Marietta Stepaniants' introductory text allows a distinctively Eastern way of thinking to come forth. Four interpretive essays open the book showing how Indian, Chinese and Islamic traditions responded to these questions: How did philosophy arise? What is the origin of order in the universe? What is human nature? What is truth? A fifth, unique, essay shows how Eastern thought has dealt with Western contact in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the second half of the book, original writings--ancient and modern--are placed in their cultural context by the author and give access to the thinkers'...

Today democracy is increasingly recognized around the world as the only form of government with moral legitimacy. The problems of establishing and preserving truly democratic institutions, however, vary dramatically from culture to culture. Justice and Democracy explores these problems from a wide range of perspectives, theoretical and practical. It addresses problems related to the distortion of democratic decision-making by the gross disparities in wealth that arise in capitalist economies, and, in particular, focuses on the problems relating to the reconciliation of democratic values with...