Search Results (52)

The development of Daoism in Italy is deeply connected to how its classical texts were received and circulated. Although Italian Christian missionaries were among the earliest Western commentators on Daoism, significant Italian engagement with Daoist works only emerged in the 20th century. During the first half of that century, Italian publishers released six translations of the Laozi, three partial translations of the Zhuangzi, and several general works on Daoism. This surge of interest was influenced by two major 19th-century developments: the rise of sinology as an academic field in France, which spurred European scholarly interest in Chinese culture, and the spread of international esoteric and occult movements, which drew heavily from Eastern philosophies. This paper focuses on two important Italian translations of the Laozi from the interwar period—Julius Evola’s 1923 translation and Attilio Castellani’s 1927 version. These translations exemplify the dual influences of academic sinology and esoteric movements on the Italian reception of Daoism. By comparing these works, this paper highlights how Daoist ideas were introduced and interpreted in Italy, shaped both by the translators’ personal backgrounds and their distinct intellectual aims, thus revealing the varied contexts in which Daoism was received in early 20th-century Italy. Full article

This paper examines the philosophy of language in The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (六祖壇經), demonstrating its centrality to Zen Buddhism and Buddhist sinicization. The sutra emphasizes the ineffability of ultimate truth (至道無言) and the principle that words falter in encapsulating the Dao (言語道斷), framing language as a provisional “raft” (筏) that must be instrumentalized yet transcended through a dialectic of employing and abandoning (用離辯證). It ontologically grounds this view in Buddha-nature’s (佛性) pre-linguistic essence, advocating transcending reliance on words and letters (不假文字) while strategically deploying language to dismantle its own authority. Historically, this constituted a revolt against Tang scholasticism’s textual fetishism. The text adopts a dynamic dialectic, neither clinging to nor rejecting language, exemplified by Huineng’s awakening through the Diamond Sutra, where recitation catalyzes internal insight. Operationally, it utilizes negational discourse, the “Two Paths Mutually Condition” method (二道相因) embedded in the “Twelve Pairs of Dharmic Forms” (法相語言十二對) in particular, to systematically deconstruct dualisms, while promoting embodied unity of speech, mind, and action (口念心行) to critique empty recitation. Ultimately, the sutra orchestrates language as a self-subverting medium: balancing acknowledgment of its limitations with pragmatic instrumentality, it presents an Eastern paradigm where language actively disrupts conceptual fetters to facilitate direct insight into Buddha-nature, reframing it as a dynamic catalyst for “illuminating the mind and seeing one’s nature” (明心見性). Full article

Hans Selye’s stress concept, first introduced in the 1930s, has undergone substantial evolution, extending beyond biology and medicine to influence diverse academic disciplines. Initially, Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) described nonspecific physiological responses to stressors exclusively in mammals, without addressing other biological systems. Consequently, the concept of stress developed independently in biology and medicine, shaped by distinct physiological contexts. This review provides a historical overview of stress research, highlights both parallels and divergences between the stress responses of plants and animals, and integrates insights from traditional Eastern philosophies. We propose an updated GAS framework that incorporates the dynamic balance among reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and reactive sulfur species (RSS) within the broader context of oxidative stress. We highlight the ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) family and the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel superfamily as minimal molecular architectures for achieving GAS. This perspective expands the classical stress paradigm, providing new insights into redox biology, interspecies stress adaptation, and evolutionary physiology. Full article

This study explores the application of Eastern philosophy in craft innovation education, identifying opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. Drawing on the I Ching and Laozi’s thought, it examines human needs in craft across three dimensions: Qi-form (material), Xin-form (psychological), and Dao-form (philosophical). Taiji theory’s Yin–Yang balance highlights the importance of interdisciplinary thinking in craft innovation. This study introduces the “Spiral Innovation Theory” as a framework for craft education, implemented in the 2024 Taiwan Craft Academy Summer Program with 43 participants. The curriculum covered lacquer, wood, metal, and ceramics, employing a multi-mentor system. Using the Learning Motivation Strategies Scale, Imaginative Thinking Scale, and interviews, the findings reveal that different crafts foster distinct creative abilities. The ANOVA results show woodworking enhances ideation, metalwork and ceramics improve fluency, ceramics and woodworking strengthen flexibility, while woodworking and lacquer work boost creativity. A significant correlation between learning motivation and imagination was found. These findings offer insights into future craft education, advocating the dual mentorship model as a strategy for interdisciplinary innovation. Full article

