One challenge involved in integrating so-called ‘non-Western’ philosophies into ‘Western’ philosophical discourse concerns the fact that non-Western philosophical texts frequently differ significantly in style and approach from Western ones, especially those in contemporary analytic philosophy. But how might one bring texts that are written, for example, in a literary, non-expository style, and which do not clearly advance philosophical positions or arguments, into constructive dialogue with those that do? Also, why might one seek to do this in the first place? This paper addresses these questions by means of a case study involving the Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi.

Karl Löwith moved to Japan in 1936 where he became acquainted with the founder of the School of Kyôto, Nishida Kitarô. Löwith was unable to appreciate the meaning of Nishida’s philosophy and maintained, until the late 1940s, a Eurocentric point of view regarding Japanese culture. Nonetheless, beyond this missed historical encounter between Löwith and Nishida lies a space of philosophical common ground located in a shared understanding of time and history that puts much emphasis on the eternal present and the impossibility of thinking history as a linear progression bringing salvation, as some philosophies of history have attempted to prove.

We argue that philosophy education across the globe is still bedevilled with the ‘politics’ of marginalization of less favoured traditions like African philosophy. Extant works show that the conventional curriculum of philosophy used in educational institutions across the globe is predominantly Western and, as such, very much colonial. We contend that this amounts to a sort of ‘epistemic injustice’ that is detrimental to knowledge production. We argue specifically that this ‘politics’ should be discontinued. We propose the conversational tradition, out of which a philosophy curriculum that is comprehensive and antithetical to the politics of exclusion may be developed.

I analyze the extent to which the theoretical cogency and practical efficacy of descriptive and ameliorative social constructionist programs are affected by relativism in the context of competing analyses of some purported social construction X. My task in this paper is successful if it can explain, organize, and clarify how relativism concerning the question ‘What should our concept of X be?’ affects social constructionist programs, and ameliorative versions of social constructionism especially. In this paper, I aim to make clearer to those not well-versed in this field what is at stake in these programs and why these programs should not be easily dismissed.

People disagree about the causes of social inequality and how to most effectively intervene in them. These may seem like empirical questions for social scientists, not philosophers. However, causal explanation itself depends on broadly normative commitments. From this it follows that (moral) philosophers have an important role to play in determining those causal explanations. I examine the case of causal explanations of poverty to demonstrate these claims. In short, philosophers who work to reshape our moral expectations also work, on the back end, to restructure acceptable causal explanations—and hence solutions—for social inequality. Empirical and normative inquiry, then, are a two-way street.

In this paper, I describe some of the history of work on human reasoning done by philosophers and experimental psychologists. This particular interdisciplinary work is interesting because it shows the ways that interdisciplinary research can solidify pervasive preconceptions in a particular field. Work in experimental psychology has shown that certain normative systems fail to model reasoning in natural language contexts. Thus, I will argue, philosophers could instead take this psychological research as motivation to amend these normative models or radically change our ideas about how these models are applied to reasoning in natural language.

Recently American scholars have examined the politics of mourning in relation to anti-black racism in the United States. Drawing on the work of queer theorist Maggie Nelson, I will illustrate that a political sense of mourning is also relevant to queer theory and life as a way to bear witness to the violence of the sex-gender system even as we find ways of navigating through it. Lastly, I will defend the claim that a sense of mourning-without-end is political for any marginalized population that suffers from social death and from the disavowal of its suffering through the normalization of violence against them.

The recent push to diversify philosophy courses is often motivated by a desire to include underrepresented students. Although incorporating non-Western philosophy would achieve greater diversity, there seems to be no special reason to select non-Western traditions for this purpose. I argue this appearance is deceiving. Data suggests an absence of non-Western content in the curriculum causes alienation for some of our students of colour. Given the minimal burden it would impose on philosophy instructors to address this suffering, we have good reason to include some non-Western content in our introductory courses, where it is likely to have the greatest impact.

In discussions of the underrepresentation of women in professional philosophy, those sceptical of discrimination as an explanation often suggest that gender differences in interests are a plausible alternative hypothesis. Some suspect that if women’s differing interests explains underrepresentation, then interventions suggested by the discrimination hypothesis might be unnecessary—or even risky. I argue that one needs to consider how stereotypes might influence interests, and that doing so can provide a more even-handed assessment of the risks involved in proposed interventions.

This paper argues that philosophical practice in the Western world, in particular analytic philosophy, suffers from problems that contribute to its lack of diversity in two senses: the exclusion of women and minorities, and a narrow choice of subjects and methods. This is not fruitful for philosophical exchange and the flourishing of philosophical thought. Three contributing factors are covered: a flawed execution when instilling intellectual humility; the gaslighting of women in philosophy; and an overemphasis on a narrow conception of intelligence. The conclusion calls for a more humane and socially aware practice of philosophy.