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Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy
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This is a book for scholars of Western philosophy who wish to engage with Buddhist philosophy, or who simply want to extend their philosophical horizons. It is also a book for scholars of Buddhist studies who want to see how Buddhist theory articulates with contemporary philosophy. Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy articulates the basic metaphysical framework
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Paperback, 400 pages
Published
January 19th 2015
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published November 23rd 2014)
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Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy
This is a bit long. Read at your peril.
First, just a note to say that for the last couple of years, I have reserved a 5 Star rating for books that succeed in altering my worldview to some degree. Engaging Buddhism has done so.
Now for the disclaimer: the blurb for the book states that it "... is a book for scholars of Western philosophy who wish to engage with Buddhist philosophy, or who simply want to extend their philosophical horizons. It is al ...more
This is a bit long. Read at your peril.
First, just a note to say that for the last couple of years, I have reserved a 5 Star rating for books that succeed in altering my worldview to some degree. Engaging Buddhism has done so.
Now for the disclaimer: the blurb for the book states that it "... is a book for scholars of Western philosophy who wish to engage with Buddhist philosophy, or who simply want to extend their philosophical horizons. It is al ...more

Garfield elucidates views in Mahayana and Yogacara Buddhism on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, logic, phenomenology, and the self. He does this in an incredibly clear and concise manner. (He also has a fantastic style and sense of humor!) Garfield shows that the philosophical problems to which these Buddhist philosophers responded have resemblances to those found in the Western tradition. But these Buddhist philosophers start off from radically different assumptions than those in Western phil
...more

You won't find a better start point for engagement between Buddhism and western philosophy. Garfield brings his expertise in both to convincingly show that western philosophy will be far better off if it engages with Buddhist philosophy.
Garfield's breadth of knowledge is somewhat mind-blowing. Particularly in the western tradition, he is as comfortable talking about the continental greats (Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche) as the analytic giants (Wittgenstein, Kripke). Garfield's study under Tibeta ...more
Garfield's breadth of knowledge is somewhat mind-blowing. Particularly in the western tradition, he is as comfortable talking about the continental greats (Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche) as the analytic giants (Wittgenstein, Kripke). Garfield's study under Tibeta ...more

Difficult, but rewarding overall—
This is a difficult book to engage with, not just because of Garfield's liberal use of academic jargon (abstracta, relata, explanans, explanandum, sequelae, etc.), but because so much of his discussions assumes a pretty intimate knowledge of contemporary Western philosophical topics on the part of the reader. I majored in (Western) philosophy in college and although I haven't read contemporary philosophy intensively since then, I consider myself sufficiently info ...more
This is a difficult book to engage with, not just because of Garfield's liberal use of academic jargon (abstracta, relata, explanans, explanandum, sequelae, etc.), but because so much of his discussions assumes a pretty intimate knowledge of contemporary Western philosophical topics on the part of the reader. I majored in (Western) philosophy in college and although I haven't read contemporary philosophy intensively since then, I consider myself sufficiently info ...more
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