Thoughts and Religions in Asia (20125)
Degree/study: Degree in Humanities
Year: 3rd-4th
Term: 3rd
Number of ECTS credits: 5 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 125 hours
Teaching language or languages: spanish
Teaching Staff: Raquel Bouso
1. Presentation of the subject
Zen Buddhism and the Kyoto School
This course proposes an introduction to the thought and the religions of Asia from the Zen Buddhist tradition and the philosophy developed by the Kyoto School. We will first examine the origins, the doctrinal foundations and the Zen practice, to understand, later on, their influence in the attempts of creating a non-dualist philosophy in modern Japan.
2. Competences to be attained
| General competences | Specific competences |
| 1. Knowing and situating the contributions of the Kyoto School in the history of Philosophy in general and in the Japanese cultural tradition in particular. 2. Achieving a good understanding of the main ideas developed by the Asian Thought and Spirit traditions and of its reception by the thinkers of the Kyoto School. 3. Achieving a better understanding of the formation and the dynamism of the basic concepts in the analysed philosophical traditions and propositions. 4. Getting familiar with the proposed texts, being able to interpret them carefully and to study the most important issues they refer to, as well as the struggles and needs they answer to, thoroughly. |
1. Knowing and situating the great religious traditions. Achieving a good understanding of the main ideas and religious beliefs developed by these traditions. 2. Achieving a better understanding of the formation and the dynamism of the basic concepts of religions. 3. Getting familiar with the proposed texts, being able to interpret them carefully and to study the most important issues they refer to, as well as the struggles and needs they answer to, thoroughly. |
3. Contents
Unit 1. Japanese Thought: historical introduction and characteristic traits.
Unit 2. Zen Buddhism. The origins: the sermons by Buddha; Nagarjuna and the middle-way; the sutras of wisdom; Daoism; the Huyayan and Tiantai schools.
Unit 3: Zen theory and practice: the being and the nothing-ness; the language and silence; the body and the mind.
Unit 4. The bursting of Western philosophy in Japan and the revitalisation of tradition: religious philosophy and the Kyoto School.
Unit 5. The non-dualist proposal by Nishida Kitaro: the notion of pure experience; the self-identity of the contraries; the basho of the absolute nothing-ness, of Nature and of History.
*The full version with the sections 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.
4. Assessment
5. Bibliography and teaching resources
5.1. Basic bibliography
5.2. Complementary bibliography
5.3. Teaching resources
6. Metodology
7. Planning of activities