Zhao Hired by Whitman

Wenqing Zhao wrote to share the following, concerning a job that was advertised in “Asian Ethics” last year. Congratulations, Wenqing!

My name is Wenqing Zhao (赵文清). I received my PhD from City University of Hong Kong in 2016. From 2016 to 2018, I have served as the Associate Director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke University. I will start working at Whitman College as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy (Tenure Track) in Spring 2018. My main areas of interests are Chinese Philosophy, Bioethics, and Moral Psychology.  

Question about family and society in the Chinese philosophical tradition

Here are three different ideas:

  1. Having the right attitudes in my family relationships tends to give me the right attitudes in my political relationships.
  2. Where right family attitudes prevail in society, the right political attitudes tend also to prevail.
  3. Differences in family culture from region to region, or from time to time, tend to be accompanied by analogous differences in political culture.

Idea #2 is very abstract, and can be understood simply in terms of order versus disorder, or natural respect versus the lack of it.  Idea #3 contemplates a variety of kinds of stable order, and perhaps a variety of forms of government.

Where might idea #3 appear in the Chinese tradition?

Top 10 Issues of 2017 for Confucians in China

According to the 《儒家网》 (Confucian Web), here are the top 10 issues of interest to Confucians in 2017:

（一）儒学复兴进入“重建经学”新阶段

（二）传承发展传统文化上升到国家战略层面，中共十九大提出“坚定文化自信”

（三）“家与孝”讨论，凸显“人伦”的独特地位

（四）对“大陆新儒家”的评议继续深化，“新康有为主义”隐然成型

（五）敦和基金会探索国学领域机构发展模式，助力民间国学社会组织发展

（六）康晓光批判“公益商业化”，捍卫儒家公益之道

（七）阳明学不断升温，儒学已成为当代可供选择的思想资源

（八）学者持续倡议中国儒学学科建设，研究启动儒学教材编纂

（九）中伊开展文化学术交流，推进“儒伊对话”接续回儒传统

（十）孔子诞辰祭祀活动地域范围迅速扩大，祭礼仪式日益完善

This is just one opinion — the editorial staff of this website — but it gives a flavor for what some “mainland new Confucians” have been focused on. Lengthier descriptions of each issue follow below, and also at the original site.

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Li Maosen Lecture in Leipzig

Public Lecture: The Logic in Confucian Virtues

Prof. Li Maosen 李茂森 (Renmin University of China)

Place: Confucius Institute Leipzig, Otto-Schill.Str.1, 04109 Leipzig

Time: Monday, 8 January 2018, 6 pm

It is believed in the Confucian moral ideas that human needs should be properly satisfied in order to foster the growth and development of the individuals as well as the society. Continue reading →

Valmisa Hired by Gettysburgh

Mercedes Valmisa wrote to share the following information; I’d be happy to pass on similar news that anyone else has to share. Congratulations, Mercedes!

I have accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy (tenure-track) at Gettysburg College’s Philosophy Department to begin in the fall 2018. For the 2018-2019 academic year, I will be an Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow, a program intended to support faculty who can introduce diversity in the curriculum.

I got a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Sevilla (Spain), a M.A. in Chinese Philosophy from National Taiwan University, and a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies (June 2017) from Princeton University. I’m both a sinologist and a philosopher, and I work at the intersection of Chinese Studies and Chinese Philosophy: using interdisciplinary methods and approaches to explore philosophical problems across the early corpus of Chinese texts, both received and excavated. I’m particularly interested in questions of agency, efficacy, uncertainty, control, and freedom.

New Book: Stapleton and Hon, eds., Confucianism for the Contemporary World

SUNY has published Confucianism for the Contemporary World: Global Order, Political Plurality, and Social Action, edited by Kristin Stapleton and Tze-ki Hon. More details are here and below.

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