Ricki Bliss is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University. Her publications include “On Being Humean about the Emptiness of Causation,” in The Moon Points Back, edited by Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield, Graham Priest, and Koji Tanaka (Oxford University Press, 2015); “Viciousness and Circles of Ground,” Metaphilosophy 45(2) (2014); and “Viciousness and the Structure of Reality,” Philosophical Studies 166(2) (2013).

Christian Coseru is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. He is the author of Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2012), in addition to a number of articles that explore topics in Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology, including “Buddhism, Comparative Neurophilosophy, and Human Flourishing,” Zygon 49(1); “Taking the Intentionality of Perception Seriously: Why Phenomenology is Inescapable,” Philosophy East and West 65(3); “Dignāga and Dharmakīrti on Perception and Self‐Awareness,” in The Buddhist World, edited by John Powers (Routledge, 2013); and “Reason and Experience in Buddhist Epistemology,” in A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, edited by Steven M. Emmanuel (Wiley‐Blackwell, 2013).

David Cummiskey is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Bates College. His research focuses on contemporary issues in moral philosophy, political theory, and intercultural philosophy. He is the author of Kantian Consequentialism (Oxford University Press, 1996). Recent articles include “Comparative Reflections on Buddhist Political Thought: Asoka, Shambhala and the General Will,” in A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, edited by Steven M. Emmanuel (Wiley‐Blackwell, 2013); “Competing Conceptions of the Self in Kantian and Buddhist Moral Theories,” in Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter, 2010); and “Dignity, Contractualism, and Consequentialism,” Utilitas 20(4) (2008).

Bret W. Davis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. Among his books are Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (Northwestern University Press, 2007); co‐edited with Brian Schroeder and Jason M. Wirth, Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Indiana University Press, 2011); and co‐edited with Fujita Masakatsu, Sekai no naka no Nihon no tetsugaku (Japanese Philosophy in the World) (Showado, 2005). He has also published numerous articles in English and in Japanese on continental and comparative philosophy, on the Kyoto School, and on Zen.

Jake H. Davis is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. He trained in Buddhist theory and meditative practice under the meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita of Burma and served for a decade as an interpreter between Burmese and English for meditation retreats in Burma and abroad. He has authored and co‐authored articles at the intersection of Buddhist philosophy, moral philosophy, and cognitive science, and is editor of the forthcoming volume, ‘A Mirror is For Reflection’: Understanding Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press).

Douglas Duckworth is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. He is the author of Mipam on Buddha‐Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition (SUNY Press, 2008) and Jamgön Mipam: His Life and Teachings (Shambhala, 2011). He also translated Bötrül’s Distinguishing the Views and Philosophies: Illuminating Emptiness in a Twentieth‐Century Tibetan Buddhist Classic (SUNY Press, 2011).

Christopher W. Gowans is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. In addition to his numerous articles on topics in moral philosophy and Buddhist thought, he is the editor of Moral Disagreements (Routledge, 2000) and Moral Dilemmas (Oxford University Press, 1989), and author of Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction (Routledge, 2014) and Philosophy of the Buddha (Routledge, 2003).

Steven Heine is Professor of Religious Studies and History as well as Associate Director of the School of International and Public Affairs and Director of Asian Studies at Florida International University. His research specialty is the origins and development of Zen Buddhism, especially the life and teachings of Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō sect. He has published two dozen books, including The Zen Poetry of Dōgen (Tuttle, 1997) and, with Oxford University Press, Opening a Mountain (2002), Did Dōgen Go to China? (2006), Zen Masters (2010), and Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies (2012).

John J. Holder is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Norbert College. He is the author of Early Buddhist Discourses (Hackett, 2006), a volume containing English translations of Pāli discourses that are essential for the study of early Buddhist philosophy. He has also published articles on early Buddhist epistemology, ethics, and social theory, including “A Survey of Early Buddhist Epistemology,” in A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, edited by Steven M. Emmanuel (Wiley‐Blackwell, 2013). His research focus is on comparative philosophy, specifically comparing early Buddhism and classical American pragmatism with the aim of developing a naturalistic theory of aesthetics and religious meaning.

