Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
BA students in Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives;
International pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement, and for whom this course is part of their programme.
Description
This course will be devoted to an examination of Intercultural Philosophical Hermeneutics, or the theory of textual and cultural interpretation. Our approach will be to examine instances in cross-cultural philosophical encounter between modern to contemporary Asian and Western thinkers to see what lessons we can draw from these encounters. We will in this course be reading analytical works on two seminal modern European philosophers, namely Leibniz and Heidegger, who spent considerable parts of their philosophical careers studying aspects of Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist thought and who, in varying degrees, were philosophically influenced by these traditions. We will then turn to three contemporary Asian philosophers, namely J.N. Mohanty, Sor-Hoon Tan and the Dalai Lama, who have turned their study of different Western philosophical traditions, phenomenology, pragmatism and philosophy of science, to analyses of classical Asian systems of thought. We will, in the course of our studies, attempt to focus on the complex hermeneutic problems and possibilities of cross-cultural philosophical reflection, both for general historical and philosophical purposes as well as to hone good methodological skills for doing cross-cultural philosophical work ourselves, particularly in students’ forthcoming thesis projects.
Course objectives
Students will:
read and analyze texts by Western and Asian philosophers with a special focus on how they interpreted one another’s traditions.
critically reflect on what negative and potentially positive and constructive lessons might be learned from the recent history of intercultural philosophical encounter.
learn to examine the ways in which historical, cultural and social circumstances shape the way in which philosophers both formulate their own ideas and interpret the ideas of other traditions.
formulate questions from the readings and prepare to disucss and debate them during the class sessions.
do one paired presentation with another student during the semester which focuses on a preferred theme, idea or argument from that week’s reading material.
conduct a major intercultural philosophy research project which will result in a written essay by the end of the semester, with significant incorporation of at least one of the authors we have read during the course.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Lecture
Research
Assessment method
Assessment
In-class midterm essay assignment (45%)
In-class final essay assignment (45%)
Active in-class discussion and participation (10%)
Weighing
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
The resit will be for the final essay assignment only with all other marks remaining in place. The resit will be conducted as a take-home exam (2-hours) via Brightspace, and evalutions and feedback will be available to students via Brightspace no more than two workweeks after they complete the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Franklin Perkins, Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. Cambridge, 2004.
Lin Ma, Heidegger on East-West Dialogue: Anticipating the Event. Routledge, 2007.
J.N. Mohanty, Essays on Indian Philosophy: Traditional and Modern. Oxford, 1993.
Sor-hoon Tan, Confucian Democracy: A Deweyam Reconstruction. SUNY Press, 2004.
Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. Broadway Press, 2006.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.