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

Reminder of Call for Papers for SACP at the APA East

Reminder of call for papers for SACP at the APA East.
……………….

CALL FOR PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS

2013 Eastern Division Conference of the American Philosophical Association

December 27-30, 2013, Baltimore, MD – Marriott Waterfront

The Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy welcomes proposals for our panels at the American Philosophical Association’s Eastern Division meeting.  Please submit individual paper abstracts or complete panel proposals.

Paper abstracts should be 150-200 words in length.

Complete panel proposals should include: panel title, a 150 word introduction to the theme of the panel, and a 150 word abstract for each of the papers.

Include each presenter’s name, e-mail address, and institution.

Proposals regarding any aspect of Asian or comparative philosophy are welcome.

Please submit these materials no later than May 7 to Brian Bruya at bbruya@emich.edu.

Request for Comments on the Dissemination of Confucianism

Professor Peimin Ni writes with an intriguing request:

A friend of mine works as a local policy making/consulting officer at Confucius’ hometown Qufu. I received a request from him, saying that he would like to get help from the international community of scholars in Chinese philosophy. He wants to know what we perceive as the current situation, problems, and difficulties in (1) disseminating Confucianism outside of China, and (2) the establishment and operation of Confucius Institutes in the world. He would also like to know that (3) on the basis of our assessment of these situations, what we recommend for promoting broader understanding of Chinese culture in the world, and (4) what particularly relevant material we would recommend him to read. Any idea or suggestion would be appreciated.

The call for help, I think, is a good sign that the local government is conscientious about the cultural heritage. It would be great if we can help, even if just offering him bits and pieces of information or opinions.

Anyone with comments or suggestions can post theme here as comments, and Peimin will collect them and summarize them for his friend (who does not read English). Alternatively, if you wish you can just write to Peimin directly. Of course, general discussion of the issues raised here (which may or may not be helpful to an official in Qufu) is also welcome.

Munro Fund for Chinese Thought Established at ACLS

Munro_Donald_cropped

I am very excited to announce and to celebrate the generosity of Manyul’s and my teacher at the University of Michigan, Don Munro. We should all be grateful for his continuing efforts to cultivate the field of Chinese thought!

The American Council of Learned Societies is pleased to announce the establishment of the Munro Fund for Chinese Thought. Proceeds of the fund, which was created through Donald J. Munro’s generous gifts to ACLS, will help support ACLS Fellowships awarded for research projects on Chinese philosophical traditions and ethical systems that exhibit high quality in sinology and in critical analysis, as well as relevance to human problems.

The Munro Fund can help fund awards in any ACLS fellowship program, except those supporting pre-doctoral study. A list of ACLS fellowship programs with links to information about each can be found at  http://www.acls.org/programs/comps/.

Continue reading →

New Book: Cook, Bamboo Texts of Guodian

164 BambooVol1

Scott Cook’s extensive, two-volume study and complete translation of the Guodian excavated texts has been published and is available through University of Hawaii Press. For more information, check out these two sites (vol. 1; vol. 2), which are largely identical but have links for purchasing the two volumes at the bottom. Congratulations, Scott!

Here follows the blurb from the website:

The cache of bamboo texts recently unearthed (in 1993) from the village of Guodian, Hubei Province, is without doubt a rare and unique find in the history of Chinese philosophy and literature. As the only archaeologically excavated corpus of philosophical manuscripts to emerge from a Warring States–period tomb, the Guodian texts provide us with a wealth of reliable information for gaining new insights into the textual and intellectual history of pre-imperial China. In this respect, one may reasonably claim that they are the most exciting thing to happen to the study of early China since the third century ad, the last time a pre-imperial textual cache of similar import was unearthed. More than a few scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that their discovery necessitates that the entire history of early Chinese intellectual history will have to be rewritten. The importance of these texts is manifold. First, given the prominence of Confucian works in the corpus, they serve to fill out much of the intellectual historical picture for the doctrines of roughly three generations of Confucian disciples who fell between the times of Confucius 孔子 (551–479 BC) and Mencius孟子 (ca. 390–305 BC). Next, the discovery of three different texts that each parallel portions of the Daodejing 道德經 (aka. Laozi 老子), along with a possibly related cosmogonic work, the “Taiyi sheng shui”太一生水, is helping us better understand the formation and early transmission of the Laozi and the nature of its relationship to early Confucian thought and even popular beliefs. Moreover, the dating of the tomb serves to dispel serious doubts about the early temporal provenance of both the Laozi and many of the chapters from the Li ji 禮記 (Book of Ritual), as well as giving us a number of clues to help us reconstruct the history of the early Chinese canonical “classics” that are cited in some of the texts. And written as they are in the local Chu 楚 script, the manuscripts hold great significance for the study of early Chinese paleography and phonology, giving us tangible examples of “ancient script” forms hitherto seen mainly in early character dictionaries and a limited array of technical manuscripts previously excavated from the region.

