Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Crises Learning From Laozi's "Daodejing"

Author: Steve Hallett

Abstract: We live in a time of abundance and comfort for some, scarcity and hardship for others—a period that seems to have all of us teetering on the brink. Certainly, there is no lack of modern crises, but do we possess the wisdom to overcome them, and where might we seek that wisdom? 

Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Crises: Learning From Laozi’s “Daodejing” looks to the Daodejing, a text written during the late Zhou Dynasty (600–400 BCE), for guidance. One of the core treatises of Eastern philosophy, it advocates humility, simplicity, and sustainable living. As both a personal and political philosophy, it is radically gentle, encouraging readers to embrace humility, modesty, compassion, and selflessness while simultaneously resisting the urge to conquer, control, and dominate—teachings that can help each of us navigate contemporary life. 

Finding solutions to such difficult problems requires all the wisdom, ancient and modern, that humans can muster. Replete with the author’s fresh translation of the eighty-one-verse Daodejing, this book touches on topics ranging from environmentalism and human suffering to biodiversity loss and the rise of authoritarianism in an effort to forge a more restrained, sustainable, just, supportive, and compassionate society.

Table of Contents:
Prologue: Wise Ancients?
1. The Ways of Nature
2. Emergence
3. The Ways of People
4. Shape the Path
5. The Ways of the Mind
6. Meetings of the Minds
The Daodejing of Laozi

Environmental Equity in China and Beyond: Past, Present, and Future

Authors: Michael Nylan, Thomas Hahn

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication year: 2026

Abstract:

Together they explore the environment in the Chinese philosophical tradition and contemporary China through the lens of intergenerational justice. Nylan's analysis of lesser known texts from ancient China changes our thinking of Chinese political philosophy and legal antiquity codes. Hahn's comprehensive overview of recent data from China offers a response to the present crisis. Their original approach underscores why environmentalism is always more than a Western issue.

By applying ancient ideas to an urgent topic with a unique emphasis on East Asia, this one-of-a-kind guide to environmental thought challenges standard narratives. It is essential reading for anyone looking to understand how classical Chinese concepts can provide the necessary tools to improve how we think about the world we live in.

Table of Contents:

1. Anglo-American Law

2. Early Empires in China

3. Intergenerational Equity

4. Seasonality and Health for the Body Politic

5. Outlines Policymaking in the PRC

Conclusion

Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action

Author:
Mercedes Valmisa

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Publication date:
September 2021

Abstract:
If you are from the West, it is likely that you normally assume that you are a subject who relates to objects and other subjects through actions that spring purely from your own intentions and will. Chinese philosophers, however, show how mistaken this conception of action is. Philosophy of action in Classical China is radically different from its counterpart in the Western philosophical narrative. While the latter usually assumes we are discrete individual subjects with the ability to act or to effect change, Classical Chinese philosophers theorize that human life is embedded in endless networks of relationships with other entities, phenomena, and socio-material contexts. These relations are primary to the constitution of the person, and hence acting within an early Chinese context is interacting and co-acting along with others, human or nonhuman.

This book is the first monograph dedicated to the exploration and rigorous reconstruction of an extraordinary strategy for efficacious relational action devised by Classical Chinese philosophers, one which attempts to account for the interdependent and embedded character of human agency-what Mercedes Valmisa calls "adapting" or "adaptive agency" (yin) As opposed to more unilateral approaches to action conceptualized in the Classical Chinese corpus, such as forceful and prescriptive agency, adapting requires heightened self- and other-awareness, equanimity, flexibility, creativity, and response. These capacities allow the agent to “co-raise” courses of action ad hoc: unique and temporary solutions to specific, non-permanent, and non-generalizable life problems.

Adapting is one of the world's oldest philosophies of action, and yet it is shockingly new for contemporary audiences, who will find in it an unlikely source of inspiration to cope with our current global problems. This book explores the core conception of adapting both on autochthonous terms and by cross-cultural comparison, drawing on the European and Analytic philosophical traditions as well as on scholarship from other disciplines. Valmisa exemplifies how to build meaningful philosophical theories without treating individual books or putative authors as locations of stable intellectual positions, opening brand-new topics in Chinese and comparative philosophy.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: What is Adaptive Agency?
Chapter 2: Locating Adaptive Agency
Chapter 3: Strategy and Control
Chapter 4: The Reifying Pattern
Chapter 5: Coping with Uncertainty
Chapter 6: The Unifying Pattern

The Dao of Madness: Mental Illness and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Philosophy and Medicine

Author: 
Alexus McLeod

Publication date:
September 2021

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract:
Mental illness complicates views of agency and moral responsibility in ethics. Particularly for traditions and theories focused on self-cultivation, such as Aristotelian virtue ethics and many systems of ethics in early Chinese philosophy, mental illness offers powerful challenges. Can the mentally ill person cultivate herself and achieve a level of virtue, character, or thriving similar to the mentally healthy? Does mental illness result from failures in self-cultivation, failure in social institutions or rulership, or other features of human activity? Can a life complicated by struggles with mental illness be a good one?

