Interpreting Across Boundaries

Book excerpt: This volume is a state-of-the art assessment of comparative philosophy written by some of the leading practitioners of the field. While its primary focus is on gaining methodological clarity regarding the comparative enterprise of interpreting across boundaries, the book also contains new substantive essays on Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and European thought. Comparative or cross-cultural philosophy can be seen as a relative newcomer to the field of philosophy. It has its antecedents in the emergence of comparative studies in nineteenth-century European intellectual history, as well as in the sequence of East-West Philosophers` Conferences at the University of Hawaii, which began in 1939. This book will prove to be of great significance in helping to define a field that is only now becoming fully self-conscious, methodologically and substantively, about its role and function in the larger enterprises of philosophy and comparative studies.