PHIL 280 Chinese and Japanese Philosophies
This survey course is an introduction to Chinese and Japanese Philosophies. We will read central texts and authors from the Chinese Confucian and Daoist traditions, and from the Japanese Zen Buddhist tradition and the 20th Century Kyoto School of philosophy. Topics considered will include reality and nature, views of the self, values (aesthetics and ethics), issues of knowledge and the use of language. This course will expose students to a variety of new philosophical terms and conceptual structures, many of which include a vital role for absence, and an essential role for emptiness or nothingness. Students will examine and discuss these alternate conceptions and consider their practical application and philosophical implications. Students will also reflect on these East Asian philosophical projects and perspectives in relation to one another, and with respect to Western philosophical projects and history.