Striking Beauty

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The first book to focus on the intersection of Western philosophy and the Asian martial arts,Striking Beauty collapses the boundaries between Eastern and Western thought, comparatively studying the historical and philosophical traditions of martial arts practice and their ethical value in the modern world. Expanding Western philosophy's global outlook, the book forces a theoretical reckoning with the concerns of Chinese philosophy and the aesthetic and technical dimensions of martial arts practice. Striking Beauty explains the relationship between Asian martial arts and the Chinese philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism in addition to the strategic wisdom of Sunzi'sArt of War. It connects martial arts practice to the Western concepts of mind-body dualism and materialism, sports aesthetics, and the ethics of violence. Incorporating innovations in body phenomenology, somaesthetics, and embodied cognition, the work ameliorates Western philosophy's hostility toward the body, emphasizing the pleasure of watching and engaging in martial arts, along with their beauty and the ethical problem of their violence.