I’ve been recently thinking about an issue that comes up in both the Daodejing and the Analects. DDJ 63, specifically, is commented on in Analects 14.34. In the two texts, we see different positions concerning how one should respond to enmity 怨 yuan. DDJ 63 reads:
為無為，事無事，味無味。大小多少，報怨以德。圖難於其易，為大於其細；天下難事，必作於易，天下大事，必作於細。是以聖人終不為大，故能成其大… Continue reading →
Metaphysical Foundations of Knowledge and Ethics in Chinese and European Philosophy
Cologne, June 24-25, 2011 Continue reading →
Steve mentioned Kai Marchal’s and Huang Yong’s papers on moral perception and motivation is his report from the Soochow University conference. I’ve been thinking about some of the issues raised in them, and since both of them (and Steve, who raises some of these issues in his book) contribute to the blog, this seems like the perfect chance to try to get clearer. I’m no expert on either Zhu Xi or Wang Yangming, so I’ll let others weigh in on the interpretive issues. I’m more interested in the general moral psychology/epistemology. Continue reading →
Actually, both parts of that conjunction are false: I am far from virtuous, and I probably don’t hate you. (Really I don’t.) But say I were virtuous: what would be the problem with me hating some people? Would feeling hatred toward some individuals detract from my overall moral standing? And forget about poor old un-virtuous me. What about someone who, by all accounts, really was virtuous–Confucius. Would it detract from his moral standing if he hated some people?
Book 9 of the Xunzi includes a passage that seems to argue that in order to prevent desperate poverty (qiong 窮) it is necessary that some people be poor (pin 貧) while others are rich. Sorting out the view Xunzi takes of poverty in this argument is harder than you might expect.
The argument’s central claim is that if people are equal in their power and position and the same in their desires and aversions, this will inevitably lead to conflict, disorder, and poverty. The sages are supposed to have solved this problem by establishing the rituals and the duties, a hierarchical system that ensures that some can lead while others follow.
Why, though, must there be inequality of wealth as well as of power? Continue reading →
Just added a link to this online tool in the ‘References & Tools’ link list. The description of the site reads: “An Historical and Comparative Encyclopaedia of Chinese Conceptual Schemes.” The General Editor of the site is: Christoph Harbsmeier 何莫邪; Associate Editor is: Jiang Shaoyu 蔣紹愚.
Here is the front matter you’ll encounter when you go to the site:
JeeLoo Liu writes:
Our thanks to fellow blogger, Chris Panza, for the heads up.
Rodney Taylor enlightens the Huff Post readership on what Confucianism really is HERE.
Just to get you interested, here’s something Taylor says in the piece:
By emphasizing the learning of the sages of antiquity, Confucius believed rulers ruled by the Mandate of Heaven. Confucius thus supported the theocratic nature of the Chinese state. More importantly, however, he supported the religious authority associated with T’ien as a principle of “purpose.” Because of T’ien, the universe had a purpose and that purpose was exercised on behalf of the state. For the Confucians, this “purpose” of Heaven was seen as a greater authority than the power of rulership itself. The ruler only ruled because of Heaven’s Mandate, and the Mandate could be taken away. To hold the Mandate, the criterion was the moral conduct of the ruler. In Confucian thought, much is made of the distinction between a ruler, wang, a true ruler of moral worth, and a tyrant, pa, one who exercises power only for his own personal aggrandizement.
The three-day conference and book symposium “Virtue and Luck: Virtue Theory and Chinese Philosophy” has now concluded, and I thought I might offer a summary and some thoughts. The idea that linked together the three quite distinct days’ activities was “virtue,” East and West, in ethics and in epistemology, pro and con. Continue reading →