The Dao of Madness investigates the role of mental illness, specifically "madness" (kuang 狂), in discussions of self-cultivation and ideal personhood in early Chinese philosophical and medical thought, and the ways in which early Chinese thinkers probed difficult questions surrounding mental health. Alexus McLeod explores three central accounts: the early "traditional" views of those, including Confucians, taking madness to be the result of character flaw; the challenge from Zhuangists celebrating madness as a freedom from standard norms connected to knowledge; and the "medicalization" of madness within the naturalistic shift of Han Dynasty thought. Understanding views on madness in the ancient world helps reveal key features of Chinese thinkers' conceptions of personhood and agency, as well as their accounts of ideal activity. Further, it exposes the motivations behind the origins of the medical tradition, and of the key links between philosophy and medicine in early Chinese thought. The early Chinese medical tradition has crucial and understudied connections to early philosophy, connections which this volume works to uncover.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: In the Shadows of the Chinese Tradition
Chapter 1. Self, Mind and Body, Agency
Chapter 2. What is Mental Illness? Contemporary and Ancient Views
Chapter 3. Madness of Last Resort: Feigned Madness, Ambivalence, and Doubt
Chapter 4. The Wilds, Untamed, and Spontaneity: Zhuangist Views of Madness
Chapter 5. Synthesis and Medicalization in Early Han Views of Mental Illness
Conclusion: Madness and Self-Cultivation: Ways Forward

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi

Editors:

Lai, Karyn & Chiu, Wai Wai 

Publisher: 

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 

Publication date:

July 12, 2019

Abstract:

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi presents an illuminating analysis of skill stories from the Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text. In this intriguing text that subverts conventional norms and pursuits, ordinary activities such as swimming, cicada-catching and wheelmaking are executed with such remarkable efficacy and spontaneity that they seem like magical feats. An international team of scholars explores these stories in their philosophical, historical and political contexts. Their analyses' highlight the stories’underlying conceptions of agency, character and cultivation; and relevance to contemporary debates on human action and experience. The result is a valuable collection, opening up new lines of inquiry in comparative East-West philosophical debates on skill, cultivation and mastery, as well as cross-disciplinary debates in psychology, cognitive science and philosophy. 

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Karyn Lai and Wai Wai Chiu)

Part I Reflections on Skill

1 Skilful Performances and the Zhuangzi’s Lessons on Orientation (Wai Wai Chiu)

2 Skill and Nourishing Life (Franklin Perkins)

3 Skill and Emotions in the Zhuangzi (David Machek)

4 Zhuangzi’s Politics from the Perspective of Skill (Timothy Connolly)

5 Elusive Masters, Powerless Teachers and Dumb Sages: Exploring Pedagogic Skills in the Zhuangzi (Romain Graziani)

6 Skill and Embodied Knowledge: Zhuangzi and Liezi (Steven Coutinho)

7 The Unskilled Zhuangzi: Big and Useless and Not So Good at Catching Rats (Eric Schwitzgebel)

Part II The Stories

8 Cook Ding: A Meditation in Flow (James Sellman)

9 Wheelwright Bian: A Difficult Dao (Lisa Raphals)

10 The Cicada-Catcher: Learning for Life (Karyn Lai)

11 The Ferryman: Forget the Deeps and Row! (Chris Fraser)

12 The Unresponsive Fighting Cocks: Mastery and Human Interaction in the Zhuangzi (Wim De Reu)

13 The Swimmer: (Albert Galvany)

14 Woodworker Qing: Matching Heaven with Heaven (Kim-chong Chong)

15 The Naked Scribe: The Skill of Dissociation in Society (Hans-Georg Moeller)

16 The Forger: The Use of Things (Wai Wai Chiu)

Early China 43 (2020) 《古代中國》第43期

 

Table of Contents:
Letter from the Editor
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Sarah Allan 

主編的信

艾蘭

Articles
QIAN 謙 IN EARLY CHINESE THOUGHT
Doil Kim 

中國古代思想中的“謙”

金渡鎰

A DREAM OF THE SELF: IDENTITY IN THE “INNER CHAPTERS” OF THE ZHUANGZI
Matthew James Hamm

自我之夢：《莊子·內篇》中的“身份”問題

安天皓

REVEALING CONTINGENCY THROUGH SHUN'S 舜 ASCENSION TO THE THRONE
Youngsun Back

對舜即位故事的各種解釋和其“命”有關的研究

白英宣

CAPTURING THE WORLD IN WORDS: LATER MOHIST HERMENEUTIC THEORIES ON LANGUAGE AND DISPUTATION
Erica F. Brindley

以語言把握世界：後期墨家的語言與辯論的詮釋學理論

錢德樑

 
INTRODUCING THE *WU ZE YOU XING TU MANUSCRIPT FROM MAWANGDUI
Luke Waring

馬王堆《物則有形圖》概述

康路華

WHAT THE ELITES ACTUALLY WORE IN 500–300 B.C.E. CHINA: EVIDENCE FROM TEXTILES, BAMBOO, AND BRONZES
Kin Sum (Sammy) Li

公元前500-300年中國的精英穿甚麼：紡織物、竹器、銅器的證據

李建深

BIRDS AND BEASTS WERE MANY: THE ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE OF THE GUANZHONG BASIN IN THE PRE-IMPERIAL PERIOD
Brian Lander

