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.
New Book: Ho, Worldly Indeterminacy
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 →
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Familism
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
ToC: Asian Philosophy 36:4
The latest issue of Asian Philosophy has been published. Please see here and below for the Table of Contents.
Reflective Equanimity in Confucius
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.
BSHP Workshop Announcement: Generalisation and De-reification
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).
Episode 39 of “This Is the Way”: Mohist Consequentialism
The ancient Mohists are often said to be the world’s first consequentialists — the first on record to propose that we should consistently live by an ethical standard that asks us to bring about as much good as possible for the world. In this episode, we put Mohist consequentialism under a microscope. On the Mohist view, the best action is always the one that maximizes benefit and minimizes harm. How did the Mohists justify this approach? What sorts of things count as “benefit”? Is the theory too demanding to be viable or useful for most people? Join us as we try really hard to set aside our biases and explore what’s good and admirable about a central feature of both Mohist ethics and many ethical theories today. Continue reading →
Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
Ooi, Ivanhoe, and Lederman on Wang Yangming
The journal Res Philosophica has published Daryl Ooi’s “Wang Yangming, the Kaleidoscope Model of Genuine Knowing, and Doing Chinese Philosophy,” together with responses by P.J. Ivanhoe and Harvey Lederman, Ooi’s rejoinder. See here!
New Article: Galvany, How to Lose Weight with Confucius
Albert Galvany’s article “How to Lose Weight with Confucius: Immodesty, Inner Struggle, and Moral Learning of Yan Yuan in the Junzi wei li 君子為禮” has been published by the Center of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts of Wuhan University.
