When I was in Taiwan last week, friends there recommended that I should look at the new book 《公民儒學》 (Civic Confucianism) by Norman Teng 鄧育仁, recently published by National Taiwan University Press. Professor Teng, who received his PhD a number of years ago from Southern Illinois University, is now a researcher at the Academia Sinica; I had a chance to meet him and talk with him at length about his book and future research projects while I was there. The book is fascinating. He proposes that in this age of democratic pluralism, a “civic philosophical 公民哲學” approach should be to seek serious dialogue among philosophical traditions, in the spirit of egalitarian democracy. In particular, he is interested in how we should think about Confucians and Confucianism in a pluralistic, democratic society like Taiwan. His book combines a number of innovative methodological approaches (e.g., paying special attention to the ways that early Confucians use narrative reflection and the reframing of premises, rather than explicit deductive logic, which techniques can then be applied in the present day as well) in order to explore a particular means of developing a form of democratic Confucianism today. He draws extensively on John Rawls in some chapters; that, plus his emphasis on a rootedness in the actual experience of Taiwan’s democratic society, suggests some very interesting comparisons between Teng’s work and that of Sungmoon Kim (whose work on modern Confucian democracy is rooted in the experience of South Korea). In any event, well worth serious attention for those of us thinking about the future of Confucianism.
Category Archives: Chinese philosophy – 中國哲學 – 中国哲学
Scholarship for China Study
A blog reader who is currently studying in China has written me to pass on the following, about the scholarship that she is currently enjoying (we have posted some info about this scholarship in the past, but this is an update):
I’m currently studying in China thanks to the scholarship of the Confucius China Studies Program of Hanban. The scholarship may cover all the expenses for a three-years PhD in China as well for joint PhD program with non-Chinese universities. It’s a very generous scholarship, covering university fees, living expenses and participation to seminars. I think, it’s a great opportunity for graduated students aiming to attend humanistic faculties in China. I would like to pass on the following presentation.
Seok reviews Slingerland, Trying Not to Try
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2015.11.05 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, Crown, 2014, 295pp., $26.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780770437619.
Reviewed by Bongrae Seok, Alvernia University
In his recent book, Edward Slingerland explains and analyzes one of the unique ideas of Chinese philosophy, viz., wu-wei (無爲). The term is used mostly in Daoist texts, but the concept is discussed broadly in many schools of Chinese philosophy. Wu-wei is usually translated as non-action or non-doing, but it does not mean not doing anything. Rather it means doing things in a spontaneous and natural manner. If you act without a strongly imposed or premeditated intention or will, you are very close to the natural flow of wu-wei. Chinese philosophy, whether it is Confucianism or Daoism, focuses on the question of living a meaningful and happy life with a sustained effort to achieve natural spontaneity. Yet this specific ideal of spontaneity hasn’t been fully articulated and explained in philosophy. With his broad understanding of Chinese philosophy and cognitive science, Slingerland provides a coherent picture of how the ancient Chinese wisdom of wu-wei can be defined, explained, and promoted.
New book by Sarah Allan
Just published: Sarah Allan, Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-slip Manuscripts (SUNY Press, 2015). Note that it contains translations of the excavated texts that she discusses.
More Jobs in Chinese/Asian/Comparative Philosophy
I have noticed several relevant jobs being listed at PhilJobs:
- First, a biggie: Roger Ames is retiring from the University of Hawaii, and they are searching for a replacement, at the Associate or Full Professor level.
- Bryn Mawr College is searching for an Assistant Professor with a specialization in either philosophy of science and epistemology or comparative philosophy (East and West).
- Loyola University Maryland is searching for an open-rank position in “some tradition of non-Western philosophy.”
This is in addition to position previously noted here (search for the category “Job Opening”).
Reminder: NECCT at SCSU This Weekend
Info here: Schedule, etc.
New Book Series
Studies in Comparative Political Theory (Oxford University Press)
Editor: Diego von Vacano (Texas A&M University)
Consulting Editors: Andrew March (Yale) and Leigh Jenco (LSE)
The book series will seek to publish the best new research in Comparative Political Theory. We understand this term in a broad sense, as work that goes beyond traditional Western canonical approaches to major political questions or problems. We are especially interested in work that is comparative (deals with two or more distinctive cultural traditions in political thought) and which comes from the discipline of Political Theory in Political Science. However, other approaches and disciplines such as History, Philosophy, Anthropology, and Sociology are welcome. Interdisciplinary perspectives on cardinal political issues will also be of interest.
2015 Early China ToC
Early China 38 (2015) is now in print. To subscribe to Early China and become a member of the Society go to http://journals.cambridge.org/action/memServHome?name=SSECHome.
EARLY CHINA 38 (2015)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
This Friday’s Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar
The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene Friday, November 6, 2015 from 3:30 to 5:30pm in the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.
Eske Mollgaard will present the paper “Can Confucians Universalize Themselves?” Please contact the organizers for a copy.
All are welcome to attend. Please join us after the seminar for dinner at a location to be announced.
If you have any questions, contact one of our organizers: Ari Borrell (aborrell@msn.com), Tao Jiang (tjiang@rci.rutgers.edu), or Deborah Sommer (dsommer@gettysburg.edu).
Review of Beiser on the making of modern philosophy
Those of us interested in modern Chinese “philosophy” should pay attention to Frederick Beiser’s new book, reviewed recently on NDPR (see below), since it enables us to recognize some fascinating, albeit partial, parallels between the challenges faced by those seeking to reconstitute Confucianism (and other traditions) as “philosophy,” on the one hand, and the challenges faced in Europe by those seeking to retain or recreate a role for “philosophy” in the face of developments in modern science. Many have been critical of the narrowing and professionalization that characterize modern Confucian “philosophy,” often by criticizing it as problematically “Westernized.” Beiser helps us see more clearly that the current state of “Western” philosophy is also contingent, a result of efforts to respond to major existential challenges.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2015.10.27 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
Frederick C. Beiser, The Genesis of Neo-Kantianism, 1796-1880, Oxford University Press, 2014, 610pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780198722205.
Reviewed by Lydia Patton, Virginia Tech
This book is about a group of philosophers faced with existential challenges to philosophy. In their lifetimes, the successes of scientific explanation had resulted in conflicts between religion and science and between science and philosophy. Materialist and naturalist scientific explanations, including Darwinism, materialism about consciousness, and the physiology of perception imperiled religious views about the origin and special status of humankind and aesthetic views about the qualitative character of consciousness. The practical and academic success of science threatened philosophy itself. Philosophy, once the “mother” of the sciences, now was excluded from the sciences altogether and was thrust into an identity crisis. Academic philosophers had to defend the right of their departments to exist as psychologists were hired for positions in philosophy departments. Philosophy was threatened with obsolescence.
