Please be informed that Penn State University will be hosting an International Symposium on “Reading, Textual Production, and Literati Culture in Late Imperial China,” May 31-June 1, 2013. The event is cosponsored by the Asian Studies Program and Confucius Institute at Penn State University, and the Department of Chinese Culture at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is open to the public and anyone interested is welcome to attend. For information, please contact On-cho Ng <oxn1@psu.edu>.
Category Archives: Neo-Confucianism
Great source for Neo-Confucian texts
As Chris has recently reminded us, ctext is a terrific resource, both in terms of its textual coverage and the many innovative features that Donald has added to it. Currently it has some very useful coverage of the Song-Ming era, but for anyone looking for more texts from Neo-Confucian authors, I can recommend the Hong Kong Society of Humanities site (click on the 宋明哲學經典 link), which I have just added to our list of resources.
This Week’s Neo-Confucianism Seminar at Columbia
The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday, May 3, 2013, from 3:30 to 5:30pm. We will meet in the Board Room of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. Please note the earlier starting time.
Our presenters for this session (listed here in alphabetical order) are Agnes Chalier and Tom Selover. Dr. Chalier’s paper is titled “Scientific Variations: Research on History and Philosophy of Science in Europe and China.” A copy of her paper is attached (actually, if you’re reading this on-line, contact one of the organizers for a copy). Dr. Selover’s paper is titled “Neo-Confucian Principle(s) in the Thought of Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012).” His paper will be distributed as soon as it is available.
Next Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar
The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday, April 12 (the second Friday of the month, a departure from our usual first-Friday format), from 3:30 to 5:30pm. We will meet in the Komoda Room in the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.
We will have two presenters for this session (listed here in alphabetical order).
- Theresa Kelleher of Manhattanville College will present the paper “Looking at the Quotidian Dimensions of Neo-Confucianism: Excerpts from the Journal of Wu Yubi (1392-1469).”
- Zhou Zehao of York College will present the paper “Confucius and the Cultural Revolution: A Brief Comparison of the Two Anti-Confucian Campaigns during the Cultural Revolution.”
Copies of their papers will be distributed soon. All are welcome to attend. Please feel free to forward this message to interested colleagues. Please join us after the seminar for dinner at the Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets.
Moral Exemplars and Moral Connoisseurs
A number of scholars in our field have suggested that the model of connoisseurship is helpful in understanding Confucian moral education and the nature of the Confucian moral exemplar (the junzi or sage). Eric Hutton’s “Moral Connoisseurship in the Mengzi” (in Liu and Ivanhoe, eds., Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, 2002) is a classic essay; more recently, Hagop Sarkissian (“Confucius and the Effortless Life of Virtue,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 27:1 [2010]) and P.J. Ivanhoe (“McDowell, WANG Yangming, and Mengzi’s Contributions to Understanding Moral Perception,” Dao [2011]) have also developed related ideas.
I’m going to excerpt here a bit from an essay of mine that is currently unpublished, part of a volume that will eventually wend its way through the review process and see the light of day. My concern in the essay is to further develop some comparisons between Neo-Confucians and contemporary psychological literature that I began in Sagehood and continued in “A Productive Dialogue? Contemporary Moral Education and Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian Ethics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy (2011). In particular, I refine the idea of “active moral perception” introduced in Sagehood, and as part of that process, find myself arguing against the idea that moral exemplars are best understood as people who have honed their sensitivities to moral reasons or moral properties in a connoisseur-like way. My target here is not, at least explicitly, the interpretations of Kongzi and Menzi suggested in the essays cited above, but rather to argue that a common-sense idea (supported by recent psychological research) of what moral exemplars are like, and what they do, actually fits very well with key elements of Wang Yangming’s picture. I’d love feedback!
CFP–Constructing and Interpreting the Daotong
Call for papers
Constructing and Interpreting the Daotong (Transmission of the Way) in the Perspective of Chinese and Korean Neo-Confucianism
International conference organised by:
– The Centre of Chinese Studies (CEC, ASIEs, Inalco),
– The Centre of Korean Studies (CECO, ASIEs, Inalco)
– The Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul)
The organising committee is pleased to invite colleagues and Ph.D students interested in Neo-Confucianism to submit abstracts for this international conference regarding the construction and (re-)interpretations of the Daotong. Its objective is to re-examine the process through which Neo-Confucian discourse was legitimated by promoting the notion of Transmission of the Way, both in Chinese and Korean contexts.