ACPA call for papers

(Just moving this up to the front, by way of reminding those who might be interested, of the April 30 deadline.)

The Association of Chinese Philosophers in North America [ACPA]

Call for Papers and Abstracts – ACPA Group Meeting at the APA Eastern Convention

Submission deadline: April 30, 2013

December 27-30, 2013, at the Marriott Waterfront, Baltimore

Description:  ACPA group meetings at the APA conventions have been successful in providing scholars an opportunity to try out new ideas and receive inputs for further development of the paper.  The attendance has been good, and we have always arranged one commentator for each paper presented.  We now welcome scholars to submit completed drafts, paper abstracts, or panel proposals for the 2013 APA Eastern Meeting.  With one session devoted to the panel for DAO best essay award, we shall continue to host another session with three to four papers, with commentators for each paper.  We will try to organize the session in keeping with a cohesive theme.  Therefore, the selection of the paper for presentation will be partially based on how well it can be worked into a good session.

Continue reading →

Three New Books: Mozi, Yi Jing, and Confucianism in HK

Three new (or at least new to me) books of interest:

If anyone has read any of these, please let us know what you think!

Barnwell Essay on “De” Published

Scott Barnwell’s essay “The Evolution of the Concept of De 德 in Early China,” has been published, as Sino-Platonic Paper 235. (Direct link to PDF here.) Congratulations, Scott! Here’s the first paragraph:

The present research paper explores the semantic space occupied by the ancient Chinese concept of De 德 over time. As Confucius observed in the epigraph, few people seemed to understand it in his day and many still do not today. In this paper, we will examine the various connotations conveyed by the word in the earliest written material — bronze inscriptions from the eleventh century B.C.E. — to the Han Dynasty (漢, 202 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.): roughly the first one thousand years. As it is a research paper, there will be no sustained argument defending some thesis, as is expected in a philosophy paper. It is rather a comprehensive, exploratory, educational tour of the semantic field of De in early Chinese literature. The critical reader should adjust his expectations accordingly.

Review: How Should One Live?: Comparing Ethics in Ancient China and Greco-Roman Antiquity

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.04.15

Richard King, Dennis Schilling (ed.), How Should One Live?: Comparing Ethics in Ancient China and Greco-Roman Antiquity.   Berlin; Boston:  De Gruyter, 2011.  Pp. viii, 343.  ISBN 9783110252873.  $120.00.

Reviewed by Andrew B. Irvine, Maryville College (andrew.irvine@maryvillecollege.edu)

Preview the book.

The fifteen essays herein began as presentations at a symposium held in 2007 to discuss the good, virtue, universality, friendship, and politics. This volume groups the essays in five parts: Methods, Ethical Theory, China, Greece and Rome, and Comparisons. The latter three contain four essays each, the first has two, the second just one, and Parts I and II together add up to a mere 29 pages. Thus the unity of this volume is to be grasped not in terms of theory or method but in terms of topics – and, for better and worse, fairly loosely at that. Four indices allow precise navigation of the volume. A list of contributors would have been welcome.

Continue reading →

2012 Dao Best Essay Winner

The editorial board of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy has completed its annual selection of the best essay. The winner of 2012 Dao Annual Best Essay Award is given to

“Instruction Dialogues in the Zhuangzi: An `Anthropological’ Reading” by Carine Defoort (Dao:  A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 11:459-478)

Congratulations to Carine!

Below is the official citation:

This essay provides a fresh reading of the ancient Chinese Daoist classic Zhuangzi. While the author claims that it is a non-philosophical reading, it turns out to be a philosophical reading that is most appropriate to the Zhuangzi and perhaps many if not all other ancient Chinese classics. The Zhuangzi authors, just like many other classical Chinese philosophers, were not so much interested, if at all, in theory building as in transformation of the person. Through a focus on the formal characteristics of the dialogues, careful textual analyses, perceptive interpretations, and coherent arguments, Dr. Defoort convincingly shows that the instruction of the Zhuangzi’s masters hint at the importance of non-teaching in various senses; it also focuses on attitudes and skills (knowing how) rather than knowledge (knowing that). The essay thus breaks ground not only in our interpretation of the Zhuangzi but also in our understanding of philosophy per se. It is the type of work that Dao promotes.