Volume 7, Issue 1

Time has often been understood as either linear or cyclical, sometimes in Eurocentric ways that enclose Indigenous peoples in natural cycles with little or no historical development. This article explores an alternative to the line and the circle. In the context of environmental destruction, Indigenous scholars have suggested that traditional Indigenous accounts of spiraling time, from the Anishinaabe and Māori to the Aztecs and Muskoke, better connect nature with human history as well as more appropriately link human generations, including ancestors and descendants. Exploring its connection with the hermeneutic circle and other notions, I will propose the spiral as indeed a promising way to grasp these important connections. In conclusion, I will discuss the question of whether Indigenous spiral ontologies can be proposed for all of humanity beyond knowledge extractivism.

The chapter begins with the idea that fostering emotions that acknowledge one's role, whether direct or indirect, in causing harm to the environment can encourage eco-friendly behavior. In Western environmental discussions, guilt is often emphasized, whereas Eastern perspectives lean towards shame when addressing responsibility for environmental damage. While guilt discourse is prevalent, ecoshame remains unexplored in the context of environmental ethics. Hence, the chapter draws on Chinese texts to offer an exploration into the potential of this affect to promote responsible environmental actions. This exploration enables a reevaluation of what it means to live on a planet that experiences ecocide.

The article carves out a tripartite ontology and related cosmological views, prevalent in many African philosophical accounts, and shows their significance for environmental ethics. It presents distinct cultural practices towards non-human animals and the environment such as totemism, taboos, and the sacralization of natural sites. In a next step, the author identifies specific moral principles that can be derived from this complex ontology and its related cultural practices, such as sufficiency, care, and sharing. This approach in environmental ethics can be situated as constituting a ‘plural holism’. Finally, the article contrasts this plural holism with neoliberal and neo-colonial practices prevalent in the contemporary world and calls for a consideration of these ethical values to guide the necessary transformation of our societies.

In this essay, I aim to highlight the neglected fundamental notion of Motherhood as an ethical principle within Chinese philosophy, particularly in Taoism. Traditionally, it has been relegated to the realm of the Yin-Principle or the Feminine, serving as a complementary as well as opposite pole to the Yang- or Masculine-Principle. However, this interpretation would lead to the narrowing of the primordial essence and potentially misinterpret the fundamental ethos of Taoism. This exploration has implications that reach beyond its very theme. Through the discussions within contemporary Confucianism surrounding concepts like Tian-Xia (天下, All under Heaven), Qinqin (亲亲, Family), or role ethics, it becomes evident that a patriarchal emphasis often prevails, overshadowing the maternal character of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. In contrast to monotheistic traditions where an almighty God creates ex-nihilo (out of nothing), Chinese mythology, as seen in the stories of Pangu and Nüwa, depicts an archaic development of the cosmos, distinct from the creation myths found in Western religions. Notably, the goddess Nüwa is credited with the creation of human beings. In the following, I will explore the ethical dimensions of motherhood within Chinese philosophical traditions, notably within the intertwined contexts of Confucianism, Sinicized Buddhism, and particularly Taoism. Through this examination, my objective is to scrutinize the ethical and cultural underpinnings of Confucianism by juxtaposing the interplay between Confucian tenets like Ren (仁, benevolence, humanity) and self-cultivation with maternal ethical principles. This will underscore the differences between maternal and paternal roles within familial relationships and unveil the implicit authoritarianism inherent in Confucian paternalism.

From a transcultural stance the contribution explores an access to the problem of nature and time which relies on our embodied experience of our environment. By means of a phenomenological investigation into distinctive features of Japanese gardens, such as rocks and trees, the specific temporalities incorporated in these elements become elucidated. The intention is to invalidate the Eurocentric opposition of nature and culture, as the “natural” environment grows together with “cultural” activities, and cannot be separated from human engagement, in the case of Japanese gardening. There “nature” cannot become objectified or conceptually determined. It can only be disclosed by our bodily getting involved in an environment, encompassing a peculiar way of “becoming time”. This mode of temporalization exhibits significant similarities with Martin Heidegger’s Gelassenheit . Therefore, time and nature in a Japanese garden both request and set forth, a specific existential attitude towards our life environment.

