JCP 37:1 TOC

…with links to abstracts of articles…

Neville’s Projects for Chinese Philosophy

Many of you will recently have received the most recent ISCWP Newsletter. (If any readers are not members of the ISCWP and would like to be, please see information here about joining. There no mandatory dues.) In a short lead article, Sor-hoon Tan summarizes some remarks the Robert Neville made on the subject of the future of Chinese philosophy. I post the key points here.

The following is an excerpt of the eight projects which is discussed in much greater detail in the paper, a revised version of which will be published in the Pluralist, vol. 5, no. 2 (Summer 2010):

Big Moment Ethics and Philosophy

Prompted by a posted question from Scott Barnwell on our Question Board, Bill Haines has made some provocative comments regarding two related topics that for some of us may now count as conventional wisdom: that Chinese philosophy has more to say than Western philosophy about everyday life, and that Western ethics tends correctly to be characterized as “big moment ethics.” Scott and Bill both reference this interview with Joel Kupperman. I’d like therefore to move his remarks up to a main post, to encourage further discussion. The rest of this post is by Bill. –Steve

I can’t claim knowledge here, but I can’t imagine how someone could think that that Asian thought has significantly more to say about everyday life and the little things than does Western thought. I wonder whether Kupperman’s view amounts to a kind of semantic point, or semantic mistake, about the word “philosophy.”

Translate This!

I’m sure many of us have this practice: You see a new translation of a text that is near and dear to you, and the first thing you do is pick it up and flip to those handful of passages that you think are crucial in understanding the text to see how the translator has parsed them.  (I can’t be the only one, right?)

One such passage (for me, anyway) is 1.12 in the Analects.  Here it is:

有子曰：「禮之用，和為貴。先王之道，斯為美；小大由之。有所不行，知和而和，不以禮節之，亦不可行也。」

Here are two ways of understanding the first part of this passage.

Empirical Perspective on Mencius-Xunzi Debate

Eric Schwitzgebel, one of our contributors, is having problems registering for a WordPress ID, so he has asked me to post this podcast of a lecture that he presented on the Mencius-Xunzi human nature debate. It is also cross-posted over at his blog The Splintered Mind:

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Podcast of “An Empirical Perspective on the Mencius-Xunzi Debate about Human Nature”

… given to the Confucius Institute of Scotland on Jan. 19, available for listening or download here.

Postdoc Opportunity in Japan Area Studies

The program in Asian Studies at Fairfield University has a one-year post-doctoral teaching position focusing on specializations centered on Japan. Philosophy or Intellectual History, though not explicitly mentioned in the ad, will be seriously considered.

Cult of Ancestry

I get nearly the same question about the cult of ancestry every time I teach the Analects, but I’ve never been able to answer it to my own satisfaction, much less to my students’. The question is bascially, what background assumptions and beliefs about the dead are in play for Confucius and his followers when they place such heavy emphasis on the continuance of filial piety for their parents and prior ancestors, post mortem? Of course, there’s this famous exchange with Confucius in 11.12, in which he seems to say that one should remain agnostic about death:

Ji Lu asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The Master said, “While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?” Ji Lu added, “I venture to ask about death?” He was answered, “While you do not know life, how can you know about death?” (Legge translation)

季路問事鬼神。子曰：“未能事人，焉能事鬼？”敢問死。曰：“未知生，焉知死？”

We could take some agnosticism about death seriously here, or we could imagine that Confucius is simply deflecting for the sake of getting Ji Lu to think more about the problems of the living.

Hong Kong U Fellowship in Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong is inviting applications for a special postdoctoral fellowship in HKU’s “Society of Scholars,” a programme that began last year. The fellowship is intended for recent PhD graduates (degree received within the last two years) or those about to receive the PhD. Information on the Society is available here. Application information is available here.

Isabel Archer, American Sinology, and a certain Confucian Vagueness

During the last weeks, I have been thinking about how to write my first entry in this blog. Too much work and some kind of reticence held me back for many days. However, after having discovered Alexus McLeod’s thoughts on Proust and Confucius (on his Unpolished Jade Blog), I finally sat down and decided that it would be most appropriate to begin my first entry with a deep (ironical) bow to Henry James’ Isabel Archer…

Why Isabel Archer? Because she gives a wonderful example of the moral and cultural sensitivity we all need of when writing about Chinese philosophy. Also, because her case stands for a certain paradigm of (American/Western) modernity which still influences our thoughts and which, I guess, also motivates us to search for a constructive dialogue with the “Chinese mind”. And, finally, there is Isabel’s intriguing “fear”: her being frightened by Warburton’s offer, of Caspar Goodwood’s persistence, of Gilbert Osmond’s anger, her fear of cultural alienation, her fear of herself – somehow, I believe, this fear inhabits us all, being embedded in a Western cultural/philosophical framework, but being convinced at the same time of the necessity of “opening up”, engaging “the other”. In one word, Isabel Archer could remind us of the deeper tensions and darker forces which are at work today between the different cultural worlds. Certainly, she wouldn’t want us to buy too easily into a narrative of global harmony…

Confucius: the Action Movie

Happy (Gregorian) New Year, all. I don’t suppose they’ll consider remaking “Alexander,” only with Liam Neeson playing Aristotle and making the whole plot revolve around him. But that’s what someone’s done in China with Confucius, starring Chow Yun Fat as Confucius:

(Thanks to my cinephile friend, Lee, for the notice. ) Comments welcome, of course…

New Comparative Philosophy Journal

Bo Mou (San Jose State University, USA) has recently founded a new journal called Comparative Philosophy, described as “an international journal of constructive engagement of distinct approaches toward world philosophy.” The new journal’s website is here. The table of contents of volume 1, no. 1, scheduled to appear in January 2010, follows.

