Freitag
14
FEB

10.00 Uhr

Japanese Buddhism and the Modern Natural Sciences

In the course of the nineteenth century, religions around the globe increasingly came to understand themselves as “religions” in an emphatic sense. The conceptual boundary-drawing exercise that resulted in this self-designation crucially involved a positioning relative to the modern natural sciences. The latter had become intertwined with philosophical materialism and come to pose a fundamental threat to religions. This threat was also felt in late nineteenth-century Japan, most acutely among the Buddhist establishment. The workshop will trace some of the main answers that Buddhist thinkers and activists came up with to counter the challenges posed by modern science. Eventually, these answers helped define what modern Buddhism was all about, and in many instances they remain the framework in which the problem of science and religion is still addressed today.

10.00–10.15 Welcome
10.15–10.45 Okada Masahiko (Tenri University), Buddhist Astronomy and Buddhist Science in 19th Century Japan
10.45–11.15 Stephan Licha (Heidelberg University), Hara Tanzan and the Japanese Buddhist Discovery of “Experience”
brief break
11.30–12.00 Hans Martin Krämer (Heidelberg University), Religion and Science in Meiji-Period Jōdo Shinshū Thinkers
12.00–12.30 Jeff Schroeder (University of Oregon), Kiyozawa Manshi and the Language of Experience lunch break
13.30–14.15 Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm (Williams College) and Jens Schlieter (University of Bern), feedback by discussants brief break
14.30–15.30 general discussion

Adresse

Karl Jaspers Center

212

Voßstraße 2

69115 Heidelberg

Veranstalter

Institut für Japanologie

Homepage Veranstalter

https://www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/japanologie/

Kontakt

Sekretariat Japanologie