The Liezi is the forgotten classic of Daoism. Along with the Laozi (Daodejing) and the Zhuangzi, it's been considered a Daoist masterwork since the mid-eighth century, yet unlike those well-read works, the Liezi is little known and receives scant scholarly attention. Nevertheless, the Liezi is an important text that sheds valuable light on the early history of Daoism, particularly the formative period of sectarian Daoism. We do not know exactly what shape the original text took, but what remains is replete (...) with fantastic characters, whimsical tales, paradoxical aphorisms, and philosophically sophisticated reflection on the nature of the world and humanity's place within it. Ultimately, the Liezi sees the world as one of change and indeterminacy. Arguing for the Liezi's historical, philosophical, and literary significance, the contributors to this volume offer a fresh look at this text, using contemporary approaches and providing novel insights. The volume is unique in its attention to both philosophical and religious perspectives. (shrink)

For anyone looking to understand Chinese philosophy, here is the place to start. Introducing this vast and far-reaching tradition, the longest continuous heritage of philosophical reflection in our existence, Ronnie L. Littlejohn tells you everything you need to know about those Chinese thinkers who have made the biggest contributions to the conversation of philosophy. From the Han dynasty to the present, he leads us into the indigenous philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Daoism and the uniquely modified forms of Buddhism (...) in China and introduces: - The six classical schools of Chinese philosophy (Yin-Yang, Ru, Mo, Ming, Fa and Dao-De) - The arrival of Buddhism in China and its distinctive development - The central figures and movements from the end of the Tang dynasty to the introduction into China of Western thought - The impact of Chinese philosophers ranging from Confucius and Laozi to Tu Weiming on their equivalents in the West. Weaving together key subjects, thinkers and texts, we see how Chinese traditions have profoundly shaped the institutions, social practices and psychological character of not only East and Southeast Asia, but the world we are living in. Praised for its completely original and illuminating thematic approach, this new edition includes updated features such as reading lists, a comparative chronology of Western and Chinese philosophers, and additional translated extracts. (shrink)

Historical Dictionary of Confucianism contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries on terms, personalities, movements, and texts of the tradition as it has made its trek across East Asia, especially to Korea and Japan.

Chinese Philosophy: Overview of Topics If Chinese philosophy may be said to have begun around 2000 B.C.E., then it represents the longest continuous heritage of philosophical reflection. Trying to mention each philosopher or every significant thinker is not possible. This article is highly selective by choosing philosophers according to two basic principles: Those who … Continue reading Chinese Philosophy: Overview of Topics →.

Daoist Philosophy Along with Confucianism, “Daoism” is one of the two great indigenous philosophical traditions of China. As an English term, Daoism corresponds to both Daojia, an early Han dynasty term which describes so-called “philosophical” texts and thinkers such as Laozi and … Continue reading Daoist Philosophy →.

Laozi Laozi is the name of a legendary Daoist philosopher, the alternate title of the early Chinese text better known in the West as the Daodejing, and the moniker of a deity in the pantheon of organized “religious Daoism” that arose during the later Han dynasty. Laozi is … Continue reading Laozi →.

Edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn, this work is a collection of expository and critical essays on the work of Henry Rosemont, Jr., a prominent and influential contemporary philosopher, activist, translator, and educator in the field of Asian and Comparative Philosophy. The essays in this collection take up three major themes in Rosemont's work: his work in Chinese linguistics, his contribution to the theory of human rights, and his interest in East Asian religion. Contributions include works by (...) the leading scholars in Chinese philosophy in the Western world and Rosemont's close associates: Roger T. Ames, Bao Zhiming, Mary Bockover, Marthe Chandler, Ewing Y. Chinn, Erin M. Cline, Fred Dallmayr, Jeffrey Dippmann, Herbert Fingarette, Harrison Huang, Eric Hutton, Philip J. Ivanhoe, David Jones, William La Fleur, Ronnie Littlejohn, Ni Peimin, Michael Nylan, Harold Roth, Sumner Twiss, Tu Weiming, David Wong, with responses from Henry Rosemont, Jr. and a brief Reminiscence by Noam Chomsky. (shrink)

We are pleased to provide two explorations on the topic of dialogue in Chinese philosophy. In this paper, we consider the educational and theoretical dialogues in China resulting from the encounter...

