I’ve long been interested in Alice Crary’s work — her 2007 book is reviewed here — in part because of intriguing resonances between her ideas and some aspects of Neo-Confucianism that I find most attractive, such as the need to “discern patterns” in an “already moral world.” These issues come out even more strongly in her latest book, Inside Ethics, which is reviewed here. Rejecting an “ethically indifferent metaphysic” seems to me to be starting off in the right direction!
Category Archives: Neo-Confucianism
CFP: 2nd Conference on Middle Period Chinese Humanities
In 2014, the first “Conference on Middle Period Chinese Humanities” was convened at Harvard, gathering together scholars working on the period covering the Tang through the Ming dynasties in all fields. I had the good fortune to attend, and found it very stimulating — if somewhat short of philosophers. The second such conference has now been announced, to be held at Leiden University, September 14-17, 2017. Those interested in participating are asked to submit an abstract of 300 to 500 words (in English or Chinese) and a CV by October 1, 2016 to: middle.period17@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Those whose abstracts are accepted will be notified by December 1, 2016. For more information, see here.
New Book: Chung, Trans., Yi Hwang (Toegye), A Korean Confucian Way of Life and Thought
Yi Hwang (Toegye), A Korean Confucian Way of Life and Thought: The Chasongnok (Record of Self-Reflection).
Translated by Edward Y. J. Chung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016.
Wm. Theodore de Bary awarded the 2016 Tang Prize in Sinology
The University Committee on Asia & the Middle East (UCAME) is pleased to share the great news that the Tang Prize Committee, in a press conference from Taiwan earlier today, announced William Theodore de Bary, Professor Emeritus of Columbia University, the sole recipient of the 2016 Tang Prize in Sinology for his “pioneering contributions in Confucian studies.” Founded in 2012 by Samuel Yin who was inspired by the Nobel Prize, the award includes a cash prize of US$1.24 million, as well as a separate grant of approx. US$311,000 for awardees in each of its four categories: Sinology, Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, and Rule of Law. The inaugural winner of the Tang Prize in 2014 was Prof. Yu Ying-shih. This year’s award ceremony will take place in Taipei on September 25.
Li Zhi Translation Published
Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline Lee, and Haun Saussy have translated and edited a book of translations by the great late-Ming dynasty iconoclast Li Zhi, and the book has now been published by Columbia University Press. It is beautifully produced and a great contribution to anyone seeking to teach about the culture and philosophy of Li’s crucial era. Congratulations! (Pauline Lee’s own book on Li Zhi was previously announced here on the blog.)
Awalt-Conley, Neo-Confucianism and Physicalism
At my invitation, my former student Dylan Awalt-Conley has agreed to make the following short essay public as a Guest Post. Please address any questions or comments to Dylan.
Neo-Confucianism and Physicalism
© 2016, Dylan Awalt-Conley
Despite general enthusiasm for engaging with the Neo-Confucian imaginary in a serious philosophical way, there seem to be some widely held reservations against its use in scientific contexts. Yet I believe that much of the intuitive incompatibility between the Cheng-Zhu metaphysic and a scientific framework comes from a sense of ‘science’ that is constrained by an implicit ontological reductionism. If we are willing to take Neo-Confucianism seriously, then the ontology invoked by concepts like li and qi can provide an experimentally sound alternative to physicalism, complete with new ways of thinking and working scientifically.
New Book on Wang Yangming
I have just started reading Larry Israel’s book Doing Good and Ridding Evil in Ming China: The Political Career of Wang Yangming (Brill, 2014), and it looks excellent. Larry posted something about it on the Readers’ Discussion section of the site, but it deserves a main post!
New Book: Eichman on Late Ming
Jennifer Eichman’s important study of late-Ming thought and practice is about to be published:
A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epistolary Connections (Brill, 2016)
For more details, see here. Congratulations, Jennifer!
New Book: Meditation and Culture
The book Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context has been published by Bloomsbury Academic.
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 →
