Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism

This volume brings together diverse Asian religious perspectives to address critical issues in the encounter between tradition and modern western evolutionary thought. Such thought encompasses the biological theories of Charles Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Earnest Haeckel, Thomas Huxley, and later neo-Darwinians, as well as the more sociological evolutionary theories of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Pyotr Kropotkin, and Henri Bergson. The essays in this volume cover responses from Hindu, Jain, Buddhist (Chinese, Japanese, and Indo-Tibetan), Confucian, Daoist, and Muslim traditions. These responses come from the decades immediately after publication of The Origin of Species up to the present, with attention being paid to earlier perspectives and teachings within a tradition that have affected responses to Darwinism and western evolutionary thought in general.

The book focuses on three critical issues: the struggle for survival and the moral implications readinto it; genetic variation and its seeming randomness as related to the problems of meaning and purpose; and the nature of humankind and human exceptionalism. Each essay deals with one or more of the three issues within the context of a specific tradition.

Is the first to systematically deal with diverse Asian religious responses to Darwinism Illuminates the particularity and diversity of Asian religious responses to western evolutionary thought Situates the religious responses within their cultural, historical, and political contexts

Auteur

C. Mackenzie Brown is professor emeritus of South Asian Religions and Religion and Science at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. He is author of Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design (2012). Related articles include "Hindu and Christian Creationism: 'Transposed Passages' in the Geological Book of Life," Zygon 37:1 (2002); "The Conflict between Religion and Science in Light of the Patterns of Religious Belief Among Scientists," Zygon 38:3 (2003); "The Western Roots of Avataric Evolutionism in Colonial India," Zygon 42:2 (2007); "Colonial and Post-Colonial Elaborations of Avataric Evolutionism," Zygon 42:2 (2007); "The Design Argument in Classical Hindu Thought," International Journal of Hindu Studies 12:2 (2008); "Hindu Responses to Darwinism: Assimilation and Rejection in a Colonial and Post-Colonial Context," Science and Education 19 (2010); "Vivekananda and the Scientific Legitimation of Advaita Vedanta," in Handbook on Religion and the Authority of Science, edited by James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer, (2011); "Origins: The Hindu Case," in The Routledge Companion Reader to Religion and Science, edited by James Haag et al. (2012), "Science," Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, 4 (2012); "An Illusion of Conciliation: Religion and Science in Debendranath and Rabindranath Tagore" in Asian Religions, Technology and Science, edited by István Keul, (2015); and "Jagadish Chandra Bose and Vedantic Science," in Science and Religion: East and West, edited by Yiftach J. H. Fehige (2016). Brown is a former Jennie Farris Railey King Professor of Religion at Trinity University, has chaired the Religion Department and the Faculty Senate at Trinity, and has won the senior scholarship award from Trinity and the John G. Gammie Distinguished Scholar Award from the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies.

Résumé

"Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature about the intersection of evolutionary theory and religious belief ... . Each of the essays includes a substantial list of works cited, including many non-English sources, making the book of particular interest to laypersons and scholars who do not specialize in any of these traditions. Overall, this is a valuable addition to the religion and science literature and deserving of a wide audience." (Jim Sharp, Reading Religion, September 24, 2021)

"Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism is a major contribution to the fields of religion and science and reception studies of Darwinism, two fields still dominated by Western and Christian concerns. ... The volume provides fascinating explorations of a wide range of major religious thinkers and their approaches to Darwinism. ... I hope this excellent volume will stimulate more scholars to investigate the impact of Darwinism in Asia." (Clinton G. Godart, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, July, 2021)

Contenu

Chapter 1. Introduction: Global Darwinism in Asian Cultural, Historical, and Religious Contexts (C. Mackenzie Brown).- Part 1. Islamic Responses.- Chapter 2. The Politics of Islamic Opposition to Evolution in Turkey (Taner Edis).- Chapter 3. South Asian Muslim Responses to Darwinism (Martin Riexinger).- Chapter 4. Islamic Responses to Darwinism in the Persianate World (Kamran Arjomand).- Part 2. South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Responses.- Chapter 5. Karmic versus Organic Evolution: The Hindu Encounter with Modern Evolutionary Science (C. Mackenzie Brown).- Chapter 6. The Hindu Evolutionary Heritage and Hindu Criticism of Darwinism (Dermot Killingley).- Chapter 7. Sri Aurobindo's Theory of Spiritual Evolution (Peter Heehs).- Chapter 8. Jainism and Darwin: Evolution Beyond Orthodoxy (Brianne Donaldson).- Chapter 9. Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Responses to Darwinism (Roger R. Jackson).- Part 3.- East Asian Responses.- Chapter 10. Progress and Purposiveness in Chinese Philosophies: A Darwinian Critique (Nicholas S. Brasovan).- Chapter 11. Yan Fu's Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics (Kuan-yen Liu).- Chapter 12. Yan Fu's Daoist Reinterpretation of Evolutionism (Kuan-yen Liu).- Chapter 13. Dependent Co-Evolution: Kropotkin's Theory of Mutual Aid and Its Appropriation by Chinese Buddhists (Justin Ritzinger).- Chapter 14. Japanese Responses to Evolutionary Theory, with Particular Focus on Nichiren Buddhists (Yulia Burenina).