Category Archives: Neo-Confucianism

How much historical context when teaching topically?

A colleague recently wrote to me saying that he was:

…inspired by the topical discussion in the Neo-Confucianism book you co-authored and so I decided to structure my course on Neo-Confucianism according to a thematic/topical discussion instead of the usual historical or thinker structure. However, how does one mitigate the pitfalls of sacrificing historicity? Specifically, how much context or historicity should I provide?

I would love to hear any thoughts that folks out there have, either as it relates to teaching Neo-Confucianism or any other relevant subject. Justin Tiwald and I share some thoughts here about why we prefer to teach in a thematic way, and have collected a few teaching ideas here, but I am sure there are some great ideas out there. Please share!

Episode 3 of “This Is the Way”: Oneness

In the third episode of This Is the Way we explore the topic of oneness with our guest Philip J. Ivanhoe, a distinguished scholar and translator of East Asian philosophy. In part I, Justin gives a quick overview of Neo-Confucian philosophy and its connection to oneness. In part II, we talk with Ivanhoe about his book, Oneness: East Asian Conceptions of Virtue, Happiness, and How We Are All Connected. Some issues that we discuss include the following: the truth value of oneness (neither “strictly true” nor a groundless and pointless hallucination), the benefits of oneness (security, spontaneity, and metaphysical comfort), and the sense in which we are the minds of Heaven, Earth and the myriad things (Wang Yangming was right after all!).

Below you will find a more detailed accounting of topics, some specific passages and books or articles mentioned in the episode, and an opportunity to “weigh in” and share your views about the topic (or about the hosts’ wild claims about oneness or Chinese philosophy).

Your feedback is very welcome! Please leave a comment below, mail the hosts at ChinesePhilosophyPodcast@gmail.com, or follow them on X @ChinesePhilPod.

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Columbia Neo-C Seminar: Wong on Wang Yangming

The next session of the Columbia Neo-Confucianism seminar will convene on Friday 2/2 from 3:30-5:30 pm in the Heyman Center on Columbia’s campus. The guest speaker will be Professor Baldwin Wong of Hong Kong Baptist University. Professor Wong will present his draft “To Confucianism, are Perfectionist Policies a Help or a Trap? Lessons from Wang Yangming’s Moral Psychology”. The draft will be circulated a week before the talk. To be on the list, please RSVP to Weiling Kong at wk2363@columbia.edu before 1/31.

New Article: Song, “A Study of Cheng Yi’s Quiet-Sitting Meditation”

Bin Song’s article “A Study of Cheng Yi’s Quiet-Sitting Meditation and Other Contemplative Practices in the Confucian Context” has been published by the Journal of Contemplative Studies. The journal has a very nice website, where readers can view and download the article in multiple formats: https://contemplativejournal.org/#/texts/67516.

New series of bilingual editions of source texts in Chinese philosophy (Chinese & German)

Meiner, a renowned philosophy publisher from Hamburg, has established a new series of bilingual editions of source texts in Chinese philosophy in both Chinese and German. For the series see: https://meiner.de/monographien-reihen/sino-philosophica.html

The first volume of the series is a translation by Iso Kern of a selection of the correspondence between Wang Yangming, Ouyang De and Luo Qinshun on the basis of ethical action. For this new publication see:
https://meiner.de/monographien-reihen/sino-philosophica/kontroversen-uber-die-grundlagen-ethischen-handelns.html

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Announcement of 2022 Dao Annual Best Essay Award

Announcement of 2022 Dao Annual Best Essay Award

Dao established “The Annual Best Essay Award” in 2007. In addition to a certificate of achievement, the award comes along with a prize of US$1,000. The award winners will be noted in the website of the journal as well as the website of Springer, the publisher of the journal. The award ceremony is held each year at the American Philosophical Association Annual Meeting (Eastern Division) in early January, where a special panel on the theme of the award-winning essay is held. The critical comments and the author’s responses to them presented at the panel, after review and revision, will be published in the last issue of Dao each year.

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Suggestions for refresh of Neo-C.com?

When Justin Tiwald and I published Neo-Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction a few years ago, we also launched a companion website, neo-confucianism.com. Years and years ago, I also set up an extext site (take a look at some of the supporting material — reminds one what it was like to work in Chinese on an emerging internet back in the 1990s! 😉

Well, the server on which the etext site lives is being retired, which is an impetus to make some changes. The Song-Ming texts, and some of the more modern ones, are going to move to neo-confucianism.com. I will also try to fill out the texts available there, with section/page numbering that corresponds to English translations, where that is possible.

My question to you all is: what else should we seek to do with neo-confucianism.com? What would be useful? What resources do you know of (or would like to see created — no promises!)? Please share with me, either in comments here or via email. Thanks!

Ivanhoe and Lederman on Wang Yangming

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, P. J. Ivanhoe published an essay engaging with Harvey Lederman’s account of Wang Yangming titled “The Introspective, Perceptual, and Spontaneous Response Models of Wang Yangming’s Philosophy.” Lederman has published a reply, currently uploaded to PhilPapers here. Enjoy!

PS–the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture website was down for a week or more, apparently because Sungkyunkwan University (the host of JCPC) decided to block overseas access to protect itself from a spate of attacks from Chinese hackers … but the site is back up now and hopefully will remain so!

Online Lecture: How to Produce Learning: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Neo-Confucian Knowledge Culture

How to Produce Learning: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Neo-Confucian Knowledge Culture (1200-1700)

Speaker: Dr. Lianbin Dai, Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria

Moderator: Prof. Nathan Vedal, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

Time: 2:00-3:30 P.M. EST, Wednesday, February 1, 2023

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