Mathies—Sketch of course proposals:
Comparative Philosophy (regional):
This course would involve consideration of some regional body of philosophical tradition (as, for
example, Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy, or eventually Islamic philosophy)
that would vary from semester to semester in its specifics and involve comparison with prominent
Western analogues. The advantage of such a regional approach would be that the relevant background
presumptions (cultural, historical, religious, and philosophical) could be more fully explored and
developed as they pertain to a variety of schools of thought within the same milieu of discourse. Some
attention would always be given to comparative methodology, theory, purpose, and problems.
Classical Chinese Philosophy: As one example, last year at JMU, I taught a course in Classical
Chinese Philosophy that was cross-listed as both Selected Topics in Philosophy PHIL 390 and Special
Topics in Religion REL 300. The course focused on classical Chinese philosophy and covered the 6 most
important of the ‘Hundred Schools’: Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism, Yin-Yang Cosmology,
and the School of Names. Special attention was given to students’ reading of selections from the primary
texts Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, Daodejing, Zhuangzi, Mozi, and Hanfeizi. I would next like to adopt this
model for a course in Indian Philosophy to cover classical material in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain
philosophy—or a survey of the History of Chinese Philosophy.
Axial Age—a comparative philosophy course in the history of ideas. In broad outline, this course
would survey the roughly contemporaneous development of several major traditions of philosophy and
religion around the world: the beginnings of Western philosophy in ancient Greece, the rise of ‘ethical
monotheism’ in the Middle East, the transformation of Vedic religion found in the Upanishads, the
reformation of the Buddha, and the origins of Confucianism and Daoism in China. Attention would be
given to the problems of comparative studies and contextualization.
Comparative Philosophy (topical):
This course would involve consideration of a thematic topic or problem within philosophy and
examine the variety of ways in which the problem is approached or answers are grounded from both
Western and non-Western philosophical and religious traditions. The advantage of a topical approach
would be that one problem could be more closely explored through a variety of lenses. Some attention
would always be given to comparative methodology, theory, purpose, and problems.
Examples might include metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical anthropology or the nature of
the person, or the problem of evil, though an attempt would normally be made to avoid topics typically
covered under either of the two courses discussed below. I would be most readily prepared to begin with a
survey of philosophical anthropologies.
Nature of the Person—a comparative philosophy course in philosophical anthropology. This
would involve a fair amount of Western philosophical anthropology (self and identity), except that it
would engage explicit input from religious and non-Western sources, as for example, Buddhist no-self,
Upanishadic identification of true self with God, and so on, as well as consideration of feminist thought
and the embodied self—and even the implications of essentialist definitions for abortion debates.
Comparative Ethical Theories:
This course would involve consideration of a thematic topic or problem within moral, social, or
political philosophy and examine the variety of ways in which the problem is approached or answers are
grounded from both Western and non-Western philosophical and religious traditions. Some attention
would always be given to comparative methodology, theory, purpose, and problems—in this case,
especially the problem of relativism implicit in the idea of multiple perspectives on normative thinking.
Examples might include human rights, democracy, abortion, homosexuality, poverty, war and
peace, the role and treatment of women, environmental ethics, or capital punishment. I would be most
interested in beginning this course with a survey of issues on war and peace—or alternatively with the
diversity of conceptions of the good life and/or the ideal society.
Comparative Religious Ethics—a comparative philosophy course in metaethics. This course
would critically examine the foundations of ethical theory in several major world religious traditions,
especially as the chosen examples shed light on the spectrum of philosophical theories and controversies
of contemporary metaethics. Issues of relativism and universalism, as well as the problems of
comparative studies, and the complications of religious sanction and claims to revelation, would of course
be addressed.
Philosophy of Religion:
This course would treat the traditional Western topics and problems of the philosophy of religion
while expanding into questions and answers posed by non-Western religious traditions. Special attention
might be given, for example, to the variety of conceptions of the Absolute, concerning their ultimate
compatibility or incompatibility and the implications for religious pluralism. This course might possibly
use as a primary text Keith Yandell’s Philosophy of Religion: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge,
1999).
Naming God—a comparative philosophy course in the philosophy of religion. This course would
critically compare various conceptions of the Absolute (drawing from a variety of religious traditions),
including the ways of describing or characterizing God and the implications for religious pluralism—from
Christian emphasis on the saving Name to pluralist conceptions of Hick or Findlay—considering
especially the relation between ‘naming’ and the identity of the referent so designated.