"Littlejohn organizes his introduction around the central metaphor of a spreading kudzu vine, whose roots, trunk, stalks, branches, and leaves grow beneath, in, around, and over the vast and complex terrain of Chinese culture. He does a marvellous job exploring the origins, developments, and transformations of Daoism by guiding readers through canonical texts, across historical contexts, and around expressions of Daoism in fine art, popular symbols, literature, ritual, and other forms of material culture. The result is a masterful and (...) comprehensive introduction to this protean, venerable, and vital tradition that will engage and enlighten novices and experts alike and delight anyone interested in Chinese religion, philosophy, or culture."--Philip J. Ivanhoe, Reader-Professor of Philosophy, City University of Hong Kong . (shrink)

"China has 'arrived,' and Ronnie Littlejohn helps us know this antique culture better. In his entirely accessible introduction, Littlejohn has done the academy the timely service of resourcing the best contemporary research in sinology to tell the compelling story of a living Confucianism as it has meandered through the dynasties to flow down to our present time." -- Roger T. Ames, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i "Although basically intended as an introductory text for undergraduates, this book (...) is equally a very useful one for everyone with a serious interest in things sinological to have on their bookshelves. Littlejohn has surveyed well the modern Western scholarship on the manifold dimensions of the Confucian persuasion from its earliest beginnings to the present, and proffers it to the reader in a clearly written and commendably balanced narrative, complete with notes, references, and a working bibliography for further studies of this ancient but still vibrant philosophical and religious tradition we know as 'Confucianism'." —Henry Rosemont, Jr, George B & Wilma Reeves Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts Emeritus, St Mary’s College of Maryland, and Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University . (shrink)

Experimental Essays on Zhuangzi is a classic in the field. Originally published in 1983, this edition makes it available again in an expanded version, with four additional contributions, and in an updated format, with pinyin transcription, Chinese characters embedded in the text, and reference-style notes. The work is a well-respected textbook and essential reader in Daoist thought. It continues to constitute an essential contribution to the study of Daoism and Chinese philosophy. Show More Show Less.

_This essay is a brief story of one comparative philosopher’s journey that led to an understanding of Daoism and how it can serve the world and not simply an indigenous Chinese minority community. __In Daoist contemplative experience, the practitioner does not gain some suprarational knowledge, but he/she is changed by the practices in which he/she engages. The person is remade, becoming like an infant or a newborn (_Daodejing 10, Zhuangzi 22_). The point is not that the experience leads to some (...) new cognitive truth about the world but rather what the experience itself consists of; that is, transformation. The Daoist practitioner acts/moves in a certain sort of way (i.e., as _wu-wei_), not according to something he/she knows, but by means of something he/she has become. Only a transformation of being can overcome the nature of humans to problematize life and tie themselves into knots. Daoism is designed to heal the central challenge of the will, and that is the ultimate remedy Daoist practice offers to global humanity. The way of Daoism does not rely on transcendent power or sources but on a person’s own ability to transform himself/herself by following its practices._. (shrink)

This presentation explains how problem-based learning and the World Wide Web may be used in collaboration to shift student learning experiences in dramatic ways and to encounter the tasks and concerns of philosophy. We will provide a guided tour of the web site and the problems used in the course, and will describe how these pedagogical strategies may be used to complement traditional classroom venues without making a commitment to offering a course completely on-line for distance learning scenarios. Problem-based learning (...) will also be described and its importance to philosophical instruction will be emphasized. We argue that teaching philosophy by means of problems is more philosophically sound than taking a discrete topical or textual approach. Challenges to this pedagogy are uncovered and discussed. (shrink)

This essay is an overview of the role of Heaven in Daoist religious thought prior to the Tang Dynasty. Lao-Zhuang teachings portray Heaven as helper of the perfected person, who has parted with the human and thereby evinces a heavenly light. The Huainanzi compares possessing Heaven’s Heart to leaning on an unbudgeable pillar and drawing on an inexhaustible storehouse, enabling one to shed mere humanity as a snake discards its skin. The Heguanzi homologizes Heaven and Taiyi and by the Six (...) Dynasties period some Daoist canonical sources give the face of Laojun to Heaven/Taiyi, increasing the anthropomorphization of Heaven. (shrink)

Historical Dictionary of Daoism contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on related to the Chinese belief and practice worldview known as Daoism including dozens of Daoist terms, names, and practices.

