The report analyzes the characteristics of wisdom, revealed by modern research. The comparative analysis of the components of wisdom in models of three ancient civilizations is made. It is shown that in the Sumerian civilization more attention was given to the possession of contextual knowledge, to the ability to reflect on the problem from all sides. In the Ancient Egyptian civilization, more attention was paid to understanding injustice and human dignity. The model of Old Russian wisdom was the consolidation model in a greater degree, directed on solidarity strengthening between members of the society, on training of mutual loyalty and mutual aid.

The influence of Greek thought in the Middle Ages on the East was so compelling that it began to permeate all the intellectual aspirations to such extent that in the works of famous Eastern philosophers and even some theologians have featured the names and ideas of ancient Greek philosophers and thinkers. Clearly Ismailism (a rationalistic ideological school of Muslim philosophy in the tenth century) was not an exception to this tendency. This paper gives a general description of the impact of Greek philosophy on the views of the Ismailis.It stands out, above all, against the background of the issues related to the theory concerning the creation of the world or the view that the world is uncreated. Consistently, there are formed such metaphysical, ontological, and social aspects as three aspects in uniform - the mind, the soul, space and three supersensible natures - the soul, mind, the One, mind and soul, and the problem of the world and individual communication (particularity) of the soul, and the role of the self in the organization of spiritual and physical integrity, etc.

Reason (raison, Vernunft) is one of the fundamental concepts to characterize the human intellectual activities in the Western culture. It has a long history from ancient Greece. It started as logos, then, in the Middle Ages as ratio, and afterwards as reason. However, in Japan, it was only at the beginning of the modern age in the 19th century that the word “reason” was translated into a Japanese word “risei” by Nishi Amane (1829-1897), philosopher of the Meiji era. “Risei” is a relatively new idea, and moreover, this translated word transmits only partially the original meanings of logos. Namely, an important function of the logos as language had not been included in this risei. This situation makes it difficult for the Japanese today to connect the use of reason with that of the Japanese language. What comes out from this fact? The author searches for the reasons of some serious problems concerning the differences of the way of thinking between the European cultures and the Japanese caused by this fact.

In my paper I tackle the question of whether the term “philosophy” should be restricted to a specific tradition (namely, Greek) or whether it could be used also for other traditions. I argue in favor of the latter solution from extrinsic and intrinsic viewpoints. From extrinsic viewpoint, more liberal use of the term could facilitate exchanges between scholars of different traditions of thought. From intrinsic viewpoint, I propose an understanding of philosophy as creation of concepts and concepts as contractions and embodiment of reality, not as abstractions or representations of it.

A large number of papers and books on cosmopolitanism have been published since 1990, marking a renewed interest in this field among western scholars. When we try to locate the original source of cosmopolitan ideas in human civilization, we find Chrysippus’ thought in western philosophy, and Confucius’ as its eastern counterpart. In this paper, I offer a comparative analysis on Confucius’ and Chrysippus’ cosmopolitan theories from the following three aspects. I begin with the theoretical origins of the two thinkers on cosmopolitanism, which mainly center on the relationship between human beings and nature in their natural philosophy and on the question of how to be a good man in their moral philosophy. Then, I explain the concrete schemes they posit for a cosmopolitan society. Finally, I compare their different concerns on one’s attitude to family members or fellow citizens, which mark their main points of disagreement. As a conclusion, I propose that both of their ideas can be located under a range of “moral cosmopolitanism”. The difference lies in that while Confucius holds a moderate cosmopolitan idea, Chrysippus prefers a strict version of cosmopolitanism.

One of the earliest expressions of philosophical thought is found in Zoroaster’s corpus, the Gathas, seventeen poems composed orally in an early Iranian language (called Old Avestan as belonging to the oldest stratum of the cumulative body of texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the Avesta), from Central Asia ca. 1200-1000 BCE. I shall here give a fresh account of this philosophy in its own terms, as well as in a comparative perspective, and also show how earlier accounts have suffered from misconceptions in addressing the data and problems which arise therefrom. Specifically, I shall address the fallacies of attribution of the ideas of monotheism or polytheism to the Gathas, and establish the place of the Gathas among world philosophies.

