A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy
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This first of its kind sourcebook brings together over fifty leading contemporary philosophers and translators in order to highlight the depth, diversity, and creativity of non-Western philosophical traditions. It does so by featuring the major ideas, themes, and arguments of Africana, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Jewish, Latin American, Mesoamerican, Native American, and Taoist philosophy through translations of nearly one hundred philosophical texts from sixteen different languages (namely, Arabic, Aramaic, Chinese, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Judeo-Arabic, Korean, Maasai, Mayan, Persian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Tibetan, Turkish, and Urdu). The volume also contains several key works of global philosophy originally written in English. Topics covered include metaphysics, cosmology, epistemology, philosophy of language, logic, ethics, storytelling, philosophy of religion, selfhood, death, and freedom. A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy will prove to be indispensable to all students and teachers of philosophy, religion, and comparative literature.
Published: Apr 15, 2025
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Reviews
In an age where the global and the philosophical are increasingly flattened, this precious book has two immense merits. The first is to free philosophy from parochial European and North American reductive views of it that are largely characterized by an overemphasis on rationality and individualism. The second is to contribute to the reintroduction, and hopefully restoration, of the highest meaning of philosophy as the love of wisdom and as the way leading to it.
Patrick Laude, Georgetown University
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy challenges the attempt to restrict the expression of philosophy to prose texts and/or the view that attributes the ability to philosophize to merely one subsection of the human population. This work will be a rich source for those seeking to learn about world philosophies, diversify their understanding of academic philosophy, and reorient their ways of being and thinking.
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, VU University Amsterdam
Mohammed Rustom’s sourcebook joins Bryan Van Norden’s Taking Back Philosophy as one of the most significant steps forward for global philosophy over the past decade. This diverse collection of primary sources in translation challenges cultural assumptions that have long plagued philosophy departments worldwide. If philosophy seeks to be free from the shackles of European and American ethnocentrism, A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy is the model to follow.
Cyrus Ali Zargar, University of Central Florida
Without dialogue, a contemporary philosopher warns, philosophy reduces to dogma.
The ancients knew this to be true, of individuals as well as traditions. Which is why the
Buddhist ruler Aśoka once said that there ought to be a desire to listen and to learn
from philosophy in many traditions, if one wishes to exemplify success in one’s own.
This excellent Sourcebook in Global Philosophy can help to seed the necessary desire, and to practice the kinds of dialogue so long valued by philosophers across the globe.
Sonam Kachru, Yale University