Ziran in Early Daoist Thinking: Spontaneous Nature – 1st Edition
By Jing Liu. Copyright 2027. 166 Pages, 7 B/W Illustrations. by Routledge. Also available as eBook on Taylor & Francis eBooks (Institutional Purchase).
From the publisher: This book offers a different understanding of nature by investigating the concept of ziran 自然 in the early Daoist texts, aiming to lay a metaphysical foundation for Daoism, Daoist environmentalism, and ecofeminism. Continue reading →
Yutang Jin’s article “What Progressive Confucians Still Owe Us: Three Challenges to Progressive Confucianism” has been published by Philosophia.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Sungmoon Kim, A Confucian Theory of Power, Manchester University Press, 2026, 232pp, $130.00 (hbk) ISBN 9781526182661.
Reviewed by Antong Liu, Singapore Management University
The main body of this book is an extensive essay by Sungmoon Kim on the concept of power and its evolution in Confucian political thought. While arguably underlying any attempt to theorize politics, power “remains one of the least examined concepts” in the Confucian tradition (7). This lack of attention to power, as Kim claims, correlates with scholars’ overemphasis on Confucian moral virtue (3) but weakens the potential for Confucianism to thrive as a robust political theory in contemporary East Asia (8). To mitigate it, Kim begins by interpreting several moments in the ancient history of Confucian political thought in…
Dear Colleagues,
Next week the 四海为学 Collaborative Learning Project will host two events:
November 2nd at 17:30 Beijing time Derek Hird will give a lecture titled “Strictness, Kindness, and the Way of the Father”
November 3rd at 19:00 Beijing time we will host a book discussion of Li Yong’s Confucian Comparative Political Philosophy.
Please feel free to advertise these events or share them with anyone. All our events are free and open to everyone. Note that no pre-registration or passcode is required for any 四海为学 events.
For a list of upcoming events see our calendar here.
Sincerely,
Paul J. D’Ambrosio
Sungmoon Kim’s new book, A Kingdom of Righteousness: Neo-Confucianism and Political Theory in Traditional Korea, has been published by Cambridge University Press. See here and below for more details.
Chien-hsing Ho’s monograph Worldly Indeterminacy has now been published online by Oxford University Press as an Open Access title. See here and below for more details. Continue reading →
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
The latest issue of Asian Philosophy has been published. Please see here and below for the Table of Contents.
The latest article in our series on the philosophy of Confucius drawing from the Dialogues of Confucius is now out!
If you have trouble accessing the full article, just let me know, and I’ll be happy to send you a pdf.
Abstract: Kwong-loi Shun offers a Confucian account of reflective equanimity that stems largely from the work of Mencius and Zhu Xi. Although Shun labels it as ‘spiritual’, his account tends toward the naturalistic. In this article, we offer an account of reflective equanimity according to Confucius that takes seriously the spiritual aspect, by tying it to Confucius’ notion of tian. We describe three aspects of tian from the Dialogues of Confucius that are consistent with Shun’s view and, we believe, extend his view, while simultaneously preserving and reconciling the competing ‘personal’ and ‘cosmic’ aspects of Confucius’ view of tian.
Online Workshop: Generalisation and De-reification: Cross-Cultural History of Philosophy in East Asia and Beyond
The British Society for the History of Philosophy (BSHP) will hold an online workshop, “Generalisation and De-reification: Cross-Cultural History of Philosophy in East Asia and Beyond,” on 20 November 2026, 09:00 UK (GMT) / 17:00 China (CST) / 20:00 Sydney (AEDT).
