especially intercultural philosophy in the late 1980s it has been claimed that philosophy can no longer be equated with European philosophy, but that there are rather multiple philosophies in different cultural places in the world. The Indian-German philosopher Ram Adhar Mall speaks here about the simultaneous “situated unsituatedness” (orthafte Ortlosigkeit) of philosophy, since the philosophia perennis – the everlasting and therefore placeless philosophy – only appears embedded in different cultural places. Very similarly, the Canadian philosopher Bruce Janz developed the concept of “philosophy-in-place”, by which he points out that philosophy always happens in places and how this matters especially in the African context. Considering now that the notion ‘intercultural’ indicates a space: the ‘inter’, and considering the above mentioned emphases on place concerning philosophy, my question here is: Where, in which place in this inter-space, does intercultural philosophy take place? And how does it take place? To answer this question I first like to distinguish between the dimension of the intercultural – that means the cultural places –, and the dimension of the intercultural – that means the places of encounter, engagement, and negotiation in the inter-space. It is here, where philosophy as an activity takes place(s) in form of (a) polylogue(s). That is to say, the place of intercultural philosophizing is a place in the inter-space which arises in the very moment of taking it. To further elaborate this, I will refer to Peter Sloterdijk’s “coming-to-the-world” (Zur-Welt-kommen) as well as to Stuart Halls “positioning”. Thus, in relation to Mall’s “situated unsituatedness” of philosophy and Janz’ “philosophy-in-place” I suggest the “taking place” of polylogical philosophizing to denote intercultural philosophy first and foremost as an activity marked by a processual and common practice. SALLIS, John (Boston College) “The Protoplaces of Philosophy” This discourse takes as its point of departure the double sense of the phrase "the place of philosophy," namely that it designates both the place or abode in which philosophical thought is enacted and the concept of place that comes to be formulated through such thought. The place of philosophy in these senses is considered in such philosophers as Plato, Emerson, and Rousseau. Attention is given finally to enchorial space and to its attestation in Chinese thought and art. SALTZMAN, Judy D. (California Polytechnic State University) “Desire Nothing: Nirvana is Nowhere” The Diamond Sutra (Vajrachchedika) like many Mahayana Sutras, is filled with paradoxes. The thesis of this essay is to discuss it’s teaching that the Srotapati (Stream Winner) who takes the Dharma (Path) is taught to desire nothing, not even the Nirvana, the spiritual liberation of all beings. For even this desire is a focus on the illusory self (anatman)-- leading someone to some place is Sunyata (Empty). Even to desire not to desire is Empty, because it is still a desire. This presentation will demonstrate that, although it is impossible not to desire, it is possible to give up desires for personal aggrandizement, and clinging to a doctrinal idea that following the Dharma perfectly will help you to lead others to Nirvana. This state is in reality nowhere and no place. The Buddha is already here within each being who is no permanent being at all, but the result of Skandas. The Diamond Sutra gives us hope, if we can comprehend its teachings. At the beginning of the Sutra, the Venerable Subhubti asks the Buddha, How should men and women who set out on the Bodhisttva Path progress, and how should they control their thoughts?” The essence of the Buddha’s answer is that that although countless beings have been led to Nirvana, no being at all has been led to Nirvana. The Bodhisattva who is enlightened does not know it, for to think that he/she has attained a physical place; a spiritual plane of mind, or having no mind at all is a delusion. Even the Buddha fields of the Pure Land Sutra are not serene Buddha fields. Also, the Buddha teaches that even The Prajnaparamita, The Perfection of Wisdom, is not perfection. One who thinks he has attained Perfection of Wisdom, or The Buddha fields is not there, and has attained nothing. However, in speaking of the Dharma, the Buddha says, “Wherever this discourse is taught, Subhuti, that place on earth is worthy of veneration by the whole world with its gods, men and Asuras. That place is like a shrine in which flowers and incense are offered. That place is the Diamond Heart; it cannot be attained simply by intellectual means. Furthermore, even if a Bodhisattva offers all treasures, which are made of dharmas (elemental constituents), he/she would gain immeasurable merit, yet no merit. Dana (Charity) must be offered, without knowing it is Dana. No being has been led to Nirvana. The Dharma is Adharma, because on the Path, one is always at the place where he/she is going. Each person is the Path itself. SATO, Maki (University of Tokyo, Japan) “In Between Time and Space (the Infinite and the Finite): ‘Histo-topo-philia’” A common