John Maraldo

The Status of Oral Traditions in the History of Philosophy: Methodological Considerations

7.-9. September 2023, Universität Hildesheim

John Maraldo

Storytelling: examples of what it discloses, what it preserves, and what it conceals for histories of philosophy.

A dialogue by John Maraldo and Mary Jo Maraldo

Looking for oral sources that expand global histories of philosophy presents the challenge of retrieving and re-presenting what is absent in written history. Storytelling can alternately both reveal an absence and fill it in. Storytelling can cross over the divides between orality and writing, and between verbal and nonverbal communication. Stories relate knowledge and truth in ways distinct from argumentation and analysis; stories relativize typical philosophical expressions of truth and knowledge. The “story form” displays a variability and a reliance on contingent factors – like settings, personages, and messages meant for particular times and places – that contrast with a traditional philosophical search for eternal, immutable, or universal truths. But stories have their own epistemic value; they convey an alternative mode of knowledge production and knowledge preservation. What is more, the telling of stories brings to life a facet of philosophy too often forgotten: the activity of philosophizing that adapts to a here and a now. The presence of stories in traditional philosophical texts already hints at their relevance for expanding histories of philosophy. And the current acknowledgement of oral sources reminds us of the need to re-formulate, to retell, philosophical traditions. Our dialogue attempts to illustrate this challenge in a distinctively oral form.

John Maraldo is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Florida. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Munich with a dissertation on Der hermeneutische Zirkel: Untersuchungen zu Schleiermacher, Dilthey und Heidegger (Karl Alber Verlag, 1974 & 1984) and subsequently studied Japanese philosophy and Zen Buddhism for several years in Japan. He taught at Sophia University in Tokyo; Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado; and the University of Southern Illinois before moving to Florida in 1980. In between, he was a visiting professor at the University of Kyoto and Catholic University in Leuven (1999-2000) and held the Roche Chair in Interreligiosity Research at Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan in 2008-09. His interests include comparative philosophy, phenomenology and hermeneutics, and Japanese philosophy in general; and especially the thought of Dōgen, Nishida, Nishitani, Kuki, and Watsuji; Buddhist conceptions of history and practice; and the meaning and significance of non-Western philosophy.
In addition to articles on these topics, he has published a translation and study of Heidegger: The Piety of Thought (with James G. Hart, 1976); Buddhism in the Modern World (with Heinrich Dumoulin, 1976); Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism (with James W. Heisig, 1995); and essays in the Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy series. He is co-editor (with JW Heisig and TP Kasulis) of Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (University of Hawaii Press, 2011) and author of Japanese Philosophy in the Making 1: Crossing Paths with Nishida (Chisokudō, 2017), Japanese Philosophy in the Making 2: Borderline Interrogations (Chisokudō, 2019), The saga of Zen history and the power of legend = 禪史の物語 / The saga of Zen history and the power of legend : Zenshi no monogatari (Chisokudō, 2021) and Japanese Philosophy in the Making 3: Alternatives with Tracks through Zen (Chisokudō, 2023). He is the recipient of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle’s Compass Award 2021. John Maraldo is on Academia.edu, Reserach Gate and PhilPeolpe.

Mary Jo Maraldo is a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, and has lived in Japan for seven years. She began her studies of Japanese language and culture in 1971 at Sophia University, Tokyo, and in 1972 began formal lessons at Ikebana Ikenobo School. In 1984, she received teaching credentials in Ikenobō (池坊) the oldest and largest school of ikebana. In 1985 she was awarded the title of Junkankan by Senei Ikenobō, Headmaster of the School. She did numerous gallery installations of large sculptural Ikebana works at the Jacksonville Art Museum from 1982 to 1986. Her formal study of Japanese calligraphy began in 1987 under Daiki Takemoto in Kyoto. A recipient of several grant awards, she has shown calligraphic works, both two and three dimensional, in solo exhibitions in Kyoto, Japan; Jacksonville, Florida; and Santa Fe, New Mexico; as well as in group exhibitions of contemporary art in Florida and New York. Her work is on view at Bruce Dempsey Fine Arts | SHO: Contemporary Japanese Calligraphy.

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