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

Daoist Liberalism

In comment #14 in this thread, I suggested that “parts of the Zhuāngzǐ are committed to a form of political liberalism, on which all individuals should be allowed to live, without government interference, in a way that comes naturally to and pleases them, provided they allow others to do so as well.”

It occurred to me that explicating this claim might make for an interesting post.

The Chinese political tradition is generally regarded as authoritarian, in cases even totalitarian, in both theory and practice. This view is one basis for certain claims about differences between traditional Asian and contemporary Western political cultures, which have sometimes been cited as grounds for resisting liberal democratic reforms in Asian countries. Continue reading →

Confucius Institutes

Ronggui, one of our long time blog followers, writes:

I’m interested in other’s thoughts on the role that Confucius Institutes might play in the (future) development of the field.

I know, for instance, that some of them have been inviting scholars to speak on issues related to Chinese philosophy. (I believe Eric Schwitzgebel recently spoke at the Confucius Institute of Scotland and Zhang Longxi will be speaking there later this month.)

More importantly, I recently came across this job ad http://chronicle.com/jobs/0000626659-01 , which is a search for an endowed chair (Chinese poetry) at the Confucius Institute at Stanford (I didn’t even realize there was an Institute there. And where’s the funding coming from for this position?).

Having heard the government official partially responsible for the Confucius Institutes speak on the topic, it’s quite obvious that these institutes have little to do directly with Confucius (let alone Chinese philosophy); but does anyone else get the sense that there could be something significant going on with these Institutes as far as the future of the field is concerned? Could we, for instance, see an endowed chair of Chinese philosophy at the University of Michigan, or at least research fellowships and conferences sponsored by these institutes?

I’m sure some here have more direct exposure to a Confucius Institute, and so could perhaps shed some light on this, but I’m interested to know what others have heard and/or think.

Comments welcome!

ndpr review of moral fool

Stephen had kindly placed his reference to a recent and extremely negative review of the Moral Fool only at the end of the no longer much frequented discussion of this book in this forum. I had requested the publishers of the review, the editors of the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, to be granted the right to a reply. This request was denied. I might thus as well say a few words here.

It is not really worth the effort to respond in detail to the many often incorrect and contradictory claims of the reviewer. In general, he accuses me of not having written a book in the only genre that he seems to deem academically appropriate, namely an exegetical study on the secondary literature in one’s field. Of course, as will be most obvious to any reader, I intentionally did not make such an attempt in the Moral Fool, but rather tried to develop a perspective of “negative ethics” derived from various philosophical sources, including Chinese ones and to relate them to some current social issues and viewpoints.

Some colleagues and friends have asked me if I knew why the reviewer had been so extraordinarily hostile. I did not know this, since I had never heard his name before. However, I subsequently became aware of some “dots” which perhaps are entirely disconnected: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews often commissions its contributions directly through requests of their editors. P.J. Ivanhoe is an editor of this journal. In the review, I am accused of not citing major authorities on Chinese Philosophy, among which the reviewer lists P.J. Ivanhoe. The reviewer, in the acknowledgments in his book on W. James, thanks P.J. Ivanhoe. I co-published a critical review of Prof. Ivanhoe’s religious interpretation of the Zhuangzi some years ago in Philosophy East and West.