Book News

I’m very happy to announce news about some of my books!

  • The Chinese translation of Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry has just been published by China Renmin University Press.
  • The paperback edition of Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy has also just appeared. Information on this flyer from OUP will give you a 20% discount, if you are interested.
  • Finally, my latest book, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism is due out next month from Polity Press. UPDATE: this flyer from Polity offers a 20% discount, plus a way to request a free exam copy. (Outside the Americas, use this one instead.)

Frontiers of Philosophy in China Revises Mission

The Journal Frontiers of Philosophy in China, based at Beijing Normal University, has revised its mission. It is broadening its scope from publishing English translations of Chinese-laguage philosophical scholarship, to publishing English-language philosophical scholarship from all sources. Specifically:

Frontiers of Philosophy in China aims to disseminate new scholarly achievements in the field of broadly defined philosophy, and promote philosophical researches of the highest level by publishing peer-reviewed academic articles that facilitate intensive or extensive communication and cooperation between philosophers in China and abroad. It covers nearly all main branches of philosophy, with priorities given to original works on Chinese philosophy or in comparative studies of Chinese philosophy and other kinds of philosophy in the world.

For more informtion, including information on how to submit articles or book reviews, please see this brochure.

If anyone has any thoughts on ways in which this development is welcome or, perhaps, unwelcome, please share them. (I have to confess some mixed feelings myself, as I have found the previous mission of bringing Chinese-language scholarship to an English-reading audience to be valuable.)

ISCWP Call for Papers for APA Eastern Division Meeting December 27-30, 2012

The International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and
Western Philosophy (ISCWP) plans to sponsor one or two panels at this
year’s Eastern Division Meeting of APA (American Philosophical Association),
which will be held on December 27-30, 2012, in Atlanta, USA.
We hereby invite submissions from the members.

Our Goal: We would like to encourage submissions of individual papers
that are comparative, as well as panels which combine philosophers
working primarily in Chinese traditions with those working primarily
in Western traditions, aimed at promoting more in-depth engagement
between the two groups. We have not stipulated any specific themes for
the panels, but would welcome suggestions. One possible topic is
Theory and Practice of Interpretation in the Chinese Commentary Tradition (jinxue 經學).
One of the paper proposals submitted for the Pacific Division meeting is on
“Context and Correct Meaning in Lunyu Zhengyi 論語正義.”

Continue reading →

CFP for ISCP at AAR on Philosophy of Mind

Dear ISCP members,

You are cordially invited to submit a paper proposal for the ISCP’s panel at the AAR to be held in Chicago, Illinois, November 17-20, 2012. Submission Deadline: April 15, 2012. (Early submissions are encouraged and appreciated) The ISCP will be sponsoring one or two panels on the general theme: Philosophy of Mind in Confucian and Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Continue reading →

Call for SACP Paper and Panel Proposals for 2012 Eastern APA

2012 Eastern Division Conference of the American Philosophical Association

December 27-30, Atlanta, GA

Please submit individual paper abstracts or complete panel proposals for this year’s SACP Panels at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Paper abstracts should be 150-200 words in length, and complete panel abstracts should include a 150 word introduction to the theme of the panel, complete with panel title, along with 150 word abstracts for each of the papers.  Please include each presenter’s name, e-mail address, and institution.  Please submit these materials no later than May 7, 2011, to Brian Bruya at bbruya@emich.edu.

Role ethics as virtue ethics?

In case you are not tired of thinking about the issues raised by Henry Rosemont’s and Roger Ames’s defense of “role ethics,” I’d like to offer one more perspective on the matter. Rosemont and Ames see Confucian role ethics as a full-scale replacement to the current moral theories on offer, which in their writings seem to be consequentialism, Kantian deontology, and Aristotelian virtue ethics. As Bill Haines suggested in a comment to a previous post on this subject, some readers of Aristotle find the version of Aristotle that is rejected by Rosemont and Ames to be a caricature, but I am going to set that issue to the side and look at the possible value of recasting the ideas and values driving Confucian role ethics as a version of a broad notion of virtue ethics. Continue reading →