Olberding, Amy (ed.). Dao Companion to the Analects
2014, Springer.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Nick NovelliPublisher's note: This volume surveys the major philosophical concepts, arguments, and commitments of the Confucian classic, the Analects. In thematically organized chapters, leading scholars provide a detailed, scholarly introduction to the text and the signal ideas ascribed to its protagonist, Confucius. The volume opens with chapters that reflect the latest scholarship on the disputed origins of the text and an overview of the broad commentarial tradition it generated. These are followed by chapters that individually explore key areas of the text’s philosophical landscape, articulating both the sense of concepts such as ren, li, and xiao as well as their place in the wider space of the text. A final section addresses prominent interpretive challenges and scholarly disputes in reading the Analects, evaluating, for example, the alignment between the Analects and contemporary moral theory and the contested nature of its religious sensibility. Dao Companion to the Analects offers a comprehensive and complete survey of the text's philosophical idiom and themes, as well as its history and some of the liveliest current debates surrounding it. This book is an ideal resource for both researchers and advanced students interested in gaining greater insight into one of the earliest and most influential Confucian classics.
Peng Feng. Li Yu’s Theory of Drama: A Moderate Moralism
2016, Philosophy East and West 66(1): 73-91.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Meilin ChinnAbstract: This essay presents an interpretation of Li Yu’s theory of drama that takes it to be a moderate moralism that is different from Confucian radical moralism, Daoist radical autonomism, and the moderate autonomism of fiction. In addition to practical considerations, Li Yu’s moderate moralism of drama is based on his awareness of the ontological difference between drama and music, poetry, and fiction. Drama was seen by Li Yu as a synthetic art that includes music, poetry, and fiction. If radical autonomism is appropriate for the evaluation of music, radical moralism for poetry and prose, and moderate autonomism for fiction, then moderate moralism would be most appropriate in the evaluation of drama.Comment: Peng gives an account of the development of Chinese drama according to a contrast between Confucian moralism, in which morality controls aesthetics, and Daoist autonomism, in which aesthetics are autonomous from morality. He argues for an understanding of Li Yu’s theory of drama as a moderate moralism that evaluates drama according to a possible, yet contingent and unnecessary relation between moral and aesthetic virtue. This text is appropriate for a course on aesthetics and/or Chinese philosophy. It is particularly useful in discussions of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. The Philosophy of the Upanishads
1924, Unwin Brothers Limited.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Peter JonesPublisher’s Note:
Overview: Not focused on any one Upanishad in particular, it conveys the spirit in which the Upanishads were written and provides a short overview of their Metaphysics, Ethics and Epistemology.
Rošker, Jana S.. Classical Chinese Logic
2015, Philosophy Compass, 10(5): 301-309.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Chris Blake-TurnerAbstract: The present article provides an introduction to classical Chinese logic, a term which refers to ancient discourses that were developed before the arrival of significant external influences and which flourished in China until the first unification of China, during the Qin Dynasty. Taking as its premise that logic implies both universal and culturally conditioned elements, the author describes the historical background of Chinese logic, the main schools of Chinese logical thought, the current state of research in this area and the crucial concepts and methods applied in classical Chinese logic. The close link between Chinese logic and the Chinese language is also stressedComment: Presupposes some familiarity with Aristotelian and Fregean logic, as well as ideas in analytic philosophy of language (e.g., theories of reference). This would be a good piece for countering the prejudice that nothing worthy of being called logic was done in the classical Chinese tradition. It is also a good piece for expanding students' imaginative horizons and showing them how their ideas of what logic is have been culturally shaped.
Saito, Yuriko. The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics
2007, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65(1): 85–97.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Meilin Chinn
Summary: Saito presents the moral dimension of Japanese aesthetics in terms of two design principles: respect for the quintessential, innate characteristics of things and honor and responsiveness to human needs. She analyzes the sensitivity to objects and people at work in a wide range of Japanese arts and crafts, including garden design, haiku, painting, pottery, and food, emphasizing that the cultivation of a moral attitude toward things is often practiced through aesthetic means.
Comment: This text is appropriate for a course on Japanese aesthetics and/or philosophy. It would work well in a cross-cultural discussion of everyday aesthetics and the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
Sarukkai, Sundar. What is science?
2012, National Book Trust, India.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Laura JimenezSummary: This book serves as an excellent introduction to Indian philosophy from the standpoint of the Nyãya-Vaisesika worldview. The book is divided into six chapters: (i) Introduction; (ii) Doubt (including sections like "Types of Doubt" and "Limits of Doubt"); (iii) Indian Logic (in which Dignaga, Dharmakïrti, and a "Summary of Themes in Indian Logic Relevant to Philosophy of Science" are discussed); (iv) Logic in Science: The Western Way (dealing, among other things, with induction, deduction, and laws and counterfactuals); (v) Science in Logic: The Indian Way? ; and (vi) Knowledge, Truth and Language (including sections with titles like the Pramäna Theory, Truth in Western and Indian Philosophies and Science, Effability, and Bhartrhai).Comment: The book is recommendable, not only as an introduction to significant and basic themes in Indian philosophy, but also for insightful details in explaining several complex ideas in science and philosophy and for a clear explication of the Indian contribution to discussions on them. Could be suitable for both undergratuates and postgraduates.
