Nietzsche and Other Buddhas: Philosophy after Comparative Philosophy

by Jason M. Wirth

Publisher:

Indiana University Press

, 2021

Overview

“A tour de force that both challenges and expands our understanding of the very practice of philosophy . . . and comparative philosophy in particular” (Joseph Markowski, Reading Religion).

In Nietzche and Other Buddhas, author Jason M. Wirth brings major East Asian Buddhist thinkers into radical dialogue with key Continental philosophers through a series of exercises that pursue what is traditionally called comparative or intercultural philosophy. In the process, he reflects on what makes such exercises possible and intelligible.

The primary questions Wirth asks are: How does this particular engagement and confrontation challenge and radicalize what is sometimes called comparative or intercultural philosophy? How does this task reconsider what is meant by philosophy?

The confrontations that Wirth sets up between Dogen, Hakuin, Linji, Shinran, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, James, and Deleuze consider the nature of philosophy—and especially comparative philosophy—from a global perspective. This global perspective in turn opens up a new and challenging space of thought within and between the cutting edges of Western Continental philosophy and East Asian Buddhist practice.

Praise for Nietzsche and Other Buddhas

Jason Wirth's Nietzsche and Other Buddhas: Philosophy after Comparative Philosophy is a tour de force that both challenges and expands our understanding of the very practice of philosophy in general, and comparative philosophy in particular.

Joseph MarkowskiReading Religion

Jason Wirth has written a book that is the product of his love for both East-Asian and Western philosophy, and as such a book that bridges differences. In that respect, then, Nietzsche and Other Buddhas is an important book for an age marked by intolerance and disregard for the "other". . . and where the love of thought, spirit, and body that is indeed philosophy has an important role to play.

Los Angeles Review of Books

The field of comparative or intercultural philosophy is growing steadily, and Jason M. Wirth's excellent work of scholarship is based on thorough research across several fields of philosophy and contains a host of original insights and good ideas.

Graham Parkes, author of Nietzsche and Asian Thought

The book is rich in subtle details and inquiries. Slim though it is, this is not a book that will be read quickly and then put down as having been read. It is a demanding and yet inviting text. . . . Highly recommended.

Choice

By probing the relationship between the extra-philosophical grounds of philosophy and philosophy itself, Jason M. Wirth puts forward a fundamental meditation on the origin and nature of philosophical activity. Rather than an exercise in comparative philosophy in the traditional sense, he reflects on what makes comparative philosophy possible and intelligible.

André van der Braak, author of Nietzsche and Zen: Self-Overcoming Without a Self

Product Details

• Title: Nietzsche and Other Buddhas: Philosophy after Comparative Philosophy
• Author: Jason M. Wirth
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Print Publication Date: 2021
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Pages: 168
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9780253039743, 9780253039705, 0253039703, 0253039746
• Resource ID: LLS:9780253039743
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T19:24:20Z

About the Author

Jason M. Wirth is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. He is author of Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dogen in an Age of Ecological Crisis;Commiserating with Devastated Things: Milan Kundera and the Entitlements of Thinking; and Schelling's Practice of the Wild: Time, Art, Imagination. He is editor of (with Bret W. Davis and Brian Schroeder) Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School.