Presenting the 四海为学 “Learning Together” project. A philosophy lecture and seminar series promoting collaborative learning across cultures. Hosted by the Center for Intercultural Learning and the School of Philosophy at East China Normal University this project brings together prominent scholars and teachers with students from around the world. We take xue 学 or “study” as foundational. Xue is a particular type of learning that includes modeling and reflective imitation. To engage in xue is to learn through close readings of classics, commentaries, and contemporary thinkers, and includes modeling their thinking and applying it in strategic ways. We hope to aid in cultivating a generation of comparative scholars who can understand one another better, have meaningful engagements, and cooperate despite differences. Our working motto is “Learning from Chinese philosophy.”
On August 30th at 8pm Beijing time Professor Yang Guorong of East China Normal University will present “How to do Philosophy” as the inaugural address for the 四海为学 “Learning Together” philosophy lecture series. The talk will be moderated by Professor Yu Zhenhua, East China Normal University. The link for Professor Yang’s talk is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82185045412
All lectures will take place on Zoom. Links will be provided one week before each lecture.
Next week, on August 26th, our first seminar begins. This is “The Female Confucius” taught by Dimitra Amarantidou, Assistant Professor of Chinese Philosophy at Shanghai Normal University. (For details see our site or email us.)
The lectures for the rest of 2022 are as follows:
Roger Ames Peking University
“The Confucian Concept of the Political and ‘Family Feeling’ (xiao 孝) as its Minimalist Morality”
Friday, Sept. 16th 9am Beijing time.
Michael Nylan University of California, Berkeley
“Xue 学: ‘Learning and Emulation”
Friday, Oct. 7th, time TBD
Robin Wang Loyola Marymount University
“Metaphysics Against Aggression: What Rou (Suppleness) Can Teach Us?”
Thursday, Nov. 3rd, 22:00 Beijing time.
Stephen Angle Wesleyan University
“Chapter 4 of Growing Moral: A Confucian Guide to Life”
Friday, Dec. 9th, 21:00 Beijing time.
For a full list of all the seminars running this fall, and the 18 lectures already planned for 2022-2024 please visit: www.sihaiweixue.org
Our website is mostly functional, but still being worked on. Apologies for any inconveniences.
To participate, contribute, or be part of this project in any capacity please email: sihaiweixue@hotmail.com
The lectures, seminars, and all 四海为学 “Learning Together” events are free and open to everyone. From professors to students, anyone interested is welcome to participate.
We also welcome suggestions and constructive criticisms.
What a stellar lineup and wonderful series. I hope I get a chance to watch it (I hope I speak for others in expressing gratitude for this being free and open to everyone). While I cannot claim to be well-versed in the meaning and implications of xue, it reminds me not only of Socrates in the agora and the nature of student-teacher relations in several religious worldviews; it also resonates with some thoughts by Robert Nozick in Philosophical Explanations (1981) and Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory … and speaks to the manner in which children learn basic moral behavior (in classical Greece, a dispositional habituation to virtue, or the seeds of same, began not simply with family upbringing, but with dance and ritual play, which has always sounded Confucian to me). Again, many thanks, bowing, with hands in anjali mudra.