In this collection, Harold Roth brings together the pivotal essays representing both the innovation and expertise that have marked his scholarship on Daoism for roughly the last twenty-five years. It is Roth's position that the foundations of classical Daoism rest upon a distinctive set of contemplative practices that he calls "inner training," which can be found in the Neiye, Laozi, and Zhuangzi, but also in a number of other classical texts of mixed traditions, including the Lushi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 and the (...) Huainanzi 淮南子. The traces of these actual practices are evident linguistically in a recurring family of concepts appearing in these texts including wuwei, wuxing... (shrink)

In this discussion of dialogue within Chinese philosophy we are providing the second in a two part series on the place of dialogue in Chinese educational and intellectual history generally. In our...

Fan Ruiping is engaged in a wide-ranging project to reconstruct Confucianism for the contemporary period. It includes his sustained attack on John Rawls’ theory of distributive justice, various Chinese policies and practices on the delivery of health and elder care, and global business ethics. This paper describes his revised Confucian understanding of environmental morality under the metaphor of nature as garden and man as gardener. I argue the current state of this effort is in need of a more robust appropriation (...) of Chinese sources and a greater attention to comparative analogues using the garden metaphor. I conclude with some suggestions that might advance this specific aspect of his project. (shrink)

This article investigates Michael Slote’s call for rebalancing Western moral philosophy by using Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism, as a form of moral sentimentalism. I agree with the need for a correction of the over reliance on reason in Western moral philosophy, but I reject the rational/sentimental dichotomy and focus on the importance of the will. I make use of the important contribution made by Daoism and the conduct concept of wu-wei 無為. I explain the use of wu-wei in Daoist texts (...) as a nominative to denote a type of conduct, as a verb in moral imperatives, and as an aspiration for human moral behavior. I consider how appropriating this concept into Western moral thought offers significant solutions to three seemingly intractable problems: weakness of will, universalization of moral duties, and the conception of life as plagued by moral dilemmas. I conclude that wu-wei is not the result of some experience of alternative consciousness. It is an alternative consciousness that is shown in behavior, but not able to be said in language. (shrink)

