3rd ISCWP International "Constructive Engagement" Conference — The Methodology of Comparative Philosophy

Call for Papers

Place: Peking University, Beijing, China

Time: June 7-8, 2008

 

Initiator & Academic Organizer:

International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP)

Conference Host:

Department of Philosophy & Institute of Foreign Philosophy, Peking University, China

Co-sponsors:

Department of Philosophy & Institute of Foreign Philosophy, Peking University, China;

Center for Comparative Philosophy, San Jose State University, USA

 

Working Languages:  English, Chinese.

 

Theme:

Comparative philosophy has recently been developing in diverse and challenging ways — perhaps more so than other comparative disciplines such as comparative linguistics, comparative literature, or comparative religion.  Comparative philosophy is a very promising and dynamic approach to doing philosophy, but there is still much room for it to mature further.  One important reason for this may be found in the methodologies of comparative philosophy.  Because such methodologies are closely related to philosophical thinking itself, we meet serious difficulties in overcoming heterogeneities of languages, cultures, and the ways of thinking.  Thus at least initially, a dissertation dealing with either Confucius or Aristotle appears to have more possibilities for success than one dealing simultaneously with both thinkers.  However, not only have there been significant comparative efforts in philosophy — such as the introduction of Buddhism into China or the cases of Leibniz and Heidegger — but also a new trend of globalization demands such efforts.  We need to inquire therefore, on both a theoretical level and via case analyses, into what methodological inefficiencies may have hindered us from achieving more in comparative philosophy? Why did some comparative efforts become so fruitful?  What can we learn from other comparative approaches?  Etc.

The following are some possible issues (only for your reference):

• What approaches to the comparability between Chinese and Western philosophy are most constructive?
• Comparative studies and creative thinking in philosophy. How should we think about the relation between doing comparative philosophy and simply doing philosophy?
• Methodological lessons learned from cross-cultural translations.
• Reflection on the methodologies of previous work in comparative philosophy; possibly including those employed in the ISCWP's two previous major projects concerning Chinese and Western philosophy (i.e., “Davidson's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy” and “Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy”).
• How can we constructively look at the relation between distinct orientations, focuses, and methodological approaches in comparative philosophy?
• Comparisons between comparative philosophy and other comparative approaches to human knowledge.

Submission of Papers:

Papers (in either English or Chinese, together with abstracts) for consideration may be submitted electronically (as a MS Word attachment) to: Xianglong Zhang: xlzhang@phil.pku.edu.cn, or Steve Angle: sangle@wesleyan.edu, or Derong Chen: rogerchen203@hotmail.com. 

All submitted papers will be judged by the review team.  Submitted papers should be approximately 3000 words (10-12 pages), to be presented comfortably in about 30 minutes; their abstracts will be less than 150 words.  The deadline for submission for consideration is January 15, 2008. Notifications of the acceptance decision will be sent out no later than March 15, 2008. If the paper is accepted, the deadline for final version is May 10, 2008.