The Huayan Grotto in Anyue County is one of the most typical caves of the grottoes of Sichuan 四川 and Chongqing 重慶. Being well known for its grand scale and the beautiful style of its sculptures, the cave was designed and carved by the Liu-Zhao sect 柳趙教派 in eastern Sichuan during the Southern Song Dynasty. The Liu-Zhao sect is a local religious group that relies on grottoes and statues to state concepts, propagate ideas, and spread doctrines. The sect is good at integrating a variety of Buddhist thoughts to form its own unique theoretical and practical system. The large-scale statue-making activities under the auspices of the Liu-Zhao sect 柳趙教派 are a classic example of the localization of Buddhism in Southwest China. The ideological system of the Liu-Zhao sect is centered on Huayan, and Huayan Grotto is the very concentration of its special philosophy. This paper considers that the cave constitutes a holy place, with a theme of thoughts of Huayan, which was built based on important doctrines of two masters. Through the combination and arrangement of diversified images, the cave is so far the most complex, complete, and systematic visualized representation of the Huayan’s theory and practice. Inside the cave are carved full-length portraits of Li Tongxuan 李通玄, the Elder of Huayan, and Guifeng Zongmi 圭峰宗密, the fifth patriarch of the Huayan sect. There are also statues and inscriptions that illustrate Li’s thoughts, such as the Ten Assemblies in Ten Locations 十處十會and the Sudhana’s Pilgrimage 善財遍參based on Li’s exegetical writings on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra; the Three Saints of the Huayan School (Huayan sansheng 華嚴三聖) carved on the basis of Li’s pioneering idea about the trinity of three saints; and the mind-only verse 惟心偈, emphasizing mind as the foundation of Avataṃsaka practice. Zongmi’s Avataṃsaka thoughts were mainly expounded through a series of commentaries on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment 大方廣圓覺修多羅了義經, to which the impressive Twelve Bodhisattvas of Perfect Enlightenment are directly related. In addition to the theoretical system, the cave offers two means for Avataṃsaka practice. Highly qualified Avataṃsaka practitioners practice by viewing the Trinity of Three Saints and the Buddha’s Light, and then they go through five phases of fruition to attain Buddhahood, which is the Avataṃsaka practice dominated by Li Tongxuan’s thoughts. Less qualified practitioners practice through repentance liturgies and sitting in meditation at the Ritual Site of Perfect Enlightenment, which is the practice of Perfect Enlightenment advocated by Zongmi 宗密. Full article

The tenets and philosophies of the Igbo traditional religion (ATR) form the bedrock of the Igbo traditional and sociocultural belief system whose principles and practices directly and indirectly influence the perceptions and way of life of the Igbo society. These traditional and sociocultural beliefs are practiced in a way that promotes patriarchy, reducing the women to second-class citizens, and often making room for gender-based violence (GBV) against the women. This study is designed to establish the prevalence, forms, effects, and causes of GBV using results from empirical data. A total of 369 women, selected from 12 villages in Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria, via single-stage adaptive cluster sampling, were involved in the study. The data were analyzed using means, frequencies, and percentages. This study identified a high presence of all forms of physical, sexual, emotional, and economic violence, as well as violence through harmful traditional religious and widowhood practices. More than 70.0% of physical, sexual, emotional, and economic acts of GBV were perpetrated mainly by intimate partners (husbands and/or boyfriends). There was little evidence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in all the forms of harmful traditional and widowhood practices. Rather, traditional and widowhood acts of violence against women are mainly perpetrated by the female peer group (Umuada), family members, and their husbands’ kinsmen (umunna). This study recommends effective outlets for victims to speak out and an action-oriented legal system to bring offenders to justice. Full article

In the late Joseon dynasty, many Koreans crossed the border between Joseon and Qing for survival. They then migrated to Manchuria, in the Qing territory, around Mt. Baekdu. In the late 1900s, Japan seized diplomatic and military control of Korea, and in 1910, Korea was annexed by Japan. Many Koreans then moved to the Manchurian region of China. Religion played an important role in the large Korean community formed in Manchuria after the 1910s. During this period, Korean immigrant communities that were centered on religion were established in Manchuria. Among the many religions, Daejonggyo (大倧敎) places great emphasis on national consciousness, and it was an active component of the anti-Japanese armed independence movement to restore national sovereignty. In particular, Daejonggyo claimed that Dangun (檀君), the founder of the Korean people, came down from heaven, established the first nation of the Korean people on Mt. Baekdu, and governed the surrounding area. Accordingly, Daejonggyo considered the Manchurian region to be the ancient territory of the Korean people. In addition, Daejonggyo presented the concept of the Baedal nation as a Dangun lineage and included not only the Korean people but also various northern ethnic groups, such as the Manchurian people. By doing so, Daejonggyo converged not only the Korean Peninsula and the Joseon nation (minjok, 民族) but also the Manchurian region and various ethnic groups in Manchuria into its own territory and people. Through this, Daejonggyo believers not only secured the legitimacy of residing in Manchuria but also gained the justification to drive out the Japanese and restore the Korean peninsular ancient territory. Full article