As is well known, the Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy series is offered as a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to various aspects of Chinese philosophy. The series is quite expensive, but should belong at a minimum in all libraries where Chinese studies, Chinese philosophy, and Comparative Philosophy are in the schedule of course offerings. This volume, Dao Companion to Classical Confucian Philosophy, edited by the University of Toronto’s Vincent Shen is divided into two general sections: “Historical Background” and “Philosophical Issues.” (...) The span of study is “Classical Confucianism,” demarcated as the period from Confucius to Xunzi, and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, and: Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential TextsRonnie LittlejohnReadings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2003. Pp. xviii + 362. Paper $24.95.Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts. By Joel J. Kupperman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. x + 159. Hardcover $50.00. Paper $21.00.Readings in Classical Chinese (...) Philosophy, an anthology edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden, contains introductions to and translations of seven important Chinese philosophical works from the sixth to the end of the third centuries B.C.E. The figures included are Kongzi (the Analects), Mozi, Mengzi, Laozi (the Daodejing), Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. Each selection is about fifty pages in length, including the introductory remarks, which are typically very concise. The translation is followed by a short and briefly annotated bibliography that is divided into two parts: other translations and secondary works. The volume was originally published in 2001 by Seven Bridges Press, but it is now reprinted by Hackett Publishing.A usual worry one has when using an anthology of translations in which works are not rendered in their entirety is that principal passages might be omitted. It cannot always be the case that one's favorite passages will make it into a condensation of a work, but one does expect to find the major component passages available to the reader. With regard to this collection, I must say that while there can be no guarantee that these translators have included everything that everyone will think is important, nonetheless, as I will try to show in what follows, the selections are very well chosen and ably translated.The first selection is taken from the Analects. Edward Slingerland is the translator. Subsequent to his work in this readings collection, Slingerland has recently published an entire translation of the Analects including a robust collection of the commentarial tradition on that work. What few differences I have been able to notice between this version and the publication of the entire translation seem to be inconsequential. In this readings collection, all twenty chapters of the Analects are represented. [End Page 687] Chapter 4, widely regarded as the centerpiece of sayings reliably traceable to Kongzi himself, is translated in its entirety.Slingerland uses several conventions for dealing with the concepts regarded as fundamental to a Confucian lexicon. For example, he leaves ren untranslated. And a few scholars will be troubled by his decision to translate junzi as "gentleman." As an aid to the reader, he often uses pinyin and gives the Chinese character for other strategic terms, but he does not allow the translation to be cluttered with too many characters. He seems to stay always consistent with the overall intention of the editors of the collection to use characters only as an aid to the beginning student and nonspecialist. What one needs to introduce key Confucian concepts and Kongzi's way of dealing with his students is available here.Philip J. Ivanhoe's translation of Mozi follows next. What struck me in the beginning was Ivanhoe's fine introductory essay on Master Mo, and I think it will be of benefit to students and nonspecialists alike. This is especially true if one is considering this anthology for a first course in Chinese philosophy or comparative philosophy. Some scholars will think that Ivanhoe's translation of jian ai as "impartial care" instead of "universal love" is not adequately explained in the introductory remarks and even somewhat problematic. But this could provide a point of conversation in the study of the text.Ivanhoe bases his translation on his own selections from the various versions available of the central chapters of the Mozi but the result is relatively uncontroversial. He includes the important eighth and eleventh chapters, concerned with worthy ministers, and chapter 16 on jian ai. The inclusion of Mozi's remarks on funerals, ghosts, and spirits demonstrates Ivanhoe's claim that Mozi is the first philosopher of China to exhibit a sustained interest in argumentation and debate. These sections should be read carefully, not only for what they tell... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual TraditionsRonnie LittlejohnRationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual Traditions. By Henry Rosemont, Jr.Chicago: Open Court, 2001. Pp. vii + 106.In April 2000, Henry Rosemont delivered the first Hsuan Hua Memorial Lecture at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley. The following year, this lecture—originally titled "Whither the World's Religions?"—was published by Open Court in (...) this small book, Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual Traditions. The volume is divided into four sections: (1) the lecture itself, which has the new title "Rationality and Religious Experience"; (2) a commentary by Huston Smith; (3) response and discussion, in which Rosemont replies to Smith and takes questions from the audience; and (4) an epilogue, in which Rosemont makes revisions and expansions on the lecture based on the comments and discussion.In section 1, Rosemont makes a bold claim: "By urging everyone to approach their own text tradition afresh, and alongside others, I am assuming what many of you might find implausible, namely, that in many basic respects all sacred texts are saying the same things, and contain the same truths we can all come to believe without in any way surrendering our rationality" (p. 11). Having said this, he nonetheless does not mean that we can accept the statements of religious texts as stating factual truths, much less that they are putting forward identical descriptions of the world.Rosemont faces the epistemological difficulties of religion directly, saying that we cannot accept the statements of religious texts as factual accounts of the world. He reminds us that it is not merely the Abrahamic traditions that pose an epistemological problem for us: "It no less flies in the face of modern science to believe that the preserver god Vishnu once incarnated himself as Krishna, not merely to give counsel to the spiritual warrior Arjuna, but also, among many other exploits, to make love to 20,000 milkmaids in a single day" (p. 5). Even so, he holds that there is much truth in the sacred texts and narratives of the world's religions (pp. 31-32). As will become apparent in my later remarks, it is not altogether clear to me what sort of truth Rosemont is talking about, but it seems to be more a matter of a certain ego-reduction and a sort of mystical feeling than anything else.Rosemont recognizes not only the epistemological objections to religion, but also the moral ones. He understands the violence and suffering that has been directly and indirectly associated with religion in human history. Yet, in this connection, he says:[E]fforts to exorcise religion from the human realm because of the mischief that has been committed in its name is to throw out the baby with the bath water, and equally to suggest a third response, that there is no hope for the cross-cultural dialogues necessary for [End Page 404] the creation and maintenance of a more peaceful and just twenty-first century until and unless everyone can come to understand how an intelligent and thoroughly decent human being might come to be, or remain, a subscriber to one or another of the world's faiths.(p. 10)It is the phenomenon of spiritual experience and not the doctrine or ontology of any tradition that Rosemont finds of philosophical interest. He thinks that instead of focusing on some purported factual knowledge about the world that we are to believe directly, we should instead concentrate on the instructions that the traditions offer about how to live purposively in the world and derive nonmaterial nurturance from it. "The basis of such nurturance is religious experience" (p. 17).Rosemont begins his remarks on religious experience with a critique of Kierkegaard the purpose of which is to show that lived experience is of one piece. Rosemont attributes to Kierkegaard the position that there are distinguishable and autonomously separable spheres of existence such as the aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual. Speaking of Kierkegaard's three stages, he says that "Almost all of the world's religious traditions, especially the Asian, affirm... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent Works on Confucius and the AnalectsRonnie LittlejohnConfucius and the Analects: New Essays. Edited by Bryan W. Van Norden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 342. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $24.95.Confucius: Analects with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Edward Slingerland. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2003. Pp. xxix + 279. Hardcover $18.00. Paper $10.95.I do not think I can remember reading a professional review of any scholarly work (...) beginning with the imperative "Rush out and buy these books!" But I am not embarrassed to open my comments about these two new volumes on the work of Confucius with just such advice. I think that these works should be included in the personal and institutional libraries of any public interested in classical Confucianism and the Analects. I will review them in the order of their publication. Accordingly, Professor Slingerland's work, although a translation and commentary on the Lun yu, will follow the set of essays compiled and edited by Professor Van Norden. Although this seems to be a rather straightforward procedure, the reader may well wonder whether Slingerland's translation and its extensive use of the commentarial tradition on the Analects in any way displaces one or more of the essays in Van Norden's collection. Remarkably, I did not find this to be true at all. I think this is a tribute largely to the Van Norden anthology and the quality of the scholarship represented by its contributors.The Van Norden collection contains ten essays. In part 1 there are four grouped under the heading "Keeping Warm the Old," and in part 2 there are six under the topic "Appreciating the New." This is a grouping inspired by Analects 2.11: "One who can keep warm the old, yet appreciate the new, is fit to be a teacher." The editor's principal reason for this division in the material is that the authors of the essays in the first section accept the canonical integrity of the Analects and its worldview (or at least they do not explicitly call this into question or depend on a text or form a critical analysis in any of their arguments). In contrast, the authors in the second section explore issues that have not been a part of the commentarial and interpretive tradition on Confucius or the Analects, and many of them employ a textual critical apparatus to buttress their arguments and hermeneutical constructions.Before I provide an overview of the component essays, I want to make a few observations about the "Introduction" written by Van Norden. While it is often the purpose of the editor of an anthology to preview the component essays in the collection, [End Page 99] this is not Van Norden's intention. Looking at the result, I must say that I am very grateful he did not follow the usual pattern. What Van Norden has provided is a readily accessible overview of China in the period before and after Confucius, and a very tight and up-to-date summary of the life of Confucius. It is the best five-page introduction I have found to the current literary and textual debate about the Analects arising from the work of Bruce and Taeko Brooks, and a very decent survey of key concepts in the Confucian philosophical lexicon taken from the Analects.The first essay in part 1 is "Naturalness Revisited: Why Western Philosophers Should Study Confucius" by Joel Kupperman of the University of Connecticut, who was a student of H. G. Creel at the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s. Kupperman holds that there are gaps in Western ethical philosophy that correspond to interesting and important lines of thought to be found in Confucius. What he has in mind specifically is an interest he finds in Confucius on matters of style and decorum in life. He thinks that Western thought has neglected the style of interpersonal interaction because of its preoccupation with moral choice and decision. Although he takes up two possible counterexamples (Nietzsche and Aristotle), I do not believe most readers will find his way of setting them aside to be very satisfying. His work in this part of the essay... (shrink)