禽獸衆：先秦時期關中盆地的生態與氣候

蘭德

WOMEN'S ROLE IN THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF ALCOHOL IN HAN CHINA AS REFLECTED IN TOMB ART FROM SICHUAN
Hajni Elias

四川漢墓藝術品裡所見漢代釀酒與販售中的女性角色

薛好佩

WANG CHONG'S FATALISM
Yunwoo Song

王充的宿命論

宋允宇

Bibliography
DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

博士論文提要

黃文儀彙編

ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

年度論著目錄

黃文儀彙編

Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts

Author:
Rina Marie Camus

Publication date:
October 2020

Publisher: 

Lexington Books

Abstract:
Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts explores the significance of archery as ritual practice and image source in classical Confucian texts. Archery was one of the six traditional arts of China, the foremost military skill, a tool for education, and above all, an important custom of the rulers and aristocrats of the early dynasties. Rina Marie Camus analyzes passages inspired by archery in the texts of the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi in relation to the shifting social and historical conditions of the late Zhou dynasty, the troubled times of early followers of the ruist master Confucius. Camus posits that archery imagery is recurrent and touches on fundamental themes of literature; ritual archers in the Analects, sharp shooters in Mencius, and the fashioning of exquisite bows and arrows in Xunzi represent the gentleman, pursuit of ren, and self-cultivation. Furthermore, Camus argues that not only is archery an important Confucian metaphor, it also proves the cognitive value of literary metaphors—more than linguistic ornamentation, metaphoric utterances have features and resonances that disclose their speakers’ saliencies of thought.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Literary Metaphor, A Package Deal

Chapter 1: Bow-wielding Aristocrats of Zhou
The Bow in Warfare and Sports
The Bow in Zhou Ritual Tradition
Bow Narratives & Poetry

Chapter 2: Ritual Archers in the Analects
Confucius and the Bow
The Competition of Gentlemen (An 3.7)
Hitting the Target is not the Main Thing (An 3.16)
Straight as an Arrow (An 15.16)

Chapter 3: Sharp Shooters in Mencius
Mencius and Archery in Early Warring States
The Gentleman as Sharp Shooter (M 2A.7 & 5B.1)
Teaching the Way as Archery Training (M 6A.20 & 7A.41)
Moral Failure as Faulty Aiming (M 6A.9)

Chapter 4: Fine Bows and Distant Targets in Xunzi
Xunzi and Archery in Late Warring States
Transforming Nature: Fashioning Bows from Twisted Wood
Paragons of Learning: Undividedness and Not Missing a Shot
Visions of Government: The State Needs Scholars as Much as Archers

Concluding Remarks

The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them

Author:
Paul R. Goldin

Publication date:
April 2020

Publisher:
Princeton University Press

Abstract:
This book provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of classical Chinese philosophy—the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. Combining accessibility with the latest scholarship, Paul Goldin, one of the world’s leading authorities on the history of Chinese philosophy, places these works in rich context as he explains the origin and meaning of their compelling ideas.

Because none of these classics was written in its current form by the author to whom it is attributed, the book begins by asking, “What are we reading?” and showing that understanding the textual history of the works enriches our appreciation of them. A chapter is devoted to each of the eight works, and the chapters are organized into three sections: “Philosophy of Heaven,” which looks at how the Analects, Mozi, and Mencius discuss, often skeptically, Heaven (tian) as a source of philosophical values; “Philosophy of the Way,” which addresses how Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi introduce the new concept of the Way (dao) to transcend the older paradigms; and “Two Titans at the End of an Age,” which examines how Xunzi and Han Feizi adapt the best ideas of the earlier thinkers for a coming imperial age.

In addition, the book presents clear and insightful explanations of the protean and frequently misunderstood concept of qi—and of a crucial characteristic of Chinese philosophy, nondeductive reasoning. The result is an invaluable account of an endlessly fascinating and influential philosophical tradition.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: What Are We Reading?
Chapter One. Nondeductive Argumentation and the Art of Chinese Philosophy
Chapter Two. The Analects of Confucius
Chapter Three. Mozi
Chapter Four. Mencius
Chapter Five. Laozi
Chapter Six. Zhuangzi
Chapter Seven. Sunzi
Chapter Eight. Xunzi
Chapter Nine. Han Feizi

Keywords in Chinese Culture

Editor:
Wai-yee Li and Yuri Pines

Publication date:
October 2019

Publisher:
The Chinese University Press

Abstract:
Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary, and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture.

