I’d like to announce the publication of my new book Ziran: The Philosophy of Spontaneous Self-Causation. Targeted specifically at students, this book takes a key concept form early Chinese metaphysics—ziran 自然—and applies it to several fields of contemporary scholarship.
Category Archives: Metaphysics
Online Workshop: “One-Many Relations in Chinese Philosophy” (Nov 6)
Workshop Description:
In the worldview of different traditions, we usually find paradoxical articulations of the one-many relations, such as “one is many”, “all in each”, “trinity”, “unity of heaven and the human”, and so on. What are the different strategies employed by different thinkers, especially those from the Chinese philosophical traditions, to account for the diversification of one or unification of many? What would be the foundation for contemplating the one-many relations? This workshop aims to investigate these questions as a basis for intercultural examination and dialogue with a focus on Chinese philosophy.
Zoom ID: 982 3676 8637
Passcode: 526715
Time: Nov 6, 2021
7pm (GMT +8) – Singapore, Hong Kong, and China time; 7am – US time; 12noon – UK time
For more details on the abstract and schedule, please see the official fb events page @ https://fb.me/e/4xX9Ugofe
Daoist Conference 2019
Dao and Time
Personal Cultivation and Spiritual Transformation
13th International Conference on Daoist Studies
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
20-23 June, 2019
Body and Cosmos in China: An Interdisciplinary Symposium in Honor of Nathan Sivin
The Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania is delighted to announce an interdisciplinary symposium in honor of Nathan Sivin at Perry World House, 3803 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, on Oct. 14-15, 2017.
The symposium is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. Just click here if you’d like to attend:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/body-and-cosmos-in-china-an-interdisciplinary-symposium-in-honor-of-nathan-sivin-tickets-37455848451.
Nouns, verbs, and ontological metaphors
This post (and the many substantive comments) on “Nouns, verbs, and ontological metaphors” may be of interest; it discusses literary Sinitic and Mandarin vs. English; Sinitic vs. Indo-European modes of expression; characters vs. words; Chinese philosophy; mass nouns.
Crary the Neo-Confucian? NDPR Reviews Inside Ethics
I’ve long been interested in Alice Crary’s work — her 2007 book is reviewed here — in part because of intriguing resonances between her ideas and some aspects of Neo-Confucianism that I find most attractive, such as the need to “discern patterns” in an “already moral world.” These issues come out even more strongly in her latest book, Inside Ethics, which is reviewed here. Rejecting an “ethically indifferent metaphysic” seems to me to be starting off in the right direction!
New Book: Yang, On Human Action and Practical Wisdom
Yang Guorong (East China Normal University), On Human Action and Practical Wisdom. Translated by Paul D’Ambrosio (East China Normal University) and Sarah Flavel (Bath Spa University). Leiden: Brill, 2016.
CFP: Metaphysics of Contingency: East and West
The 2017 annual meeting of the Metaphysical Society of America will be on the theme “The Metaphysics of Contingency: East and West.” The meeting will be held in Cambridge/Boston from Thursday March 30, 2017 to noon Sunday, April 2. They would be delighted to receive your expressions of interest by the September 1, 2016 deadline for submitting abstracts. The Call for Papers can be found here.
Awalt-Conley, Neo-Confucianism and Physicalism
At my invitation, my former student Dylan Awalt-Conley has agreed to make the following short essay public as a Guest Post. Please address any questions or comments to Dylan.
Neo-Confucianism and Physicalism
© 2016, Dylan Awalt-Conley
Despite general enthusiasm for engaging with the Neo-Confucian imaginary in a serious philosophical way, there seem to be some widely held reservations against its use in scientific contexts. Yet I believe that much of the intuitive incompatibility between the Cheng-Zhu metaphysic and a scientific framework comes from a sense of ‘science’ that is constrained by an implicit ontological reductionism. If we are willing to take Neo-Confucianism seriously, then the ontology invoked by concepts like li and qi can provide an experimentally sound alternative to physicalism, complete with new ways of thinking and working scientifically.
Adler reviews Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems
Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins (eds.), Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 242 pp., $95.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781107093508.
Reviewed by Joseph A. Adler, Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religious Studies, Kenyon College