This rejoinder focuses on a few points of disagreement that I have with Li Chenyang, Ronnie Littlejohn, and Lauren Pfister regarding their critical comments on my book Reconstructionist Confucianism. In response to Pfister’s concerns, I point out that my book attempts to base on classical, rather than other, Confucian sources in order to reconstruct the Confucian virtue-based, ritual-guided, and family-oriented view of life for contemporary society. In appreciating Littlejohn’s suggestion on Confucian environmentalism, I contend that a kind (...) of Grand View Garden as we find in the Dream of Red Mansion would be a typical Confucian garden, manifesting the Confucian ideal of a family-oriented way of life that holds in harmonious relations with the rest of nature under the direction of the cosmic principles. Finally, I offer detailed replies to Li’s series of challenges to my view on li 禮, arguing for the essential constitutive nature of the Confucian rituals. (shrink)

Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). (...) Given some standard assumptions about the values at stake, the case for convicting and punishing using statistical evidence seems solid. In trying to show where this argument goes wrong, I shall argue (against Lockeans, reliabilists, and others) that beliefs supported only by statistical evidence are epistemically defective and (against Enoch, Fisher, and Spectre) that these epistemic considerations should matter to the law. To solve the puzzle about the role of statistical evidence in the law, we need to revise some commonly held assumptions about epistemic value and defend the relevance of epistemology to this practical question. (shrink)