Multicultural Philosophy

Philosophy, understood as the attempt to understand our world and our place in it, is not a uniquely western or European phenomenon, with longstanding and esteemed philosophical traditions in China, Japan, India, and the Muslim world, and sophisticated philosophies throughout Africa.

Yet ideas and figures from these traditions are absent from all but a tiny minority of western philosophy departments. Because of this, in recent years there have many calls for western Philosophy departments to diversify their curricula and introduce non-western thinkers and ideas into their courses.

The case for doing so is compelling but a practical problem remains: as most academics in such departments have been trained exclusively in the western philosophical tradition and are specialists in some aspect thereof, how might those who wish to include non-western ideas and voices in their courses best go about doing so in a non-tokenistic way? Which ideas and/or which thinkers from the many longstanding non-western philosophical traditions should western philosophers seek to include in their courses? And what context do they need to be able to teach these ideas and thinkers effectively?

The aim of this conference is to consider different answers to these questions.