Bloomsbury is happy to announce that they will be publishing a new book titled Material Objects in Confucian and Aristotelian Metaphysics: The Inevitability of Hylomorphism by James Dominic Rooney on October 19th, 2023. Rooney shows how Thomas Aquinas’ account of form gives a more coherent version of hylomorphism, eliminating the need for substance parts. He also studies the Song dynasty Confucian thinker Zhu Xi’s hylomorphic intuition that whatever accounts for the composition of some parts into a material whole is a metaphysical part of that object. By appealing to the same non-Aristotelian considerations as Zhu Xi, Rooney explains why all those who believe in the unity of material objects will appeal to a form, enabling hylomorphism to remain a plausible framework. Please click here for more information on the book or to pre-order.

Bloomsbury is happy to announce that they will be publishing a new book titled Comparing Husserl’s Phenomenology and Chinese Yogacara in a Multicultural World: A Journey Beyond Orientalism by Jingjing Li on November 30th, 2023. In this book Jingjing Li argues that what Edmund Husserl means by essence differs from what Chinese Yogacarins mean by svabhava, partly because Husserl problematises the substantialist understanding of essence in European philosophy. Furthermore, she reveals that Chinese Yogacara has developed an account of self-transformation, ethics and social ontology that renders it much more than simply a Buddhist version of Husserlian phenomenology.  Please click here to either pre-order the book or check it out.

Bloomsbury is happy to announce that they be will publishing a book titled Daoist Resonances in Heidegger: Exploring a Forgotten Debt edited by David Chai on December 28th 2023. This book discusses how Daoist thought provided Martin Heidegger with a new perspective, equipping him with images, concepts, and meanings that enabled him to continue his questioning of the nature of being. Please click here to preorder or check out the book.

Princeton University Press is happy to announce a new book titled Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea by Shuchen Xiang. In this new book, the author argues that the Chinese cultural tradition was, from its formative beginnings and throughout its imperial history, a cosmopolitan melting pot that synthesized the different cultures that came into its orbit.  Xiang explains that “Chinese” identity is not what the West understands as a racial identity; it is not a group of people related by common descent or heredity but rather a hybrid of coalescing cultures. Please click here to read more about the book and or to purchase it!

Benoît Vermander, The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies: A Critique (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023).

(Open Access – can be downloaded at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110799118 )

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Penguin has recently published Jessica Rawson’s new book Life and Afterlife in Ancient China. Rawson’s new book is a meant to tell a epic new history of Ancient China through the prism of a dozen extraordinary tombs. Life and Afterlife in Ancient China illuminates a constellation of beliefs about life and death very different from our own and provides a remarkable new perspective on one of the oldest civilisations in the world. Please click here for more information on the book or to purchase a copy.