Customer Reviews

Self As Person in Asian Theory and Practice

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This book presents a collection of articles by scholars from different cultures and disciplinary perspectives. Roger T. Ames , the editor of the excellent journal, Philosophy East and West, explains in the introduction that most of the articles were selected from papers presented and discussed at the East-West Centre in Honolulu. It is the second volume of a project on the concept of self, the sequel to "Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice". It is a good addition to the SUNY press series.
Of the 16 essays, which are of varying merit, I find numbers 4,5,7,12,16 interesting. Here are their titles:
4 Researching the Strata of the Japanese Self
5 Migawari: The Cultural Idiom of Self-Other Exchange in Japan
7 Embodying the Universe: A Note on Confucian Self-Realization
12 The Perception of Self in Indian Tradition
16 Selves in Motion: An Indian-Japanese Comparison.
It is a book addressed to an academic public well-educated in comparative philosophy. It offers a wide spectrum of perspectives and high-octane thinking. At moments, it tends to be dry. There are good bibliographical resources and an interesting index. To sum up, this is a useful but complex collection of essays.