Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion: Beyond Faith and Reason PDF
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Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion 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. Sonia Sikka is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Ashwani Kumar Peetush is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Routledge Studies in Religion Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into Pre and Perinatal Religious Development Helen Holmes Islam, IS, and the Fragmented State The Challenges of Political Islam in the MENA Region Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Juline Beaujouan and Amjed Rasheed Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal Reformed Hinduism and Western Protestantism Victor A. van Bijlert Themes in Religion and Human Security in Africa Edited by Joram Tarusarira and Ezra Chitando Muslim Minorities and Social Cohesion Cultural Fragmentation in the West Abe W. Ata Religion, Migration, and Existential Wellbeing Edited by Moa Kindström Dahlin, Oscar L. Larsson and Anneli Winell Prophetic Witness and the Reimagining of the World Poetry, Theology and Philosophy in Dialogue – Power of the Word V Edited by Mark S. Burrows, Hilary Davies and Josephine von Zitzewitz Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion Beyond Faith and Reason Edited by Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Kumar Peetush For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ religion/series/SE0669 Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion Beyond Faith and Reason Edited by Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Kumar Peetush First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Kumar Peetush; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Kumar Peetush to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-86283-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-02423-1 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of contributors vii 1 Introduction 1 SONIA SIKKA AND ASHWANI KUMAR PEETUSH 2 Aspiration, conviction, and serene joy: faith and reason in Indian Buddhist literature on the path 13 WILLIAM EDELGLASS 3 Faith and/or/as enlightenment: rethinking religion from the perspective of Japanese Buddhism 36 BRET W. DAVIS 4 Faith and its derivatives: knowledge, conduct and liberation in Jainism 65 ANNE VALLELY 5 Enlightening the unEnlightened: the exclusion of Advaita Vedānta from the Western philosophical canon 76 ASHWANI KUMAR PEETUSH 6 Ruism and the category of religion: or, what to do about the Confucians? 106 PAUL CARELLI AND SARAH MATTICE 7 Faith, reason, and the paradox of wu-wei in the Zhuangzi 125 JULIANNE CHUNG vi Contents 8 Medium of many messages: roles of aesthetic discourse in religion and philosophy 147 GORDON F. DAVIS 9 Trusting the daimonion: faith and reason in the case of Socrates and beyond 177 ANNA LÄNNSTRÖM 10 Reason and faith on the path to the transcendent in Plotinus 193 CATHERINE COLLOBERT 11 Thoughtful seekers among the “spiritual but not religious” 209 SONIA SIKKA 12 Between faith and reason: feminist contemplative pedagogy 227 ERIN McCARTHY 13 An immanent world of wonder: nonreligion and emerging worldviews 245 LORI G. BEAMAN Index 264 Contributors Lori G. Beaman is the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change and Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. Paul Carelli is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of North Florida, USA. Julianne Chung is Assistant Professor at York University, Department of Philosophy, Canada. Catherine Collobert is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Gordon F. Davis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carleton Univer- sity, Canada. Bret W. Davis is Professor and Thomas J. Higgins, S.J. Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, USA. William Edelglass is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Marlboro College, USA. Anna Lännström is Professor of Philosophy at Stonehill College, USA. Sarah Mattice is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, and Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at University of North Florida, USA. Erin McCarthy is Professor of Philosophy at St. Lawrence University, USA. Ashwani Kumar Peetush is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Sonia Sikka is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Anne Vallely is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. 1 Introduction Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Kumar Peetush In the West, the distinction between religion and philosophy has been grounded for centuries in an opposition between faith and reason. By now, the equation of religion with faith, understood as a mode of arriving at beliefs that contrasts with reason, has become globally self-evident, to such an extent that the terms “religion” and “faith” are often used interchange- ably. Religion as faith, we typically suppose, involves a special kind of trust in divine beings, superhumanly enlightened individuals, revealed texts, clerical authorities, and so forth. Such an attitude of trust would seem to contrast sharply with the reliance on evidence and inference common to the methods of both science and philosophy.1 In matters of metaphysics, moreover, where the natural sciences may not be able to provide answers, philosophical reasoning is distinguished from faith through commitment to open-ended questioning, refusing allegiance to any confessional creed.2 To be sure, the history of Christian thought also includes “natural” or “philo- sophical” theology, relying on reason rather than revelation. As theology, however, philosophical theology generally seeks rational justification for what is already believed. That is what distinguishes it from metaphysics. Likewise, philosophy of religion is an affair of reason, but its practitioners do not suppose that the beliefs they are investigating and evaluating are themselves arrived at through philosophical reasoning. They are, after all, religious beliefs, the kind held by “believers.” Philosophers usually do not see themselves as “believers” in this sense.3 Yet many patterns of thought and practice around the world cannot eas- ily be placed on one side or another of a binary equating faith with religion and reason with philosophy. Asian traditions, for example, are notoriously difficult to classify in terms of this Western conceptual map. Elements within ancient Greek philosophy also do not easily fit, contradicting overly hasty and often biased presumptions about the contrast between European and Asian views of knowledge. In addition, some recent wisdom-seeking move- ments, arising in the West but often heavily inspired by Asian ideas, share with these ancient schools of thought a way thinking and being that treads outside the lines demarcating what we have come to call “religion,” in con- tradistinction to “philosophy.”
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