Deconstructive spiritual inquiry : experiential undoing in Advaita and Zen

A study of the meditative techniques of Advaita and Zen. The thesis develops a methodology that allow's practioner's experience to be mapped against the philosophical underpinnings of tradition. The results show that despite opposing philosophies, in both traditions the psychological dynamics of "experiential undoing" are similar.

Plato's legacy : How to do philosophy

Although it has its origins earlier, philosophy as we know it in the West took its shape from the Socrates of Plato's Dialogues. It is not implausible to regard the Dialogues as heuristic devices designed for engaging in philosophical inquiry. As such, they would model the process of philosophical inquiry as well as illustrate the common pitfalls or errors to avoid when engaging in such inquiry. So it will not be surprising to see Socrates, the character of the Dialogues, modeling questionable, even poor, inquiry techniques as well as good; admonishing other characters for poor technique and reminding them of lessons they should have learned earlier in their tuition. Plato presumably would expect students reading and role-playing a Dialogue to recognise when and where such instances occur. It is instructive then to take a close look at one of the longer dialogues featuring Socrates engaging in such inquiry, not with an untutored interlocutor, but with a professional, the sophist Protagoras, in order to identify the features of the inquiry itself. For this will reveal something of what Plato conceived to be the activity of philosophy to which we are the heirs. The Protagoras can be read as an illustration (not a definition) of how to do philosophy. And to aid this reading, I propose to focus on the logical form of the inquiry, the moves made by the characters and the techniques displayed, rather than the adequacy of the substantive arguments they mount.

What is the subaltern of the comparative philosophy of religion?

It is claimed that Comparative Philosophy of Religion (CPR) mistakenly builds on the dogmas of comparative religion (or history of religions) and philosophy of religion. Thus, the belief that there are things common and therefore comparable between two or more traditions and that these objects of comparison are of philosophical or theological significance are questions that continue to trouble the field. Just what does one compare, how does one choose what to compare or why, through what methodological and epistemic tools, and who is it that carries out the tasks? But what has remained unasked and unanalyzed are the larger meta-questions concerning the motivation, civilizational presuppositions, cultural parochialism, or legacies of orientalism, modernity, and (post-)colonialism that together affect the boundedness of certain key categories and thematic issues in the comparative enterprise such as God or the Transcendent, Creation, the Problem of Evil, the Afterlife, Sin, Redemption, Purpose, and the End. Is difference with respect to alterity and altarity permissible? If so, what a postcolonial, differently gendered, cross-cultural critique would look like and what is left of CPR are two such questions explored here.

The experience of Asian expatriates in Australia

Workforces in individualistic countries, such as the US, the UK and Auslralia, are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. In Australia, the population now comprises people from more than 220 nationalities, approximately 45% of whom were born overseas. It is expected that. by the year 2030, 25% of the Australian population will be of Asian origin Nankervis. Compton, & McCarthy, 1999). Despite large Asian expatriations, the small number of Asian permanent residents in Australia (i.e. 4.7% of 18m people) infers that Asians may be having difficulty fitting into the Australian context. This paper will highlight the unaddressed racial tension in Australian workplaces and discuss the experience of Asian expatriates in light of the racial and value dissimilarity associated with Asian (collectivist) and Australian (individualist) cultures.

Corporate financial disclosure practices in Asian and Middle Eastern countries

This paper investigates the financial disclosure practices of corporate annual reports published in Asian countries including Bangladesh, Indonesian, Malaysia and the Middle East countries including Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The purpose of the study is to measure the financial disclosure diversity in these countries, with a view to developing a classification of their similarities and differences in respect to their compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS). Annual reports of 126 public companies liisted on the countries' stock exchanges are the central data source, supplemented with other relevant information about financial disclosure practices in each country. A disclosure checklist adopted from all IASs and summarised in 306 individual items of financial disclosures is used as a means of extending an understanding of financial reporting in these countries. Results show the relative degree of conformity with IASs for each of the countries included in this study.