Friendship In The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Jan 2022
Friendship In The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
An overview of how friendship has been represented and assessed in the Confucian tradition, and particularly in classical Confucian texts such as the Analects and the Mencius. Themes covered include the relationship between the family and friendship, the ambivalence towards friendship in imperial China, and the connection between friendship and the Confucian ideal of personal cultivation. The chapter finishes by exploring novel conceptions of friendship and human relatedness suggested by the Confucian tradition.
Confucian Thought And Contemporary Western Philosophy, Andrew Lambert
Jan 2020
Confucian Thought And Contemporary Western Philosophy, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
This chapter explores the encounter between the traditional Confucian thought and contemporary Anglophone philosophy. It explores the evolution in philosophical methods and heuristics employed by Anglophone thinkers in the past fifty or so years, often with the aim of extracting Confucian thought from its specific social and historical roots. Unlike the disciplines of intellectual or literary history, these philosophers have articulated dimensions of Confucian philosophy not explicit in traditional texts, developed critiques of Western modernity, derived solutions to problems in Western philosophy, and sought to reimagine Confucian thought for an East Asian modernity. Analyzing how contemporary philosophers have engaged the …
Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2018
Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
This chapter in Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig, eds., Handbook on human rights in China (Edward Elgar, 2019) -- examines three different approaches: the Chinese tradition is (1) an obstacle to human rights, (2) an alternative to human rights, or (3) a source of human rights. While some scholars have insisted on one or another of these approaches, I will argue here that there is truth in all of them. Nothing about the Chinese tradition determines, once-and-for-all, what modern Chinese must think about human rights, but there is no question that it has had, and will continue to have, varying …
Buddhism And Zhu Xi’S Epistemology, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2017
Buddhism And Zhu Xi’S Epistemology, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
There are at least superficial reasons for thinking that Zhu Xi’s epistemology is significantly influenced by Chinese Buddhism. For one thing, in his youth Zhu studied with Kaishan Daoqian 開善道謙 (d. 1150?), a leading disciple of the most influential Chan teacher of the era, Dahui Zonggao大慧宗杲 (1089-1163). For another, his discussions of epistemology lean heavily on terms like “genuine knowing 真知” that also figure significantly in Buddhist discussions. As is well known, subsequent critics of the Daoxue movement with which Zhu was centrally associated regularly accused it of being strongly colored by Buddhism. Finally, modern scholars have also …
Tian As Cosmos In Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2017
Tian As Cosmos In Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
“Tian” is central to the metaphysics, cosmology, and ethics of the eight-hundred-year-long Chinese philosophical tradition we call “Neo-Confucianism,” but there is considerable confusion over what tian means—confusion which is exacerbated by its standard translation into English as “Heaven.” This essay analyzes the meaning of tian in the works of the most influential Neo-Confucian, Zhu Xi (1130-1200), presents a coherent interpretation that unifies the disparate aspects of the term’s meaning, and argues that “cosmos” does an excellent job of capturing this meaning, and therefore should be adopted as our translation of tian.
德性、自由与“有根的全球哲学”——关于“进步儒学”与“自由儒学”的对话 [Virtue, Liberty, And ‘Rooted Global Philosophy’—A Dialogue Concerning Progressive Confucianism And Liberal Confucianism], Stephen C. Angle, Ping Guo
Dec 2016
德性、自由与“有根的全球哲学”——关于“进步儒学”与“自由儒学”的对话 [Virtue, Liberty, And ‘Rooted Global Philosophy’—A Dialogue Concerning Progressive Confucianism And Liberal Confucianism], Stephen C. Angle, Ping Guo
Stephen C. Angle
2017年4月26日，美国著名儒家学者安靖如（Stephen C. Angle）教授应邀来到山东大学中心校区，与山东社会科学院青年儒家学者郭萍博士就“有根的全球哲学”、“进步儒学”和“自由儒学”的相关问题进行了一次对话。安靖如先生指出，他所创建的“进步儒学”是一种“有根的全球哲学”，与“综合儒学”在方法论上有着根本的区别：前者是基于单一传统认可意义上“有根的”发展，后者是“双重认可”意义上“综合性的”发展。二者虽然表面近似，而且各有好处，但作为儒家学者必须对此加以区分，以便弄清各种儒学理论据以展开的价值立场和思路方法。对此，致力于创建“自由儒学”理论的郭萍博士提出了自己的理解，并且从“有根的”和“全球的”维度上介绍了“自由儒学”的理论特质。进而，双方基于各自的理论视角，就现代语境下的儒家德性观念以及自由平等与个体权利、美国儒学研究的转向等问题做了广泛地交流，由此在保持各自不同的理论思考的同时，体现出双方坚持立足儒学传统，发展现代价值的思想共识。
生活儒学与进步儒学的对话 [Dialogue Between Life Confucianism And Progressive Confucianism] (Part 1), Stephen C. Angle, Yushun Huang
Dec 2016
