Utah Workshop on Xunzi and Hume

Comparing Two Masters: Xunzi and Hume

July 6-9, 2012

Philosophy Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Among comparisons that are drawn between Chinese and Western thinkers, David Hume is often compared with Mengzi, an early Confucian, while another early Confucian, Xunzi, is often compared with Thomas Hobbes. Through a series of seminar-style sessions over a period of four days, this workshop aims to investigate an alternative pairing, namely of Xunzi and Hume, which has not been much explored in existing scholarship. Workshop sessions will be led by:

  • Eric Hutton (University of Utah)
  • Philip J. Ivanhoe (City University of Hong Kong)
  • Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
  • Al Martinich (University of Texas at Austin)
  • Elizabeth Radcliffe (College of William and Mary)
  • Lisa Shapiro (Simon Fraser University)
  • Michael Slote (University of Miami)
  • Ling-kang Wang (Tamkang University)

This workshop is made possible by a generous grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. Workshop sessions are open to the public.

For more information about the workshop, please email <eric.hutton@utah.edu> or call 801-581-7320.

2 replies on “Utah Workshop on Xunzi and Hume”

  1. Any promises of interesting discussion between Obsession-Dispelling in Xunzi and its effects on Humean bundle theory? Roughly, I was interested if Xunzi offered something of value to the idea that, say, excessive attention to sense impressions then narrows one’s scope to a point that it disables the comprehensibility of a claim to a property-distinct substance.

  2. I believe that one of our session leaders intends to draw some comparisons between Hume’s thought and the “Jie Bi” chapter of Xunzi, but I do not as yet know whether they will go in the particular direction you are suggesting.

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