Category Archives: Confucianism

POSTPONED: Li Zehou on the ‘Deep Structures of Confucianism’ (Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy)

UPDATE: The Student Workers of Columbia University (SWC) went on strike as of November 3, 2021. The Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy respects the SWC’s decision to strike, and hopes that an agreement is reached quickly.

Until then, we have chosen to suspend our seminar meetings, including the previously scheduled meeting for Friday, November 12, in solidarity with the striking students. A revised schedule of meetings will be announced at the appropriate time. Original announcement (now edited), below. – HS

====

THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Presents: Li Zehou on the ‘Deep Structures of Confucianism’

Lead Presenter: Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)
Discussants:  Robert A. Carleo III (East China Normal University), Ryan Nichols (California State University, Fullerton), Emma Buchtel (Hong Kong Education University)

ABSTRACT: Contemporary Chinese intellectual Li Zehou’s cross-cultural methodology blends traditional Confucian thought with thinkers such as Kant and Marx. This seminar addresses the question of culture and its role in Li’s thought. Li has made several claims about how a settled cultural tradition influences the subjects within it. One such claim concerns the existence of ‘deep structures’ of Confucianism, as outlined in this preparatory reading. The idea is that culture, history, and social practice (collectively, a tradition) shape human psychology (including the formation of concepts, emotions, and values) in ways not always apparent to the subject. Within the Chinese tradition, Confucianism constitutes such a deep structure, and its effects cannot be captured by textual studies alone, nor studies of material culture. Rather, the deep structure is articulated in terms of an emergent shared subjectivity. Such traditions can evolve and ultimately dissolve; nevertheless, their effects are deep-rooted. This seminar meeting will aim to identify the parameters of Li’s ambitious theoretical framework and its plausibility, and to explore connections with current work in related fields, such as cultural and empirical psychology.

DATE: TBA
TIME: TBA

This seminar will take place via Zoom (please scroll down for the full invitation). Below you will find the link to join the meeting. Continue reading →

New Book: Governing the Realm and Bringing Peace to All below Heaven

AUTHOR: Kumazawa Banzan

EDITOR AND TRANSLATOR: John A. Tucker, East Carolina University

DATE PUBLISHED: January 2021

Kumazawa Banzan’s (1619-1691) Responding to the Great Learning (Daigaku wakumon) stands as the first major writing on political economy in early modern Japanese history. John A. Tucker’s translation is the first English rendition of this controversial text to be published in eighty years. The introduction offers an accessible and incisive commentary, including detailed analyses of Banzan’s text within the context of his life, as well as broader historical and intellectual developments in East Asian Confucian thought. Emphasizing parallels between Banzan’s life events, such as his relief efforts in the Okayama domain following devastating flooding, and his later writings advocating compassionate government, environmental initiatives, and projects for growing wealth, Tucker sheds light on Banzan’s main objective of ‘governing the realm and bringing peace and prosperity to all below heaven’. In Responding to the Great Learning, Banzan was doing more than writing a philosophical commentary, he was advising the Tokugawa shogunate to undertake a major reorganization of the polity – or face the consequences.

For more information or to order the book, see the publisher’s website.

 

On-line Talk: Knapp, “The Birth of Popular Confucianism”

10th June 2021: Prof. Keith Knapp (The Citadel) presenting “The Birth of Popular Confucianism: Evidence from Dunhuang of the Creation of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars.” 

The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge holds a series of talks each term whose overall theme links with Dunhuang and/or the Silk Road. These take place via Zoom on Thursdays and require pre-registration. This week’s talk will begin at 5pm UK Time (BST), lasting an hour with time allocated afterwards for questions, debate, and discussion.

We welcome listeners from all fields who feel that these talks may help their own research or who are curious to know about the diverse topics covered. This seminar series is organised by Dr Imre Galambos with the generous support of the Glorisun Global Network and Dhammachai International Research.

To register for this week’s talk, please follow this link:https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIodOytrTkpEtBYrzlCaz3_OTikd3n4KMJk

If prompted to enter a passcode, please enter: Dunhuang

Continue reading →

New Journal: International Studies on Confucianism

A new journal, publishing both Chinese-language and English-language articles on Confucianism, has been established jointly by the International Confucian Association and Tsinghua University: 《国际儒学（中英文）》 or  International Studies on Confucianism. More information, including the Table of Contents of the first issue, is here.

2020 Dao Annual Best Essay Award

Winner: Shu-shan Lee, “ ‘What Did the Emperor Ever Say’—The Public Transcript of Confucian Political Obligation,” Dao 19. 2: 231-250

What is the Confucian conception of political obligation? While there is a widespread view
that it demands people’s absolute obedience to their rulers, there are also scholars arguing
that it includes people’s duty to correct rulers. In this award-winning essay, Shu-shan Lee
shows that the former lacks textual support, while the latter confuses Confucian scholar-
officials’ political duty with commoners’ political obligations. Instead, Lee argues,
convincingly, that imperial Confucian political obligation is a conditional theory of
paternalistic gratitude: common people’s obedience to their rulers is an expression of, and
thus is conditional upon, their rulers’ benevolent care for them. This ground-breaking
conception of Confucian political obligation results from Lee’s careful study, integrating
multi-faceted perspectives, philosophical and historical, theoretical and empirical, and
ancient and contemporary. It is the type of research that Dao aims to promote.

Continue reading →

Connolly Reviews Kim, Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics

NDPR Sungmoon Kim Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi (Reviewed by Tim Connolly, East Stroudsburg University)

“Confucian political theory offers a normative vision for contemporary societies that draws on concepts from thinkers in the Chinese philosophical tradition initiated by Confucius (551-479 BCE). Much of the recent work in this area is motivated by dialogue with mainstream Western political theory, focusing on questions of Confucianism’s compatibility with liberal democracy. Yet as Sungmoon Kim writes in the opening pages of the book, these attempts to establish dialogue have tended to look at general characteristics of the classical Confucian tradition, giving less attention to internal debates and disagreements within this tradition. Kim’s book is devoted to a reconstruction of…”

Continue reading on ndpr.nd.edu

EACP Online Event: A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism

EACP Online Event: A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism

Friday April 23, 2021, 2pm – 4pm (Central European Summer Time)

Ralph Weber, Philippe Major, Chan Yim Fong and Milan Matthiesen from the University of Basel will be giving an online talk on the topic “A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism.”

Continue reading →

Neo-Confucianism Seminar Speaker: Yong Huang

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday 4/9 from 7-8:30 pm EDT, over Zoom. Our speaker will be Yong Huang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who will be presenting a paper entitled “Virtue Ethicist of the Ideal Type: Aristotle or Zhu Xi?” The Zoom session can be accessed here. A reminder will be sent out on 4/8 as well. If you have questions, contact the rapporteur Nolan Bensen at neb2134@columbia.edu any time.