The latest issue of Asian Philosophy has been published. Please see here and below for the Table of Contents.
Category Archives: Confucianism
Reflective Equanimity in Confucius
The latest article in our series on the philosophy of Confucius drawing from the Dialogues of Confucius is now out!
If you have trouble accessing the full article, just let me know, and I’ll be happy to send you a pdf.
Abstract: Kwong-loi Shun offers a Confucian account of reflective equanimity that stems largely from the work of Mencius and Zhu Xi. Although Shun labels it as ‘spiritual’, his account tends toward the naturalistic. In this article, we offer an account of reflective equanimity according to Confucius that takes seriously the spiritual aspect, by tying it to Confucius’ notion of tian. We describe three aspects of tian from the Dialogues of Confucius that are consistent with Shun’s view and, we believe, extend his view, while simultaneously preserving and reconciling the competing ‘personal’ and ‘cosmic’ aspects of Confucius’ view of tian.
New Article: Galvany, How to Lose Weight with Confucius
Albert Galvany’s article “How to Lose Weight with Confucius: Immodesty, Inner Struggle, and Moral Learning of Yan Yuan in the Junzi wei li 君子為禮” has been published by the Center of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts of Wuhan University.
Baker Reviews Ivanhoe and Wang at NDPR
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Philip J. Ivanhoe and Hwa Jeong Wang, Readings in Korean Confucian Philosophy, Hackett Publishing, 2026, 392pp., $32.00 (pbk) ISBN 9781647922559.
Reviewed by Don Baker, University of British Columbia
When I first held Ivanhoe and Wang’s Readings in Korean Confucian Philosophy in my hands and leafed through it, I immediately regretted retiring from teaching a couple of months earlier. I had taught Korean cultural history for decades but, since most of my students couldn’t read Korean or Classical Chinese, I couldn’t include substantial excerpts from the writings of Korean Confucian philosophers among the primary sources I asked them to read. Now that I was no longer teaching undergraduates, I had finally found a book with material I could have assigned. Moreover, the excerpts translated are short enough (with the exception…
Chinese Translation of Foust, Confucianism and American Philosophy
Northwest University Press (西北大学出版社) has published a Chinese translation of Mathew Foust’s book, Confucianism and American Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2017): [美] 马修·A. 福斯特著，张亲霞译，《儒学与美国哲学》，西北大学出版社，2026年7月，ISBN 9787560460895. More information from Douban is available here.
Philosophy Podcast: Beyond Democracy, Toward Meritocracy (OUP, 2026)
The Ethical Frontier is a podcast hosted by Jason Chen, where he primarily interviews philosophers on ethics. Notable past guests include Julian Savalescu, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Roger Crisp, and Jess Flanigan.
Today’s podcast is with John J. Park, associate professor of philosophy at California State University-Sacramento, on his new book Beyond Democracy, Toward Meritocracy (Oxford University Press, 2026).
Listen to the podcast: https://youtu.be/3e2IF6iXXrQ
ToC: JCPC Volume 46
Vol. 46 of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (JCPC) has been recently published. Please see here and below for the Table of Contents.
Episode 38 of “This Is the Way”: Xunzi on Human Nature and Human Artifice
Xunzi is famous for the claim that “human nature is bad.” But what does he mean by this, and if goodness does not come naturally to us, where does it come from?
In this episode, we discuss Xunzi’s distinction between nature (xing 性) and deliberate effort (wei 偽), his disagreement with Mencius, and his view that moral goodness must be “learned” and “worked at.” We also ask how sharp the distinction between the natural and the artificial really is, and consider Xunzi’s comparison of moral cultivation to crafts like pottery and woodworking. If we are shaped through deliberate effort, are we both the material being shaped and the ones doing the shaping? Continue reading →
Wong reviews Kim, The Art of Seeing Beyond Oneself
Doil Kim, The Art of Seeing Beyond Oneself: A Confucian Perspective on Humility, Oxford University Press, 2025, 184pp., $99.00 (hbk) ISBN 9780197834213.
Reviewed by David B. Wong, Duke University
Doil Kim identifies Confucian humility as a form of “self-lowering”. Other forms under this capacious heading have been criticized as prescribing self-effacement or self-sacrifice. Failure to distinguish Confucian humility from such other forms has resulted in confusion and unclarity as to what humility is, and most importantly, has obscured how Confucian humility can play a constructive role in shaping personhood in the sense of a “good and ethically formed human being” (1). Kim’s aim is to make the case for Confucian humility, based on a textual analysis of early Confucian and medieval Neo-Confucian texts, followed by a discussion of how…
Episode 37 of “This Is the Way”: Confucius as a Ritual Prodigy
In this episode, we are joined by Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Eliaser Chair of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading scholar of early Chinese thought. Our conversation draws on his new book, Confucius: A New Tradition (Reaktion Books, 2026), and its striking portrayal of Confucius as a “ritual prodigy.” Through several passages from Book 10 of the Analects, we explore what ritual expertise involves, whether moral and practical wisdom can be innate, and how seemingly minor details of dress and conduct express or instantiate important social and ethical values. We also discuss Confucius’s participation in an exorcism ritual, changing interpretations of ghosts and spirits, and the famous story of Confucius’s reaction to the burning of his horse stables. Along the way, we consider how successive biographies and commentaries have continually reconstructed Confucius to address new philosophical and historical concerns. Continue reading →
