Although the ancient Chinese text Laozi–also known as the Daodejing–is highly popular worldwide, few Anglophone readers are familiar with the history of how the Chinese themselves have interpreted it. This volume aims to introduce students and general readers to the two earliest surviving commentaries on the Laozi, through translations that are approachable for non-specialists and can be read on their own. These two commentaries, the “Jie Lao” (Explaining the Laozi) and “Yu Lao” (Illustrating the Laozi), appear as two chapters in the book Han Feizi, traditionally dated to the 3rd century BCE. They are interesting not only for showing how at least one very early reader understood the Laozi, but also for what they may reveal about the state of the Laozi itself at that time, before it achieved the form of the text that is so famous nowadays. The book also includes original essays that explore the commentaries’ relation to the rest of the Han Feizi, compare and contrast them with other Laozi commentaries, and analyze their place in the larger history of Chinese commentarial writing. The table of contents is below the fold.
St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Thomas, St. Julian (and Dante)
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
Ivanhoe Reviews Tsui, Affective Betrayal
P.J. Ivanhoe has published a review of Jean Tsui’s book, Affective Betrayal: Mind, Music, and Embodied Action in Late Qing China (SUNY, 2024). The review opens:
This book displays vast erudition, moves nimbly across a number of disciplines, and presents complex, interlocking arguments aimed at showing how Liang Qichao (1873-1929) presented modern political knowledge in musical and visual terms that were designed to stimulate his readers’ bodily senses and motivate them to become committed to and act on behalf of the views he advocated.
Two Articles on Wang Yangming
I am pleased to share that the following two articles have recently been published:
Stephen C. Angle (2026). “A Halfhearted Defense of the Perceptual Model of Wang Yangming’s ‘Genuine Knowing’.” Ergo: an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 13: 43. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.11001
Stephen C. Angle and Chi-keung Chan (2026). “Affective Knowing in Wang Yangming.” European Journal of Philosophy. Early View. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70122
Job Opening: Georgetown University in Qatar
Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) invites applications for one (1) open-rank core faculty position in Philosophy.
The successful candidate will hold a Ph.D. in philosophy, or a closely related field, and will have a research focus in one or more of the following areas: non-Western philosophy (especially Islamic and Arabic philosophy, African/Africana philosophy, Asian philosophy), Continental philosophy, philosophy of science (broadly construed), philosophy of social science, or applied ethics. They will contribute to the foundational and upper-level offerings of the Culture and Politics (CULP) major and to the BSFS core curriculum and must be able to teach a course in Political and Social Thought.
Episode 38 of “This Is the Way”: Xunzi on Human Nature and Human Artifice
Xunzi is famous for the claim that “human nature is bad.” But what does he mean by this, and if goodness does not come naturally to us, where does it come from?
In this episode, we discuss Xunzi’s distinction between nature (xing 性) and deliberate effort (wei 偽), his disagreement with Mencius, and his view that moral goodness must be “learned” and “worked at.” We also ask how sharp the distinction between the natural and the artificial really is, and consider Xunzi’s comparison of moral cultivation to crafts like pottery and woodworking. If we are shaped through deliberate effort, are we both the material being shaped and the ones doing the shaping? Continue reading →
Brian Bruya in Conversation with George Thompson
George Thompson is a popularizer of philosophical Daoism. In this conversation, we discuss the concept of ziran, the science of wisdom, and the intersection of philosophy and religion.
ToC: Dao 25:3 (2026)
The latest issue of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy has been published. See here and below.
Wong reviews Kim, The Art of Seeing Beyond Oneself
Doil Kim, The Art of Seeing Beyond Oneself: A Confucian Perspective on Humility, Oxford University Press, 2025, 184pp., $99.00 (hbk) ISBN 9780197834213.
Reviewed by David B. Wong, Duke University
Doil Kim identifies Confucian humility as a form of “self-lowering”. Other forms under this capacious heading have been criticized as prescribing self-effacement or self-sacrifice. Failure to distinguish Confucian humility from such other forms has resulted in confusion and unclarity as to what humility is, and most importantly, has obscured how Confucian humility can play a constructive role in shaping personhood in the sense of a “good and ethically formed human being” (1). Kim’s aim is to make the case for Confucian humility, based on a textual analysis of early Confucian and medieval Neo-Confucian texts, followed by a discussion of how…
Chrysostom, Augustine, and the Holiness of Matrimony
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
