Robert Edgar Carter
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Encounter With Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics (Suny Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy) Paperback – June 28, 2001
by Robert Edgar Carter (Author)
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Encounter with Enlightenment provides a comprehensive and compelling account not only of the history and development of Japanese ethics, but also serves as an excellent introduction to and analysis of Japanese religious philosophical thought … The book both calls and challenges its readers to move out of a strictly western framework and into a genuinely global dialogue about ethics and human being-in-the-world.” ― Religious Studies Review
“This new book by Robert E. Carter is the first to give a comprehensive view and a deep understanding of the characteristics of Japanese ethics. Carter describes clearly the early mythological tradition associated with Shinto, as well as the role that Confucianism and Buddhism played in forming an enlightened moral character. Furthermore, he describes how Japanese philosophers in recent times have sought after a new concept of humanity which can unite East and West.” ― Yuasa Yasuo, author of The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy
“…extraordinary…Carter’s integration of Japanese ethics in relation to Zen is admirable.” ― Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing
“Carter has now anchored his position as the comparative philosophy scholar whose clear and unmistakable writing makes him the favorite author of students of the Japanese philosophical tradition. In this new book, Carter sensitively and faithfully explains not only the basics of Japanese ethics, but also the diverse sources of inspiration behind Japanese moral philosophy (Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism), as well as modern Japanese intellectual and spiritual encounters with the West.” ― David Edward Shaner, author of The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism
From the Back Cover
In Encounter with Enlightenment, Robert E. Carter puts forth the East, and specifically Japan, as a source of possible solutions to the world's social, economic, and environmental problems. Not only is the book a sustained scholarly analysis of both the religious and philosophical roots of Japan's distinctive ethical approach to life, but it also provides the Western reader with a context for understanding Eastern values-values that although familiar to the West tend to be deemphasized. Encounter with Enlightenment begins a horizontal fusion between East and West, and establishes a common ground for mutual understanding and for working toward an ethical approach that could resolve some of the earth's difficulties.
About the Author
Robert E. Carter is Professor of Philosophy at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. He is the author of Becoming Bamboo: Western and Eastern Explorations of the Meaning of Life and The Nothingness Beyond God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro; editor of God, the Self, and Nothingness: Reflections Eastern and Western; and translator of Watsuji Tetsuro's Rinrigaku, also published by SUNY Press
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Product details
Series: SUNY series in Modern Japanese Philosophy
Paperback: 292 pages
Publisher: State University of New York Press (June 28, 2001)
Language: English
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Top Reviews
John C. Marshell Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Ethics East and West, Building Bridges of UnderstandingReviewed in the United States on March 2, 2014
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This is an excellent study of Asian enlightenment and ethics. Though the subtitle stresses the Japanese perspective on this subject, Carter's exploration necessarily requires him to explain Chinese and Indian influences on the Japanese tradition providing the reader with a good broader introduction to enlightenment and ethics.
Carter has two purposes in writing this book: Explaining enlightenment and then clearing up common misconceptions found in Western understanding regarding enlightenment and its relationship to ethical behavior. The author possesses an excellent understanding of the East/West divide and how the translation of Eastern philosophical notions into Western culture sometimes results in misunderstanding and misrepresentation. He clearly defines Japanese terms and addresses the difficulties of a non-dual perspective interacting with a Western philosophical system based on discursive reason, subject-object relationships, good and bad, right and wrong.
This book has a strong volitional perspective to its review of enlightenment. The Western tendency to see Asian enlightenment as a sequestrated intellectual event transcending and somewhat disconnected from a juridical and prohibitive understanding of morality is addressed and corrected by Carter through an analysis of "wu-wei." It is a fundamental philosophical term in Asian philosophy usually translated as "non-doing," a spontaneous action absent of calculation or deliberation. Wu-wei is rooted in paradox and defined as an effortless activity grounded in metaphysics and not the human ego yet clearly part of the acting agent. Most Westerners are unaware that early Chinese translators used wu-wei as a correlate for the Indian term nirvana (enlightenment). Carter's book contextualizes the enlightenment experience in the volitional framework of wu-wei and its concomitant psychology of the heart-mind (kokoro)and the virtues of compassion (karuna), piety (makoto), and sympathetic interaction (mudita). Japanese sensibilities do not remove the enlightenment experience to a new plane of understanding beyond the deliberations of an advancing and transcending dialectic (Hegel's view), but move enlightenment into an immanent framework that retains right and wrong in a "pure experience" (Nishida's view) that permits a deeper action, the non-doing of wu-wei, promoting a more pristine good. The common Western belief that Asian philosophies support an ambivalent attitude toward right and wrong, or worse, an amelioration toward evil, is largely based on the Westerner's inability to move from an ego based volition to the ego-less activity found in wu-wei. Such non-doing action is in accord with the metaphysical subtleties of emptiness and nothingness prevalent in Asian philosophies. When removed from this framework to a Western milieu of being and substance oriented metaphysics, the result is warped individualism languishing in a sea of unrefined emotional needs less given to reciprocating human relationships. Carter takes pains to clarify the divide and offer solutions to bridge the cultural and philosophical gap.
Carter does a very good job of reviewing the arguments of comparative concerns. His writing is clear and accessible to an audience well read in Eastern religions or possessing an undergraduate education. His writing style is engaging and creative using themes and imagery commonly found in Asian religion, particularly the Zen tradition. Shinto is also an important part of his analysis drawing in an ecological dimension. This book is highly recommended.
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david edward shaner
5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Encounter with Enlightenment
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2002
Carter has now anchored his position as THE comparative philosophy scholar whose clear and unmistakable writing makes him the favorite author of students of the Japanese philosophical tradition. In this new book, Carter sensitively and faithfully explains not only the basics of Japanese ethics, but also the diverse sources of inspiriation behind Japanese moral philosophy (Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism), as well as modern Japanese intellectual and spritual encounters with the West.
7 people found this helpful
Carter has now anchored his position as THE comparative philosophy scholar whose clear and unmistakable writing makes him the favorite author of students of the Japanese philosophical tradition. In this new book, Carter sensitively and faithfully explains not only the basics of Japanese ethics, but also the diverse sources of inspiriation behind Japanese moral philosophy (Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism), as well as modern Japanese intellectual and spritual encounters with the West.
7 people found this helpful