Erin A. McCarthy is Professor of Philosophy at St. Lawrence University. Her research interests include Asian, feminist, continental, and comparative philosophy. She is the author of Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood through Continental, Japanese and Feminist Philosophies (Lexington, 2010).

John Powers is Research Professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. A specialist in Tibetan Buddhism, he is the author of numerous articles and books, including A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex and the Body in Indian Buddhism (Harvard University Press, 2009), A Concise Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion Publications, 2008), and Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion Publications, 2007).

Graham Priest is Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Arché Professorial Fellow at the University of St. Andrews. His books include In Contradiction (Nijhoff, 1987), Beyond the Limits of Thought (Clarendon Press, 2002), Towards Non‐Being (Clarendon Press, 2005), Doubt Truth to be a Liar (Clarendon Press, 2006), and Introduction to Non‐Classical Logic (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2014), and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007); co‐author of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991); and co‐editor of Self, No Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Tom J.F. Tillemans is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Buddhism and currently serves as editor in chief of the “84000” (see http://84000.co), a long‐term project to translate Buddhist canonical literature.

Thanks to Wiley‐Blackwell for permission to reprint an expanded version of Jake H. Davis and Evan Thompson’s “From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal Consciousness: Towards a Cross‐Cultural Cognitive Science,” which first appeared in A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy (Wiley‐Blackwell, 2013).

Thanks also to the editorial team at Wiley‐Blackwell for skillfully guiding this volume through every phase of its production.

Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the contributors for generously lending their scholarly expertise to this project.

In 1906, William DeWitt Hyde, then president of Bowdoin College, penned the words to “The Offer of the College,” his inspiring statement of the value of a liberal education. Chief among the benefits he cited was the promise of becoming a citizen of the world – or as Hyde more elegantly put it, the ability to “be at home in all lands and all ages; …to carry the keys of the world’s library in your pocket, and feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake” (Hyde 1906, 3). In retrospect, one would have to say that the claim to global literacy was something of an overstatement. For the students of Bowdoin’s class of 1906, the world’s library did not extend beyond the classics of the Western tradition. In the philosophy department, for instance, where Hyde served as a faculty member, the curriculum was comprised mainly of courses in psychology (“treated from the point of view of natural science”), introduction to philosophy (being a survey of the familiar “problems” and their proposed “solutions”), history of philosophy (focused on the formation of “the occidental mind”), and ethics (organized around the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Mill, and Spencer).¹

While the curricula of American universities and colleges would, over the course of the twentieth century, gradually expand to include the study of non‐Western civilizations, academic philosophy would remain notably resistant to recognizing the contributions made to its subject matter by other cultures. Indeed, the curriculum taught by Hyde in 1906 was not very different from what we would find in many philosophy departments today, especially in the way it approached the study of mind from “the point of view of natural science.” The insularity of the profession is reflected in the “American Philosophical Association Statement on the Philosophy Major,” which explicitly aligns the discipline with “an intellectual and historical tradition that began some 2,500 years ago in the Greek culture of the eastern Mediterranean region.”² Although the statement does acknowledge the existence of “similar developments” in other cultures, it goes on to define the scope of the discipline by reference to the prominent figures and texts of the Western canon. Even in the association’s statement regarding the “global character” of philosophy – where one might have expected to find a robust call for greater diversity in the curriculum – the reader is merely cautioned that “[t]erms such as ‘History of Philosophy,’ ‘Ancient Philosophy,’ and even ‘the Classics’ are ambiguous” and can easily give rise to confusion, “as when a specialist in the history of Chinese philosophy applies for a job advertised as ‘history of philosophy,’ in the expectation that his or her specialization is among those sought; usually such expectations will be disappointed.”³

Despite the narrow Eurocentric focus of the profession, interest in Asian philosophy has risen steadily in recent decades. This research has been supported mainly by independent societies and a handful of peer‐reviewed journals dedicated to publishing articles in area and comparative studies. We have also seen a noticeable increase in the number of titles on Asian philosophy coming from the most highly respected academic presses. Yet, philosophy departments have been slow to reflect these developments in their course offerings. Even at some of the nation’s most prominent institutions, which have large, well‐staffed philosophy programs,⁴ students who wish to become acquainted with Eastern thought must look for opportunities in other departments. When Asian philosophy courses do appear, they are often limited to a single general survey. These courses vary in scope, from presentations of major themes in classical Chinese philosophy or Buddhist thought, to sweeping overviews of the philosophical traditions of South and East Asia. Needless to say, the sheer breadth of such courses does not allow for a very detailed treatment of the material, let alone a substantive engagement with the diversity it represents.

The tendency to treat Western philosophy as though it were coextensive with the history of the subject is not a harmless conceit. For one thing, it fails to appreciate the fact that philosophy is a universal human activity, and that the Western tradition is but one strand of thinking about questions that have preoccupied human beings for millennia. It suggests, moreover, an artificial and misleading picture of the history and transmission of ideas – one that fails to acknowledge the extent to which the philosophical traditions of every culture have been shaped by their interactions with others. As Justin E.H. Smith observed in a New York Times piece on “Philosophy’s Western Bias,” what we call the “Western” tradition of philosophy is “in the end only a historiographical artifact, a result of our habit of beginning our histories when and where we do, for there was always influence from neighboring civilizations” (Smith 2012). One pertinent example of this influence is the crucial role that scholars in the Islamic world played in preserving, interpreting, and transmitting the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers to medieval Europe.⁵ Smith’s observation is not intended to diminish the value of the Western tradition, but rather to remind us that its richness “has always been a result of its place as a node in a global network through which ideas and things are always flowing. This was true in 500 B.C. and is no less true today” (Smith 2012).

There is a certain irony in the fact that globalization was already creating vibrant and diverse intellectual cultures throughout the pre‐modern world – not least among these the ancient Greco‐Buddhist and medieval Islamic civilizations that flourished in Central Asia⁶ – and yet, in the present age of unprecedented global interconnectedness, we manage to proceed as though the philosophical traditions of half the world did not exist. This irony is not lost on Smith, who concludes his editorial with an admonition:

Western academic philosophy will likely come to appear utterly parochial in the coming years if it does not find a way to approach non‐Western traditions that is much more rigorous and respectful than the tokenism that reigns at present.

(Smith 2012)

Accomplishing this goal will not be easy. First and foremost, it will mean committing ourselves to a philosophical pluralism that not only welcomes non‐Western voices into the conversation but also engages them on their own terms. Further, it will mean fostering the kind of intellectual humility exhibited in Philip L. Quinn’s acknowledgment that we “have much to learn about and from the philosophical theology of medieval Islam, Indian logic and metaphysics, Buddhist philosophy of mind and language, Confucian and Taoist ethics and social philosophy, Zen spirituality and other non‐Western traditions” (Quinn 1996, 172).⁷

Progress toward a globalized philosophical curriculum will undoubtedly be incremental at best. But shifting demographics, combined with a growing recognition that we must prepare our students to live and work in a world of increasing economic and political interdependence, will provide added impetus to change. As Quinn noted twenty years ago, “the waxing economic power of Asia provides an argument from prudence for the conclusion that Americans ought to be learning a lot more than they currently are about Asian cultures, including their philosophical traditions” (Quinn 1996, 172). The force of that argument has not diminished.

However, the pluralist faces other, more practical challenges, as decisions about which courses should be offered and the depth of coverage they should receive are invariably tied to programming constraints and the limitation of resources. The literature comprising the Western tradition is vast, and many departments already struggle with questions about how to provide adequate coverage of its history, seminal thinkers, texts, and problems. The prospect of adding the literatures of other cultural traditions complicates this task considerably. For smaller departments, faced with hard decisions about where to concentrate the talents and energies of their faculty, a truly globalized philosophy curriculum may seem virtually impossible to attain.

Even in departments that have the resources to expand, opponents of change may worry that pluralism threatens to undermine the integrity of the curriculum by promoting multiculturalism and inclusiveness at the expense of depth and specialization.⁸ The preference for depth over breadth is stressed in the American Philosophical Association (APA) statement on the major, which notes that “[a] good understanding of a few important philosophers and central problems of philosophy is better than a mere acquaintance with many of them.” Every philosophy major, we are told, should be introduced to the writings of figures “whose historical importance is beyond dispute, such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant,” as well as “various problems central to the major areas of philosophical inquiry, pertaining to the world’s and our own nature and existence (metaphysics), the knowledge we may have of them (epistemology), sound reasoning (logic), and human conduct (ethics).” These elements are said to constitute the “core” of a good philosophy program, which can then be filled out with a complement of courses that reflect the particular interests of a department. Here, however, the decision to cover non‐Western traditions must compete with the potential value of exploring other periods of Western thought (e.g., Hellenistic or medieval philosophy) or other important subfields of philosophical inquiry, or adding courses in applied philosophy, or utilizing the research specializations of the faculty to engage in a deeper study of selected topics related to the core.

Let us be clear about the nature of the problem. The pluralist’s goal is not, as some in the academy fear, to overturn the Western philosophical canon, but rather to broaden and enrich the curriculum by adding other cultural voices to the conversation.⁹ As Jay L. Garfield and Bryan W. Van Norden explain,

Clearly, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with philosophy written by males of European descent; but philosophy has always become richer as it becomes increasingly diverse and pluralistic. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) recognized this when he followed his Muslim colleagues in reading the work of the pagan philosopher Aristotle, thereby broadening the philosophical curriculum of universities in his own era. We hope that American philosophy departments will someday teach Confucius as routinely as they now teach Kant, that philosophy students will eventually have as many opportunities to study the “Bhagavad Gita” as they do the “Republic”….

(Garfield and Van Norden 2016)

The question is whether, given the aforementioned constraints, we can realistically hope to accomplish this goal while honoring our commitment to preserve and transmit what is most valuable in the Western tradition. Can we do better than simply adding a perfunctory survey course on Asian philosophy? Must we settle for what John J. Stuhr has called “a pluralism by partition,” or a “mere plurality” (Stuhr 1997, 52) that amounts to the kind of tokenism decried by Smith?

It is the premise of this volume that we can do better. The goal of adding diversity to the philosophy curriculum does not require a proliferation of courses. A meaningful pluralism can be achieved simply by introducing a comparative element into the courses we already teach – that is, expanding our inquiry into the central problems of philosophy by incorporating the ideas and arguments of thinkers from other traditions. This comparative approach sidesteps concerns about watering down the curriculum, as it offers us a natural way of integrating different cultural perspectives into any course at any level, whether an introduction to philosophy, an advanced seminar in analytic epistemology, or a course on feminist thought.

The present volume demonstrates how a “more rigorous and respectful” engagement with the great thinkers and texts of the Buddhist tradition can expand and enrich our philosophical discourse. The contributors are all trained in the Western tradition but have a firm grounding in Buddhist philosophical literature. While the approach they take is comparative, their goal is not merely to provide descriptive accounts of what influential Buddhist thinkers have written. Nor is it simply to pose Western questions and look for Buddhist answers to them. Rather, the contributors have set up their discussions in a way that allows for a genuine cross‐cultural dialogue by engaging Buddhist thinkers on their own terms, thereby allowing different questions and answers to be framed through the Buddhist texts.

The comparative approach modeled in this volume is informed by a deeper understanding of diversity – one that moves beyond the tokenism that includes but does not necessarily value different points of view. For what the pluralist seeks is not merely variety, but a richer sort of diversity that implies what Peter D. Hershock calls “a distinctive and achieved quality of interaction” (Hershock 2012, 49). Among other things, this means engaging culturally different perspectives in a way that allows for a process of rigorous critical assessment in both directions. As Julian Baggini commented in a recent piece,

The point of cross‐cultural inquiry is not to reach some kind of warm, ecumenical mutual understanding, rooted in profound respect for difference. Rather it is to see that our questions are not the only ones worth asking and that by considering others, we might not only open up new vistas but also see our familiar intellectual territory in a different light.

(Baggini 2016)

A substantive engagement with Buddhist thought creates opportunities for us to gain insight into the nature of the philosophical process by reflecting on the kinds of questions we ask and the methods we use to arrive at answers to them.¹⁰ It may even point to the limitations of certain questions that have been central to the Western tradition – questions that may not be as useful or meaningful today as they were in earlier times, and perhaps never were for thinkers in other traditions.

A key feature of this volume is the recognition that philosophical traditions are not monolithic. The history of Buddhist thought is long, culturally diverse, and informed by different textual traditions. One is always on thin ice when making blanket generalizations about what “Buddhists” think. The Western tradition is similarly heterogeneous, with a wide variety of methods and approaches having developed over the course of its rich history. For this reason, the chapters are organized around the writings of prominent thinkers and movements in Buddhist and Western thought, with a view to reflecting the diversity found within each tradition.

In the opening chapter Gowans compares Buddhist and Hellenistic conceptions of philosophy as a way of life. Focusing on a seminal text in Tibetan Buddhist literature, Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise, the discussion highlights the similarities between the two traditions, but also draws attention to some important differences between Tsongkhapa’s approach, which emphasizes the importance of serenity meditation as a basis for sound philosophical reflection, and the various forms of “spiritual exercise” presented in Stoic and Epicurean writings.

Duckworth (Chapter 2) offers an illuminating discussion of the sixth‐century philosopher Dignāga that draws important parallels between his Yogācāra theory and the panpsychism developed in the work of F.H. Bradley and others. The result is a nuanced reinterpretation of Dignāga’s position that reveals it to be more complex than the version of subjective idealism commonly ascribed to him.

Holder (Chapter 3) explores the deep connections between Deweyan pragmatism and early Buddhist metaphysics. Borrowing philosophical ideas from each tradition, he constructs a strong ontological form of emergentist naturalism: a metaphysical view that represents a middle way between dualism and reductive physicalism.

Bliss and Priest (Chapter 4) investigate the concept of metaphysical dependence. They show that while Buddhist and Western philosophers put forward radically different accounts of the dependence relation (Buddhist accounts being largely anti‐foundationalist, and Western accounts largely foundationalist), careful consideration of the arguments developed on each side provides rich opportunities for cross‐cultural dialogue and critical reassessment.

Tillemans (Chapter 5

Coseru () puts the seventh‐century Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti into conversation with contemporary epistemologists regarding the relation between reasons and causes. He shows that the causal model of embodied cognition implied in Dharmakīrti’s theory of inference can be read as a version of “process externalism,” according to which reasons depend on bodily processes that are embedded in the environment.

Chapter 7

Chapter 8Blue Cliff Record

Chapter 9A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy

Chapter 10

Chapter 11¹¹

In the concluding chapter, Powers reexamines the role of rebirth in Buddhist thought in light of the tendency among modernist Buddhists to downplay the importance of that teaching. Powers’ discussion not only illuminates the deeper ethical implications of rebirth for understanding Buddhist compassion and social engagement, but also demonstrates some of the dangers involved in comparative studies that attempt to decontextualize Buddhist ideas.