understanding shared among global society, based on scientific discoveries and research investigations, that humans are the cause of global environmental problems urges and calls for action to actively respond to the changing environment (climate change per se). However recent developments in studies of the global history, provides us with a longer and wider perspective of the relationship of humans and nature, identifying humans have faced drastic climate changes in our Anthropocene history. Though we have to humbly admit that there still remains uncertainties in the scientific findings due to our short-sightedness and blindness in how humans scientifically conceive nature, we cannot ignore the latest scientific findings. In this regard, the question arises: How can we build an optimal relationship between humans and nature under the given constraints of infinite time and finite space? The author has been working on the concept of “Histo-topo-philia” by proposing and highlighting the importance of identifying and caring a meaningful place (or placeful-place vis-a-vis placeless-place) in our everyday life environment, rather than protecting particular places such as national parks. However, it is seemingly impossible to build an optimal mutual relationship with the nature only by addressing the importance and the idea of “care” (sorge) to everyday place we live. How can we build an optimal mutual relationship with our surrounding everyday environment to live our everyday lives in resonance and mutuality with the surrounding others in nature, and to realize us humans as a member of (a part of) the natural world? Is the idea of “care” sufficient enough as the bases to build such mutual relationships with living and non-living things in the world? By touching upon the notion of morphism in Zhuangzi and the idea of care by Heidegger, the paper is going to elaborate on the idea of “Histo-topo-philia” by considering the present world as a place where the spatial and temporal is unified. SELLMANN, James (University of Guam) “Place, Position and Perspective: A Classical Daoist World View and Physiology” In this paper I argue that Classical Daoist philosophy, especially Zhuangzi’s worldview, offers a unique understanding of place. For classical Daoists, existing in a place puts a creature in a position that results in a certain limited perspective. Daoist physiology, by means of meditation, teaches people to “walk both ways” (Zhuangzi 4/2/40, Watson p. 41). Walking both ways provides a new position in their placement thereby expanding peoples’ perspectives. As Laozi says, “we can know the world without going out the door; we can see the way-making of nature without looking out the window …” (Laozi, 47). With the right training that activates their neurophysiology, Daoists develop the ability to take different positions to discover new perspectives regarding their place in the world. These new perspectives also allow them to gain insights into the position and perspective of other creatures and people. SHAINDLIN, Peter Shaindlin (Author and COO, Halekulani Hotel) “From Ancient Wisdoms to Modern Mediated Spaces: Relationship between Meaning and Action” This panel collects works from four disciplines: literature, journalism, and philosophy and language education. Yet when place is “superimposed” on these projects, we are immediately transcended into a common space where time and place, ancient and modern, flow in a continuum between past, present and future that breaks the boundary of disciplines. The four papers seem to be in agreement on the notions of: 1) time/space coupling; 2) soft boundaries of meaning-making constrained and afforded by modern developments and technology advancement; 3) seeming correspondence between ancient Chinese philosophers and Marx and Heidegger’s concepts of time and being, even though Chinese philosophers’ yin-yang balance on place implies both being and moving. Another underlying notion implicit in the emergent theme is the notion of care: 1) Tuan’s notion of “fields of care”, 2) Hodges’s theory of language as “caring system”, and 3) Heidegger’s Dasein as “Being is carried out and guided by the care of to be”. To relate care to Chinese philosopher’s “highest good”, Dao/the way implies the incessant being and becoming with the world. The four papers explore being and becoming with the world and relationally tie place within and with other things through Chinese classics, geolocation media, identity construction, and values realization. The discussant Peter Shaindlin embodies the philosophy of the panel in that his identity speaks to what the four paper tries to reveal: A Dasein being/philosopher in action in place. Peter Shaindlin: though not an academic is an autodidactic philosopher, cultural critic, novelist, photographer, musician, poet and COO. SHANER, David (Furman University) “Hei-Sei-Ji: The Place of Peace (A Case Study in the Mind of a Temple’s Sense of ‘Place’)” This multi-media presentation would use photos and videos that document the “spatial” movement of Hei-Sei-Ji from Nagoya, Japan to Furman University located in the southeastern