Heidegger suggests that the manner of research is neither historiological nor systematic, but instead phenomenological. The phenomenological approach to time is to grasp time from the existence of Dasein. If time is understood from a phenomenological standpoint, the Great Wall has rich and vivid images, thus revealing very different life implications. But phenomenological time cannot be divorced from historical time or systemic time; otherwise, we cannot understand the life of the Other.

Landscape painting flourished in the late Tang dynasty and reached its peak during the Song dynasty. It means that the artistry of landscapes no longer serves as decoration for portraits, nor is it merely a backdrop for unfolding stories. Instead, it is a simple pursuit of the aesthetic pleasure derived from landscapes themselves. In this pursuit, the landscape painting of the Song dynasty had a profound impact on the subsequent development of landscape art, both in terms of form and the spiritual content expressed. It is not an exaggeration to say that Song dynasty landscape painting laid the foundation for the tradition of literati landscape painting. Guo Xi, a master of landscape painting and a painter-theorist in the mid-Northern Song period, actively explored his artistic practice. He also reflected on and summarized his methods. From the overall conception of the meaning of landscapes to the self-pursuit of brushwork style, Guo Xi endeavored to narrow the gap between abstract ideas and concrete execution. His efforts resonated with the Daoist philosophy of Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Song, transcending the dimensions of transcendental “essence” and personal “effort” to establish a connected path of nature, body, and destiny. From a different perspective, this also represents the interplay of cosmology and ontology through generative time.

In this paper, I aim to interpret the mind-body-land connection that Christianity and Buddhism suggestively teach as a three-stage extension process of the field of experience, which proceeds accordingly as the three-step movement of our experience develops. Drawing on the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro, I first show why the mind or one’s subjective consciousness deserves to be regarded as the field of experience corresponding to the first phase of the movement of experience. I then explore how the second phase of the movement of experience requires the body as its corresponding field, which also serves as a seat of super-individual unity provided by the unifying power of nature. On this basis, I finally argue that this transpersonal power of nature is combined with that of society. Inspired by the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani, I thus seek to clarify that these both powers are merged into the land as the ultimate field of our experience.

The concept stepping-out-of-oneself concerns a process by which things manifest themselves and make themselves present. This process does not depend on subjective influence but on the power of the thing itself. In this respect, the value of the thing itself and its impact on the sensory experience are brought to the foreground. From an aesthetic point of view, this concept corresponds to a new orientation of contemporary aesthetics of nature, which reflects the programmatic weakening of the subject-centered approach, the estrangement from the substance ontology as well as the phenomenological interest in the power of things. In this article, I attempt to argue that traditional Daoist thought can also provide a point of contact for the exploration of stepping-out-of-oneself. The focus on my study is on two issues: 1. under what circumstances is stepping-out-of-oneself possible? 2. how is it possible to perceive stepping-out-of-oneself?

For most of the twentieth century, spiritual traditions were understood to be a factor in slowing down and retarding the development of societies. Religion and spirituality were associated with traditionalism or conservatism, with maintaining stagnant understandings of society. In the time of post-secularity, the possibility of embracing spiritual traditions to help promote societies’ common good is opening up. The question that arises is how this can be possible and how spiritual traditions can contribute to the common good.

This paper reflects on the attempt to ‘re-sacralize’ the cosmos in the context of the ‘return of religion’ to the public sphere, which has led scholars to describe our age as post-secular. This phenomenon contrasts with the association between secularization and disenchantment with the world that seemed to characterize modernity in some Western societies. On the one hand, the paper considers the idea of the sacredness of nature as a means of promoting respect for it and preserving it. Here the question is posed as to what extent this attitude has a place in today’s religions. On the other hand, the feasibility of this possibility without displacing an anthropocentric vision of the world that seems to have been central to some religions is pointed out. Finally, these issues are illustrated with some concrete examples within the Buddhist and Christian traditions.