生活儒学与进步儒学的对话 [Dialogue Between Life Confucianism And Progressive Confucianism] (Part 1), Stephen C. Angle, Yushun Huang
Stephen C. Angle
2017年4月25日，应尼山书院邀请，中国儒家学者、山东大学儒学高等研究院教授黄玉顺先生与美国儒家学者、维思大学（Wesleyan University）哲学系教授安靖如先生共聚济南大明湖畔，以“中美儒学对话：生活儒学与进步儒学”为题举行对话，共同探讨世界儒学发展方向。安靖如先生是西方儒学代表人物之一，提出“进步儒学”（Progressive Confucianism）理论，以表达对儒学发展方向、理路等一系列问题的看法。他把儒学理解为一个活的、发展中的传统，强调进步儒学最重要的方法论概念是“有根的全球哲学”，即儒学的发展必须既是源自儒家传统的（有根的），又是敞开的（全球的）。黄玉顺先生所创立的“生活儒学”理论，意在发掘儒学所蕴涵的某些能够穿越时空、超越历史地域的观念。生活儒学突破“形上→形下”的观念架构，揭示“生活存在→形而上存在者→形而下存在者”的观念层级，强调回归生活本身及其仁爱情感，重建儒家的形上学和形下学，使儒学能够真正有效地切入当今世界的社会生活。对话过程中，两位儒家分别阐述了各自理论的创构背景、方法架构和核心观念，并且以儒学与自由主义的关系为中心进行深入地互动交流，在展现了各自独特的思想个性的同时取得了广泛共识。特别是在儒学发展之“有根的”立场和现代性的价值取向上，“进步儒学”与“生活儒学”可谓高度一致。
生活儒学与进步儒学的对话 [Dialogue Between Life Confucianism And Progressive Confucianism] (Part 2), Stephen C. Angle, Yushun Huang
Dec 2016
生活儒学与进步儒学的对话 [Dialogue Between Life Confucianism And Progressive Confucianism] (Part 2), Stephen C. Angle, Yushun Huang
Stephen C. Angle
此为“生活儒学与进步儒学的对话”之下部分。
Response To Danielle Macbeth, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2016
Response To Danielle Macbeth, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
This short piece is a response to Danielle Macbeth's essay “The Place of Philosophy.” In her essay, Macbeth has two principal goals: to diagnose the plight of contemporary Western—and especially analytic—philosophy, and to argue for an alternative conception of philosophy’s role, according to which engagement with its history and with the philosophies of other cultures becomes crucial. I have a great deal of sympathy with both halves of her project, and feel I have learned a considerable amount from her essay. As Macbeth herself emphasizes, though, the a priori and dialectical nature of philosophy urges readers to see for …
Comments On Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2016
Comments On Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
I approach this encounter with Joseph Chan’s important work on Confucian perfectionism from a fundamentally sympathetic standpoint. Most basically, I agree with two of his key premises. Confucianism is more than a rich historical tradition: it is a live strand of political (and other types of) theory, able to criticize and contribute to our lives today. But for modern Confucianism to be plausible and attractive, it must find a way to embrace the idea of limited government or constitutionalism in a deeper fashion than it did historically. There are many other issues that Joseph covers in his book, and on …
Comments On Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2016
Comments On Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
I approach this encounter with Joseph Chan’s important work on Confucian perfectionism from a fundamentally sympathetic standpoint. Most basically, I agree with two of his key premises. Confucianism is more than a rich historical tradition: it is a live strand of political (and other types of) theory, able to criticize and contribute to our lives today. But for modern Confucianism to be plausible and attractive, it must find a way to embrace the idea of limited government or constitutionalism in a deeper fashion than it did historically. There are many other issues that Joseph covers in his book, and on …
Chinese Porcelain And The Material Taxonomies Of Medieval Rabbinic Law: Encounters With Disruptive Substances In Twelfth-Century Yemen, Elizabeth Lambourn, Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman
Dec 2016
Chinese Porcelain And The Material Taxonomies Of Medieval Rabbinic Law: Encounters With Disruptive Substances In Twelfth-Century Yemen, Elizabeth Lambourn, Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman
The Medieval Globe
This article focuses on a set of legal questions about ṣīnī vessels (literally, “Chinese” vessels) sent from the Jewish community in Aden to Fustat (Old Cairo) in the mid-1130s CE and now preserved among the Cairo Geniza holdings in Cambridge University Library. This is the earliest dated and localized query about the status of ṣīnī vessels with respect to the Jewish law of vessels used for food consumption. Our analysis of these queries suggests that their phrasing and timing can be linked to the contemporaneous appearance in the Yemen of a new type of Chinese ceramic ware, qingbai, which confounded …
Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle
Aug 2016
Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Kim Sungmoon’s Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice makes many important contributions to our understanding of what is at stake in thinking of Confucianism as a viable political theory in the modern world. One of the book’s most interesting features is its grounding in the on-going practice of Confucianism in South Korea, on the one hand, and yet its emphasis on pluralism within Korean society, on the other.[1] Kim thus aims to describe and defend a polity that, while not relying on its citizens’ unanimous acceptance of Confucianism as comprehensive doctrine, nonetheless can legitimately maintain a distinctively …
