Kalmanson Lecture at CSCP: “So You Want to Diversify Philosophy”

THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Welcomes:

Leah Kalmanson (Drake University)

With a response from:

Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)

Please join on us at Columbia University’s Religion Department on FRIDAY, April 26th at 6:00 PM for her lecture entitled:

So You Want to Diversify Philosophy: Some Thoughts on Structural Change

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New Analects Translation

Paul van Els of Leiden University writes…

This new translation of the Lunyu, which recently came out, may have escaped the attention of Warp, Weft, and Way blog readers, as it was published by what appears to be an obscure press:

Li, Chris Wen-Chao. 2018. What Confucius Really Said: The Complete Analects in a Skopos-Centric Translation. San Francisco: Maison 174. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1727464494/)

Purists might frown upon this translation, if only because the real Confucius could not and would not have quoted Katy Perry as saying “You’re hot then you’re cold, You’re yes then you’re no, You’re in then you’re out, You’re up then you’re down” (p. 164). Still, Li’s work is a creative take on the ancient text, and translations such as “Confucius @MasterSays: Guys who talk sweet and smile all the time are scum.” (p. 3) might strike a chord with the Twitter generation.

New Book: Harrington’s translation of Cheng Yi, The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes

Yale University press is about to release Michael Harrington’s excellent translation of Cheng Yi’s very important The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes, with an introduction by Michael and Robin Wang. More details are here.

Behuniak Reviews Slingerland, Mind and Body in Early China

Jim Behuniak has published a review in Dao — currently “Online First” — of Ted Slingerland’s new book, Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism (OUP, 2019). The full review is available (I believe; this might only be for 50 people?) here: https://rdcu.be/buskr. The opening of the review:

I would like to confess my bias at the outset. Before even reading this book, I was predisposed to report that it was brilliant. Edward Slingerland’s cross-disciplinary work in the fields of Chinese philosophy, cognitive science, and metaphor—plus his contributions with respect to consilience in the humanities and natural sciences—establish him as a singularly important scholar and one that we are lucky to have as a contemporary. His 2008 work, What Science Offers the Humanities, was instrumental in shaping my own philosophical approach in two books that will soon be going to press. I regret not giving Slingerland more credit in those pages….

The problem with Slingerland’s work, however, is that it tends to have two distinct components: one positive, one negative. The positive generates real insights. The negative, however, generates unfair criticisms by hastily identifying specific individuals with large-scale, odoriferous tendencies “in our field.” When challenged on this practice, Slingerland will apologize, acknowledge his “inaccuracies,” admit to his own “sloppiness,” and retreat (see Slingerland, “Reply to Prof. Moeller’s Response,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10.4 [2011]: 537–539). In the present volume, given the sheer number of us implicated, mending fences might prove a little more difficult….

CFP: Confucian Conference at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia

The Centre of East-West Cultural and Economic Studies at Bond University is organizing a Confucian Conference, together with the “World Consortium of Research in Confucian Cultures” (led by Prof. Roger Ames) and Beijing Foreign Language University 北京外國語大學 (with Prof. Tián Chénshān 田辰山), on August 28-31st, 2019. Please see the flyer for the details of CFP.

If interested, please contact Dr. Chen directly or the following email contacts:

Dr. James Ferguson: jferguso@bond.edu.au

Cindy Minarova-Banjac: cminarov@bond.edu.au