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This article re-examines Humboldt's comparative linguistics by analyzing two cases: the reception of Chinese philosophy in France and the translation of Greek philosophy in China. Humboldt's legacy is treated in opposite ways which result in two translation methods. I argue that Humboldt's statement about the inferiority of Chinese should not be taken in a literal sense. It highlights the grammatical differences between Greek and Chinese, and can lead to questioning some basic assumptions about the concept of being. Humboldtian comparativism, understood as the recognition of differences and the respect for the foreign, can shed light on transcultural understanding in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most prolific approaches to the comparative study of Buddhist and Christian philosophy has been the use of Buddhist anti-metaphysicism to overcome the allegedly obsolete metaphysical discourse of Christianity. This approach has been practiced, among others, by Edgar Bruns, Frederik Streng, Joseph O'Leary, and John Keenan. Keenan's 1980–1990s seminal works were determinative in that they appeared to rely on intuitive and evident premises: Christianity became infused with Greek metaphysical concepts early on; consequently, it adopted the forms of essentialism and ontological discourse practiced in metaphysics. That discourse has now become obsolete and must be overcome; Buddhist anti-metaphysicism helps overcome it; hence, Christianity can learn from Buddhism. In this paper, I show that although Keenan presents the first of these claims as self-evident, it is in fact highly polemical. Its origins lie in Albrecht Ritschl's and Adolf von Harnack's Hellenization theory. While the theological and historical background to this theory has been debated, Keenan does not engage in these debates. Even more, he transforms the theory in such a way that it becomes incongruent with its inherent aim. Following the problems implied on these two levels, I suggest that Keenan's project makes itself vulnerable to incoherencies. In the end, I argue for the overcoming of antimetaphysicism as a basis for Buddhist-Christian dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the peculiarities of the interpretation of ancient philosophy in two directions of Marxism – Soviet and Chinese. The author emphasizes the common and distinctive features of understanding philosophy in Soviet and Chinese philosophy. Proved that Soviet Marxism saw the most important stage in the formation and development of philosophy as a phenomenon of world culture in ancient philosophy. At the same time, Soviet thinkers tried to find the key points of ancient philosophy that would correlate with the main Marxist ideas. Also, based on the principles of Marxism, Soviet historians of philosophy analyzed and identified both common and commonplace moments in ancient Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy. It was revealed that Soviet and Chinese thinkers, first of all, try to find those moments in ancient philosophy that are directly or indirectly connected with Marxist philosophy – its principles, values, and ideas. At the same time, as part of the study of ancient philosophy, a whole corpus of translations from ancient Greek was carried out, although ancient Roman thinkers were less in demand for Soviet Marxism. Whereas, within the framework of Chinese Marxism, there is still a lot to be done in the context of the philosophical translation of the ancient heritage. However, argued thesis that to some extent, Chinese Marxism developed more intensively in the context of research of ancient philosophy. After all, in addition to purely ideological works devoted to the understanding of ancient philosophy, research began to develop actively in terms of comparative philosophy and classical reception studies.

He does not argue that one cannot find self-cultivation philosophies elsewhere; his focus is on how we can use self-cultivation philosophy as a valuable explanatory framework for diverse texts and traditions. Gowans shows how neither the contemporary philosophy of the seminar room, nor ancient Greek philosophy, is the paradigm of what is to count as philosophy. Gowans showcases the many shapes philosophy takes across time and space (e.g., the notion of transformative texts, texts intended to facilitate some fundamental transformative process in the lives of their readers). [Extracted from the article]

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The article reveals the peculiarities of the interpretation of ancient philosophy in two directions of Marxism – Soviet and Chinese. The author emphasizes the common and distinctive features of understanding philosophy in Soviet and Chinese philosophy. Proved that Soviet Marxism saw the most important stage in the formation and development of philosophy as a phenomenon of world culture in ancient philosophy. At the same time, Soviet thinkers tried to find the key points of ancient philosophy that would correlate with the main Marxist ideas. Also, based on the principles of Marxism, Soviet historians of philosophy analyzed and identified both common and commonplace moments in ancient Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy. It was revealed that Soviet and Chinese thinkers, first of all, try to find those moments in ancient philosophy that are directly or indirectly connected with Marxist philosophy – its principles, values, and ideas. At the same time, as part of the study of ancient philosophy, a whole corpus of translations from ancient Greek was carried out, although ancient Roman thinkers were less in demand for Soviet Marxism. Whereas, within the framework of Chinese Marxism, there is still a lot to be done in the context of the philosophical translation of the ancient heritage. However, argued thesis that to some extent, Chinese Marxism developed more intensively in the context of research of ancient philosophy. After all, in addition to purely ideological works devoted to the understanding of ancient philosophy, research began to develop actively in terms of comparative philosophy and classical reception studies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In chapter 2, "Socratic Receptions", Ahbel-Rappe describes the "science of happiness" and "art of living" representations of Socrates that we inherited from Aristotle and the Stoics. 1078b17), Ahbel-Rappe presents a "paradigmatic" Socrates who "stands in for the inherent wisdom of the reader's own mind" (vii) and invites us all to undertake a "revolution in thought" (vi) whose true aim is self-knowledge as a divine intellect. If we consider his absolute commitment to Athens, he was as altruistic as a bodhisattva, as Ahbel-Rappe tries to show in comparing Plato's Socrates with the ethical ideal of Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara, her final piece of comparative philosophy. She uses Aristotle's view of Socrates as a seeker of craft knowledge, which has evolved into the contemporary view that Socrates was a "moral theorist" or "action theorist" (27), 2 as a foil for an approach that she calls 2 Naomi Reshothko. [Extracted from the article]

Relative to its conceptual dimension, among numerous deep insights, Nelson's book may impress readers in terms of inter/trans-cultural studies. Second, Nelson's conjoint reinterpretation of Heidegger's and Chan Buddhism's thoughts (in chap. 8) is very helpful for a better understanding of I both i at the same time. As it is, Nelson's I Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought i is one of the most refined intercultural inquiry into modern and contemporary German philosophers' Eurocentric tendencies (from Hegel to Heidegger) as well as counter-tendencies (from Leibniz to Buber) that one can read today. [Extracted from the article]

Comparative philosophers are well aware of the interpretive difficulties that arise when using the methodological tools of one tradition to understand another. Such difficulties, however, also arise when looking back through traditions. This is especially the case with ancient Greek philosophy understood as the foundation of the Western philosophical tradition. Unreflective application to ancient Greek thought of methodologies that developed later in the tradition can introduce ways of thinking as foreign to it as to a non-Western tradition. This essay demonstrates how certain strategies developed by comparativists can and should be employed in interpreting ancient Greek philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Sylvia Berryman b teaches ancient Greek philosophy at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include metaphysics of properties (especially powers and categorical properties), metaphysics of laws of nature, philosophy of space-time, and metametaphysics. B Justin Pack b is a full-time lecturer at California State University Stanislaus, where he teaches philosophy courses on technology, science fiction, environmentalism, and ethics. [Extracted from the article]

[Prof. Jiyuan Yu passed away on Nov. 3, 2016, after a battle with cancer. I was Jiyuan Yu's PhD student at SUNY Buffalo, completing my work in 2007. Jiyuan's teaching emphasized first and foremost the difficulty of authors like Plato and Aristotle, that the texts they left us were extremely puzzling, and you could spend your whole lifetime studying them. [Extracted from the article]