THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Welcomes: Eske Møllgaard  (University of Rhose Island)
With responses from: Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)

Please join us at Columbia University’s Religion Department on FRIDAY, October 12th at 5:30 PM for his lecture entitled:

How I Came to Conclude that Confucian Discourse is not Philosophy

ABSTRACT: The paper follows and elaborates on a line of argument in my book The Confucian Political Imagination, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan this summer. I do not address the main argument of the book, but sum up a line of thought that has gradually taken form since I began to read Confucian texts. I explain what I learned about reading Confucianism from my teacher Tu Weiming, and why I could not follow the philosophical turn in American Confucian studies. I point to the importance of reading in an emphatic sense, and argue that the philosophical approaches to Confucian texts often leads to an impoverished reading of these texts. Then I provide my own suggestions towards a definition Confucian discourse. I briefly point to the historical reasons Confucian discourse is not philosophy, and finally I ask if all this really matters.

Friday, October 12th, 5:30-7:30 PM

Rm. 101, 80 Claremont Ave., Columbia University
http://goo.gl/maps/zfUKH

Please visit our website: http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/

Co-Chairs
Professor Jonathan Gold
Associate Professor, Princeton University, Department of Religion
jcgold@princeton.edu

Professor Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor, The City University of New York, Baruch College | Graduate Center, Department of Philosophy
hagop.sarkissian@baruch.cuny.edu

Rapporteur
Jay Ramesh
jr3203@columbia.edu