"Top Five" Philosophy Works

[george9252]

"The names which come to my mind representing modern Japanese philosophy or
the major spiritual teachers of modern India cannot really compete with
Wittgenstein and Heidegger in terms of innovative thought currents and
impact
on academia (however potentially flawed)."

How about Nishida's INQUIRY INTO THE GOOD?

gc



----- Original Message -----
From: Marilyn L. Sarelas <Msarelas at AOL.COM>
To: <INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 1999 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: "Top Five" Philosophy Works


I assisted with the bibliography for Ninian Smart's World Philosophies (New
York: Routledge, 1999).  The bibliography is divided by chapter headings.
In
addition to the bibliographies for all the traditional philosophical
settings
(chapters on South Asian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Greek-Roman-Near
Eastern, Islamic, Jewish, European, and North American philosophies), there
are bibliographies for some of the modern non-Euro-American contexts
(chapters on the philosophies of Latin America, Modern Islam, Modern South
and South-east Asia, China, Korea and Japan in Modern Times, and Africa).

If there are non-Euro-American contenders for your list of the top five
philosophy books of the 20th century, some of them should appear in those
bibliographies.

Philosophy has been slow to expand into a global context, for reasons that
are interesting to contemplate.  In the ancient setting the philosophical
contributions of India and China are easily discerned.  The outstanding
contributions to human thought in the 20th century--in a global context--are
much more difficult to evaluate, and do not necessarily coincide with the
value perspectives of philosophy departments.  But you have posed an
interesting question.

The names which come to my mind representing modern Japanese philosophy or
the major spiritual teachers of modern India cannot really compete with
Wittgenstein and Heidegger in terms of innovative thought currents and
impact
on academia (however potentially flawed).

I'm not sure what Rawls is doing in that list, and a few of the articles are
certainly debatable.  But note also the problem of women thinkers...