United States (Greenville, SC). This five year project occasioned a magnificent cultural transformation characterized by a new sense of identity and “place” for what was once a conservative Southern Baptist University. Today Hei-Sei-Ji (trans. "The Place of Peace") is the University’s iconic centerpiece for international education. The identity and sense of place at Furman University was almost immediately transformed by shear difference, as it were, as people witnessed the re-construction process and tools used by the Japanese master temple artisans who specialized (and socialized) in three distinct groups (wood, tile, and plaster). On September 8, 2008 The Place of Peace was formally celebrated by the local southern (and international) communities. At this time Hei-Sei-Ji was formally dedicated as The Place of Peace in a ceremony facilitated by the presenter. Since 2008, The Place of Peace has been utilized as the university center for bodymind education where a faculty approved course (PHL 202: "Realizing Bodymind" Jp. Shinshin Toitsudo) is offered that also satisfies the university general education “Wellness” requirement. SHAPIRO, Gary (University of Richmond) “Atmospheres and Diagrams: A Preface to Geoaesthetics” In this time of accelerating global environmental change, the arts have opportunities both to clarify the problematic situation of dwelling on the earth and to create heterotopias, or other places, that exemplify fruitful, aesthetically satisfying modes of inhabitation. I will explore some possibilities offered by land art – broadly including parks, gardens, earthworks, environmental surrounds and the like – in staging such heterotopias. I draw on the work of both older and contemporary artists and thinkers (e.g. 18th century British gardens and picturesque theory, Olafur Eliasson and Peter Sloterdijk). The talk articulates the strong interrelations of the concepts of atmosphere and diagram for a constructive aesthetics of place. I take atmosphere as involving both affective and physical poles; taking clues from Foucault and Deleuze, I understand the effective diagram of a constructed place to involve not only architectural design but the effective disposition and enabling of energies and perspectives. SHEN, Vincent (University of Toronto, Canada) “The Manifestation of Dao in Urban Places” In this paper, I will make explicit my understanding of the meaning of the urban life as manifesting dao, combining phenomenological concept of the life-world, Daoist concept of dao, and Confucian concept of tui, to the understanding of various urban places. This could be seen as an essay in a concrete ontology of the urban lifeworld. Thus, the space in a city is where human beings realize their desire/existence with intensive communication and complicated infrastructure. In the city, various urban places are where we meet with many strangers. For me, the infrastructure and places in the city—such as streets, transportation, schools, markets, administrative centres, parks and gardens, churches and temples—are there to structuralize people’s lifeworld and to cultivate themselves so as to form a meaningful life. I tend to see the city as a complex human gathering where human desires are to be realized. The city is a gathering of desires, and dao is the way or, better, the waying of so many things including human desire. Combining both phenomenology and Chinese philosophy, this paper will speak about different layers of manifestation of dao in the city. In fact, Dao has several meanings: as the way, as saying and discourse, as laws of nature, and as the ultimate reality. To start with its basic meaning of the way, this paper will begin with the streets in the city, and talk about those trees along the streets. Then, it will go to dao as discourse, and discuss a city’s many places for discourse, like schools, market places and town hall etc. Then, in its meaning as laws or patterns of nature, I will discuss the cosmic patterns as revealed through parks and gardens in and nearby the city. At the end, I will discuss dao as the ultimate reality and its relation to urban places like churches, synagogues, temples and shrines etc. So, dao is manifesting itself in many places of the city, yet still unfathomable. The city is visible and we live in it, yet it is still invisible and bringing us beyond. Human desire is always craving and longing to determine itself in the desired desire. Still, the desiring desire is moving on, insatiably, infinitely, and unfathomably, to a destiny that is beyond all borders. SHIELDS, James Mark (Bucknell University) "Radical Enlightenment: Critical Buddhist Reflections on Spinoza and Marx." “Critical Buddhism” (Hihan Bukkyō) was a provocative if short-lived movement within normally placid world of Japanese Buddhist Studies, lasting from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. Seeking to inject Buddhist Studies—and Buddhist practice—with a self-conscious sense of history and a progressive commitment to social justice, scholars Matsumoto Shirō and Hakamaya Noriaki published a number of works dedicated to these aims. In my 2011 