CFP: Main Program of Eastern APA

JeeLoo Liu, in her capacity as president of the ACPA, recently had an email exchange with Richard Bett of the APA’s Eastern Division, commenting on the fact that although there were many panels on Chinese and comparative philosophy at the recently-concluded conference, none were on the main program (all were sponsored by affiliated groups). Bett replied:

…the Eastern Division Executive Committee (at its annual meeting on December 27) actually discussed the fact that some areas of philosophy tended to be confined to the group program.  They would like this to be different.  And they suggested that I recommend to anyone in charge of affiliated groups that they encourage people to submit papers in areas such as Chinese philosophy not only to groups in those areas, but also to the main program.  Right now we get very few submissions on non-Western topics; but if we started getting significant numbers of such submissions, some of those papers would start appearing on the main program, not just on the group program.  For the next meeting the deadline for submitted papers is February 15.

This sounds to me like good advice, even if it’s not the whole answer (since not all main program panels are generated from submitted papets). The 2010 Eastern APA will be in Boston. For what it’s worth, the 2011 Central division’s deadline is June 1, 2010; the 2011 Pacific APA will be held in San Diego, and the deadline for submissions to its main program is Sept. 1, 2010.

Is a Little Bit of Chinese Better or Worse than None?

For what it’s worth, I’ll post a chunk of the paper I just gave at the APA meeting in New York, at a panel on the challenges of teaching Chinese philosophy. Though not a paper that I’m going to pursue much further I am, as always, still interested in any comments or questions that you may have.

CFP: Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle

The annual meeting of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle will be April 8 –10, 2010 at Tokai University in Honolulu. Send electronic abstracts, papers, or inquiries to this year’s conference chairperson, Dr. Michael Schwartz, by February 21, 2010: mschwart@aug.edu and mschwartz@knology.net.

CFP: Midwest Conference in Chinese Thought

The sixth annual Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought will be held April 30-May 2, 2010 at the downtown campus of DePaul University, in Chicago.  Please submit 1-2 page abstracts for review to Franklin Perkins at fperkins@depaul.edu by January 10, 2010.

SACP Graduate Student Essay Contest

(Very last minute, but better late than never…) The Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy sponsors an annual graduate student essay contest in association with their annual conference.  Students should submit an essay of no more than 25 pages (or 10,000 words)  AND a 300 word abstract to both Al Albergate (alalbergate@aol.com) and Peimin Ni (nip@gvsu.edu) by Dec. 31, 2009.

Approaches to Chinese and Comparative Philosophy–What Are We Doing?

I’ve been thinking recently about a difficulty in our field in general.  Especially after reading some comments on an earlier post on publishing in Chinese philosophy, it seems a good time to discuss this issue.  There are, all of us would admit, a number of different and sometimes opposing methodologies concerning how we read, interpret, and use ancient Chinese philosophical material in our work.  We have different agendas, and have different methods of reading and using texts and ancient material based on these agendas.  However, we often fail to lay our cards on the table concerning these agendas when we write, and also fail to understand authors’ approaches when we read them, and this makes for confusion and tension as the field of Chinese and comparative philosophy attempts to grow to a more prominent position within philosophy in general.  I am thinking here of Chinese philosophy as done by philosophers primarily, because I recognize there are different, and sometimes incompatible, agendas for others in different fields as well, which complicates the issue even further. 

Chinese and Comparative Philosophy Journals

A blog reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes:

This comment is intended to further discussion of the long thread on Leiter about the status of research and teaching (at the Ph.D. level) of Chinese philosophy in the U.S and the West.

Over the decade during which I’ve been doing research in philosophy (dating from the time I finished coursework in grad school), I have spelled my research projects in the Scottish Enlightenment with periodic research projects in other areas. Last year I finally published a book on my main research topic. Not wanting to get burned out in that area of specialization, I decided to return to some earlier interests in ancient Chinese philosophy and write a few papers.

Two are finished and prepared for submission to journals that publish in East Asian philosophy in English. My hunch was that Philosophy East & West (PEW) was heads and shoulders above the other journals in that family, including Dao, Journal of Chinese Philosophy (JCP) and Asian Philosophy (AP). But a colleague mentioned to me that she thinks Journal of Chinese Philosophy is best. I looked online and found no discussion of the quality and rankings of these journals. This surprised me

New Translation of Huainanzi

Due out in January 2010; 992 pages, from Columbia University Press, translated by John Major, Sarah Queen, Andrew Meyer, and Harold Roth. Should be a nice little addition to your Han philosophy collection.

QandA

This is my first attempt to contribute something to this blog–or any blog for that matter. Sorry, it’s nothing original, just a recycled interview from “religion dispatches”.

Ten Questions for Hans-Georg Moeller on The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality
(Columbia University Press, 2009)

What inspired you to write The Moral Fool? What sparked your interest?

The book was written as result of a certain personal uneasiness about the increasing prevalence of moral communication in contemporary society. I found that not only the obvious moral hypocrisy often contained in public statements by, for instance, politicians, preachers, or academics, bothered me, but more generally, the undeserved prestige of ethical language. It seems to me that ethical communication has almost reached a pathological level in our society, bringing about, in Hegel’s words, a certain “frenzy of self-conceit.”

The book is aimed at making such pathologies visible—for instance in the mass media, in politics, in warfare, and in legal procedures, but also on a personal level, when people are urged to practice and experience a “morality of anger.”

What’s the most important take-home message for readers?

Morality (moral communication and moral thought) is not in itself “good.” And: Dare to take ethics not so seriously.

Is there anything you had to leave out?

The book is very much focused on moral pathologies in North America. I think that moral pathologies in other regions (Germany, China, for instance) show quite different symptoms. Maybe one time there will be a catalogue of the various forms of moral pathologies in different places and at different times.