This paper examines Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (r. 502–549) and his efforts to reform the Buddhist saṅgha through the establishment of the bodhisattva precepts and the proclamation of the Prohibition of Alcohol and Meat. Grounded in Mahāyāna Buddhist ideals, Emperor Wu sought to integrate religious and political authority, positioning himself as the “Emperor-Bodhisattva”. By analyzing the Ordination of the Bodhisattva Precepts for Monastics, which encouraged monks to voluntarily pursue bodhisattva ideals, and the “Abstinence from Alcohol and Meat”, which redefined meat-eating as an act of killing and imposed strict dietary regulations on all monastics, this study explores his shift from promoting voluntary adherence to enforcing these ideals through state power. Emperor Wu’s reforms aimed to dismantle the hierarchical structure within the existing monastic community and establish a morally impeccable Mahāyāna Buddhist society. The analysis also addresses how Emperor Wu’s criticisms of the śrāvaka precepts became more explicit over time, leading to their marginalization in favor of Mahāyāna interpretations of monastic discipline. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism as a newly redefined identity and Emperor Wu’s integration of religious and political authority were ideologically interlocked forces in the historical context of the Liang dynasty. Full article

This article examines the concepts of violence and religion as social phenomena of modernity. Religion and the church are presented not as specific organizations or denominations, but as important social institutions and are reflected in philosophical and anthropological terms. I carry out the idea that religion as a modern social institute in cooperation with other social communities can resist violence, especially its aggressive forms. Based on some philosophical theories, the causes of the emergence of the different forms of social violence, as well as definitions of violence, are explored. In this context, the article presents the ideas of Hanna Arendt, Carl von Clausewitz, Bertrand de Jouvenel, James Mill, and Max Weber. Special attention is paid to the conception of the mimetic origin of aggression and violence in “primitive” or “archaic religions” elaborated by the French philosopher René Girard. He compares the social roots of aggression and violence in these religions with the Biblical ones and prefers the latter for their potential in preventing and overcoming the imitation types of violence. Girard’s anthropological justification of the mentioned historical religious traditions is presented. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the views of the Eastern Church Fathers of Early Christianity, considered in the concurrence of their humanistic ideas with those of noted contemporary philosophers. I see meaningful ideas for preventing extreme forms of violence and aggression in the contemporary world in the doctrines of the Early Eastern and Byzantine Fathers, especially those of the classical patristic period. In this regard, this article presents the anthropological and humanistic teachings of Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus. The Early Church Fathers’ ideas are analyzed from a philosophical point of view, as having rational and anthropological grounds which are relevant for the present day’s human existence. Full article

We engage the decolonial option from Abya Yala, el Caribe, and Eastern Europe with an interest in suicide from our struggles as racialized people and our dehumanization, whereby, for many of us, suicide is not an act of autonomy or resistance but the reaffirmation of death as an ongoing state of living. This is the permanent reality of existence concocted by coloniality and its constitutive effect on lived experience. We depart from the assumption that suicide materializes according to someone’s thinking about the world and of a particular philosophy. Thus, predominantly, suicide is the universal name someone’s knowledge has given to an experience; and whose experience is named as such is consequently universally configured as a suicidal being. Here, we discuss suicide from understandings that come from non-discursive domains, and from a different genealogy than western Europe’s; the coloniality of the senses, time and being. We attempt to story what violence does in relation to an already violent circumstance, suicide, therapists and hotline workers, and undocumented lives in the U.S., when singularly imposing one way of the world. We are interested in adding visibility to the legacy of erasure and violence that the epistemologies and ontologies of suicide, suicide assessments, and therapists’ clinical judgements perpetuate; further sustaining dehumanization and the imposition of death as a constant in life. We discuss a crisis suicide call as the lay of the land of modernity’s suicide assessments, constructed as an assemblage from our shared memories on many stories we have heard in our work. We annotate it as it unfolds, reflecting upon our expected practices in institutionalized settings, under the control of modernity/coloniality that discriminates against pluriversal temporalities, sensings, and relationalities. Full article

