New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
Category Archives: History of Philosophy
Athens and the Polis
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
Family as Topic, Root, and Model in the West
Here is the beginning of a planned series of sketches on family as topic, root, and model (inspiration for other order) in Western philosophy and culture. I expect to post a new installment every two or three weeks. Papers are linked at their titles.
Brook Ziporyn’s talk on Tiantai Buddhism at Rutgers on Thursday, Oct. 23 (updated: hybrid format)
Brook Ziporyn (University of Chicago), will give a talk, “Everything Everywhere All at Once: The Buddha-Nature According to Tiantai and What To Do About It, If Anything,” at Rutgers New Brunswick campus on Thursday, October 23, 2025, 4-5:30pm. Here’s the link to the talk:
The talk is also available on Zoom. Check the website for the registration link. Please drop me a note if you are coming in person. Thanks.
New Book: Rogacz, Chinese Philosophy of History
Bloomsbury has published Chinese Philosophy of History: From Ancient Confucianism to the End of the Eighteenth Century, by Dawid Rogacz; see here for more details. Congratulations, Dawid!
New Book: History of Chinese Philosophy Through Its Key Terms
An English translation of History of Chinese Philosophy Through Its Key Terms has been published by Nanjing University Press and Springer! Click here for more information about the book. Below is a brief description of the book from the words of the book’s translator, Shuchen Xiang:
Postdocs on “new narratives” in history of philosophy
The “Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy” project has announced two postdoc opportunities for scholars interested in working on neglected philosophers — including neglected Asian philosophers (male or female). The historical period of the grant is currently focused on is 1400-1940. Please see here for more information.
New book: Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority, by Aaron Stalnaker
Oxford University Press has just published my new book on early Confucian social thought, and what contemporary people might learn from it: Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority. The publisher’s page is here. At present the cheapest way to purchase it is directly from Oxford, with a discount code for 30% off (AAFLYG6).
This comes with hearty thanks to Steve Angle and Bryan Van Norden, who were belatedly revealed as the press’s referees.
The Issue is Not the Issue: A Podcast with Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas
Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas discuss contemporary debates on “political correctness” and related moral and social issues. They point to concepts such as virtue speech (“virtue signalling”), civil religion, and the role of critique to better understand their nature.
Episode 1–Virtue Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pg8H-b87Cs;
The phenomenon of virtue speech (“virtue signalling”) has become a central feature in recent outrage movements pervasive throughout the West. Virtue speech, which is implicitly tied to accusations of hate speech, is a form of moralistic discourse setting speech examples that make it difficult to openly discuss elements of our culture without falling into the trap of moralizing.
Episode 2–Civil Religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EDEuXCPHOQ
Civil religion plays a central role in the virtue speech, or political correctness, discourse. The history of the concept is discussed as well as the structure of the American form of civil religion and how tenets of civil religion are constantly being performed and re-enacted, particularly in current social media outrage movements.
BJHP Welcomes Non-Western Philosophy
Michael Beaney, editor of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, recently wrote me to call my attention to his most recent editorial at the journal. Its penultimate paragraph reads, in part:
At the BJHP we will continue to publish the very best articles on the ‘canonical’ figures, but we will also be redoubling our efforts to broaden that canon as much as we can. As we move forward, what we would like to promote, above all, is more work on non-Western philosophy, especially where it seeks to deepen dialogue between the various traditions through critical engagement and fruitful comparison. So here, in particular, we would like to underline that we welcome submissions that discuss non-Western philosophy even if our record to date might suggest otherwise.
This is of course very welcome. For more an earlier discussion of publishing in the history of Chinese philosophy, see here.
