Prominent Confucian philosopher and scholar Liu Shuxian died last week in Taiwan at the age of 82.
Here’s a link to the announcement of his passing on the website of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy at Academia Sinica.
Author Archives: David Elstein
Penn Workshop on Non-Western Philosophical Traditions
This Friday there is a workship on non-Western philosophical traditions at Penn, co-sponsored by the philosophy department. It’s a shame this wasn’t publicized more, but here is the schedule for anyone who is interested. Continue reading →
European Association for Chinese Philosophy
I recently received this announcement from Jana Rošker about the newly-established European Association for Chinese Philosophy. There has been a lot of activity in Chinese philosophy for a while, and it’s nice to see this new scholarly association to encourage it further.
New Book: Democracy in Contemporary Chinese Thought
Excuse the lack of modesty, but I’d like to announce the publication of my new book, Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy.
Special issue on Jiang Qing
Just wanted to announce that the special issue of Contemporary Chinese Thought on Jiang Qing, edited by yours truly, has been published. Here’s the table of contents.
Rituals make food taste better
Just happened to run across this today and thought it might interest people.
Meritocracy and Democracy
Meritocratic Ruists make two basic claims: first, that meritocracy is more historically faithful to Ruist tradition, and second, that it makes for a more effective government. In particular, it can avoid the problems of democracy, among which the ignorance and short-sightedness of voters are prominent. The claim goes that since voters generally understand the issues poorly and are unwilling to sacrifice their immediate interests for future gains, democracies make bad decisions. Without getting into whether these criticisms are accurate for the moment, I’m curious what people think of this line of argument against democracy. If it were true that democracy inevitably has such problems and there were good reason to think meritocracy would do better, would you support meritocracy?
"Growing Pains" and Chinese Philosophy
At dinner at a recent conference I had a very interesting conversation with Liu Qing from East China Normal University. He told a few of us how the television show Growing Pains (starring Alan Thicke and Kirk Cameron) had made a big impression when it was shown in China. For many children at the time, it was their first acquaintance with parents who reasoned with their children instead of just giving orders. He said the younger generation (meaning now people in their late 20s or 30s) began to ask their parents why they couldn’t be more like the parents on the show and explain their position to their children instead of expecting to be obeyed all the time. They began to question the parameters of the parental relationship they had grown up with and ask for more equal treatment
Daniel Bell on Meritocracy
Jiang Qing and Daniel Bell’s op-ed in the New York Times attracted a great deal of interest. Bell published another op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor a couple of days ago on the broader subject of meritocracy. This can illustrate how he differs from Jiang. I’m assuming he didn’t choose the headline (“What America’s flawed democracy could learn from China’s one-party rule”). The comments are also quite interesting.
On Research: How Chinese Should Chinese Philosophy Be?
I’d like to do a little informal poll on two questions relating to research and publication on Chinese philosophy. I welcome your responses.
First, what do you think of scholars who can’t read primary sources publishing on Chinese philosophy? Is being able to read original sources important? I should perhaps clarify that what I mean are not the “translations” one sometimes finds (e.g., of the Laozi) by people who don’t read classical Chinese, but scholarly articles or books.
The second question concerns use of secondary literature. My own observation is that Western scholars, even those who read Chinese, often don’t refer to Chinese secondary literature. By “secondary literature” I mean specifically 20th and 21st century academic work, not traditional commentaries. I’m curious why this is and what other people in the field think about it. Is it a problem? Or is it instead a sign of the development of the field, that we have our own English-language debates just as specialists in ethics might have debates about Kant that don’t refer to the German literature at all?