Sarukkai, Sundar. Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Science
2005, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Laura JimenezSummary: Sundar Sarukkai's Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Science shows how the two very different approaches from East and West can illuminate each other. It is not an introduction to the philosophy of science, but rather an invitation to look at philosophy of science in a new way, using the approaches of classical Indian logic, in particular Navya Nyāya . Sarukkai's major thesis is that in the West philosophy of science tries to put logic into science, and that in the East Indian logic seeks to put science into logic. The naïve Western approach takes an abstract view of logic and formulates science using abstract logical and mathematical theories. Indian logic looks at the world and remains involved with the world throughout. Because of this, logical arguments have to involve contingent matters of fact or observation .Western readers may find the lack of distinction between induction and deduction disturbing, but the Eastern involvement with the world, not merely abstraction, reflects a different way of looking at what logic is and where its origins lie.Comment: An essential bok for those interested in Indian philosophy of science. The topic is very specialized, but the book is really clear and could be read by both undergraduates and postgraduates. Chapter 3 is really recommendable for undergraduates, since it offers a great introduction to classical indian logic.
Shun, Kwong-loi. Studying Confucian and Comparative Ethics: Methodological Reflections
2009, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 36(3), pp. 455–478
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Lea CantorAbstract:
This article reflects on the challenges that arise in the study and practice of comparative philosophy, focusing on the case of 'Western'-Chinese comparative work in ethics. The paper more specifically highlights an 'asymmetry' worry in relation to much existing comparative engagement with Chinese ethics, whereby the frameworks of 'Western Philosophy' are taken as the unquestioned reference point by which to analyse (unilaterally) Chinese ethics.
Comment: The paper will be easy to follow for those with a basic understanding of Chinese philosophy (especially (neo-)Confucian ethics) and some understanding of contemporary debates in normative ethics and moral philosophy. It could easily be integrated into courses on normative ethics and moral philosophy, Chinese philosophy, and/or comparative philosophy.
Shun, Kwong-Loi. Methodological Reflections on the Study of Chinese Thought
2009, in Tan, S-h. (ed.) The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 57–74.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Lea CantorAbstract:
Methodology has to do with systematic reflections on the methods adopted in a certain kind of activity, including that of intellectual inquiry. But we cannot talk intelligibly about the method of a certain kind of activity without knowing more about the nature of the activity as well as the goals and interests behind it. For example, we cannot talk intelligibly about the method of writing without knowing what it is that we write and for what purpose and audience, nor about the method of building a house without knowing what kind of house and for what purpose. This is no less true of intellectual inquiry, and in our case, the study of Chinese thought. We cannot talk intelligibly about the method of studying Chinese thought without knowing more about the goals and interests behind such study.
Comment: This chapter offers useful insights into the methodology involved in engaging constructively with the history of philosophy, focusing on the specific challenges that arise in the study of Chinese texts. What is involved in textual analysis and philosophical exegesis? How do concerns about present-day relevance guide philosophical analysis and construction? How far is close reading of texts a precondition for productive engagement with Chinese philosophy? What are the specific challenges that arise in comparative studies involving Chinese texts and thinkers? Shun explores these questions in a nuanced and accessible way. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is required to engage with the paper's main points.
Stapleton, Mog. Enacting Education
2020, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 20(5), pp. 887-913
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Maria Jimena Clavel VazquezAbstract:
Education can transform our cognitive world. Recent use of enactivist and enactivist-friendly work to propose understanding transformational learning in terms of affective reframing is a promising first step to understanding how we can have or inculcate transformational learning in different ways without relying on meta-cognition. Building on this work, I argue that to fully capture the kind of perspectival changes that occur in transformational learning we need to further distinguish between ways of reorienting one’s perspective, and I specify why different ways are differently valuable. I propose that recent approaches to Confucian ritual provide a clue to what is missing in characterisations of perspective transformation and the resultant transformed perspective. I argue that focussing on ritualised interpersonal interactions provides a further clue as to what’s missing from a mere appeal to the ritual-based inculcation of new perspectives, namely the kind of lightness and flexibility that some ritualised interactions encourage participants to have, and the deepening of perspective associated with that lightness. I argue that a case study of a project implementing a highly ritualised philosophical practice with prisoners in Scotland shows how these constraints, seemingly paradoxically, function so as to actually deepen the perspectival spaces of those agents. This case study provides a proof of concept for the proposal that certain forms of ritual engagement can reliably bring about the kind of transformation of perspective that is the target phenomenon of transformative learning theory.Comment: available in this Blueprint
Can’t find it?
Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
- Hui Chieh Loy's chapter on language and ethics would be useful in moral theory courses that focus on virtue ethics or the relation between epistemology and morality,
- Bai Tongdong's chapter could be taught in the context of comparative political theory (particularly potential justifications for authoritarianism),
- and Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee's chapter would be very valuable as part of an examination of care ethics and feminist philosophy.
This volume provides an excellent overview of Confucius' Analects, with a number of excellent essays by both Chinese and Western philosophers. It would be a good textbook to use for a course that is an introduction to Asian/Confucian philosophy, or individual chapters could be used to provide an additional perspective in more general courses on certain topics: