Critical Buddhism: Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought
Publication Date
Summer 6-26-2011
Description
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the relative calm world of Japanese Buddhist scholarship was thrown into chaos with the publication of several works by Buddhist scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, dedicated to the promotion of something they called Critical Buddhism (hihan bukkyo). In their quest to re-establish a "true" - rational, ethical and humanist - form of East Asian Buddhism, the Critical Buddhists undertook a radical deconstruction of historical and contemporary East Asian Buddhism, particularly Zen. While their controversial work has received some attention in English-language scholarship, this is the first book-length treatment of Critical Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious movement, where the lines between scholarship and practice blur. Providing a critical and constructive analysis of Critical Buddhism, particularly the epistemological categories of critica and topica, this book examines contemporary theories of knowledge and ethics in order to situate Critical Buddhism within modern Japanese and Buddhist thought as well as in relation to current trends in contemporary Western thought.
ISBN
9781315574912
Keywords
Buddhism, criticism, Japan, ethics
Disciplines
Buddhist Studies | Comparative Philosophy | Ethics and Political Philosophy | Japanese Studies
Publisher
Ashgate
City
Richmond, UK
Department
Comparative Humanities
Files
Recommended Citation
Shields, James Mark, "Critical Buddhism: Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought" (2011). Faculty Books. 147.
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/books/147
