Culture and Ethnicity in Philosophy

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This site gathers resources relevant to the philosophical study of culture and ethnicity. Included here are links to philosophy in specific cultures, philosophical anthropology, and cross-cultural and intercultural philosophy. This is not a page dealing with philosophy in Western culture, for the most part, except inasmuch as that philosophy is expressed in cultural or ethnic terms. Western cultural studies are also not included here; there are other good pages for that. I have also not included general link pages in other languages unless they specifically focus on philosophy done in a particular culture; Peter Suber has already done this. Finally, I have not included pages that are simply located in a specific place, for that would include all philosophy pages everywhere. I am interested in pages that consciously reflect on the intersection of philosophy and culture, or philosophy and a particular culture.

A word about philosophy, religion, and culture: Clearly, the line between religion and philosophy in many traditions is not as stark as in Western philosophy. It is therefore worth including sites that reference religious traditions. One could hardly make sense of Indian philosophy without taking Buddhism into account, for example, even though Buddhism is not the only constituent of Indian thought. However, I recognize that religious tradition is not identical to cultural or ethnic tradition. I cannot, for instance, list "Muslim philosophy" and "Arabic philosophy" under the same heading, as if all things Muslim are Arabic and vice versa. At the same time, religion and culture are not separate, unrelated entities either. The best I can do is to make a separate page that includes religious philosophies. This does not mean to suggest that religion is separable from the cultures in which it is found, only that conceptual and organizational distinctions can be made. That page is located here.

This page has benefitted from links drawn from Thomas Stone's Episteme Links, Peter Suber's Guide to Philosophy on the Internet, and Dey Alexander'sPhilosophy in Cyberspace, as well as many other sources. In particular, links have been drawn from the Polylog site, which I consider to be the best site for intercultural philosophy on the Web (mine included).

Update: I've removed the XRefer links from this page, which once comprised a large collection of country-specific philosophical links. Unfortunately, XRefer now has limited circulation, by paid subscription only, and hence its usefulness to the general public has ended. Their main page is http://www.xrefer.com/, if your institution has a subscription.

For more information or additions, contact Bruce Janz
Last updated: 5 January 2005

Philosophy in cultures & ethnicities

Aboriginal Philosophy (see also Native North American Philosophy)

Program: Aboriginal and Intercultural Studies -- Edith Cowan University, Australia

African Philosophy

African Philosophy page -- extensive collection of links. I will update that page rather than add links on African philosophy to the current page. That page also contains links to specific cultures and ethnicities in Africa, for example, Ghanaian philosophy, Kenyan philosophy Nigerian philosophy and Ugandan philosophy.