Blake Reviews Moeller and D’Ambrosio, Genuine Pretending

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2018.06.18 View this Review Online   View Other NDPR Reviews

Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Genuine Pretending: On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi, Columbia University Press, 2017, 221 pp., $35.00, ISBN 9780231183994.

Reviewed by Susan Blake, Bard College

“A romp through ‘the vast wilds of open nowhere'” — Roger Ebert

“Better than any existing work on humor” — Aristotle

“Nothing more than a success” — Guy Smiley

“A demonstration of nothing . . . in a technical sense” — Ford Prefect

“A tour de force through the ‘homeland of non-even-anything'” — Steven Colbert

This book presents a novel reading of the Zhuangzi that illuminates its humor and presents it as responding to philosophical concerns of its day. To the extent that these philosophical concerns are also those of the present day — the search for a sane and healthy response to the impossible demands of sincerity — we can, through the discussion here, gain an understanding of an alternative to the unsatisfying ethical approaches of both sincerity and authenticity. The book is impressive in bringing together diverse passages in this difficult text under one interpretation.

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Tucker Reviews Yusa, ed., Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Philosophy

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2018.06.13 View this Review Online   View Other NDPR Reviews

Michiko Yusa, (ed.), The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Philosophy, Bloomsbury, 2017, 391pp., $158.40, ISBN 9781474232692.

Reviewed by John A. Tucker, East Carolina University

This book is a valuable contribution to the rapidly growing field of Japanese philosophy. A nicely produced anthology, it includes a thoughtful introduction by the editor, Michiko Yusa, fourteen erudite essays subdivided into five sections, plus a convenient summary of the essays, notes on the contributors, an account of abbreviations and conventions, an appendix including two essays by Nishida Kitarō, a timeline with dates for the thinkers discussed, an index of Japanese texts cited, and a more traditional index, including kanji, of names and terms mentioned in the anthology. Overall, the scholarly apparatuses included make this volume an extraordinarily well-organized and helpful resource for those conducting scholarly explorations of Japanese philosophy.

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2 PhD Positions on New Confucianism

2 PhD Positions on New Confucianism

The Institute for European Global Studies at the University of Basel invites applications for two PhD positions starting on February 1, 2019. They are part of the research project “The Exterior of Philosophy: On the Practice of New Confucianism” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF). The candidates will complement the research team of Prof. Dr. Ralph Weber and Philippe Major, Ph.D. The research project studies New Confucian philosophy by deploying a sociological perspective for philosophical aims. Existing scholarship has often chosen an approach that is either historical, as in the genre of intellectual history, or philosophical, tuned towards showing the contemporary philosophical relevance of New Confucianism. The current project builds on recent studies that add to these established approaches by offering sociological perspectives on New Confucianism. The project hence breaks new ground in terms of its disciplinary approach beyond the specific context of New Confucianism. Drawing on work done in sociology, the research project explores the possibilities of a sociology of philosophy approached as a philosophical sub-discipline. For more information, see here.