Project description DEENESFRITPL Belief and ethics in Chinese Buddhist philosophy The ERC-funded CHINBUDDHPHIL project will contribute to the historical and systematic study of Chinese Buddhist philosophy. It will focus on the Sanlun school, a foundationally important movement derived from Indian Madhyamaka and active during a seminal period in the history of Buddhism in China. Concentrating on the school’s largely unstudied yet highly original conception of how belief relates to ethical action, this will be the first comprehensive elaboration of Sanlun philosophy in any Western language. Moreover, the project will consider Sanlun philosophy alongside its Indian antecedents, later elaborations within Chinese Buddhism and analogues in Western philosophy. CHINBUDDHPHIL will thereby demonstrate that Chinese Buddhist philosophers merit consideration not only as historical artefacts but as genuinely interesting and insightful contributors to long-standing philosophical problems. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Is it ethical to believe? CHINBUDDHPHIL will explore this basic yet troubling question by reconstructing what is a hitherto largely unstudied yet highly original philosophical conception of how belief relates to ethical action. Substantively, this project will constitute a major contribution to the historical and systematic study of Chinese Buddhist philosophy. It will accomplish this end through specialist research on the unduly neglected Sanlun school: A foundationally important movement active during a seminal period in the epochally transformative history of Buddhism in China. This will be the first comprehensive elaboration of Sanlun philosophy in any Western language. By placing Sanlun into debate with its Indian antecedents, later elaborations within Chinese Buddhism, and analogues in Western philosophy, this project will also forge multiple disciplinary innovations. Thus, within philosophy it will transform our understanding of philosophically valuable traditions by demonstrating that Chinese Buddhist philosophers merit consideration not only as historical artifacts but as genuinely interesting and insightful contributors to live philosophical problems. It will likewise redress the preponderant exclusion of Chinese perspectives from philosophically-oriented scholarship in Buddhist studies, and do so in a manner that bridges it with philologically-oriented Buddhology. And by investigating both the transmission of Indian Buddhist thought into China and its transformation once established there, it will revise the standard chronology of Chinese Buddhist philosophy, theorize India-China as a globalized sphere of dynamic intellectual interaction within trans-cultural Asian studies, and inform scholarship on cultural appropriation and assimilation, enculturation, and acculturation – all from a distinctly non-Eurocentric perspective. Methodologically, CHINBUDDHPHIL will use synchronic hermeneutic-philosophical as well as diachronic text-historical methods. Fields of science humanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionreligionseastern religionshumanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryhumanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionphilosophy Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2022-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2022-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC) Host institution OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN Net EU contribution € 1 499 558,00 Address DR. IGNAZ SEIPEL-PLATZ 2 1010 Wien Austria See on map Region Ostösterreich Wien Wien Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 499 558,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN Austria Net EU contribution € 1 499 558,00 Address DR. IGNAZ SEIPEL-PLATZ 2 1010 Wien See on map Region Ostösterreich Wien Wien Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 499 558,00
