Philosophy in a global perspective

A public lecture series at Heidelberg University will address the question of how philosophy can be viewed from a global perspective and what challenges and opportunities arise from this. The Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" at Ruperto Carola invites you to attend. To open the series, Ori Sela from Tel Aviv University (Israel) will give a lecture on how philosophy as a category of knowledge came from Europe to China and what processes of change it was exposed to in the process. The English-language event will take place on Thursday, 20 October 2011, at the Karl Jaspers Zentrum and will begin at 6.15 pm. As Birgit Kellner, Professor of Buddhism Studies at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe", explains, "today it can be considered an undisputed fact that philosophy also originated outside Europe. For example, the term 'philosophy' was taken up by elites in China and India and used to re-articulate their own history of ideas. The six lectures in the series will deal with parallels and contrasts between Neoplatonism in Europe and Buddhist currents in ancient India, as well as Mahatma Gandhi and the philosophical foundations of violence.