Category Archives: Comparative philosophy

Book Discussion: Wong, Moral Relativism and Pluralism

The 四海为学 “Collaborative Learning” Project will be starting off the new academic year with a book discussion of David Wong’s Moral Relativism and Pluralism. The discussion will start at 20:00 on September 6th, Beijing time. For more details and the Zoom link please visit the event page.

Note: Zoom does not always adjust the date and time correctly, please ignore what the link says and follow our scheduled time. No pre-registration or passcode is required. Everyone in the waiting room will be let in promptly when the event begins.

For more information on the 四海为学 “Collaborative Learning” Project visit the website, and for list of our upcoming events please see the calendar.

New Book: Li, The Self in the West and East Asia

Jin Li’s new book, The Self in the West and East Asia: Being or Becoming, is now available from Polity (see here). In this book, Li synthesizes philosophy with psychological research to examine how the self is conceptualized and functions in two distinct cultural systems. Please read on for more information.

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Post-doctoral fellowship at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The Philosophy and Religion Program in the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology invites expressions of interest for the RGC Junior Research Fellow Scheme (JRFS). The scheme provides funding to cover up to 36 months full-time post-doctoral fellowship. The starting date of the fellowship is usually 1 July 2025 the earliest, 31 January 2026 the latest, and is negotiable.

The annual stipend is around HK$420,000 (inclusive of travel allowance at around HK$13,300).
Research Interests: Chinese Philosophy, Buddhism, Comparative/Intercultural Philosophy

Please read below for details regarding the application.
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CFP: ISCWP Groups Session(s) at 2025 APA Pacific Division Meeting

International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP) cordially invites scholars to submit abstracts and panel proposals to be considered for inclusion in the ISCWP Group Session(s) at the upcoming APA Pacific Division Meeting, April 16-19, 2025, in San Francisco. Submissions of papers that foster constructive dialogue between Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy are welcomed.

Please read below for the guidelines regarding the application process.

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Approaching ancient philosophy globally at Oxford

A promising, inclusive approach to ancient philosophy is on display in the Oxford Network for Ancient Philosophy, which describes itself as follows:

The Oxford Network for Ancient Philosophy (ONAP) brings together faculty and students specializing in ancient philosophy across the University of Oxford. Oxford is an extraordinarily rich environment for the study of ancient philosophy, with leading researchers working on ancient Chinese, Greek, Indian, Roman philosophy, and more across a range of Humanities faculties. This forum seeks to support the vibrant community of staff and students working in all areas of ancient philosophy by providing up-to-date, cross-departmental resources and information geared to the study and teaching of ancient philosophy within Oxford.

The ONAP homepage is here. If you are familiar with other, similarly inclusive/boundary-crossing approaches to ancient philosophy, please share in the comments! (I know they’re out there….)

Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s China Initiative

The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, which is affiliated with the journal Telos, has underway a multi-pronged China Initiative that is well worth blog readers’ attention. Through this initiative, the Institute seeks “to become a key bridge for a mutually regarding, critical discussion of social and political theory between China and the West, well beyond the circles of East Asia specialists. The Telos China Initiative will include a wide variety of programs to be developed over a five-year period beginning in 2024.”

Among other things, the initiative includes an upcoming conference on “China Keywords” that is currently calling for submissions, with a deadline of September 1; see here for more details.

The initative has also been sponsoring a series of podcast conversations about key terms like tianxia, wangdao, and others. See here for more.

New Article: Angle, Methodologies and Communities in Comparative Philosophy

I am happy to report that my article “Methodologies and Communities in Comparative Philosophy” has just been published on-line in Metaphilosophy. A read-only version can be accessed here. The abstract:

There is considerable disagreement and even confusion over what forms of border-crossing philosophizing are most appropriate to our times. Are comparative, cross-cultural, intercultural, blended, and fusion philosophy all the same thing? Some critics find what they call “comparative philosophy” to be moribund or problematically colonialist; others assert that projects like “fusion philosophy” are intellectually irresponsible and colonialist in their own way. Can we nonetheless identify a distinctive project of comparative philosophy and say why it is important? Based on a broad survey of approaches, this essay offers schematic answers to these questions, clarifies some persistent confusions, and stresses the constitutive gamble that lies at the heart of all comparative philosophy. There are several different ways to do comparative philosophy well; which method to employ depends on the values that motivate and the pragmatic situation that frames one’s inquiry, and on the ways in which one or more communities receive and respond to one’s contribution.

 

 

 

Book of Interest: Those Who Act Ruin It, A Daoist Account of Moral Attunement by Jacob Bender

Drawing on both western and Chinese philosophy, Those Who Act Ruin It shows how Daoism presents a viable alternative to established moral theories. The Daoist, critical of the Confucian and Mohist discourses of their time, provides an account of morality that can best be understood as achieving an attunement to situations through the cultivation of habits. Furthermore, Daoism’s meta-ethical insights outline how moral philosophy, when theorized in a way that ignores our fundamental interdependence, devolves into moralistic narcissism. Another way of putting this, as the Daodejing states perfectly, is that “those who act ruin it” (為者敗之). Sensitive to this problem, the Daoist account of moral attunement can ameliorate social woes and not “ruin things.” In their moral attunement, Daoists can spontaneously respond to situations in ways that are sensitive to the underlying interdependence of all things.

The author Jacob Bender is Hua-Shan Associate Professor of Philosophy at Xidian University, Xi’an.

To read the table of contents or an excerpt, or purchase the book, please click this link.