Richard and Justin are planning to record an episode of This Is the Way that focuses on passages from Chinese philosophy requested by the audience. So, if there is a passage (or a very small set of passages that centers on a single theme) from any historical Chinese text that you would like to be featured on a near-future episode, please email them at chinesephilosophypodcast@gmail.com. Or you can also feel free to post a reply or send a message to either Justin or Richard through the social media platform that you use (or leave a comment on this blog post). They will consider all nominations sent to them by July 8th.
Warp, Weft, and Way
Chinese and Comparative Philosophy 中國哲學與比較哲學
I nominate:
(1) Family First vs. Imparital Legalistic Morality: Upright Gong! Possible comparison with Euthyphro..
(2) Openmindedness. Perspectivism, and the pursuit of a well-rounded view on things/life : “Undoing Fixation” vs (?) Zhuangzi
(3) What does Confucius look for in a student? What do we need to do in order to become students of the Confucian way? (scholar who is ashamed of robes it no worth talking to, student must find other three corners when I point to 1, etc).
Thanks Brad! Those are all excellent suggestions. I especially like the idea of thinking through the Confucian requirement for being a student.
A suggestion from a non-expert: what about Analects 6.23? A deeply puzzling passage that seems worth the effort.
Indeed, it is a cryptic passage but one that my students have enjoyed thinking about. I’m sure there’s also more about these metaphors and their connection to virtue in other texts that we would want to draw on too. Thanks for the great suggestion!
How about the “white horse is not white horse” passage?
Great suggestion—thanks Peter!
Fully aware that July 8 has already passed, I suggest the following:
Zhou Dunyi’s 太極圖說.
Liezi and the shaman: 2.13 有神巫自齊來處於鄭
Liezi and the automaton: 5.13. I recommend reading this alongside Heinrich von Kleist’s (1777-1811) Über das Marionettenspiel (English translation: https://southerncrossreview.org/9/kleist.htm )
Yang Zhu’s refusal to sacrifice even a single hair to benefit the world (Liezi 7.11). Is he a ‘hedonist’ or not?
The Great Commentary 大傳 to the Yijing.
Shen Dao, lines 1-6 (Emerson, 2013).
性自命出, slips 1-8, perhaps as start of a discussion on Chinese thought on the ‘emotions’ and the relation between 性 and 情.
I would personally like some poetry included:
Tao Yuanming related to daoism. E.g. 形影神三首并序 or 結廬在人境. Maybe Shuyuan Lu’s ‘The Ecological Era and Classical Chinese Naturalism: A Case Study of Tao Yuanming’ is inspiring.
By the way, Daoism and ecology might be a topic in itself.
Wang Wei (related to Buddhism). Perhaps 空山不見人. Weinberger’s ‘Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated’ could inspire some discussion on translation.
Speaking of poetry, Michael Hunter’s analysis of the philosophical importance of the Shijing, is interesting. Maybe doing an interview with him?
Hi Carlo,
These are really great suggestions—broad ranging, covering a lot of material we had not brought up in previous episodes. I think diving into some classical poetry would be really interesting and I have puzzled over the relationship between 性 and 情 for a long time (especially while reading the Korean Neo-Confucians). Many thanks!
Hi Kim,
Thank you!
As for the relationship between 性 and 情 discussed by the Korean Neo-Confucians, I suggest this passage: https://faculty.washington.edu/mkalton/ch6%20orig.htm. The complete set of 10 diagrams by Toegye is
absolutely fascinating and also didactically very smart.
Thanks for the reference! I think Michael Kalton’s work is among the very best in Korean Neo-Confucian thought and I had the pleasure of meeting him many years ago.
Really great to have these suggestions, friends and colleagues! Richard and I have noted them all down (including those submitted after our soft deadline). Originally, we were thinking that we’d find some way of determining which one passage is in greatest demand and run an episode on that single passage. But after seeing the quality of the suggestions, we decided that we should run episodes on at least three of these. You’ve helped us to identify our next major priorities in covering the textual tradition.
Please stay tuned! We’re now working through a backlog of six or seven episodes, so it will take us some time before we will be in a position to release the episodes on passages requested by our listeners. In the meantime, there is much to look forward to.