Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion Beyond Faith and Reason

With a focus on Asian traditions, this book examines varieties of thought and self-transformative practice that do not fit neatly on one side or another of the standard Western division between philosophy and religion. It contains chapters by experts on Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Hindu and Jain philosophies, as well as ancient Greek philosophy and recent contemplative and spiritual movements. The volume also problematizes the notion of a Western philosophical canon distinguished by rationality in contrast to a religious Eastern "other". These original essays creatively lay the groundwork needed to rethink dominant historical and conceptual categories from a wider perspective to arrive at a deeper, more plural and global understanding of the diverse nature of both philosophy and religion. The volume will be of keen interest to scholars and students in the Philosophy of Religion, Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religious Studies.

1 IntroductionSonia Sikka & Ashwani Peetush 2Faith, Reason, and Practice in Buddhist TraditionsWilliam Edelglass 3Faith and/or/as Enlightenment: Rethinking Religion from the Perspective of Japanese BuddhismBret W. Davis 4Faith & its Derivatives: Knowledge, Conduct and Liberation in Jainism.Anne Vallely 5Enlightening the unEnlightened: The Exclusion of Advaita Vedanta from the Western Philosophical CanonAshwani Kumar Peetush 6Ruism and the Category of Religion: Or, What to Do About the Confucians?Sarah Mattice and Paul Carelli 7Faith, Reason, and the Paradox of Wu-Wei in the ZhuangziJulianne Chung 8Medium of Many Messages: Roles of Aesthetic Discourse in Religion and PhilosophyGordon Davis 9Reason and Faith on the Path to the Transcendent in PlotinusCatherine Collobert 10Trusting the daimonion: Faith and Reason in the case of Socrates and BeyondAnna Lännström 11Thoughtful Seekers Among the Spiritual but not ReligiousSonia Sikka 12Between Faith and Reason: Feminist Contemplative PedagogyErin McCarthy 13 An Immanent World of Wonder: Nonreligion and Emerging WorldviewsLori Beaman

Sonia Sikka is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her primary areas of research are social and political philosophy, philosophy of religion and German philosophy. Ashwani Kumar Peetush is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada. His main areas of research are legal and political philosophy, ethics, and Indian philosophies.