Category Archives: Chinese philosophy – 中國哲學 – 中国哲学

New Book: Witchcraft and the Rise of Confucianism

Witchcraft and the Rise of the First Confucian Empire

image001http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5739-witchcraft-and-the-rise-of-the-.aspx

Liang Cai – Author

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

 

Price: $85.00
Hardcover – 330 pages

Release Date: February 2014

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-4384-4849-7

Price: $85.00
Electronic – 330 pages

Release Date: February 2014

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-4384-4851-0
Summary
Contests long-standing claims that Confucianism came to prominence under China’s Emperor Wu.

When did Confucianism become the reigning political ideology of imperial China? A pervasive narrative holds it was during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (141–87 BCE). In this book, Liang Cai maintains that such a date would have been too early and provides a new account of this transformation. A hidden narrative in Sima Qian’s The Grand Scribe’s Records (Shi ji) shows that Confucians were a powerless minority in the political realm of this period. Cai argues that the notorious witchcraft scandal of 91–87 BCE reshuffled the power structure of the Western Han bureaucracy and provided Confucians an opportune moment to seize power, evolve into a new elite class, and set the tenor of political discourse for centuries to come.

Liang Cai is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arkansas.

Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies (Seminar #567) will convene Friday, February 7, 2014 from 3:30 to 5:30pm in the Komoda Room of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.  We will have two presenters (copies of the papers are available from the organizers):

  • Elizabeth Woo Li.  Her paper is titled “‘Rites as Principles’ (li ji li 礼即理): A Fundamental Concept in Confucian Theories of Ethics and Politics.”
  • P. J. Ivanhoe.  His paper is titled “New Old Foundations for Confucian Ethical Philosophy: Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627-1705), Dai Zhen 戴震 (1722-1776), and Jeong Yakyong 丁若鏞 (1762-1836).”

All are welcome to attend.  Please join us immediately after the seminar for dinner at Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets.

New Series: Critical Overviews in Comparative Philosophy

From the description at the Rowman and Littlefield International website: http://www.rowmaninternational.com/news/critical-overviews-in-comparative-philosophy

The Critical Overviews in Comparative Philosophy series aims to present detailed and inclusive surveys of contemporary research in multiple areas of Asian and Comparative Philosophy. Each volume will outline and engage with the current research within comparative philosophy through the lenses of traditional philosophical areas such as ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and language/logic, offering those outside the fields in question (both scholars and students) an up-to-date picture of the work being done in these areas. This series will cover topics in East Asian and South Asian philosophy, primarily in a comparative context.

Each volume will be a single-authored work presenting, synthesizing, and analyzing recent developments in particular areas within a field of comparative research, as well as offering promising directions for future research, outlining possible objections and solutions, and considering ways the area might be further developed. Continue reading →

MLA CFP

Message from MLA:

………………………..

Call for Papers

MLA 2015 in Vancouver

I am writing on behalf of the MLA Division for East Asian Languages and
Literatures after 1900. In the interests of promoting the participation of
Asianists in the Modern Languages Association, we would like to pass on
the MLA’s call for panel proposals to our colleagues in the field. While

Continue reading →

NDPR Review and New Confucianism

A recent book review on NDPR raises issues in the philosophy of Kant that made me think of Mou Zongsan’s New Confucianism, and more particularly, of current Taiwanese philosopher Lee Ming-huei’s efforts to further develop and defend Mou’s views. This is the review:

Jeanine Grenberg, Kant’s Defense of Common Moral Experience: A Phenomenological Account, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 300pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781107033580. Reviewed by Patrick Frierson, Whitman College

As you’ll see from the review, Grenberg posits a very strong role for “moral feeling” (about which the reviewer is quite skeptical!). Whether or not this is good Kant, it does sound something like Lee’s reading of Confucianism. For what that is worth!