The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 16th–18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword’s reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages?

Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history, philosophy, and literature, explore keywords in different genres and illuminate their multiple dimensions in various contexts. Moreover, despite their different temporal focus, they take into consideration the development of selected keywords from the Warring States to the late imperial period, sometimes adding excurses that extend to contemporary usage.

Table of Contents:

The Making of Keywords

1 How to Name or Not to Name: That Is the Question in Early Chinese Philosophy /
Carine Defoort

2 Chinese he 和 in Many Keys, Harmonized in Europe /
Joachim Gentz

3 From “Scribe” to “History”: The Keyword shi 史 /Stephen Durrant

Socio-political Keywords

4 What’s in a Slogan? The Political Rationale and the Economic Debates behind “Enrich the State” (fuguo 富國) in Early China /
Romain Graziani

5 “To Die for the Sanctity of the Name”: Name (ming 名) as Prime Mover of Political Action in Early China /
Yuri Pines

Virtue Keywords

6 Embodied Virtue: How Was Loyalty Edited and Performed in Late Imperial China? /
Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu

7 Filial Piety as an Emotion in Late Imperial China /
Maram Epstein

Keywords of the Self

8 Before the Emergence of Desire /
Andrew Plaks

9 Looking for the True Self /
Wai-yee Li

Afterword
Philological Reflections on Chinese Conceptual History: Introducing Thesaurus Linguae Sericae /
Christoph Harbsmeier
em

[Dissertation] Polyphonic Thinking : Music and Authority in Early China

Author:
Avital Rom

School:
University of Cambridge

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
What are the socio-political roles of music? Why do people write about music? These are the essential questions underpinning this dissertation. The study interrogates early Chinese thinkers' engagement with music in political, philosophical, and military treatises of the Warring States (戰國, 453-221 BCE) and Western Han (西漢 206 BCE-9 AD) periods. In a few words, it can be defined as 'a socio-political analysis of musical references in Warring States and Han China.' This study traces and analyses musico-political links in texts dating to these periods. In doing so, it demonstrates how textual references to music may be used as rhetorical tools, attesting to ideological conflicts raging within early Chinese society.

In the first chapter I argue for a new understanding pertaining to perceptions of sound in early China. By re-examining language and contents of passages relating to sound from some of the most widely-read musical discussions of the period (in particular Xunzi's 荀子 ca. 340-ca.245 BCE 'Discourse on Music' 樂論), I substantiate that sounds were, in fact, perceived by early Chinese thinkers not only as joyful and educating - as previously emphasised by critics - but also emotionally compelling and, moreover, potentially dangerous. In this quality of sounds lies the key to understanding the power of music in early Chinese texts, which is examined in detail throughout the four remaining chapters of my work. Chapter two discusses the terms and terminology used by critics in deeming music 'good' or 'bad' in early China. It argues that music critics tended to ground their musical arguments in ethical rather than aesthetical reasonings, and used music criticism to establish and maintain the sense of local or social identities. Chapter three examines the role music and sound played in the military, and argues that within the context of warfare, drums were perceived as sonic communication devices rather than musical instruments per see. Finally, chapter Four explores conceptualisations of silence and soundlessness, claiming that silence was perceived both positively - as the ancestor of sound, and negatively - as an indicator of ignorance. The thesis as a whole aims to explore the boundaries of the musical in early China and reveal how both the musical and the boundaries between the musical and the non-musical served intellectuals rhetorically and ideologically.

Ultimately, I suggest, it is through the lens of music (albeit music that does not itself survive to us in sound) that one can unveil multiple aspects of early Chinese social, political, and intellectual life that have not, up to this point, been examined in scholarly literature.

The Gongsun Longzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives

Editors:
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

Publisher:
De Gruyter

Publication date:
April 2020

Abstract:
The Gongsun Longzi is often considered the only extant work of the Classical Chinese “School of Names”, an early intellectual tradition (trad. dated to the 4th cent. B.C.) mainly concerned with logic and the philosophy of language. The Gongsun Longzi is a heterogeneous collection of five chapters that include short treatises and largely fictive dialogues between an anonymous persuader and his opponent, which typically revolve around a paradoxical claim. Its value as a testimony to Early Chinese philosophy, however, is somewhat controversial due to the intricate textual history of the text and our limited knowledge about its intellectual backgrounds. This volume gathers contributions by leading specialists in the fields of Classical Chinese philosophy, philology, logic, and linguistics. Besides an overview of the scholarly literature on the topic and a detailed account of the reception of the text throughout time, it presents fresh insights into philological and philosophical problems raised by the Gongsun Longzi and other closely-related texts equally attributed to the “School of Names”.