Feb. 1 Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar
RE: February 1, 2013 Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies
Dear seminar members and friends,
The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday, February 1, 2013, from 3:30 to 5:30pm. We will meet in the Board Room on the first floor of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. Please note the earlier starting time.
We will have two presenters for this session (listed here in alphabetical order).
Jennifer Eichman will present the paper “Mind Cultivation: Theoretical and Practical Considerations.”
Richard Stichler will present the paper “Human Nature and Cultures of War.”
All are welcome to attend. Please feel free to forward this message to interested colleagues. Please join us after the seminar for dinner at the Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets.
If you have any questions or would like a copy of the papers, please contact one of our organizers: Yong Huang, (yhuang@kutztown.edu), Tao Jiang (tjiang@rci.rutgers.edu), On-cho Ng (oxn1@psu.edu), or Deborah Sommer (dsommer@gettysburg.edu>). Our new rapporteur this year is Yang Liu (yl2435@columbia.edu) of Columbia University.
Li, Qi, and Transcendence in Neo-Confucianism
This is a guest post by David Chai of the University of Toronto. Please address all questions or comments to him.
In thinking of a topic to share with all of you, I found myself repeatedly returning to the subject of a new course I am teaching this semester: Neo-Confucianism. While gathering materials for the course I came across an article by Donald Blakeley (“The Lure of the Transcendent in Zhu Xi” History of Philosophy Quarterly, 21.3 (2004): 223-240). The paper discusses whether qi and li should be read as transcendent or immanent. After surveying a variety of contemporary theories, Blakeley argues that “a modified definition of transcendence” is needed such that “that there is independence and self-sufficiency in certain respects but not in others.” (232-233) His conclusion is that “li transcends qi in that any material formations depend upon li. Qi is in a dependent relation to li in this respect and li is independent from qi in this respect. Li, in being what it is as li, is independent from the ongoing affairs in the field of qi. But qi transcends li in that any material formations depend upon qi; li is in a dependent relation to qi in this respect and qi is independent from li in this respect.” (233)
For me, his argument is not convincing for several reasons. First is his need to modify the traditional meaning of transcendence. Second is his very use of transcendence to describe Zhu Xi’s li. From a Daoist perspective, li comes across as being very close to natural law. While Dao is transcendent, its fa, or li, is immanent. For li to possess the same transcendental qualities as Dao would be to deny Dao its own existential nature. So, my question is can li be understood as Blakeley so wishes without the need to modify what is meant by transcendent? If so, how would this play-out in terms of qi’s connection to Dao? On a more fundamental level, can we say Zhu Xi is espousing a cosmogonist doctrine involving qi and li or is he merely putting forth one that is pseudo-cosmological? If the former, then I’d have material with which to conduct a soteriological comparison with Zhuangzi; if the latter, then I am unclear as to the advantages his qi-li dyad holds over the wu-you pairing seen in the texts of Lao-Zhuang.
Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar Dec. 7
The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday, December 7 from 3:30 to 5:30pm. We will meet in the Board Room on the first floor of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. Please note the earlier starting time.
Our presenter for this session is Jaeyoon Song of McMaster University. The title of Dr. Song’s paper is “The Zhouli and Li Gou’s Constitutional Agenda.” A copy of the paper is available; please contact any of the organizers for a copy. Please note that it is slightly different than the copy sent out earlier and supersedes the earlier version.
All are welcome to attend. Please feel free to forward this message to interested colleagues. Please join us after the seminar for dinner at the Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets.
If you have any questions, you may contact one of our organizers: Yong Huang, (yhuang@kutztown.edu), Tao Jiang (tjiang@rci.rutgers.edu), On-cho Ng (oxn1@psu.edu), or Deborah Sommer (dsommer@gettysburg.edu or das9@caa.columbia.edu). Our rapporteur this year is Liu Peng (pl2411@columbia.edu) of Columbia University.
DeBary at Oct 5 Neo-Confucianism Seminar
Wm. Theodore de Bary, among the most influential scholars of Confucianism in the United States, will be discussing a paper titled “Neo-Confucianism and the Core Curriculum” at the Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar on Friday, October 5. These seminars are open to any interested parties; contact the organizers for a copy of the paper (which should be read in advance). Details follow. (Also, note that the organizers are soliciting ideas for future sessions this year.) Continue reading →
