Philosophy and the Martial Arts

Graham Priest is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Boyce Gibson Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne. He is well known for his work on logic and paradox, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. Priest is the author of numerous books and has published articles in nearly every major philosophical and logical journal. In addition to his work in philosophy and logic, he practices Karate-do and is 3rd Dan, International Karate-do Shobukai; 4th Dan, Shi’to Ryu, and an Australian National Kumite Referee and Kata Judge. Damon Young is an Honorary Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, where he was a Research Fellow in Aesthetics from 2005-2007. Damon is the author of the books How to Think About Exercise, Voltaire's Vine, and Distraction. He is also co-editor, with Graham Priest, of Martial Arts and Philosophy: Beating and Nothingness. Damon has published in various scholarly journals, including Philosophy Today and Philosophy East and West, and in 2013 he was awarded the Australasian Association of Philosophy’s Media Prize for his work in public philosophy. He holds a shodan rank in Goju Ryu Karate-do.

Introduction: Philosophy and the Martial Arts Part 1: From Philosophy to the Martial Arts 1. The Promise and the Peril of Martial Arts (Simon Roberts-Thomson) 2. Practicing Evil: Training and Psychological Barriers in the Martial Arts (Gillian Russell) 3. Martial Arts and Moral Life (Sylvia Burrow) 4. The Martial Arts as Philosophical Practice (Henry Martyn Lloyd) Part 2: From the Martial Arts to Philosophy 5. Understanding Quality and Suffering through the Martial Arts (Steve Bein) 6. Is Proprioceptive Art Possible? (Markus Schrenk) 7. A Sublime Peace (Ross Barham) 8. On Self-Awareness and the Self (Koji Tanaka) 9. Mushin and Flow: An East-West Comparative Analysis (Kevin Krein and Jesús Ilundain) Part 3: Buddhism and other Asian Philosophical Traditions 10. Ahimsa, Buddhism, and the Martial Arts: A Soteriological Consequentialist Approach to Understanding Violence in Martial Practice (Richard Schubert) 11. The Martial Arts and Buddhist Philosophy (Graham Priest) 12. Bowing to Your Enemies: Courtesy, Budō and Japan (Damon Young)