Culture is as old as history, yet its contemporary distinction lies in its omnipresent holding over diverse aspects of life. Culture has become the crux of academic psychological, social, anthropological and philosophical analyses with the impact of poststructuralism, communitarianism and cultural studies. Debates in these areas acknowledge cross-cultural dialogue. The paper interrogates two approaches to such dialogue, namely, Rabindranath Tagore’s benevolent Indian cultural pluralism and Kwasi Wiredu’s mainstream “critical and reconstructive” universalist position. The paper attempts to critique cultural subordination through symbolic, political and economic recognitions with reference to Indo-African perspective in general and the philosophical debates of Tagore and Wiredu in particular. This entails transcending rigid and undemocratic cultural identities to invent flexible and egalitarian cultures.

Practical philosophy refers to critical reflection of ethical and sociopolitical rules of human relations and action. Its central theme is the modes, norms, and characteristics of praxis, and its ultimate concern is how to live a good life. This paper suggests that Western practical philosophy is a significant reference of Chinese practical philosophy. Comparing the two can lead to a better understanding of the features of each culture as well as the differences between the two traditions; moreover, the comparison can shed light on the situation after the “linguistic turn” and help answer questions regarding the “end of philosophy.” The paper argues that while philosophical hermeneutics, pragmatics, and postmodernism carry on the spirit of Western practical philosophy, they share some characteristics with Chinese practical philosophy and that it is the emphasis on action and the position of anti-dualism that establishes a similarity between ancient Chinese thought and Western pragmatic tradition.

Reincarnation has been a popular theme in folklore especially in countries where Buddhism won the devotion of the people. However, in certain cases, religious teachings and folklore have been transformed in order to function as social ideology. Hirata Atsutane’s study on folklore is an example of such cases. Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843), who was an early modern Japanese intellectual, looked up to folklore for inspiration and religious proof. Hirata’s Katsugoro saisei kibun is a detailed account and analysis of a boy who claimed to have experienced reincarnation. The aim of his research on folklore and occult was to provide evidence that his religious claims were verifiable. He strived to reconstruct Japanese mythology in order to provide moral bases and religious guidance for the Japanese nation. Hirata’s text shows how he transformed the idea of reincarnation into a text of social ideology. Folklore inspired a new national identity and a religious message.

Culture informs all aspects of life and involves the self in a significant way. Inputs from cultures relate to the self-organizing mechanism of the brain and thus condition the mind. As human communication is concerned with meaning, it also gets factored in. Looking beyond the pragmatic concerns and realpolitik of intercultural relationships, we should analyze its inherent value, scope and viability. It’s meant that only the viable elements in consonance with cultural relativity should be deemed valuable. A single ‘meta-project’ prevailing over the different cultures of the world has been condemned as unethical, although homogenizing currents of globalization are allegedly shaping the world in a Western mould. The Indian view that perceives culture as a pervasive moral order and its ideals harmonized in the unity of human nature needs consideration. Multilingual felicity helps in raising the communication index, devising higher order communication channels, for propagating whatever is of value for mankind. A culturally-sensitive, multilingual person is no longer a passive transmitter of inherited culture, but an active agent, ably processing the communication signals, working for a composite and sustainable culture. An enriched linguistic sensibility aids the exploration of intercultural truths and minimizes asymmetric intercultural communication.

This paper aim at re-focusing on the ethics of life in the horizon of ecological concerns, by means of a cross-cultural dialogue in depth around the early Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)’s philosophy. Precisely, I propose to explore the ethical implications of some thesis in Zhuangzi (for ex., practice of “inaction”, priority of “naturalness”, choice of “return”, principle of “blandness”, etc.), in comparison with Michel Henry’s “phenomenology of life”. From this perspective, some reinterpretations of “self-cultivation” and “care for the life” in Zhuangzi are articulated in the light of the double revealing modality of Michel Henry’s “deep subjectivity” (the faculty of experiencing the self and experiencing the world in connection). The relevant resources, drawn from in French contemporary philosophy, can help to reexamine Zhuangzi’s reconstructing significance based on the apparent negative models, and also rethink a possible passage from environmental ethics to the ethic of life, implying the necessity of “ecological culture” in the time of ecological crisis.

