Buddhism and American Thinkers

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In Buddhism and American Thinkers, leading scholars explore Buddhist influences on the currents of American thought. The essays presented here advance a continuing dialogue between East and West and show how Buddhism has made ever-deepening penetrations into the very substratum of American thinking. Contributors to this volume share a concern with ideas that constitute a common core of Buddhist and American philosophy. Each relates Buddhism to a factor in American thinking, exploring the numerous ways in which Buddhist perspectives on personal identity, human suffering, and alienation, the nature of compassionate love, and the social nature of ultimate reality amplify and clarify perspectives found in the “golden age” of American philosophy, particularly in the thought of William James, Josiah Royce, Alfred North Whitehead, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Charles Hartshorne, the great living American philosopher. Buddhism and American Thinkers brings new light to the interrelationship between an ancient orientation to life and the very deepest ideas in the history of American thought.

Table of Contents
Introduction: The Buddhist-American Encounter in Philosophy
1 "Toward a Buddhist-Christian Religion" by Charles Hartshorne
2 "The Width of Civilized Experience" by David L. Hall
3 "A Buddhist Analysis of Human Experience" by Nolan P. Jacobson
4 "Mahayana Enlightenment in Process Perspective" by Jay McDaniel
5 "The American Involvement With Sunyata: Prospects" by Kenneth K. Inada
6 "Buddhism and Wieman on Suffering and Joy" by David Lee Miller
7 "Buddhist Logic and Western Thought" by Richard S. Y. Chi
8 "Buddhism and Process Philosophy" by Robert C. Neville
9 "Interrelational Existence" by Hajime Nakamura