Indigenous foods are used to prepare delicious delicacies (Imefino) in South Africa, and are consumed for their medicinal, food security, and nutritional value. Many of them are rich in macro- and micronutrients and contribute to improving the households’ income. However, the commercialization of many indigenous foods remains problematic with poor market penetration. This study investigates the commercialization status and determinants of indigenous floral food (IFF) commercialization using descriptive statistics, and the double- and triple-hurdle analysis. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect cross-sectional data from 240 rural households in Amathole District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The result shows that most (60%) of the rural households rely solely on agriculture and agricultural-related activities as their source of employment. Ironically, among the rural household heads who are solely engaged in agriculture, most (83%) do not sell IFFs despite being involved solely in agriculture. More so, there is poor commercialization of IFF with the evidence of a low-commercialization index and low-income generation from IFF. However, IFF consumed for medicinal value has a higher commercialization index. Indigenous foods show potential for commercialization if well harnessed. The results also show that if the rural householder is a male and adds value to indigenous floral foods, he is more likely to make a decision that entails him being involved in the commercialization of indigenous floral foods. The result further proves that the influence of households’ willingness to pay for the improved seed of IFFs will not necessarily affect the intensity of IFF commercialization. Household size is among the determinants of IFF commercialization. Commercialization indicators reveal that rural household heads are committing to IFF commercialization. Based on the study’s overall findings, factors such as seasonality, price, demand fluctuation, and other identified challenges in this study affect IFF commercialization. Programs addressing value addition and the domestication of indigenous floral foods, application of marketing philosophy, and marketing mix, among others, are recommended. Full article

“Inoperative Education as Drift Between Eastern and Western Philosophies” expands upon recent notions of “inoperativity” in educational philosophy in the West through an encounter with the Taoist philosophy of Zhuangzi. Thus far, the concept of inoperativity has largely been inspired by Giorgio Agamben, the contemporary Italian critical theorist. Educational theory has taken up inoperativity in order to rethink the school as a space of free time, the student as a studier, and the gymnastic body, to name only a few. Through a comparative, philosophical analysis, inoperativity is rethought in a decisively Taoist register in order to generate three movements of inoperativity: drift as use, drift as use of uselessness, and drift as deactivation of learning (un-learning). Full article

Xie Fuya (N. Z. Zia, 1892–1991), a major Chinese Christian thinker, has contributed much to the development of Sino-theology. However, his work has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. As a thinker who is well-versed in both Chinese and Western philosophies while dedicating himself to the exploration of the philosophy of religion, Xie presents a dual feature in his writings. On the one hand, his work engages in a dialogical discourse between Eastern and Western philosophies. On the other hand, his writings represent an ambitious attempt to interpret traditional Chinese philosophical tenets within the context of Christian theology, transverse from the level of human nature to the level of ontological existence, representing an innovative model of contemplation in the field of Sino-theology. This contribution is of immense value to the development of Chinese philosophical thought. For this reason, this article attempts to illustrate, through Xie’s writings in various stages of his life, his relentless effort to promote the integration of Eastern and Western philosophies within the framework of Chinese thought. His most notable accomplishment in this East–West confluence effort is his unique assumption of God’s attributions as both zhonghe (literally “middle harmony”, connoted as interdependency by Xie) and bianyi (change). Full article

A recent book by Romaric Jannel on the work of the 20th Century Japanese philosopher Yamauchi Tokuryū is reviewed as a prolegomenon in this journal to more detailed studies of Oriental philosophy. Emphasis is placed on the similarities and overlaps of Eastern and Western thought. Full article

In medieval India, the desire for “the unity of Brahman and Self” was present in the Vedānta tradition of Hinduism. Adi Śaṅkara, the master of Vedānta philosophy, proposed the six-fold sādhana: mind control, sense control, mental tranquility, endurance, potential faith, and concentration. These six-fold practices can help Vedānta followers realize unity with Brahman. In medieval Christianity, mysticism was regarded as an important path for Christians to seek a closer relationship with God. Pursuing “the unity of God and man” became the goal and direction of Christians at that time, which could be achieved through spirituality. Bonaventure, known as the Seraphic Doctor, was a representative figure of medieval Christian mysticism. He proposed six stages of spirituality: Sense, Imagination, Reason, Intelligence, Understanding, and Spark of Conscience, through which one can achieve unity with God. This article attempts to compare Bonaventure’s theory of six stages of spirituality with Śaṅkara’s idea of six-fold practice and discover the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western religious spirituality in the Middle Ages. Through this comparison, we can further explore the medieval religious believers’ desire for ultimate reality and try to find the possibility of dialogue between Christianity and Advaita Vedānta. Full article