Confucian Leadership Meets Confucian Democracy, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2015
Confucian Leadership Meets Confucian Democracy, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many famous images of the inspirational, almost magical character of Confucian leadership seem very distant from any idea of democracy. Some modern Confucian celebrate this distance, arguing that modern Confucian polities should be ruled by elites, and perhaps that these elites should be venerated in something like the traditional way.3 Confucian democrats, in contrast, hold that the roles of Confucian political leaders must be rethought, just as the modern Confucian polity must shift from a monarchy to a constitutional democracy. This does not mean that modern Confucians must turn their backs on traditional Confucian views of leadership: the key …
Building Bridges To Distant Shores, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2015
Building Bridges To Distant Shores, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Late in 1987, having graduated from college and headed to Taiwan to study more Chinese, I decided to attend an international conference on Confucianism. At lunchtime on the first day I was sitting by myself, intimidated by the luminaries all around, when a smiling scholar sat down across from me, introduced himself as Roger Ames, and immediately made me feel at home. (Although he did question the wisdom of my intention to attend a graduate school other than Hawaii.) 1987 also saw the publication of Thinking Through Confucius, Roger’s seminal collaboration with David Hall; shortly after I met Roger …
Building Bridges To Distant Shores, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2015
Building Bridges To Distant Shores, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Late in 1987, having graduated from college and headed to Taiwan to study more Chinese, I decided to attend an international conference on Confucianism. At lunchtime on the first day I was sitting by myself, intimidated by the luminaries all around, when a smiling scholar sat down across from me, introduced himself as Roger Ames, and immediately made me feel at home. (Although he did question the wisdom of my intention to attend a graduate school other than Hawaii.) 1987 also saw the publication of Thinking Through Confucius, Roger’s seminal collaboration with David Hall; shortly after I met Roger …
Confucian Leadership Meets Confucian Democracy, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2015
Confucian Leadership Meets Confucian Democracy, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many famous images of the inspirational, almost magical character of Confucian leadership seem very distant from any idea of democracy. Some modern Confucian celebrate this distance, arguing that modern Confucian polities should be ruled by elites, and perhaps that these elites should be venerated in something like the traditional way.3 Confucian democrats, in contrast, hold that the roles of Confucian political leaders must be rethought, just as the modern Confucian polity must shift from a monarchy to a constitutional democracy. This does not mean that modern Confucians must turn their backs on traditional Confucian views of leadership: the key …
Comparative Philosophy: Reviewing The State Of The Art, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2015
Comparative Philosophy: Reviewing The State Of The Art, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Comparative Philosophy: Reviewing the State of the Art
Table of Contents
0. Introduction — Stephen C. Angle 1
Part 1: Pairs
1. Transcending Tradition through Virtue Ethics — Daniel J. Lemieux 7
A Review of Jiyuan Yu, The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue
2. Understanding a New Type of Religion — Gwendolyn R. Pastor 15
A Review of Ge Ling Shang, Liberation as Affirmation: The Religiosity of Zhuangzi and Nietzsche
3. Work Hard, Study Hard, Practice Hard — Jennie He 25
A Review of Aaron Stalnaker, Overcoming Our Evil: Human …
Tilting Toward The Light: Translating The Medieval World On The Ming-Mongolian Frontier, Carla Nappi
Dec 2015
Tilting Toward The Light: Translating The Medieval World On The Ming-Mongolian Frontier, Carla Nappi
The Medieval Globe
Ming China maintained relationships with neighboring peoples such as the Mongols by educating bureaucrats trained to translate many different foreign languages. While the reference works these men used were designed to facilitate their work, they also conveyed a specific vision of the past and a taxonomy of cultural differences that constitute valuable historical sources in their own right, illuminating the worldview of the Chinese-Mongolian frontier.
