- Confucian freedom: assessing the debate By Robert A. Carleo III
- Did Confucius advise Zai Wo to do what he believed to be morally wrong? Interpreting Analects 17.21 By Mathew A. Foust
- Epistemic detachment from distinctions and debates: an investigation of yiming in the ‘qiwulun’ of the Zhuangzi By Fan He
- An Abhidharmic theory of welfare By Javier Hidalgo
- Differences and similarities between the later-Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion and the Islamic mystical tradition By Vahid Taebnia
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Zhuangzi’s evaluation of qing and its relationship to knowledge By Chiu Wai Wai
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Quan Wang
Author Archives: Nathan Kolodney
CFP: 25th annual meeting of the Southeast Early China Roundtable, University of Florida, October 22 to 24 (in-person)
The Southeast Early China Roundtable (SEECR) is now accepting submissions of paper abstracts for the 25th Annual Conference, to be held at the University of Florida (Gainesville) from Friday evening on October 22 to Sunday noon on Oct. 24, 2021. The keynote speakers will be Stephen Bokenkamp (Arizona State University) and Robert Campany (Vanderbilt University).
We welcome papers on pre-Song China from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history, literature, philosophy, and religion. Please send short abstracts of individual papers (250 words) to Stephan N. Kory (skory@ufl.edu) by August 1, 2021. For all abstract submissions, please mark the subject line as “SEECR Submission 2021.”For more information about SEECR, please visit the SEECR website:
CFP: Chinese Political Thought. A Global Dialogue beyond “Orientalism”
January 20-21, 2022 (online)
Chinese philosophy is often considered as a pragmatic, intrinsically “political” discourse, more oriented towards the stabilization of a community (be it social, cultural or institutional) and the establishment of an organic, well-functioning state apparatus than to the understanding of the metaphysical realm of thought.
This is a largely biased and simplistic reduction of its thematic richness and its high level of theoretical sophistication, yet the formative centuries of Chinese thought – amidst the turmoil of the Warring States – undeniably urged the main intellectual actors of the time to a reflection on how to rebuild the lost “political order”.
And yet, even as China is becoming a global power, Chinese political thought is rarely allowed to participate in discussions beyond the disciplinary “wall” of Sinology and Asian Studies and their categories of thought. In other words, if Plato, Machiavelli or Rousseau are unanimously considered to speak the universal language of “political philosophy”, the reflections on power, authority and legitimacy offered by Laozi, Han Fei or Mencius tend to remained confined to a specialized (sometimes still considered and treated as “exotic”) Chinese context.
This workshop, jointly organized by the University of Naples “L’Orientale”- Centre for East Asian Studies, Tallinn University and EURICS-European Institute for Chinese Studies, intends to fill this gap and foster an interdisciplinary dialogue among disciplines by inviting sinologists, political philosophers, and intellectual historians to discuss Chinese political thought (of any period), favoring a focus on its comparative and/or global potential. Contributions focusing on more than one country, area, or period are also encouraged.
New Book: Interpreting Chinese Philosophy
Jana S. Rošker’s Interpreting Chinese Philosophy: A New Methodology has been published by Bloomsbury.
Understanding Chinese philosophy requires knowledge of the referential framework prevailing in Chinese intellectual traditions. But Chinese philosophical texts are frequently approached through the lens of Western paradigms. Analysing the most common misconceptions surrounding Western Sinology, Jana Rošker alerts us to unseen dangers and introduces us to a new more effective way of reading Chinese philosophy.
2020 Dao Annual Best Essay Award
Winner: Shu-shan Lee, “ ‘What Did the Emperor Ever Say’—The Public Transcript of Confucian Political Obligation,” Dao 19. 2: 231-250
What is the Confucian conception of political obligation? While there is a widespread view
that it demands people’s absolute obedience to their rulers, there are also scholars arguing
that it includes people’s duty to correct rulers. In this award-winning essay, Shu-shan Lee
shows that the former lacks textual support, while the latter confuses Confucian scholar-
officials’ political duty with commoners’ political obligations. Instead, Lee argues,
convincingly, that imperial Confucian political obligation is a conditional theory of
paternalistic gratitude: common people’s obedience to their rulers is an expression of, and
thus is conditional upon, their rulers’ benevolent care for them. This ground-breaking
conception of Confucian political obligation results from Lee’s careful study, integrating
multi-faceted perspectives, philosophical and historical, theoretical and empirical, and
ancient and contemporary. It is the type of research that Dao aims to promote.
