Critics have argued that comparative philosophy is inherently flawed or even impossible. What standards can we use to describe and evaluate different cultures' philosophies? How do we avoid projecting our own ways of thinking onto others? Can we overcome the vast divergences in history, language, and ways of organizing reality that we find in China, India, Africa, and the West? Doing Philosophy Comparatively is the first comprehensive introduction to the foundations, problems, and methods of ...

This edited volume explores the notion of “artifice” in modern visual culture, ranging from the eighteenth century to the present, in countries around the globe.

Artifice has been regarded as a primarily Western phenomenon, playing as it does a central role in European art theory since the Renaissance. This volume proposes that artifice is better understood as a transcultural artistic phenomenon and requires far broader conceptualization across international contexts. It acquaints readers...

This Element offers a brief overview of Buddhist thought and modern scholarly approaches to its diverse forms of moral reflection. It then explores two of the most prominent philosophers from the main strands of the Indian Buddhist tradition - Buddhaghosa and Santideva - in a comparative fashion.

Pontius Pilate is one of the most enigmatic figures in Christian theology. The only non-Christian to be named in the Nicene Creed, he is presented as a cruel colonial overseer in secular accounts, as a conflicted judge convinced of Jesus's innocence in the Gospels, and as either a pious Christian or a virtual demon in later Christian writings. This book takes Pilate's role in the trial of Jesus as a starting point for investigating the function of legal judgment in Western society and the way...

The study of Islamic philosophy has entered a new and exciting phase in the last few years. Both the received canon of Islamic philosophers and the narrative of the course of Islamic philosophy are in the process of being radically questioned and revised. Most twentieth-century Western scholarship on Arabic or Islamic philosophy has focused on the period from the ninth century to the twelfth.

It is a measure of the transformation that is currently underway in thefield that, unlike other refer...

The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy is a wide-ranging 2003 introduction to the study of philosophy in the ancient world. It will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in the philosophical thought of this rich and formative period.

The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Rights by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society, which he had already identified in his Discourse on Inequality (1754). The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea tha...

This volume examines the philosophy of Avicenna, the greatest philosopher of the Islamic world. Leading scholars deal with his ideas in areas ranging from medicine to theology and his impact on the Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions. The book is of interest to graduate students of Arabic and medieval philosophy.

Now revised and containing three new chapters, this book provides an accessible introduction to the fundamental problems in the theory of knowledge. Written primarily for students taking a first course in epistemology, it will be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about this important area of philosophy.

Used in a variety of courses in various disciplines, Asking the Right Questions helps students bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information, and the greater challenge of critical analysis and synthesis. Specifically, this concise text teaches students to think critically by exploring the components of arguments--issues, conclusions, reasons, evidence, assumptions, language--and on how to spot fallacies and manipulations and obstacles to critical thinking in both w...