Asian Philosophies

1. Embedding Asian philosophical systems in its historical and broader social-cultural environment and on the world stage.
2. Methodological approaches to problem fields in Asian philosophies and specific philosophical terminology, related to its differences in relation to the European or Judeo-Christian view on the world and human being’s place in it.
3. Development of various metaphysical systems in India (philosophical schools of sāṃkhya, advaita, dvaita, viśiṣṭādvaita …) and attempts at their deconstruction (Buddhism, Materialism, Determinism).
4. Ontology (philosophical schools of nyāya and vaiśeṣika – substantiality, categories of entities, types of knowledge, cognitive errors, syllogistic form, absence and negation).
5. The issue of knowledge and the question of the relevance of language in the attempt at reaching the ultimate truth and its expressibility in various schools of Buddhism (mādhyamika, chan) and in Daoism. The Emptiness Teaching, the role of negation and its paradoxes.
6. Holistic ways of approaching truth and wisdom, transcending rationalistic approaches and related to various techniques of cultivating the inseparable continuum of mind-body (ancient philosophical system of yoga, Daoism).
7. Ethics and soteriology: relationship between theoretical-practical, mind-body, individual-society, order-chaos, macro-/microcosmos, life-death. Various soteriological guidelines, ways of reaching freedom and identification mechanisms related to the ancient philosophy of yoga and its strategies of liberation.
8. Ethics and political philosophy: Asian philosophies between tradition and modernity. Utopistic models of society (Daoism, Confucianism) and their role in the contemporary social reality. Neo-Confucianism, the revitalization of Confucius, legalism, liberal movements in China.
9. Learning about topical issues opened up by the globalized world reality, and explication of specific solutions offered by various Asian philosophical traditions.
10. Philosophical dialogue between Europe and Asia. The question of method, influences on the cultural-philosophical region of Asia. The Kyoto School in Japan.

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