Asian Philosophies

In modo of “soft thinking” with her work “Lao Tse” Ksenija Premur slides into the circle of perennial thinking and through it she gives an overview of Chinese philosophical contemplation in fragments, but also accesses the “opposing field” feeling deeply the “futility” of such approach and quite rightly turns to taking the original texts. In this work on spiritual tradition of Daoism, she, in absolutely brilliant way, philosophically hermeneutisises basic elements of Dao-spirituality and spreads out a new and fresh approach which articulates the possibility of not only re-reading and re-comprehending but also a conjecture of life. With her work on Daoism and translations of the ancient texts Ksenija Premur has excellently brought the topic closer to the readers. In the comment section of this masterly translated work Dao De Jing, whose publication was critically created through a comparison of a number of previous translations of this fundamental piece of Chinese spirituality, the author is attempting to widen and deepen the insight into Dao – an ultimate cosmic principle – and compare it to other Far Eastern philosophical traditions in the axial stage of philosophy. The author is among the rare ones in our academic environment who, while continuously and scientifically correctly dealing with the topic, has been publishing works with the translations of the original texts. The book Lao Tse was published with the support of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports.

A short-stories collection offers selected chapters of author’s research which began in 1982 with the publication of the work by Čedomil Veljačić, “Ethos of Cognition in European and Indian Philosophy”, and continued by analysing philosophical issues of cognitive heritage of India, China and Japan. In a way a reader is presented with a summary of a 25-year research, in selected fragments of the most prominent sections of Asian thinking, analysis of methodological issues of dialogues of borderline philosophies, as well as the outline of most recent attempts of the two cultures meeting, e.g. western and eastern. The book was published with the support of Croatian Ministry of Culture.

A crucial determinant of our times are not only phenomena of globalisation and “informatologisation”. In nuce, in the dimension of spiritual existence our time has entered nexuality of the third millennia spirituality components, ex fundamentis terramorfing  earthly existence in the context of spiritual evolution/involution and preparation of Devine life on the Earth.

Spiritual components occur, interms of development, through multicomplexification of planetarisation, processes which manifest through polylogisation (multi-voicing/poly-voicing) of spiritual traditions, religions, philosophies, cultures in their perennial heritage/values. Planetarisation as polylogisation is a basic feature of our times, complementing and concordant with material/mundane processes of globalisation.

Polymodality of polylogisation, as a spiritual matrix of the third millennia, represents a framework where suppositions of supramentalisation of the Earth, as the next stage in spiritual evolution/involution of earthly existence, begin to emerge.

Modes of philosophical, religious and cultural openness and ambiguities of all discourses of contrasts/comparisons, of all ecumenical and other participations and utopisations – they all find their place within polylogisation. And every theoretical ex course into a certain area strives for the reality of polylogy. So does this immensely important work by Ksenija Premur, articulating issues and problems of the Zen-Buddhism.

Zen-Buddhism is the crown, the very peak of the development of Buddhist traditions, an inner telos of totality of Buddhist experiences and values.

We can track down historically developmental stages as well, we can conceptualise features of those traditions in philosophical and theoretical terms, we can, ad finitum, rely on comparison/contrasting just as we do with any other tradition. The work by Ksenija Premur deserves the highest regards and duly respect from the readers by its expert articulation and the presentation of the important.

The book “Fragments of Ancient India” comprises one of the most complex approach to eastern philosophies – it is the issue of most adequate reception of philosophical heritage of India. This matter had a focal position in all previous pursuits of methodological questions of approach, reception and comparison of philosophical circles of the West and the East by the author. Therefore this book, titled “Fragments of Ancient India”, outlines author’s focusing on bringing this issues face to face who then reached for comprehensive studies into Vedic and Upanishadic contemplative heritage and displayed it, interpreted and commented on it from the point of a western philosophy subject, a subject provided, in the very studies, as well as in Anthology of selected texts from Vedas and Upanishads, with this particular, appropriate reception of this contemplative heritage. Among numerous studies into the reception issues, the author reached in this book into the reception, interpretation and proper bringing a western reader closer to Indian philosophical heritage, at the very roots of its origin. The book was published with the support of the Croatian Ministry of Culture.