Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies

Description

The Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies is a unique and pioneering philosophical research centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the United Kingdom. It shifts away from the conventional focus of philosophical centres on Western philosophy to a more robust and comprehensive research into the different philosophical traditions of the world.

The Centre for World Philosophies is thus a decolonial, inclusive and interdisciplinary space with the objective of promoting the research and teaching of the world’s many traditions of theoretical and applied philosophy. Philosophical research is crucial for understanding and dealing with the big and fundamental questions and issues that confronts the world.

From questions of systemic (in)justices, meaningful life and existence, responsibilities to the human and non-human, difference, gender, corporeality, wellbeing, to questions about knowledge production, virtues and vices, the nature of being, autonomy and relationality, philosophical traditions globally cannot be overlooked in any attempt to build a better world.

At the heart of the Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies is the understanding that it does a disservice to humanity and leads to the poverty of philosophical knowledge if the quest for the ever-unfolding answers to these fundamental questions focusses solely on the Western tradition as conventionally done and ignores other important philosophical traditions of the world such as African Indian, Chinese, Arabic, Latinx , Japanese, South-East Asian, Jewish, Indigenous and Islamic philosophy.

The Centre's approach to philosophy is founded on three main principles: decolonial critiques and the reimagining of philosophy as a global discipline; dialogic and critical-comparative analyses between global intellectual traditions; specialism in specific non-western philosophical traditions. The Centre wants to realise an ambitious research agenda which will contribute to contemporary debates regarding the nature and purpose of philosophy in the contemporary world.