The Hong Kong Baptist University’s Department of Religion and Philosophy is hosting its ATI Summer Seminar in Asian Philosophy and Scholasticism, “Mind in Neo-Confucianism and European Scholasticism,” from 18-27 June 2026 at Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Rome, Italy. Please visit the HKBU website for further information on the seminar and application guidelines. Continue reading →
Category Archives: Neo-Confucianism
Episode 30 of “This Is the Way”: Confucianism and Reverential Reading
In this episode, we explore Zhu Xi’s striking account of how to read philosophical and other important texts with what he calls “reverential attention.” Blending close reading with reflections on learning, character, and distraction in modern life, we discuss how Zhu Xi tries to make reading simultaneously transformative and objective. The discussion raises a fascinating puzzle at the heart of Zhu’s approach: how can we personalize our reading so that it shapes us, while also preventing our own biases from distorting the text? Continue reading →
Lecture: Tiwald, Confucian Disagreements About Autonomous Understanding 自得 (zìdé)
Justin Tiwald will give a colloquium talk titled “Confucian Disagreements about Autonomous Understanding 自得 (zìdé) in Ethics” at the University of California, Riverside hosted by the Department of Comparative Literature and Languages and the Department of Philosophy on Friday, Oct. 31 at 4pm PST (hybrid format). Please read more for details, the zoom link, and the abstract.
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Online Course: Worldmodels & Ontologies: Visions of Reality in Chinese Thought
The online course “Worldmodels & Ontologies: Visions of Reality in Chinese Thought” will be running from Thursday, 16 October to Thursday, 18 December 2025. This seminar is designed in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zurich, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and National Chengchi University (NCCU). Scholars, students, and practitioners are warmly invited to join this collaborative exploration of how different textual traditions in China have structured their visions of reality. Please find the course description and schedule here.
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“How Orthodox (Neo-Confucian) Morality Trivializes Human Desires: Dai Zhen’s Main Argument” by Justin Tiwald
Justin Tiwald (University of Hong Kong) is giving a talk, “How Orthodox (Neo-Confucian) Morality Trivializes Human Desires: Dai Zhen’s Main Argument,” at the next Neo-Confucian Studies Seminar on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, 3:30-5:30pm, at the Heyman Center for the Humanities on Columbia University campus.
Episode 20 of “This Is the Way”: Confucianism vs. Buddhism (our first “live show”)
One influential justification for becoming Buddhist is to end suffering, starting (it seems) with the Buddhist practitioner’s own suffering. Does this indicate that Buddhist practitioners are selfish? After Buddhism became popular in China, many Confucians argued that Buddhism puts personal salvation before ethics, and is thus selfish in that respect. Some Confucians also objected to the particular sort of compassion that Buddhists were supposed to adopt (“unconditioned compassion”), insisting that it was fundamentally incompatible with the special attachments needed for important human relationships between family members and close friends.
In our first show before a live audience, Justin presents two criticisms of Buddhism, Jenny Hung 洪真如 defends Buddhism against the criticisms, and Richard moderates. The show was held at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and many wiser experts in the audience weighed in as well. Join us for the lively (and quite friendly) “debate.” Continue reading →
New Book: Berger, Introducing Chinese Philosophy
Douglas L. Berger, Introducing Chinese Philosophy: From the Warring States to the 21st Century has been recently published through Routledge. The book presents an introductory survey of the major themes, thinkers and texts, philosophical genres and profound insights of the Chinese philosophical tradition. Its coverage ranges from the foundational history of Chinese thought in the 6th–5th centuries BCE up to the present day.
To access the book for further reading, please visit this site.
This Is the Way: Live Show in San Francisco (Pacific Division meeting of the APA)
Update (17 April): Despite what the APA app might have told you, the live session will be in the Sussex Room, which is on the 2nd floor of the hotel. Looking forward to a lively discussion today at 4:00pm PST.
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This Is the Way will record an episode in person, with a live audience, at the next meeting of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division)!
Time:
4:00-6:00pm
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Location:
Sussex Room
The Westin St. Francis Hotel (next to Union Square)
San Francisco, California, USA Continue reading →
On-cho Ng on “Dai Zhen’s Hermeneutics” in Neo-Confucian Studies Seminar at Columbia on May 2
On Friday, May 2, 3:30-5:30pm, On-cho Ng will present a paper, “Dai Zhen’s Hermeneutics” in the Neo-Confucian Studies Seminar at Columbia University. We will meet at our regular location, The Heyman Center for the Humanities (74 Morningside Dr, New York, NY 10027). On-cho Ng is Professor of Asian Studies and Philosophy, and Founding Head of the Asian Studies Department (2012-2021), at the Pennsylvania State University. Primarily a specialist in late imperial Chinese intellectual history, he has published on a wide range of topics, such as Confucian hermeneutics, religiosity, ethics, and historiography. His books include Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing, Mirroring the Past, The Imperative of Understanding, and Theory and Practice of Zen. His dozens of articles have appeared in venues such as the Journal of Chinese Religions, Dao, Philosophy East and West, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Journal of World History, and the Journal of the History of Ideas. He is editor of the Book Series on Chinese intellectual history (National Taiwan University) and associate editor of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy. He has been chair/co-chair of the Neo-Confucian Studies Seminar for two decades.
Important: for non-Columbia guests, please RSVP by emailing Sapphire Qiaochu Tang at qt2154@columbia.edu no later than Wednesday, April 23, to be granted access to the campus. Once the registration email is sent, please expect an email with a QR code to access campus. The email will come from: CU Guest Access <caladminnoreply@columbia.edu. Please make sure to bring a valid ID, and please arrive early. You can also request the pre-circulated paper from Sapphire.
Episode 19 of “This Is the Way”: Zhu Xi on the Unity of the Virtues
This episode is really about two things. First, it’s about the claim that many instantiations of one virtue necessarily come packaged with other virtues. For example, you can’t have great humaneness or benevolence in your charitable giving to other people unless you also show a certain amount of ritual respect to them. Second, it’s about the view that one virtue in particular — the virtue of humaneness or good caring (ren 仁) — is more central or fundamental than the others. The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200) proposes that we can understand both the unity of virtues and the central importance of humaneness (ren) by thinking about the unity of the seasons and the central importance of the spring for the other seasons. We attempt to unpack these ideas (and some of the relevant seasonal associations) as they are presented by one of the Confucian tradition’s most subtle and complicated philosophers. Continue reading →