Table of Contents:
The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and Other Neglected Texts – Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives: An Introduction
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

I. HISTORY
TRADITIONS OF SCHOLARSHIP IN CHINA
1. The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ: A Historical Overview
Wang Ping and Ian Johnston

2. Notes on the Relationship between the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and the Dialectical Chapters of the Mòzǐ
Ian Johnston and Wang Ping

3. The ‘Discourse on the White Horse’: A Concrete Analytical Philosophy of Language – with a Coda on the Authenticity of the Received Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Zhōu Chāngzhōng

II. PHILOSOPHY
CONTEMPORARY ANALYTIC APPROACHES
4. Reference and Ontology in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Yiu-ming Fung

5. How Gōngsūn Lóng’s Double-Reference Thought in His “White Horse Not Horse” Argumentation Can Engage with Fregean and Kripkean Approaches to the Issue of Reference
Bo Mou

PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS OF THE GŌNGSŪN LÓNGZǏ
6. Place as a Category in the ‘Treatise on Name and Reality’ (Míngshí lùn名實論)
Dennis Schilling

7. A New Interpretation of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ’s ‘Zhǐwù lùn’ (Discourse on Pointings and Things) and ‘Míngshí lùn’ (Discourse on Names and Actualities)
Liú Tǐshèng

8. A New Interpretation of ‘Báimǎlùn’ (Discourse on White and Horse)
Jiāng Xiàngdōng

III. PHILOLOGY

PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY
9. Logically Significant Words in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Thierry Lucas

10. Linguistic Affinites of the Yǐnwénzǐ Text in the Light of Basic Corpus Data
Lukáš Zádrapa

11. Gōngsūn Lóng and the Zhuāngzǐ: On Classifying (Declassifying) Things Zhǐ (Qí) Wù Lùn 指〔齊〕物論
Ernst-Joachim Vierheller

12. Buddhist Murmurs? – Another Look at the Composition of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Rafael Suter

Beyond the Troubled Water of shifei: From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi

Authors:
Lin Ma & Jaap van Brakel

Publisher: 
SUNY Press

Publication date:
June 2019

Abstract:
In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi’s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and fei can be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi’s idea of “walking-two-roads” as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi’s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Preliminaries
Necessary Preconditions of Interpretation
Against the Ideal Language Assumption
Underdetermination of Meaning and Interpretation
Would “On Its Own Terms” Be Possible?

Part I. The Troubled Water of Shifei

2. Projection of Truth onto Classical Chinese Language
The Harbsmeier–Hansen Dispute
Looking for the “Is True” Predicate in Classical Chinese
Conceptual Embedment of Shi 是 and Its Congeners
Transcendental Pretense in Projecting “Theories of Truth”
The Later Mohist Canons

3. Competing Translations of Shifei 是非

4. Variations of the Meaning of Shi
Shi as a Demonstrative
Shi as Meaning both “This” and “Right”
Modifiers of Shi

5. Dissolution of Dichotomies of Fact/Value and Reason/Emotion
Are There Dichotomies in Classical Chinese?
Fact/Value Dichotomy in Western Philosophy

6. Rightness and Fitting
Nelson Goodman on Rightness and Fitting
Setting up the Quasi-universal of Yi 宜 and Fitting

7. Shi and Its Opposites and Modifiers in the Qiwulun 齊物論
Non-English Translations of Shifei
Bi/Ci (彼/此) and Shi/Fei
Shibushi 是不是, Ranburan 然不然, Kebuke 可不可
Qing 情 and Shifei
Modifiers of Shi in the Qiwulun
Graham’s Contrasting between Yinshi 因是 and Weishi 為是
Translations of Yinbi 因彼, Weishi, and Yinshi

Part II. From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi

8. Is Zhuangzi a Relativist or a Skeptic?
Zhuangzi and Relativism
Relativities versus Relativism
Hansen and Graham’s Relativistic Interpretations of the Zhuangzi
Zhi 知 and Skepticism

9. Zhuangzi’s Stance
Stance Instead of Perspective or Set of Beliefs
No Fixed Meanings (Weiding 未定)
Walking-Two-Roads (Liangxing 兩行)
Doubt and Rhetorical Questions
Buqi Erqi 不齊而齊: Achieving Equality by Leaving Things Uneven

10. Afterthoughts
Do the Ruists and Mohists Really Disagree?
Is Zhuangzi’s Stance Amoral?

Appendix
The Zhuangzi—Key Notions
Zhuangzi’s Text(s): What Are the Authentic Chapters?
The Big (Da 大) and the Small (Xiao 小): Early Interpretations and Disagreements
The Qi 齊 and Lun 論 of Wu 物
The Sages
Dao道, Tian 天, and “the One”
Ziran 自然 and Hundun 渾沌
Wuwei 无為 and Wuyong 无用

Modeling Peace: Royal Tombs and Political Ideology in Early China

Author:
Jie Shi

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Publication date:
March, 2020

