The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism

The thesis of this work is that in both modern Japanese philosophy and American pragmatism there has been a paradigm shift from a monological concept of self as an isolated "I" to a dialogical concept of the social self as an "I-Thou relation," including a communication model of self as an individual-society interaction. It is also shown that for both traditions all aesthetic, moral, and religious values are a function of the social self arising through communicative interaction between the individual and society. However, at the same time this work critically examines major ideological conflicts arising between the social self theories of modern Japanese philosophy and American pragmatism with respect to such problems as individualism versus collectivism, freedom versus determinism, liberalism versus communitarianism, and relativism versus objectivism.

Author: Steve Odin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 01/10/1996
Pages: 482
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 8.98h x 5.89w x 1.08d
ISBN: 9780791424926

About the Author
Steve Odin is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He is the author of Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration vs. Interpretation, also published by SUNY Press.

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