This book focuses on traditions and individuals, religion, culture, reinforcing individual and cultural creativity. It brings specific Eastern and Western perspectives into a dynamic, comparative relation and emphasizes growing sense of interrelatedness and interdependency.

Introduction -- Part 1 Multiple Asian and Western Perspectives -- 1 Social Constructions of Self: Some Asian, Marxist, and Feminist Critiques of Dominant Western Views of Self -- 2 How Universal Is Psychoanalysis? The Self in India, Japan, and the United States -- Part 2 Chinese and Western Perspectives -- 3 Ethics, Relativism, and the Self -- 4 Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications -- 5 Buddho-Taoist and Western Metaphysics of the Self -- Part 3 Indian and Western Perspectives -- 6 Reducing Concern with Self: Parfit and the Ancient Buddhist Schools -- 7 Sartre and Samkhya-Yoga on Self -- Part 4 Japanese and Western Perspectives -- 8 Nietzsche and Nishitani on Nihilism and Tradition -- 9 Views of Japanese Selfhood: Japanese and Western Perspectives