Interkulturalität und Hybridität haben sich nach dem cultural turn in den Geisteswissenschaften als Schlüsselkategorien innerhalb vieler Disziplinen etabliert. In diesem Beitrag stellt sich unweigerlich die Frage nach dem Stellenwert der Hybridität im Kontext der Interkulturellen Philosophie. Kann schließlich das hybride Paradigma, das strukturelle Ähnlichkeiten zum interkulturellen Philosophieren aufweist, die Grundlagenreflexion des Forschungszweigs fördern? Um obige Fragestellungen zu beantworten, werden im ersten Teil des Beitrags die wichtigsten Eckpfeiler Interkultureller Philosophie kurz dargestellt und anschließend die Strukturanalogien zwischen Hybridität, Spätkapitalismus und Interkulturalität problematisiert. Meine These ist dabei, dass das hybride Prinzip des Sowohl-als-auch andere Formen der Wissensproduktion hervorhebt und ein verändertes Verhältnis zur Differenz herstellt, da Prinzipien wie Singularität und Totalität nicht nur ins Schwanken geraten, sondern verflüssigt werden, zumal von der Dynamik der Vermischung ausgegangen wird. Gerade die Interkulturelle Philosophie, die durchaus ein verändertes Verhältnis zur Differenz hat, kann sich von der Untersuchung der Hybridität als Verwertungskonzept des Spätkapitalismus ein ergiebiges Forschungsfeld versprechen.

Si bien podría afirmarse que se ha dado siempre una cierta construcción intercultural de la racionalidad, dada la inevitable influencia recíproca de culturas o formas de vida, paradigmas científicos, estilos y modelos artísticos, etc., la vigencia de un determinado orden de mundo, hoy globalizado, ha implicado también una determinada lógica que se impone implícita o explícitamente como normativa, que no se nutre de ni acoge, al menos suficientemente, la diversidad de la experiencia humana, y por consiguiente se priva de posibilidades teóricas y prácticas. Se impone entonces la necesidad de corresponder a tal experiencia que constituye la historia misma de la humanidad, a través de una permanente construcción intercultural del modo de comprensión o inteligibilidad y del modo de articulación o racionalidad, que implica una profunda transformación del pensar vigente, aunque a la vez una apropiación de su propia historia, localizando sus logros y límites. Un claro ejemplo de esta exigencia se encuentra en el pensamiento político latinoamericano, ante la necesidad de corresponder a las novedades políticas que se producen en el continente, en el contexto de una crisis mundial de modelos al respecto, y de propulsar un orden de mundo desde todos los sujetos históricos.

An original attempt at unification of Eastern and Western European philosophy is presented in B. Dandaron’s work (1914-1974) who created an original system of Neo-Buddhism. If gnosis is understood as a special kind of knowledge, resulted from man’s creative activity to comprehend the world (including rational forms) and a special mystical force descending to it and manifesting itself in intuitive perception of the “divine”, “super-phenomenal” world, then Dandaron’s ideas can be made an organic part of the system of Gnosticism. Dandaron, in developing his conception turns to the philosophies of antiquity, the Christian mystics, the Western European philosophers of the 19th-20th centuries, and the work of the Russian philosopher V. Solovyov. He makes a comparative analysis of various methods of cognition, focusing on intuitive knowledge and the mystic perception of the world. The Neo-Buddhist philosopher aspired to unite religious-philosophical gnosis with the possibility of a “scientific philosophy”. In Dandaron’s view, only in this way it is possible to create an essentially new philosophical system that combines the advantages of Eastern and Western philosophy and has both theoretical and practical significance.

The paper attempts to justify that Merab Mamardashvili was one of few Russian philosophers, who combined two philosophical traditions: the Western and the Eastern ones. Mamardashvili used Buddhist ideas and concepts for the interpretation of Descartes’ philosophy. In his study of the questions of philosophy as a way of life, of thinking as a way of becoming human, of thinking and consciousness, and of freedom, he used the Buddhist concept of the absence of the individual “I” (anatma), the principle of interdependence, and the idea of detachment, and proceeded from the existence of various forms of consciousness. Talking about Descartes, Mamardashvili finds a way to talk about himself and his own philosophy. The fundamental thesis of Descartes’ philosophy – the principle of doubt – is treated as if Descartes was a Buddhist. A fruitful distinction for Mamardashvili was that between consciousness and thinking that is adopted in Buddhist philosophy. He states that thinking is simple intuition of the mind, is that which is controlled by the will and the consciousness. For him, a thought is a real existential object. This distinction enables him to distinguish between empirical (psychological) “I” and transcendental consciousness, in virtue of which human being becomes man. An important role here plays the phenomenon of awareness. Thus, not only Husserl’s phenomenology, but also the view of Descartes’ philosophy and Descartes himself from a Buddhist philosophical standpoint enabled Mamardashvili to suggest a new reading of his philosophy. However, his aim was not a simple interpretation of Descartes’ philosophy, but also the exposition of his own philosophy, the core of which is the theory of consciousness..

