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The article opens with a discussion of recent theoretical and methodological innovations in the field of comparative philosophy. In this regard, I propose and explain a new possible method of contrasting particular aspects of divergent philosophical texts or discourses and denote it as a 'philosophy of sublation'. Then, the paper provides a concrete example for such a post-comparative method of reasoning, I will try to apply a 'sublation philosophy' approach for a reinterpretation of certain aspects of the complex philosophical intersections between modern Japanese and Chinese philosophies through the lens of a contrastive analysis of Nishida Kitarō's and Mou Zongsan's dialectical thought. In this way, I hope to shed some new light upon some general questions regarding different models of dialectics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhi is an important Chinese notion that conveys among other things human capacity to set aims, to determine a course of action, or to persist in a resolve. The term naturally turns up in Chinese contributions to Western Free Will debate. In this paper, I explain zhi by working out a comparison that goes from East to West. I do a three-fold textual analysis of zhi focusing on the Mencius. I outline different usages found in the text, examine a nuanced, dominant meaning suggested in 2A.2, and discuss notional features based on language patterns. My analysis yields a more homegrown understanding of zhi which I shall compare with Western expressions of moral agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical cosmology places constraints on philosophical cosmologies, understood in Alfred North Whitehead's sense as comprehensive theories of nature and ultimate reality. These constraints are not strict because it is usually possible for a philosophical cosmology to work around an awkward implication from physical cosmology, though the price may be a decrease in plausibility. This paper identifies distinctive patterns in the ways three different classes of philosophical cosmology - supernatural cosmology, process cosmology, and ground-of-being cosmology - negotiate constraints from physical cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to Orientalist interpretations, authoritarian political practices are inconsistent with the axial Asian philosophies, which implicitly call for a socially responsible critical press (communication outlets). This is certainly the case with Buddhist philosophy. Confucianism and Hinduism also do not endorse authoritarianism. First, this essay analyzes each of these philosophies to show their disapproval of actions that enhance state authority and central control against people's wellbeing. Second, it identifies the probable reasons for the discrepancy between the ethico-political orientations of the main Asian philosophies and the authoritarian press practice prevalent in much of Asia and elsewhere, namely, (a) the failure of the Westcentric modernisation paradigm to uplift the "sovereign nation-states" in the periphery of the modern world-system, which grew out of the erstwhile colonial empires; (b) the appeal of continuing with the colonial tradition of governing through coercive and autocratic institutions to suppress public criticism; and (c) the impact of Orientalism, which caused the rulers of the new "nation-states" to misconstrue or ignore the principles embodied in Asian philosophies. Thus, political-economic reality appears to have superseded the ethico-political orientations of Asian philosophies in engendering the putative Asian model of development. However, because concepts such as freedom, democracy, authoritarianism, and social responsibility evoke different connotations in the West and the East, Freedom House's ranking of countries based on Westcentric criteria is debatable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]