Abstract:
Among hundreds of thousands of ancient graves and tombs excavated to date in China, the Mancheng site stands out for its unparalleled complexity and richness. It features two juxtaposed burials, of the first king and queen of the Zhongshan kingdom (dated late second century BCE). The male tomb occupant, King Liu Sheng (d. 113 BCE), was sent by his father, Emperor Jing (r. 157–141 BCE), to rule the Zhongshan kingdom near the northern frontier of the Western Han empire, neighboring the nomadic Xiongnu confederation. Modeling Peace interprets Western Han royal burial as a political ideology by closely reading the architecture and funerary content of this site and situating it in the historical context of imperialization in Western Han China. Through a study of both the archaeological materials and related received and excavated texts, Jie Shi demonstrates that the Mancheng site was planned and designed as a unity of religious, gender, and intercultural concerns. The site was built under the supervision of the future royal tomb occupants, who used these burials to assert their political ideology based on Huang-Lao and Confucian thought: a good ruler is one who pacifies himself, his family, and his country. This book is the first scholarly monograph on an undisturbed and fully excavated early Chinese royal burial site.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I
1. The Embrace of Body and Soul
2. The Union of Husband and Wife
3. Integration of Ethnic Han and Non-Han
Part II
4. The Public King
5. The King of Peace
6. The King Under the Gaze
Conclusion

The Wrong of Rudeness: Learning Modern Civility from Ancient Chinese Philosophy

Author:
Amy Olberding

Publication date:
26 September 2019

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract:
In a time of fractious politics, being rude can feel wickedly gratifying, while being polite can feel simple-minded or willfully naïve. Do manners and civility even matter now? Is it worthwhile to make the effort to be polite? When rudeness has become routine and commonplace, why bother? When so much of public and social life with others is painful and bitterly acrimonious, why should anyone be polite?

As Amy Olberding argues, civility and ordinary politeness are linked both to big values, such as respect and consideration, and to the fundamentally social nature of human beings. Being polite is not just a nicety—it has deep meaning. Olberding explores the often overwhelming temptations to incivility and rudeness, and the ways that they must and can be resisted. Drawing on the wisdom of early Chinese philosophers who lived through great political turmoil but nonetheless avidly sought to "mind their manners," the book articulates a way of thinking about politeness that is distinctively social. We can feel profoundly alienated from others, and others can sometimes be truly terrible, yet, as the Confucian philosophers encourage us to see, because we are social, neglecting the social and political courtesies comes at perilous cost.

The book considers not simply why civility and politeness are important, but how. It reveals how small insults can accumulate to damage social relations, how separating people into tribes undermines our better interests, and how even bodily and facial expressions can influence our lives with others. Many of us, in spite of our best efforts, are often tempted to be rude, and will find here tools for fighting that temptation.

Table of Contents:
Foreword
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Temptations to Incivility
Chapter 3: Temptations to Rudeness
Chapter 4: The Big Values
Chapter 5: Living the Big Values
Chapter 6: Rules, Rules, Rules
Chapter 7: Managing the Face
Chapter 8: Righteous Incivility Revisited
Chapter 9: Disappointments and Consolation

[Dissertation] Mechanical Metaphors in Early Chinese Thought

Author:
Zhou, Boqun

School:
The University of Chicago

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
It is well known that Chinese philosophers in the Warring States period (475–221 BCE) were enamored with metaphors and analogies in their philosophical discussion. Imageries of plants, tools, and bodily skills abounded in debates over morality, politics, language, and human nature. While previous scholarship on ancient metaphors tends to focus on organic and spiritual ones such as plant and water, I argue that the Warring States period witnessed the emergence of a group of mechanical metaphors, and the metaphorical interest in machines is as ancient as it is cross-cultural. These metaphors started with the Mohist mechanics and the advent of the crossbow around the sixth to the fifth century BCE, gradually making their way into the standard vocabulary of morality and politics. They were all based on the lever (quan 權), a simple device widely used in technologies of weighing and weight-lifting. Lever machines, such as the balance, the well sweep, the crossbow trigger, and the trebuchet, provided metaphorical models for conceptualizing balance and imbalance in various kinds of human relationships. Whereas the function of weighing became a metaphor for decision-making in Confucian ethics, the function of weighing-lifting became a metaphor for strategic or positional advantage in military and political craft. The two functions correspond to two opposite kinds of rationality – value rationality that seeks to find moral balance in a dilemma and instrumental rationality that seeks to create strategic imbalance in power dynamics (that is, how the few could defeat or control the many). Due to the double function of the lever itself, the classical quan acquired the paradoxical meaning of “weighing” (as in quanheng 權衡) and “leverage” (as in quanshi 權勢), both of which survived well into modern Chinese but lost the mechanical association.

