We’ve launched a YouTube channel animating Zhuangzi stories (subtitles in various languages):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrGQmh7lzx5NtDW05Fsj9Qw
It’s also available in Spanish:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpnZxr3USI_nv1aoF6dPyA
And on Bilibili in Chinese:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sX4y1N7WU/
THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
Presents: Zhuangzi’s Robber Zhi: A Discussion
Presenter: Stephen Walker (University of Chicago)
Discussants: Timothy Connolly (East Stroudsburg University), Tao Jiang (Rutgers University), Qianyi Qin (CUNY Graduate Center), Hagop Sarkissian (CUNY Graduate Center & Baruch College)
ABSTRACT: This session will focus on the celebrated ‘Robber Zhi’ (盜跖) dialogue from the Miscellaneous Chapters (雜篇) of the Zhuangzi. In the dialogue, Kongzi (or Confucius) tries to persuade Robber Zhi to abandon his marauding ways and lead a more conventional life. While the character of Robber Zhi is obviously brutal, and a person few of us would want to emulate (or interact with in any way), he’s also strikingly insightful about human needs and frailties, and attentive to the more covert kinds of brutality we endure simply by living in organized societies. Not only does he raise the possibility that attempts to morally reform individuals might produce more harm than good, but he also embodies, in his own person, the pointlessness of making appeals to powerful persons who don’t value morality at all. The presenter will spend about 15 minutes summarizing the dialogue, and the discussants will spend about five minutes each raising points for discussion. The rest of the session will consist of Q&A. Those planning to attend are strongly encouraged to read the dialogue before the session begins. You can download a recent translation by Brook Ziporyn by clicking on this link.
DATE: November 6, 2020
TIME: 7:00-9:00 pm
This seminar will take place via Zoom (please scroll down for the full invitation). Continue reading →
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2020.05.15 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel, Beyond the Troubled Water of Shifei: From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi, SUNY Press, 2019, 283pp., $32.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781438474823.
Reviewed by Ricki Bliss, Lehigh University
Interpretation is always underdetermined and indeterminate. It is underdetermined by the data and it is indeterminate because meaning doesn’t allow it to be any other way. Interpretation is by no means a hopeless enterprise, however. Necessary conditions on the activity of interpretation are: (i) the assumption, on the part of the interpreter, of the family resemblance of forms of life; (ii) the assumption that all general concepts and conceptual schemes in all languages are family resemblance concepts; and (iii) a principle of mutual attunement.
Paul Godin’s new book, The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them, has been published by Princeton University Press. More info is found here.
The May 2020 issue of the Journal of Chinese Religions is now online at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42207. Among other things, it contains a review of Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Genuine Pretending: On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi by Stephen C. Walker.
Scott Barnwell has recently added a new chapter to his series of essays on classical Daoism, called Classical Daoism’s Amoral Ethos. On the site he explains that this is the first in a three-part series exploring early Daoist ethics.
THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
Welcomes: RICHARD KIM (Loyola University Chicago)
With responses from: CHRISTOPHER GOWANS (Fordham University)
Please join on October 11, 2019 at 5:30 for his lecture entitled,
THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN THE GOOD LIFE: REFLECTIONS FROM THE ZHUANGZI
ABSTRACT: The philosophical and psychological literature on well-being tend to focus on the prudential value of positive emotions such as pleasure, joy, or gratitude. But how do the negative emotions such as grief fit into our understanding of well-being? It is often assumed that negative emotions are intrinsically bad far us and that we should work toward eliminating them, especially from the perspective of our own well-being. Continue reading →
Los Angeles Review of Books debate on “Genuine Pretending: On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi” by David E. Cooper, Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Hans-Georg Moeller:
lareviewofbooks.org/article/decoding-the-zhuangzi-a-debate-on-hans-georg-moeller-and-paul-j-dambrosios-genuine-pretending/
Two articles of interest to appear outside of the standard ones we always cover:
2018 Dao Annual Best Essay Award
Dao has established “The Annual Best Essay Award” since 2007. In addition to a certificate of achievement, the award comes along with a prize of US$1,000. The award winners are noted in the website of the journal as well as the website of Springer, the publisher of the journal. The award ceremony is held each year at the American Philosophical Association Annual Meeting (Eastern Division) in January, where a special panel on the theme of the award winning essay is held. The critical comments and the author’s responses to them presented at the panel, after revision, will be published in the last issue of Dao each year.
The selection process consists of two stages. At the beginning of each year, a nominating committee of at least three editorial members, who have not published in Dao in the given year, is established. This committee is charged with the task of nominating three best essays published in the previous year. These three essays are then sent to the whole editorial board for deliberation. The final winner is decided by a vote by all editorial board members who are not authors of the nominated essays.
The editorial board has just finished its deliberation on the best essay published in 2018, and the award is given to:
Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Hans-Rudolf Kantor, Hans-Georg Moeller, “Incongruent Names: A Theme in the History of Chinese Philosophy,” Volume 17, Issue 3, March 2018, pp. 305-330. (The paper is set for free access by clicking the title here.)
