The earliest Analects yet discovered, this work provides us with a new perspective on the central canonical text that has defined Chinese culture--and clearly illuminates the spirit and values of Confucius.

Readers of the Analects of Confucius tend to approach the text asking what Confucius believed; what were the views that comprise the 'ism' appended to his name in English? A Reader's Companion to the Confucian Analects suggests a different approach: he basically taught his students not doctrines, but ways for each of them to find meaning and purpose in their lives, and how best to serve their society. Because his students were not alike, his instruction could not be uniform; hence (...) the large number of incompatible readings that have been given to what he said. By providing brief essays, finding lists, background and comparative materials, and historical context, this Companion is not intended as another interpretation of the ancient text, but rather as an aid for contemporary students to develop their own interpretive reading of it, in the hope of thereby aiding them in the search for meaning, purpose, and service in their own lives - as seventy-three generations of Chinese have done. (shrink)

Interpreting the graph ren 仁 has been the subject of much philological and philosophical study and speculation over the centuries among scholars both Chinese and Western, perhaps more than any other single graph. One major reason for the attention paid to the term is the general agreement that Confucius gave ren—a little-known term at the time—an ethical orientation in the Analects that it did not have earlier, an understanding of which seems to be a prerequisite for understanding his entire philosophy (...) as reflected in that venerable little book. In this essay we want to suggest a reading for ren in the Analects unlike others proffered by Western translators, who, in keeping with the dominant... (shrink)

The symposium »Does the Concept of ›Truth‹ Have Value in the Pursuit of Cross-Cultural Philosophy?« hones on a methodological question which has deep implications on doing philosophy cross-culturally. Drawing on early Confucian writers, the anchor, Henry Rosemont, Jr., attempts to explain why he is skeptical of pat, affirmative answers to this question. His co-symposiasts James Maffie, John Maraldo, and Sonam Thakchoe follow his trail in working out multi-faceted views on truth from Mexican, Japanese Confucian, and Tibetan Buddhist perspectives (...) respectively. As these positions substantiate, the aforementioned non-Anglo-European traditions seem to draw on an integrated view of thinking, feeling, and living a human life. For their practitioners, truth is less of a correspondence with a given external reality. In fact, it enables human beings to strike the right path in living good, social lives. (shrink)

This work, edited by Henry Rosemount, Jr, is Volume I in the series of "Critics and Their Critics". Angus C. Graham is the leading translator and interpreter of Chinese philosophical texts; he has written philosophical works of his own, he has written at length and in detail on early Chinese grammar and philology, he has translated Chinese poetry, and he has published some of his own poetry. Graham's polymathic achievement explains the polygenous nature of his collection, which has some (...) essays ranging broadly over aesthetics, ethics, religion, and epistemology; others providing concentrated discussion of specific problems in early Chinese syntax, semantics, etymology, and paleography; and yet others being admixtures, moving by turns through etymology, epistemology, and problems of the translation, interpretation, and dating of Chinese texts. (shrink)

Henry Rosemont, Jr., in his Against Individualism has mounted a compelling argument that foundational individualism in its various iterations has become a malevolent ideology implicated in and aggravating many of the pressing problems of our time. The overall thrust of his thesis can be stated rather simply. The industrial democracies and most of the rest of the world are dominated by a corporate capitalism the interests of which are served largely by a procedural justice grounded in a foundational (...) individualism that compounds the benefits of a few and marginalizes the possibility of realizing a distributive justice for the many. Hence, the more that academic and political forces are successful in defending... (shrink)

What can be said about me is simply that I continue my studies without respite and instruct others without growing weary.We can read the list of Henry Rosemont's accomplishments—the books and papers he wrote, edited, and translated, and his classes and workshops, conference papers, and seminars. The 2008 collection of essays in his honor, Polishing the Chinese Mirror, edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn,1 provides almost two dozen testimonies to the influence and reach of his work. In (...) her introduction, Marthe Chandler emphasizes as well Henry's political activism, quoting the ideal he expressed in 1991, in A Chinese Mirror, of a dream "that can be shared by all peoples, holding their humanity in... (shrink)

Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion by Henry Rosemont Jr. is an important challenge to the dominant individualistic ethos of our age. It is not merely a critique of the idea of the rights-claiming, free and autonomous individual: Rosemont also puts forward a strong defense of an alternative idea of the relational person as role-bearing, interrelated, and necessarily responsible to other persons. I am generally sympathetic to Rosemont's view, (...) but I think he goes too far in his defense of the role-bearing person.The book has three parts. Chapters... (shrink)

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)

Rosemont, Jr., Henry, and Roger T. Ames, The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation of the Xiaojing Content Type Journal Article Pages 259-262 DOI 10.1007/s11712-011-9215-4 Authors Thomas Radice, Department of History, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT 06515, USA Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 10 Journal Issue Volume 10, Number 2.

In this introduction we shall array a family of fundamental questions pertaining to probability, especially as it has been judged to bear upon the guidance of life. Applications and uses of probability theory need either to address some or all of these questions, or to tell us why they don’t. The essays assembled in this volume bring integrative perspectives on this family of questions. We asked the authors to describe in their own voices the intellectual histories of their contributions, so (...) as to shed further light upon the philosophical interest of their projects, and their particular integrative approaches, within the broader context we have sketched. The authors’ comments precede the essays. (shrink)

Few if any philosophical schools have championed family values as persistently as the early Confucians, and a great deal can be learned by attending to what they had to say on the subject. In the Confucian tradition, human morality and the personal realization it inspires are grounded in the cultivation of family feeling. One may even go so far as to say that, for China, family reverence was a necessary condition for developing any of the other human qualities of excellence. (...) On the basis of the present translation of the Xiaojing (Classic of Family Reverence) and supplemental passages found in other early philosophical writings, Professors Rosemont and Ames articulate a specifically Confucian conception of "role ethics" that, in its emphasis on a relational conception of the person, is markedly different from most early and contemporary dominant Western moral theories. This Confucian role ethics takes as its inspiration the perceived necessity of family feeling as the entry point in the development of moral competence and as a guide to the religious life as well. In the lengthy introduction, two senior scholars offer their perspective on the historical, philosophical, and religious dimensions of the Xiaojing. Together with this introduction, a lexicon of key terms presents a context for the Xiaojing and provides guidelines for interpreting the text historically in China as well as suggesting its contemporary significance for all societies. The inclusion of the Chinese text adds yet another dimension to this important study. The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence is sure to appeal to specialists of comparative and Chinese philosophy and to all readers interested in the enduring importance of the family. (shrink)

This book is both a critique of the concept of the rights-holding, free, autonomous individual and attendant ideology dominant in the contemporary West, and an account of an alternative view, that of the role-bearing, interrelated responsible person of classical Confucianism, suitably modified for addressing the manifold problems of today.

"Henry Rosemont raises hard questions, commonly overlooked, and does so with sensitivity, compassion, and broad understanding. The questions focus on modern China, but extend far beyond, to general problems of development, the moral foundations of civilization, and the nature of a just society. It is a challenging and thoughtful enquiry." --Noam Chomsky.

This issue of Contemporary Chinese Thought presents selected addresses and papers from the first symposium hosted by the newly established Discussion Forum of Confucianism at the Sage's Birthplace, at Nishan, in Sishui county of Shandong province, which took place June 22-26, 2009. The "Symposium Celebrating Roger T. Ames's Scholarship on Confucianism" honored the University of Hawai'i professor of Chinese philosophy as a distinguished scholar and an extraordinary teacher and mentor.