Back in 2009 and 2010, Minh Nguyen surveyed a wide range of instructors of course on Chinese philosophy to learn about the challenges they faced and about resources they found particularly useful. He has now published the survery data in the Fall 2011 Newsletter of the APA Committee on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies. He and Manyul Im are working on an essay extracting lessons from the survey, but in the meantime, discussion of its results are welcome here.
Moral Perfection in the Analects (and Beyond?)
As part of some commentary on Paul Goldin’s new book Confucianism, Bill Haines has noted the centrality of the idea of moral perfection in Goldin’s characterization of the basic convictions of the Confucian philosophical orientation. In a subsequent comment, he questions to what degree the ideal of moral perfection was actually held by Confucius. With Bill’s permission, I’m re-posting his comments on this latter subject here, because I think they deserve more attention than they may get buried deep in a comment string. Read on, and please direct your comments to Bill, the author of what follows. Continue reading →
CFP: 2012 ISCWP Beijing Roundtable
2012 Term
“Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy”
2012年“北京當代哲學國際圓桌學術研討會”
Theme / 討論主題
“Philosophical Methodology:
From the Vantage Point of Comparative Philosophy”
“哲學方法論﹕從比較哲學的觀點看”
Comparative Philosophy 3:1 Table of Contents
Here is the Table of Contents for the latest issue of Comparative Philosophy (issue 3:1) Continue reading →
Reminder of Free Dao Downloads
Just a quick reminder that the journal Dao gives out free promotional downloads of their top five downloaded articles at any given time. Here is the link (freebies are at the bottom of the page). There are some great articles right now on that list!
Confucius in Contemporary Art at Useless Tree
FYI, Sam Crane has a great post over on his blog about the “Q Confucius” contemporary art exhibit in Shanghai.
Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought — proposal deadline extended one week
Just in case this has slipped your mind, you now have one extra week to send in a proposal for the 8th Annual Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought. Proposals are now due next Friday, January 13. The conference will be April 13-15 at Indiana University. For more information, see the revised cfp below:
Wang Chong at Unpolished Jade
FYI, contributor Alexus McLeod, has begun a series of postings on Wang Chong over on his blog, Unpolished Jade.
Do Ruists overemphasize filial feeling?
I was at the APA in Washington DC last week, and it was great to get a chance to hear about some very interesting work in Chinese philosophy. A couple of papers got me thinking about the reasoning behind the emphasis on filiality (xiao 孝) in classical Ruism. Whether Ruism gives too much weight to filiality at the expense of other values has been debated recently, and an issue in Dao a year or two ago presented some of this debate. At the conference, I started wondering about a slightly different problem: do Ruists put too much faith in the assumption that someone who is filial will have other moral virtues as well? Is there good reason to think this is generally true? Continue reading →
Fudan's English-language Chinese Philosophy Programs
Fudan University has successfully launched its English-language Chinese philosophy programs (a one-year Visiting Student program, and a two-year M.A. program) this fall, and is now offering information for those who want to learn more about applying to begin in Fall 2012. Please see this poster for the basic information, and this document with further details. Anyone who has experience with the programs, please let us know in the comments!