This dissertation is divide into five chapters. Chapter 1 defines an analytic framework by incorporating the conceptual metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics (with emphasis on the idea of “embodied schema”) and Hans Blumenberg’s historical metaphorology. Chapter 2 defines the ancient Chinese concept of “machine” and compares it with the Greek mechane in the Aristotelian corpus. Chapter 3 describes the embodied schema of the lever’s mechanical functions based on the Mohist Canon with philological analysis of its linguistic expressions. Chapter 4 analyzes the weighing metaphor in the moral philosophy of Mengzi and Xunzi. Lastly, Chapter 5 examines the leverage metaphor in the military philosophy of Sunzi and the political philosophy of Shen Dao.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Theories of Metaphor
The Meaning of Machine
The Lever Schema
Balance
Leverage
Conclusion

Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi

Author:
Sungmoon Kim

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Publication date:
November 2019

Abstract:
Surprisingly little is known about what ancient Confucian thinkers struggled with in their own social and political contexts and how these struggles contributed to the establishment and further development of classical Confucian political theory. Leading scholar of comparative political theory, Sungmoon Kim offers a systematic philosophical account of the political theories of Mencius and Xunzi, investigating both their agreements and disagreements as the champions of the Confucian Way against the backdrop of the prevailing realpolitik of the late Warring States period. Together, they contributed to the formation of Confucian virtue politics, in which concerns about political order and stability and concerns about moral character and moral enhancement are deeply intertwined. By presenting their political philosophies in terms of constitutionalism, Kim shows how they each developed the ability to authorize the ruler's legitimate use of power in domestic and interstate politics in ways consistent with their distinctive accounts of human nature.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I. Confucian Constitutionalism:
1. Interest, morality, and positive Confucianism
2. Virtue, ritual, and constitutionalism
3. Before and after ritual: moral virtue and civic virtue

Part II. Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations:
4. The psychology of negative Confucianism
5. Hegemonic rule: between good and evil
6. Responsibility for all under heaven
Conclusion: between old and new

The Mingjia & Related Texts

Translators & Annotators:
Ian Johnston and Wang Ping

Publication date:
November 2019

Publisher:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press

Abstract:
The Mingjia (名家, School of Names) is a notional grouping of philosophers first recorded as such in the Shiji. Their identifying feature was a concern with linguistic issues particularly involving the correct use of names. The group, as listed in the Han Shu, comprised seven men living between the sixth and third centuries BCE. Only four of these men— Deng Xi 鄧析, Yin Wen 尹文, Hui Shi 惠施, and Gongsun Long 公孫龍— have extant writings attributed to them, and in three of these there are issues of authenticity. Nevertheless, it is an important group for an understanding of the development of pre-Qin philosophy as the men themselves and the concepts they explored feature prominently in the writings of the other schools.

The present volume contains four parts: (i) the extant writings of the four men; (ii) all significant references to them in other works up the fourth century CE; (iii) other significant writings on the topics up to that time; and (iv) four appendices on specific issues concerning the school.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

I. Texts and Translations

1. Deng Xizi

2. Yin Wenzi

3. Hui Shi’s Conversations with Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi)

4. Paradoxes (Theses) of Hui Shi & Others

5. Gongsun Longzi (Traditional Version)

6. Gongsun Longzi (A Modern Version)

II. Testimonia et Fragmenta

1. Dynastic Histories

2. Zuo Zhuan

3. Zhuangzi

4. Xunzi

5. Han Feizi

6. Liezi

7. Lü Shi Chunqiu

8. Huainanzi

9. Zhanguoce

10. Yantie Lun

11. Shuo Yuan

12. Liu Xiang and Liu Xin

13. Fa Yan (Yang Xiong)

14. Xin Lun (Huan Tan)

15. Feng Yan

16. Lun Heng (Wang Chong)

17. Gao You (Commentaries)

18. Zhong Lun (Xu Gan)

19. Yin Wenzi Xu (Zhongchang Tong)

20. Kongcongzi (Wang Su)

21. Lu Sheng (Jin Shu)

22. Baopuzi (Ge Hong)

23. Shishuo Xinyu (Liu Yiqing)

III. Related Texts

1. Lunyu IV.5, VIII.19, IX.2, XIII.3

2. Daodejing 1 & 2

3. Guanzi 36, 37, 38 – Xinshu Shang, Xinshu Xia, Bai Xin

4. Mozi 40-45 – Dialectical Chapters of the Later Mohists

5. Zhuangzi 2 – “Qiwu Lun”

6. Xunzi 22 – “Zheng Ming”

7. Hanfeizi 8 & 41 – “Yang Que” & “Wen Bian”

8. Shiji 47 – “Kongzi Shijia”

9. Zhonglun (Xu Gan) 8 & 11 – “He Bian” & “Kao Wei”

10. Yanjin Yilun (Ouyang Jian)

11. Zhaolun (Sengzhao) – “Buzhenkong Lun”, “Banruo Wuzhi Lun” & “Niepan Wuming”

IV. Appendices

1. Additional Comments on the Paradoxes

2. Authenticity and Other Issues regarding the Gongsun Longzi

3. Additional Commentary on the Mozi, Dialectical Chapters

4. Notes on the Relationship between the Gongsun Longzi and the Later Mohists

China and the World – the World and China: Essays in Honor of Rudolf G. Wagner

Volume 1：Transcultural Perspectives on Pre-modern China

Editor: 
Joachim GENTZ

Publication Date:
2019

Publisher:
OSTASIEN Verlag, Gossenberg

Abstract: 
A wide range of topics is covered in this collection of four volumes of essays in honor of Rudolf G. Wagner. The expansive time frame from pre-modern to contemporary China in China and the World – the World and China reflect the breadth of his own scholarship. The essays are also testimony to his ability to connect with scholars across the globe, across disciplines and generations.

