New Book: Green, ed., Doing Metaphysics in a Diverse World

Stephen Green, ed., Doing Metaphysics in a Diverse World: How We Make Sense of Things Across Cultures has been published by Bloomsbury.

In a world increasingly interconnected and fractious, cross-cultural dialogue about metaphysics matters more than ever. Drawing on theories and traditions from China, Japan, the Indic world, pre-colonial Africa, pre-Spanish Meso-America, as well as Islamic and European thought, a team of leading philosophers and historians bring case studies, texts, themes and thinkers of very different worlds into conversation. On the basis of this exceptionally rich and diverse canvas, they reflect on questions of enduring human significance: What is suchness? What do we mean by being, becoming and beyond? What is personhood? How do we name and order our world? How should we live?

For more information, please visit here.

Carleo, Progressive Confucianism: Its Proponents and Prospects

Robert A. Carleo’s thorough and carefully annotated summary of a roundtable on “Progressive Confucianism” has now been published by The Philosophical Forum as “Progressive Confucianism: Its Proponents and Prospects.” See here for full-text read-only access, and below for the abstract. This is as good a compact summary of the idea of progressive Confucianism as any I have seen!

Continue reading →

Upcoming 四海为学 Collaborative Learning Project Roundtable

On May 12th at 18:00 Beijing time the 四海为学 Collaborative Learning Project will host a roundtable on “Silence in Early Chinese Thought.”
For details and the Zoom link please see our event page: https://www.sihaiweixue.org/silence-roundtable
(Note that no pre-registration or passcode is required.)
For a list of upcoming events see our calendar here. Please feel free to advertise this or share it with anyone. All our events are free and open to everyone.
Sincerely,
Paul J. D’Ambrosio

Call for Papers: Moral Education between East Asian and Greco Roman Classics (9 May deadline)

 2025 Janus Project conference 

Both classical Chinese and Graeco-Roman cultures were marked by an intense focus on didactics; in other words, many of the foundational texts of these two traditions were centrally concerned with the instruction of their readers, especially in the moral virtues. This year, the Janus Project is bringing the comparative and connected didactic features of the classical Chinese and Graeco-Roman traditions to the fore, with a particular emphasis on early modern Latin written in or about East Asia. For example: the original Analects (論語) of Confucius aim to teach certain virtues; the Jesuit translation of the Analects in the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687) aims not only to impart these virtues but also thereby to teach a European audience about Chinese philosophy and to strengthen the practice of European-Christian morals. Both the original ancient texts and the early modern Latin corpus generated from them were thus products of cultures deeply invested in moral education. How can wisdom be taught, found, or acquired? What must one do to be or become a virtuous person? What are the necessary ingredients for a happy life or society? How do texts address these questions through their literary form? And, from a modern scholar’s perspective, how easily do these questions and the answers given to them cross cultural and linguistic boundaries? The 2025 Janus Project Conference encourages scholars from a wide-range of specialisms, including but not limited to history, classics, philosophy, comparative literature, and East Asian studies, to join us in exploring these questions. Continue reading →

Sino-Hellenic Network Easter Term Programme

We’re delighted to share the Sino-Hellenic Network Easter Term programme. Seminars take place in the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge and online, unless otherwise noted. All welcome.

 

Thursday 8 May, 11am – 12.30pm (Room 1.11, refreshments at 10.30am). Sign up for Zoom here

Cynthia Liu (University of Oxford): Greco-Roman and Chinese ‘Cosmopoetics’: Compared and Received

Chair: Tim Whitmarsh (University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 21 May, 3.30pm – 5.00pm. Online only, sign up here

Eric Hutton (The University of Utah): To China and Back: The Roundtrip Voyage of a Platonic Notion

Chair: Jingyi Jenny Zhao (Needham Research Institute/ University of Cambridge)

Thursday 5 June, 3.30pm – 5.00pm (Room R.01, refreshments at 3pm). Sign up for Zoom here 

Jeremy Tanner (UCL): Style and the Development of Art Theory in Ancient Greece and Early Imperial China

Chair: Hajni Elias (University of Cambridge)

Tuesday 17 June, 11am – 12.30pm (Room 1.11, refreshments at 10.30am). Sign up for Zoom here

Beth Harper (The University of Hong Kong): Rocking the Lyric: Mountains, Crags and Divine Inspiration in Classical Chinese and Greco-Roman Poetics

Chair: Emily Gowers (University of Cambridge)

We are grateful to the Faculty of Classics at Cambridge for generously supporting the events. If you would like to be kept up to date with Network news, please sign up here. We look forward to seeing many of you, either in person or or online!

Workshop: Works of Philosophy and their Reception — Workshop on Xunzi

The on-line “Works of Philosophy and their Reception — Workshop on Xunzi” brings together some of the contributors to an edited volume in preparation for the Works of Philosophy and Their Reception series.

The dates of the workshop are 15 May, 16 May, and 23 May.

The schedule of the workshop and abstracts of presentations are available here. Please register here in advance to participate.  

New Book: Tiwald, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy

May be a graphic of text that says 'THEOXFORD THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF Chinese Philosophy c editedby teo USTIN JUSTINTIWAL TIWALD'The Handbook of Chinese Philosophy has recently been released online by Oxford University Press, with paper copies set to release in August. The handbook collects new work on important texts and figures in the history of Chinese thought. The chapters cover both well-known texts such as the Analects and the Zhuangzi and many of the lesser-known thinkers in the classical and postclassical Chinese tradition. Most of the chapters focus on thinkers or texts in one of three important historical movements. These include classical (“pre-Qin”) Chinese philosophy, Chinese Buddhism, and the Confucian response to Buddhism (“neo-Confucianism” broadly construed). Each chapter presents cutting-edge work on important topics in the Chinese tradition and yet is written for a general philosophical audience. For more information, please see this site, and the Table of Contents follows.

Continue reading →