Author Archives: Manyul Im

University of Bridgeport

CFP – Tenth East West Philosophers' Conference

Dear Colleague

Attached please find the Call for Papers for the Tenth East-West Philosophers’ Conference to be held May 16-24, 2011. As you will see, the theme anticipates the APEC Leaders Forum that will be held later next year, giving philosophers an opportunity to reflect upon the appropriate relationship between worth and what is worthwhile, between economics and human flourishing. We hope that you will consider joining us for what promises to be another historic event in a conference series that dates back to the 1930s and the beginnings of the comparative philosophy movement.

Yours

Roger T. Ames
Peter D. Hershock
Co-Directors

Download PDF Attachment: EastWest_CFP-9.13

[Deadline for the CFP is December 15, 2010.]

Call for Abstracts: Freedom, Paternalism, Morality

I thought maybe someone working on Confucian or Daoist political philosophy might be interested in sending in an abstract for this:

Freedom, Paternalism and Morality

The Bowling Green Workshop in Applied Ethics and Public Policy will take place in Bowling Green, Ohio on April 1-2, 2011. Keynote speakers will be Gerald Dworkin (University of California at Davis) and Douglas Husak (Rutgers University).

Those interested in presenting a paper are invited to submit a 2-3 page abstract (double-spaced) by September 1, 2010. Continue reading →

Raud and Defoort (or, Defoort continued)

As promised, I have some remarks on the continuation of the issue that Carine Defoort broaches and that Rein Raud has responded to in a published discussion between the two of them (Philosophy East and West 56:4, 2006). It’s an issue about the demarcation of philosophy and what it means, and has meant, to call something “Chinese philosophy.” As Defoort has pointed out both in her original piece and in her follow-up discussion with Raud, it is puzzling how to understand ‘Chinese’ as an adjective that goes beyond mere historical-geographic placement, since “If philosophy were considered universal in its claims, as positive science is, the adjective would create a contradictio in terminis: there would be no ‘Chinese philosophy’ as there is no ‘Greek science'” (PEW 56:4, 628). Continue reading →

Nussbaum on Chinese and Singaporean Education Models

Not really Chinese or comparative philosophy but tangentially relevant, I suppose, and interesting. The whole piece is here, at the New Republic. Here are Nussbaum’s summary, concluding remarks:

It is time to take off the rose-colored glasses. Singapore and China are terrible models of education for any nation that aspires to remain a pluralistic democracy. They have not succeeded on their own business-oriented terms, and they have energetically suppressed imagination and analysis when it comes to the future of the nation and the tough choices that lie before it. If we want to turn to Asia for models, there are better ones to be found: Korea’s humanistic liberal arts tradition, and the vision of Tagore and like-minded Indian educators. I’ll take up their more enlightened approaches in my next column. Continue reading →

New Page

I’ve set up a page — Readers’ Posts — that will be useful for readers who have announcements, links, or other thoughts to share with the rest of us. If you can’t see the tab for it, refresh this page and it should appear. Hopefully, this will provide a more obvious forum for the very useful sorts of things that have heretofore been appearing on the Question Board but aren’t questions. Use and enjoy!

Defoort on Chinese Philosophy

I’m working on a “demarcation problem” section for my textbook, touching on issues about philosophy, Western philosophy, and Chinese philosophy. I’ve actually learned a lot from discussing the issue with some of you on the blog. Also, I was happy to discover — belatedly — a great piece by Carine Defoort that lays out the issues in a nicely structured way and helps me to see how my own thinking maps onto the spectrum of views one could have about Chinese philosophy.

Here is a brief excerpt from the beginning of Defoort’s “Is There Such a Thing as Chinese Philosophy? Arguments of an Implicit Debate” (Philosophy East and West 51:3 (Jul., 2001), pp. 393-413). I’m not sure why I’ve never read this piece before, given my interest in the topic, but I’m just now discovering it, along with follow-up discussion pieces five years later (PEW 56:4) by Rein Raud and Defoort. Continue reading →