The first volume (Transcultural Perspectives on Pre-modern China) brings together a set of contributions relating to the pre-modern period which reveals thematic clusters that correspond to the three main periods of Chinese pre-modern history. While the first six contributions on the early China period focus on conceptual questions of text interpretation and reconstruction, the following five on medieval China all deal with religious topics whereas the last four contributions, covering the late imperial period, address issues of the entangled relationship between the self and the exterior.

Table of Contents:

Foreword: The Joys of Transculturality – or Research and Teaching between China and the World: A Tribute to Rudolf G. Wagner
　　　(Monica JUNEJA and Barbara MITTLER)
 
Editor’s Introduction
　　　(Joachim GENTZ)
 
Zhuangzi’s Twinkle and Methods without Truth
　　　(Joachim GENTZ))
 
Materialität antiker Handschriften: Beispiele aus China
　　　(Enno GIELE)
 
Concepts of “Authenticity” and the Chinese Textual Heritage in Light of Excavated Texts
　　　(Anke HEIN)
 
Biographical Genres and Biography: The Case of Yan Zun 嚴遵
　　　(CHEN Zhi)
 
The Rule of Law in Eastern Han China: Some Cases of Murder, Suicide, Theft, and Private Dispute
　　　(Robin D. S. YATES)
 
Zhao Qi 趙岐 and Late Han Pedantic Conceptual Analysis
　　　(Christoph HARBSMEIER)
 
Antlers? Or Horns? Towards Understanding Gan Bao 干寶, the Historian
　　　(Michael SCHIMMELPFENNIG)
 
Kumārajīva’s “Voice”?
　　　(Michael RADICH)
 
Transcending Boundaries: Afterlife Conceptions in Entombed Epitaphs and Votive Steles of the Six Dynasties’ Period
　　　(Friederike ASSANDRI)
 
Motifs Traveled with Intentions: Mapping Tang China and the World through Pictorial Screens in the Nara Period Japan (710–794)
　　　(WANG Yizhou)
 
Studying Fears of Witchcraft in Traditional China: A Close Reading of Three Examples from Hong Mai’s The Records of a Listener
　　　(Barend TER HAAR)
 
Chi 癡, pi 癖, shi 嗜, hao 好: Genealogies of Obsession in Chinese Literature
　　　(LI Wai-yee)
 
Entangled Histories: Insights Gained from a Hodological Approach to the Blue Beryl’s Thanka on Metaphors of the Body
　　　(Elisabeth HSU)
 
Manchu Sources and the Problem of Translation
　　　(Mark ELLIOTT)
 
Kalmyk Echoes, Torghut Returns: Poet-Exiles in a Time of Shrinking Frontiers
　　　(Haun SAUSSY)

Early China 42 (2019) 《古代中國》第42期

Table of Contents:

Obituaries

LIU ZEHUA 劉澤華 (1935–2018)
Yuri Pines

LI XUEQIN 李學勤 (1933–2019)
Liu Guozhong, Edmund Ryden

REMEMBRANCES OF LI XUEQIN (1933–2019)

Articles

“XI SHUAI” 蟋蟀 (“CRICKET”) AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: ISSUES IN EARLY CHINESE POETRY AND TEXTUAL STUDIES
Martin Kern

A SELF-REFLEXIVE PRAXIS: CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARDS MANUSCRIPT AND TEXT IN EARLY CHINA
Rens Krijgsman

TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE: THE CHU CI 楚辭 (VERSES OF CHU) AS RESPONSE TO THE SHI JING 詩經 (CLASSIC OF ODES)
Michael Hunter

THE REIFICATION OF FATE IN EARLY CHINA
Mercedes Valmisa

INTERTEXTUALITY AND MEMORY IN EARLY CHINESE WRITINGS: A CASE STUDY FROM HUAINANZI
Oliver Weingarten

RU SCHOLARS, SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND BUREAUCRACY: DONGHAI 東海 MEN AND MODELS FOR SUCCESS IN WESTERN HAN CHINA (206 b.c.e.–9 c.e.)
Liang Cai

WRITING BEFORE INSCRIBING: ON THE USE OF MANUSCRIPTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF WESTERN ZHOU BRONZE INSCRIPTIONS
Ondřej Škrabal

Review

G. E. R. Lloyd and Jingyi Jenny Zhao, eds., in collaboration with Qiaosheng Dong, Ancient Greece and China Compared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Paul R. Goldin

Bibliography

DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
Wen-Yi Huang, comp.

ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wen-Yi Huang, comp.