New Book: The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World
Wai-ming Ng, ed., The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World (Springer, 2021)
This book represents an ambitious effort to bring leading Yijing scholars together to examine the globalisation and localisation of the ‘Book of Changes’ from cross-cultural and comparative perspectives. It focuses on how the Yijing has been used to support ideologies, converted into knowledge, and assimilated into global cultures in the modern period, transported from the Sinosphere to British, American and French cultural traditions, travelling from East Asia to Europe and the United States. The book provides conceptualised narratives and cross-cultural analyses of the global popularisation and local assimilation of the Yijing, highlighting the transformation and application of the Yijing in different cultural traditions, and demonstrating how it acquired different meanings and took on different roles in the context of a global setting. In presenting a novel contribution to understandings of the multifaceted nature of the Yijing, this book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in the ‘Classic of Changes’. It is also a useful reference for those studying Chinese culture, Asian philosophy, East Asian studies, and translation studies.
Click here to see full Table of Contents.
US-China Cosmopolitan Research Group
We are pleased to announce the U.S.-China Research Group on Cosmopolitanism, convened by
Philip J. Ivanhoe of Georgetown University in collaboration with Peng Guoxiang of Zhejiang
University, sponsored by the U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University.
The Research Group on Cosmopolitanism brings together nine scholars from the United States
and the Chinese cultural sphere. Over the coming three years, it aims to develop and pursue a
structured dialogue around theoretical and practical problems related to cosmopolitanism with
the goal of identifying issues of shared concern.
For more details about the group, please see the preliminary web page:
https://uschinadialogue.georgetown.edu/topics/research-group-cosmopolitanism
Greater China Summer Workshop Program in Chinese Studies
The Sinological Development Charitable Foundation (SDCF) is inviting to join our 2021 Summer Program that will take place from 16th July to 14th August 2021.
This years schedule can be consulted here:
http://sinological.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-Program-only.pdf
Application form and other information:
ToC: Dao. Volume 20, Issue 2
Reason and Moral Motivation in Mòzǐ By Myeong-seok Kim
Resenting Heaven in the Mencius: An Extended Footnote to Mencius 2B13 By Daryl Ooi
How to Defend a Small State?—Han Fei Zi, Plato, and Mencius By Tongdong Bai
How Does Genuineness-Substance ( Cheng – Ti ) Act?: A Clarification of the Phenomenon of Genuineness Based on Zhong Yong By Yinghua Lu
The Need for More than Role Relations By I. M. Sullivan
Global Justice without Self-centrism: Tianxia in Dialogue on Mount Uisan By Jun-Hyeok Kwak
The Confucian Strategy in African Americans’ Racial Equality Discourse By Tao Zhang
Liang, Zhiping 梁治平, Conducting Government: Ideas of Governance in Ancient China 為政: 古代中國的致治理念 By Yun Tang
Nelson, Eric S., Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life By Yumi Suzuki
Osterhammel, Jürgen, translated by Robert Savage, Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment’s Encounter with Asia By Dinu Luca
Sun, Xiangchen 孫向晨, On Family/Home: Individuals and Relations 論家: 個體與親親 By Yanyan Zhao
Van Els, Paul, The Wenzi : Creativity and Intertextuality in Early Chinese Philosophy By Fan He
Zhang, Zhaowei 張昭煒, The Tacit Dimension of Chinese Confucianism 中國儒學緘默維度 By Gensheng Fan
CFP: ACPA group session at the 2022 Eastern APA
Tentative schedule: Montreal, Quebec, January 5 – 8, 2022*
Submission deadline: June 20, 2021
We welcome scholars to submit proposals for individual papers to be considered for inclusion on a single ACPA group session at the 2022 APA Eastern Division Meeting. (Please note: The APA now limits groups such as ACPA to a maximum of two total sessions at APA meetings. Because the ACPA sponsors a “Dao Best Essay Award” session at the Eastern APA every year, with the participants invited by Professor Yong HUANG and the editorial board of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, we will only be able to sponsor a single additional ACPA group session for Eastern APA. Thus, we are inviting only proposals for individual paper presentations, not proposals for a complete panel session.)
– We are open to submissions that engage with Chinese philosophy in a wide variety of ways and we are not specifying a theme for the group session prior to receiving proposals.
– In addition to the quality of submission, the selection of papers for presentation will be based on how well they can be worked into a good session.
– We particularly encourage junior, women, BIPOC, and other underrepresented scholars to apply.
– Information on the Association of Chinese Philosophers in North America (ACPA) is available here: http://
(*A note from APA regarding Meeting 2022:Note: The next Eastern Division meeting will be held in person in early January 2022. . .Because of complications resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we do not yet have a confirmed location or dates for the meeting. We hope to have such information soon, . . .)
(To view paper guidelines and for info on abstract submissions see below)