work, Critical Buddhism: Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought, I argued that Critical Buddhism, for all its promise, was ultimately limited less by the stridency of its advocates than by its adoption of rationalist, “liberal” paradigms of philosophy, ethics and politics. While the Critical Buddhists’ arguments concerning the relevance of Rene Descartes’s ideas to Buddhist practice in the contemporary age are fascinating, I suggest that a more judicious dialogue partner for Critical Buddhism are figures associated with the so-called Radical Enlightenment, in particular Spinoza and Marx. This paper is an initial attempt to augment Critical Buddhist arguments via a critical appropriation of particular themes, arguments and ideas developed by the leading figures of the Radical Enlightenment, particularly with regard to topos or “place.” The point, as with any attempt at critical, constructive, cross-cultural philosophy, is not to suggest a perfect equivalence, nor to hold one side up over the other, but to explore the possibilities inherent in bringing together wires that have rarely been crossed (with, of course, residual risks). SHRESTHA, Amjol (University of Hawai’i) “Where are Universals? An Essay Explaining the Placement of Immanent Universals in Their Particulars” For Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers, universals (sāmānya or jāti) are real, mind-independent entities that inhere in their concrete particulars. If we accept this view, then how shall we explain the way a universal occupies the space of a concrete particular? In this essay, I argue that immanent universals do not occupy the space or the location of a concrete particular, rather a universal occupies the place of a concrete particular. Place unlike space is a set of relations. The intuition that prompts this argument originates from a simple example that distinguishes location from place. Imagine moving a fish bowl, without disrupting the fish bowl furniture, from point A to point B. Although I have changed its location, I have not changed its place, because I have not rearranged or removed the fish bowl furniture. In short, the place is the same. Indeed, the sameness that arises from the change in location is the sameness that reveals the immanent universal. SHUN, Kwong-loi (UC Berkeley) “Ethics without Forgiveness” The paper begins by arguing against ethical views that idealize forgiveness in the sense of regarding the readiness to forgive, in general or only under certain conditions, as a virtue. It then presents an ethical view that does not idealize forgiveness and that is grounded in certain ideas central to Confucian thought. While the main body of the discussion will be based primarily on philosophical considerations, the paper will conclude with a discussion of the Confucian root of such an ethical view. SIDERAS, Christos (Royal Society of Medicine & Birkbeck, University of London, UK) “A Place without Space: The Contributions of Matte-Blanco towards Understanding the Unconscious” Matte-Blanco, a psychoanalyst and a theorist of the unconscious, saw, following the lead of Freud, regularities in the expression of the unconscious and described these as due to a logic of another type, countermanding the logic of usual consciousness. He termed this logic symmetric, as opposed to the asymmetric logic of the conscious. He suggested that a person can shift from these poles of symmetry-asymmetry, through the different gradations of symmetrization. He described that with increasing levels of symmetry, there is a blurring of binary structures in relationships, leading to the collapse of difference to a class equivalence, with the inner- outer distinction becoming abolished, a lack of temporality and the prototypical absence of contradiction. At the extremely symmetric state, the sense of self and other is gone, space- time collapses, distinctions are negated and true indivisibility is achieved. That said, he felt that human functioning relied on an ability to shift seamlessly between these gradations and, somehow, compartmentalize them. These thoughts were explored further by his followers and the idea of the unconscious as being one and the same as emotions was suggested, with the greater depths of this unconscious state being much more highly charged in affective terms, that is, the more intense emotional states being more symmetrized. The key idea of the unrepressed unconscious, Freud's third unconscious, was brought to the center of further theorizing, as an unconscious that does not know consciousness, unlike the one usually discussed, the one repressed, consisting of conscious memories submerged in the ocean of non-conscious. The question of the drives, so central to Freud's later theorizing, the drives of life and death, were also considered in the light of these ideas. I consider the atemporality described to be not a true atemporality but an aspatial temporality, one without division and without ordering, as per Bergson's suggestion of duration. This duration, a process, is very much present in emotions and is a different sort of time than the one conceptualized