Virtue Ethics and Confucianism Book Inches Toward Publication


VE&C_cover

I am happy to report that the book that Michael Slote and I have been editing, Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, will see the light of day before too many more months pass. Routledge now has a webpage for the book which includes its cover, table of contents, and so on, and it can even be pre-ordered. For those of you who are neither independently wealthy nor buyers for academic libraries (i.e., virtually anyone reading this), please be assured that a more reasonably-priced paperback edition will be forthcoming in a couple more years.

 

SJSU Symposium: Yi-Jing Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophy & Society

SJSU Center for Comparative Philosophy Workshop/Conference Series presents a symposium:

Yi-Jing Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophy & Society

Co-Sponsors: SJSU Philosophy Department & Dr. Chaote Lin Endowment
Time: 4th April 2013, Thursday, 10:00-17:00
Place: Conference Room 225-229, King Library,
San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA

Continue reading →

What Would a Confucian University in the US Look Like?

The rather surprising question in my title is inspired by three things. Most immediately, I have just returned from the AAS Conference in San Diego, where I participated in a panel on Elite and Popular Confucianism, presenting a paper called “American Confucianism: Between Tradition and Universal Values.” Second, I have heard some talk about the establishment within one or more Chinese universities of explicitly Confucian-themed academic units. Finally, I recently became aware of Soka University, a liberal arts college in Southern California that was founded by the Soka Gakkai Buddhist organization from Japan.

Continue reading →

Workshop at Wesleyan on Virtues: Intellectual and Moral

Virtues: Intellectual and Moral — An International Workshop

April 2, 2013, 4:15–6:30pm, Wesleyan University, Russell House (350 High Street, Middletown, CT)

Three philosophers based in Taiwan will present papers exploring different aspects of intellectual and practical virtue, each paper followed by comments from a member of the Wesleyan Philosophy Department, with general discussion at the end. The event is free and open to all. Please contact Lynn Higgs with any questions.

Continue reading →

Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy lecture on Confucian ethics March 22 @5:30pm

THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Welcomes ANDREW LAMBERT,  Department of Philosophy, Wester New England University

With responses from Warren Frisina, Dean of Honors College, Associate Professor of Religion, Hofstra University

Please join us at Columbia University Department of Religion on March 22, 2013 at 5:30pm for his lecture entitled

A Confucian Account of Ethical Obligation?

ABSTRACT: The Confucian doctrine of the five cardinal relationships is often taken as a defining feature of the Confucian tradition, with its emphasis on family life and relationships. However, objections arising from more modern ethical ideals threaten to undermine the doctrine, or at least render it irrelevant to contemporary ethics. I present three such objections.

In seeking to deflect the objections, I suggest a different way of understanding the purpose and effects of the five relationships doctrine. Instead of seeing the doctrine as a constellation of concrete practical norms and duties pertaining to individuals occupying certain social roles and positions, I suggest we understand the five relationships doctrine as a kind of training device, which cultivates a certain kind of personal sensibility. This is a sense of obligation to engage with and find a basis for familiarity with those people encountered in the subject’s local social world.

I argue that when understood in this way, the discourse of the five cardinal relationships is not subject to the three common objections noted above, and presents a distinctive form of ethical obligation.

I finish by locating this account of ethical obligation within a larger moral vision, thereby suggesting this is a genuine form of ethical obligation rather than mere etiquette or psychological conditioning.

Time: 5:30-7:30 pm
Place: Rm. 101 in the Department of Religion 80 Claremont Avenue
http://goo.gl/maps/zfUKH

PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE:
http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/

Review of Rosemont, Reader’s Companion to the Analects

Guest poster Andrew Komasinski offers us a review of Henry Rosemont Jr., A Reader’s Companion to the Confucian Analects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Please direct any comments to Andrew.

Henry Rosemont Jr.’s A Reader’s Companion to the Confucian Analects is a novel approach in the English-language world. Building on Rosemont’s forty years of professional knowledge and personal experience with the Analects, this text will be of great use for the right type of reader. Containing no footnotes and not structured as an argument, this is not a scholarly monograph and bypasses many issues primarily of interest to scholars. The text differs from the similarly titled Cambridge Companion series which provides a set of scholarly essays highlighting the contemporary debate or Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks that guide undergraduate students through complex arguments.

Continue reading →

AAS in San Diego Next Week

There’s not a ton of philosophy on the AAS program for next week — there never is — but for the first time in years, I’m going to be there and would enjoy meeting any Warp, Weft, and Way readers who are also attending. Here are a couple interesting panels, as seen from my perspective (listed in chronological order):

Continue reading →