Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice
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Description
This book is an investigation of the relationship between self and body in the Indian, Japanese, and Chinese philosophical traditions. The interplay between self and body is complex and manifold, touching on issues of epistemology, ontology, social philosophy, and axiology. The authors examine these issues and make relevant connections to the Western tradition. The authors' allow the Asian traditions to shed new light on some of the traditional mind-body issues addressed in the West.
Thomas P. Kasulis is Professor of Comparative Studies in the Humanities at The Ohio State University. He has been the Numata Visiting Professor in Buddhist Studies at the University of Chicago, a Japan Foundation Fellow at Osaka University, and Mellon Faculty Fellow at Harvard. He has also served as the President of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy. He is the author of Zen Action/Zen Person, and the editor and co-translator of The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory, also published by SUNY Press. Roger T. Ames is Professor of Chinese Philosophy at the University of Hawaii and edits the journal, Philosophy East and West. He is the co-author of Thinking Through Confucius (with David L. Hall), and co-editor of Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (with J. Baird Callicott), both published by SUNY Press. Wimal Dissanayake is a research scholar in the Institute of Culture and Communication at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
Reviews
"This book provides a panoramic view of various Asian religious and cultural assumptions and practices related to the human body. In doing so, this volume moves beyond the general and now commonplace knowledge that Asian traditions resist the body/mind distinction which has been so important in the West. The authors illustrate the diversity and complexity of Asian views, and at the same time, draw attention to their underlying similarities. They thus illustrate the difficulty of distinguishing Western and Asian views in terms of simplistic dichotomies. Yet, this book does not simply describe alternative theories and practice. The strength of this book is that it analyses issues of broader philosophical import. It both contrasts and synthesizes the insights of Asian and Western assumptions. Finally, this book explores and exposes the interesting connections between theories of the human body and related practices, such as calligraphy, acupuncture, sacrifice, and meditation. " — Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, Stanford University