in a fracturing mind. This would fit with the descriptions given by the clinician-theorist Riccardo Lombardi, of a divisibility of thought in the conscious mind and an indivisibility of emotional being in the unconscious. I relate this idea of divisibility with the Pythagorean prime duality of peras~apeiron and the ontogenic mythos of Anaximander. John Sallis' explanation of the unintelligible and invisible also comports here to the idea of the unrepressed unconscious, but the key is that there is, despite contrasting descriptions, a oneness of the states of form and formlessness, as articulated in part by the Desert Fathers of early Christianity, but also the adepts of Mahayana Buddhism. Drawing from the Japanese Zen tradition, some descriptions of these ideas are given as examples, including also the ideas of traversing and aptly navigating such self boundaries as this is borne out in the exchange between Shin'ichi Hisamatsu and Masao Abe, suggesting the way of the free is in reaching "that place where there is nowhere to stand." This place with no space. SKOOG, Kim (University of Guam) “Is Morality tied to Place or Self? Revisiting an Old Problem with a Comparative Approach” From earliest times in recorded reflection on morality and “the good life,” writers have pondered just how significant is “place” in the overall development of morality in a society. Does the collective experiences, thoughts, and shared culture/belief system determine moral standards and social expectations amongst a people occupying a particular place? Or, should morality as practiced in a certain place amongst the resident community be judged by transcultural moral ideals—from the perspective of self? This line of inquiry is the basis for the showdown between cultural relativists and moral absolutist, a debate that has waged for millennia with both extremist viewpoints taking some serious damage and discredit. Keeping close to the theme of this conference, “place,” this paper will try to reassess some of the issues that have arisen in the past in this debate, and look historically and philosophically at how belief systems have changed or remained the same when either moving to a different “place” occupied by a different community or when a different belief system held by a different people “invades” their place. Why does significant change happen in some instances and not in other cases? What role does the specific ethical process within a moral community lead to the preservation, disillusion, or replacement of their ethical structure? In what ways does varying and evolving notions of “place” shared throughout a community modify (or resist modification of) ethical values and perceptions of virtue? Is it possible to concluded at the end of this study, that ethics is better to reside in place or self ? SMID, Robert (Curry College) “Ecologies of Place: A Comparative Inquiry” All human beings have a sense of “place,” which identifies particular spaces and imbues them with particular meaning and significance. Different traditions, however, have constructed this sense of place in different ways, privileging certain kinds of spaces over others and, similarly, emphasizing certain features of those spaces over others. These differences have become especially apparent of late in light of the rising ecological crisis, as human beings have become able to transform their surroundings in unprecedented ways—and often to ill effect. This has not diminished our ability to create a sense of place; to the contrary, we continue to find our place within our continually transformed world (including, most recently, places in the digital world). Yet not every sense of place serves our interests as a species equally well. This paper is concerned with the extent to which contemporary senses of place work against those interests, insofar as they become detached from the broader ecological context within which they are rooted. Accordingly, it seeks to identify traditions that have been more successful in maintaining that connection, including but not limited to certain elements of the Shinto, Daoist, Jain, Native American, and Neopagan traditions. The primary purpose of the paper is to consider the extent to which, as well as possible strategies by which, any advantages that exist within these traditions for an ecologically mindful construction of “place” can be carried over into other traditions as well. SPECKER SULLIVAN, Laura (University of Hawai’i) “ Directory: phil -> wp-content -> uploads phil -> Going global oddities of globalism phil -> Identification ethics and spirituality phil -> Special Topic: “The home-made bombing at the Marathon Races in Boston, Massachusetts” by Sally Ramage pages 2-50 phil -> The Role of Error in Computer Science phil -> 菲律賓私立大專校院（非屬Autonomy and Deregulated heis） phil -> Gualtiero Piccinini phil -> Buildings Leased/Sold phil -> Phillip M. Adams & Associates, L. L. C., V. Dell, Inc. 2009 wl 910801 uploads -> Atman in Advaita Vedanta: Variations on a theme from the Download 0.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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