Ο Κομφούκιος (551-479 π.Χ.) και ο Πλάτων (427-347 π.Χ.) ζουν στην αποκαλούμενη “αξονική” εποχή (Γιάσπερς) και σε μια κοινωνική και πολιτική κατάσταση που παρουσιάζει αναλογίες (έντονες κοινωνικές συγκρούσεις, εμφύλιοι πόλεμοι, κρίση παραδοσιακών θεσμών, ηθική αποσύνθεση). Και οι δύο, διαπνεόμενοι από το πάθος της αρετής και της δικαιοσύνης αλλά και από το όραμα μιας καλύτερης πολιτικής οργάνωσης, εισηγούνται τους τρόπους για την αποκατάσταση της ειρήνης, της τάξης και της αρμονίας (he 和). Αναπτύσσουν έτσι μια πολιτική και ηθική θεωρία, η οποία προσβλέπει στη σύζευξη εξουσίας και γνώσης μέσω της ηθικής. Κορωνίδα του πολιτικού συστήματος που εισηγούνται συνιστούν ο σοφός-βασιλιάς (sheng ren 聖人) και ο φιλόσοφος-βασιλιάς, αντίστοιχα. Με τη θεμελίωση της εξουσίας στη γνώση, στην ηθική και στην παιδεία προτείνουν ένα μοντέλο πολιτικής διαχείρισης που, απομακρυνόμενο από το παλαιό πολιτικό παράδειγμα, εισάγει νέα δεδομένα στον τρόπο διακυβέρνησης. Παρατηρούνται ωστόσο και θεμελιώδεις διαφορές ανάμεσα στις δύο σκέψεις που έχουν να κάνουν με μια διαφορετική σύλληψη του κόσμου, η οποία, φιλοσοφικά, τίθεται σε όρους είναι/γίγνεσθαι. Αναδύονται έτσι τα κυριότερα σημεία, στα οποία ο κομφουκιανός σοφός-βασιλιάς (sheng ren聖人) διαφέρει από τον πλατωνικό φιλόσοφο-βασιλιά· σε αυτά εντοπίζονται και οι βασικές διαφορές της ελληνικής και της σινικής σκέψης γενικότερα.

Ο Κομφούκιος (551-479 π.Χ.) και ο Πλάτων (427-347 π.Χ.) ζουν στην αποκαλούμενη “αξονική” εποχή (Γιάσπερς) και σε μια κοινωνική και πολιτική κατάσταση που παρουσιάζει αναλογίες (έντονες κοινωνικές συγκρούσεις, εμφύλιοι πόλεμοι, κρίση παραδοσιακών θεσμών, ηθική αποσύνθεση). Και οι δύο, διαπνεόμενοι από το πάθος της αρετής και της δικαιοσύνης αλλά και από το όραμα μιας καλύτερης πολιτικής οργάνωσης, εισηγούνται τους τρόπους για την αποκατάσταση της ειρήνης, της τάξης και της αρμονίας (he 和). Αναπτύσσουν έτσι μια πολιτική και ηθική θεωρία, η οποία προσβλέπει στη σύζευξη εξουσίας και γνώσης μέσω της ηθικής. Κορωνίδα του πολιτικού συστήματος που εισηγούνται συνιστούν ο σοφός-βασιλιάς (sheng ren 聖人) και ο φιλόσοφος-βασιλιάς, αντίστοιχα. Με τη θεμελίωση της εξουσίας στη γνώση, στην ηθική και στην παιδεία προτείνουν ένα μοντέλο πολιτικής διαχείρισης που, απομακρυνόμενο από το παλαιό πολιτικό παράδειγμα, εισάγει νέα δεδομένα στον τρόπο διακυβέρνησης. Παρατηρούνται ωστόσο και θεμελιώδεις διαφορές ανάμεσα στις δύο σκέψεις που έχουν να κάνουν με μια διαφορετική σύλληψη του κόσμου, η οποία, φιλοσοφικά, τίθεται σε όρους είναι/γίγνεσθαι. Αναδύονται έτσι τα κυριότερα σημεία, στα οποία ο κομφουκιανός σοφός-βασιλιάς (sheng ren聖人) διαφέρει από τον πλατωνικό φιλόσοφο-βασιλιά· σε αυτά εντοπίζονται και οι βασικές διαφορές της ελληνικής και της σινικής σκέψης γενικότερα.