Category Archives: Japan

CFP: 5E Cognition: Virtual Embodiment and Artificial Intelligence

5E Cognition: Virtual Embodiment and Artificial Intelligence

December 6-7 2018

University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan

Email: 5eveai.utuc@gmail.com

The University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP) in collaboration with University of Cincinnati is hosting a workshop exploring topics related to Enactive and Ecological accounts of Embodied Cognition, Comparative Chinese and Japanese Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence. The workshop will be held at the University of Tokyo campus on December 6th and 7th 2018.

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New Journal and Article on Birth of “Philosophy” in Japan

Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan is an interesting-looking new journal, and its first issue contains an article called The Birth of Philosophy as 哲學 (Tetsugaku) in Japan.” The article scrutinizes the history of the introduction of the subject from Holland to Japan, the coinage and application of the term tetsugaku (zhexue in Chinese), and its adoption in China during the late-nineteenth century. The article explains a lot about subtle changes in its coverage and nuance during the process. The journal and article are available from the following link:

http://philosophy-japan.org/en/international_journal/volume-1-2017-philosophy-and-the-university/

This open-access journal also welcomes submissions of papers written in English, French or German. Please refer to the document at the bottom of the page.

CFP: International Association of Japanese Philosophy

International Association of Japanese Philosophy

2017 International Conference

Date: 28-29 July 2017 (Friday to Saturday)

Venue: National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

Organizer: International Association of Japanese Philosophy (IAJP)

Co-organizer: Research Center for East Asian Culture and Sinology, National Taiwan Normal University

Theme

Globalizing Japanese Philosophy: From East Asia to the World

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October’s Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies (Seminar #567) will convene Friday, October 2, from 3:30 to 5:30pm in the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.

John A. Tucker of East Carolina University will present the paper “Yamazaki Ansai’s Discussion of Ren: Heartfelt Ethics and Historical Exemplars.” All are welcome to attend. Please join us after the seminar for dinner at a location to be announced.  If you have any questions, contact one of our organizers: Ari Borrell (aborrell@msn.com), Tao Jiang (tjiang@rci.rutgers.edu), or Deborah Sommer (dsommer@gettysburg.edu).

Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies (Seminar #567) will convene Friday, February 7, 2014 from 3:30 to 5:30pm in the Komoda Room of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.  We will have two presenters (copies of the papers are available from the organizers):

  • Elizabeth Woo Li.  Her paper is titled “‘Rites as Principles’ (li ji li 礼即理): A Fundamental Concept in Confucian Theories of Ethics and Politics.”
  • P. J. Ivanhoe.  His paper is titled “New Old Foundations for Confucian Ethical Philosophy: Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627-1705), Dai Zhen 戴震 (1722-1776), and Jeong Yakyong 丁若鏞 (1762-1836).”

All are welcome to attend.  Please join us immediately after the seminar for dinner at Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets.

Japan Times Review of Watanabe

Michael Hoffman of the Japan Times reviews the English translation of A HISTORY OF JAPANESE POLITICAL THOUGHT, 1600-1901, by Hiroshi Watanabe (Translated by David Noble. LTCB International Library Trust, International House of Japan, 2012). Hoffman focuses on the “evolution of Japan’s turn away from Confucian ideas.” Looks interesting. Here is some of the review (read the whole review at the Japan Times).

Maybe all ideas are inherently strange, given the nonsense time tends to make of them. Imagine how odd our thinking will seem 100 years from now — or would have seemed 100 years ago. Is “freakish” too strong a word? Whether it is or not, the ideas Watanabe discusses here with such clarity and vigor are the ones that animated two of the most astonishing phases of Japanese and, arguably, world history: the 2½ centuries of peace under the Tokugawa shogunate (1600-1867) and the subsequent national transformation of backwater Japan into superpower Japan.

What were these ideas? You could, simplifying just a bit, divide them into two categories: Confucian and anti-Confucian. For pre-modern Japan, China was civilization itself, and Confucianism was what made it so — “perhaps the most powerful political ideology yet conceived by the human race,” writes Watanabe. To devotees, its “rites and music,” “five relationships” and “five virtues” are what separate us from the beasts and make us human. To doubters — and the doubts grew as Japan’s stagnation became more evident — it was a retarding force. “Ours is a world in which living things are confined and regimented as if dead things,” wrote one exasperated samurai-scholar in 1838. Continue reading →