I have recently learned about the “Greater China Summer Workshop Program in Chinese Studies” to be held this summer in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Beijing, organized and sponsored by the Sinological Development Charitable Foundation. Information on the Foundation and its goals, as well as about the program, are available on its website, here. The program aims to introduce Chinese Studies (focusing on Early Confucianism and the Hundred Schools; Buddhism and Daoism; and Neo-Confucianism). There are a limited number of Sponsorships (full financial support) available, plus a self-pay option. The application deadline is April 1, 2016.
Category Archives: Confucianism
Reminder: Deadline for Confucian Asia NEH Institute Approaching
The deadline for the Confucian Asia NEH Institute is fast approaching: March 1, 2016.
Rosenlee Reviews Rosemont, Against Individualism
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2016.02.02 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
Henry Rosemont Jr., Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion, Lexington Books, 2015, 190pp., $85.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780739199800.
Reviewed by Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee, University of Hawaii, West Oahu
This book has ten chapters and can be roughly divided into two parts: the first five chapters focus on the discussion of many problematics of the Western notion of individualism; and the second half is devoted to the Confucian role-based alternative. This book can be seen as a culmination of Henry Rosemont Jr.’s decades of work in the field of comparative philosophy. His critique of Western individualism along with his search for Confucian spirituality as an alternative stretches back to his early works such as A Chinese Mirror: Moral Reflections on Political Economy and Society (Open Court, 1991), “Human Rights: A Bill of Worries” (in Confucianism and Human Rights, Columbia University Press, 1998) and Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World’s Spiritual Traditions (Open Court 2001). Against Individualism is a natural progression of all these early groundworks that Rosemont has laid along the way.
CFP: AAR Confucian Traditions Group
Confucian Traditions Group
Statement of Purpose:
This Group is committed to the study of the diversity of religious traditions associated with Confucius and his followers, including areas where Confucian thought and practice intersect with those of other traditions. The Group embraces historical, philosophical, and dialogical approaches, and is not located in any single country or discipline.
Call for Papers:
This Group invites proposals concerning any aspect of Confucianism from any geographical area in any historical field with any methodological orientation.
For more details, including topics of particular interest and whom to contact, please see this webpage.
Hutton Reviews El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2016.01.17 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
Loubna El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation, Princeton University Press, 2015, 218pp., $39.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780691163048.
Reviewed by Eric L. Hutton, University of Utah
This book’s subtitle, A New Interpretation, provides a convenient starting point for discussing its aims, methods, strengths and weaknesses. The interpretation offered aims to be new not merely in the sense that it argues for a view that previously has not (or not much) been defended by other scholars, but moreover and especially in that it aims to challenge claims made by other scholars. So described, the book might sound like it is primarily for specialists in ancient Chinese thought, and while Loubna El Amine never identifies her target audience very clearly, at points she also provides basic background information that would allow non-specialists to follow along. The book is thus potentially of interest to non-specialists as well, such as Western political philosophers and theorists who know little about Confucian political thought and want a compact and accessible discussion of Confucianism that speaks to their interests. This review will focus on those aspects in which the book addresses a specialist audience, but my discussion is equally for the benefit of non-specialists. As will become apparent from the reservations I express below, the value of the book for non-specialists needs to be carefully qualified, in a way to be explained at the end.
Review of Ziporyn’s Books on Coherence
My review of Brook Ziporyn’s two-volume study of Chinese philosophy through the lens of “coherence” has now been published, and should be available to those with access to Dao. Here’s the first paragraph of the review:
Confucian Academy 孔学堂
The Confucian Academy (孔学堂) in Guiyang is a recently founded but flourishing enterprise with multiple dimensions, including a scholarly publishing arm. They have begun publishing a bilingual journal (all articles appear in both Chinese and English), and I attach the table of contents here. The Academy’s website is here.
New Book: Meditation and Culture
The book Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context has been published by Bloomsbury Academic.
Bin Song Blogging at Huff Post
Bin Song, who holds a PhD in Western philosophy from Nankai University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Religious Studies at Boston University, has begun a series of blog posts in the Huffington Post under the general title, “A Catechism of Confucianism.” As he explains there, “as a Buddhist-Christian Confucian, the primary focus of Bin Song’s spiritual and academic life is to increase the relevance of traditional Confucianism to the contemporary global human society through a on-going dialogue with ordinary people, a variety of philosophical traditions, and non-Confucian world religions.”
Experimental Philosophy Through History – February 2, 2016 at NYU
Many of you know me as a scholar of Chinese philosophy. But I also have research interests that I pursue through the methods of experimental philosophy, which seeks to investigate philosophical questions through the methods of the empirical sciences (in my case, experimental psychology).
I’m co-organizing this workshop with Joshua Knobe and Kevin Tobia (Yale), which will concern (as its name implies) questions at the intersection of history of philosophy and experimental philosophy. It seems that many of the questions that have arisen recently in debates about experimental philosophy have also been discussed in other periods in the history of philosophy, including general issues surrounding armchair and experimental approaches to philosophy. We thought it would be helpful to hold a workshop in which scholars working in the history of philosophy could discuss these issues.
In my presentation, I will be outlining the ways in which this basic dynamic has played out in some periods in the history of Chinese philosophy. Continue reading →
