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

Panel information available for 2013 AAS

A listing of panels to be held at the 2013 Association of Asian Studies Conference, to be held March 21–24, 2013 in San Diego, California, is now available (titles of panels only). It is a long list, and I have not perused it carefully. A couple immediately stood out to me: “339: Chinese Thought as Global Theory?” and “167: Elite and Popular Confucianism in Contemporary China” (I will be taking part in the latter). I imagine there will be plenty more that would interest readers of this blog, though AAS has unfortunately had little philosophy and little on early China in recent years. (See, though, the recent announcement of a meeting-in-conjunction with AAS on the part of the Society for the Study of Early China.)

Prof. Lao Sze-Kwang 勞思光 Passes Away

I regret to announce that Prof. Lao Sze-Kwang 勞思光, a leading interpreter of Chinese philosophy, has passed away. According to Prof. Wu Youneng of Hong Kong Baptist University:

中央研究院院士勞思光教授,痛於二0一二年十月二十一日辭世, 先生生於1927年, 享壽八十五歲.先生是著作等身的哲學大師, 特別在中國哲學史方面, 貢獻很大.

相信各位前輩學者,必然知之甚詳, 無須多作介紹. 雖然先生辭世的新聞在今天港台報章多有報導, 但晚輩恐怕各位身處外地,未必馬上得知,特別專函告知.

There is a Facebook page at which Prof. Lau’s many students and admirers are leaving messages.

For some more information on Prof. Lau’s life and accomplishments, read on.

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Conference on Multiculturalism and Comparative Philosophy

Bay Area folks might be interested in attending the following conference at the University of California Santa Cruz, where Bo MOU and I will represent Chinese and comparative philosophy (for better or worse!). The conference is free and open to the public.

“Free to Universalize or Bound by Culture? Philosophy in a Multicultural Context” Conference

University of California Santa Cruz

Saturday, October 20, 2012, Humanities 1, Room 210

This public conference investigates the relation between philosophy and its multicultural context. Are there immutable questions and universal answers regarding knowledge, values, and reality, or is philosophical inquiry bound by history, geography, and culture? Should the philosopher be responsible to the public?

10:00-10:15     Welcome Remarks: UCSC Humanities Dean William A. Ladusaw

10:15-10:45     Keynote: Helen Longino (Stanford) 

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New website for the ISCWP

Hi everyone,

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I wanted to announce a new website for the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy:

www.iscwp.org

Check it out.  If you’re not yet a member, click her to find out more on how to join the society, or click here to read more about our recent conferences and activities.

Oh–and if you already have a link to the our old website on another site or blog, we’d appreciate it if you could update your links.

Hagop

ISCP at AAR Conference in Chicago (11/17/2012)

The International Society for Chinese Philosophy has an Ethics and Chinese Thought panel session at the American Academy of Religion meetings in Chicago. From Eric Nelson (U. Mass. Lowell):

The International Society for Chinese Philosophy panel at the American Academy of Religion is scheduled for November 17th, Saturday from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM in the South Building, Room S106b at the McCormick Place Convention Center, Chicago, IL
M17-202
International Society for Chinese Philosophy
Theme: Ethics and Chinese Thought
Saturday, 1:00 PM–4:00 PM
MPS-106B
Chair: Michael Paradiso-Michau (North Central College)

  1. Jinli He (Trinity University), Qing Ethics: An Alternative Thinking?
  2. Rafal Banka (Jagiellonian University), Philosophy of Action in Confucian Ethics
  3. Leah Kalmanson (Drake University), Now I Get It!: Thinking Slowly about Sudden Enlightenment for Ethics Today
  4. Eric S. Nelson (University of Massachusetts, Lowell), Killing the Buddha: Chan Buddhism and Antinomian Ethics

François Jullien and the Hazards of "Chinese" Reality

This week, the famous French sinologist François Jullien is in Taibei for a series of academic events (among others, he participates in a conference at National Central University, see http://ncu33013.blogspot.tw/2012/09/blog-post.html). It is no exaggeration to call Jullien the most famous sinologist in the West. His books have been enthusiastically received by the public, and he is probably the only living scholar writing on pre-modern Chinese thought who has made a visible impact on the field of philosophy – at least in France where philosophers like Alain Badiou and Jean-François Lyotard have endorsed his very particular view of what philosophy should be. But also, to some extent, in Germany where, in 2010, he has received the prestigious Hannah-Arendt price for political thinking.

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"When two go together"

This post proposes a book project, for anyone who wants it.

Two kinds of serious conversation

By “serious” conversations I mean conversations that work toward knowledge (at least for one party), or good decision (at least by one party), or designing something complex.

The serious conversations glimpsed in the Analects are mainly between a master and student. The Mencius is more concerned with how an adept should counsel a king. 1A7 looks like a handbook for that.

These two kinds of conversation get their shape and point from inequalities: unequal wisdom and unequal power. Between master and student, one side has the wisdom and the power. Between counselor and king, one side has the wisdom and the other has the power. The point of both conversations, as understood by all parties, is to transmit  some wisdom from the wiser party to the other — within constraints imposed by the powerful party, such as limited time.

One could do a study of these two forms of conversation in Confucian literature: the varieties of each and the guidance on how to do them well. That’s not my main proposal here.

Is it fair to say that when early Confucianism thought about serious conversation, these two are the main kinds it thought about?

Diomedean conversation

The Western tradition saliently values another kind of conversation, aiming more at discovering or creating than transmitting. Continue reading →