Towards A Connected History Of Equine Cultures In South Asia: Bahrī (Sea) Horses And “Horsemania” In Thirteenth-Century South India, Elizabeth Lambourn
Dec 2015
Towards A Connected History Of Equine Cultures In South Asia: Bahrī (Sea) Horses And “Horsemania” In Thirteenth-Century South India, Elizabeth Lambourn
The Medieval Globe
This article explores ways that the concept of equine cultures, developed thus far principally in European and/or early modern and colonial contexts, might translate to premodern South Asia. As a first contribution to a history of equine matters in South Asia, it focuses on the maritime circulation of horses from the Middle East to Peninsular India in the thirteenth century, examining the different ways that this phenomenon is recorded in textual and material sources and exploring their potential for writing a new, more connected history of South Asia and the Indian Ocean world.
Periodization And “The Medieval Globe”: A Conversation, Kathleen Davis, Michael Puett
Dec 2015
Periodization And “The Medieval Globe”: A Conversation, Kathleen Davis, Michael Puett
The Medieval Globe
The period categories “medieval” and “modern” emerged with—and have long served to define and legitimate—the projects of western European imperialism and colonialism. The idea of “the medieval globe” is therefore double edged. On the one hand, it runs the risk of reconfirming the terms of the colonial, Orientalist history through which the “medieval” emerged, thus homogenizing the plural temporalities of global cultures and effacing the material effects of the becoming of the Middle Ages and its relationship to conditions of globalization. On the other hand, “the medieval globe” brings to bear a comparative focus that does not ask when and …
Review Of Ziporyn, Ironies And Beyond Oneness, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2014
Review Of Ziporyn, Ironies And Beyond Oneness, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Near the end of the second volume of the two books under review (hereafter referred to as Ironies and Beyond Oneness), Brook Ziporyn says that his goal has been to “provide the power to think a greater number of more greatly differing thoughts.... Truth is important, but it is important only because it makes things so much more interesting” (2/314). No one who reads these books with any charity can deny that he has achieved this goal—in fact, far exceeded it. Ziporyn takes on the deepest issues and most difficult texts from a …
World Virtue Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2014
World Virtue Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
As many chapters in the present volume have shown, virtue ethics has been practiced and theorized in many different ways around the world. Different times and places have different lists of virtues, or differently-conceptualized notions of unified virtue; virtues have been justified in different ways, interrelated in different ways, and had differing degrees of centrality in broader traditions of ethical thinking and practice. The goal of this chapter is to offer present-day theorists some ways of making sense of this diversity, as it informs our philosophical work and ethical living, both today and into the future. The bulk of the …
Western, Chinese, And Universal Values, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2014
Western, Chinese, And Universal Values, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Efforts to resist “Western values” and to promote “Chinese values” are often based on a crude cultural relativism which is implausible on both historical and philosophical grounds. Admittedly, worries about a facile equation of “West” with “universal” are sometimes well-founded, but the answer is not to retreat to a relativism that would limit all parties’ abilities to seek self-improvement. Rather, building on examples like Chinese new cosmopolitans and modern Confucians—including the great Confucian thinker Mou Zongsan (1909-1995)—current reformers should look to undermine dichotomous, monolithic “East versus West” views of the world. Chinese (and, for that matter, non-Chinese) education, cultural life, …
Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2014
Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is a provocative coincidence that 1958 saw the publication of both Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy,” an essay widely seen as initiating the revival of Western philosophical interest in virtue ethics, and the “Manifesto to the World’s People on Behalf of Chinese Culture,” a jointly-authored argument that Confucianism was still alive and had much to offer to the world. A great deal of research and debate has flowed from each of these sources over the last half-century, but so far there has been very little dialogue between modern Western virtue ethics and modern Confucianism.1 Scholars of ancient Confucianism …
Epilogue: A Hypothesis On The East Asian Beginnings Of The Yersinia Pestis Polytomy, Robert Hymes
Jan 2014
Epilogue: A Hypothesis On The East Asian Beginnings Of The Yersinia Pestis Polytomy, Robert Hymes
The Medieval Globe
The work of Cui et al. (2013)—in both dating the polytomy that produced most existing strains of Yersinia pestis and locating its original home to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—offers a genetically derived specific historical proposition for historians of East and Central Asia to investigate from their own sources. The present article offers the hypothesis that the polytomy manifests itself in the Mongol invasion of the Xia state in the Gansu corridor in the early thirteenth century and continues in the Mongols’ expansion into China and other parts of Eurasia. The hypothesis relies to a considerable extent on work of Cao Shuji …
Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
A central goal of my 2009 book Sagehood was to demonstrate the value of putting Neo-Confucian thinkers like Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and Wang Yangming (1472-1529) into dialogue with contemporary Western philosophers. I argued there that on a range of topics—from the scope and motivation for ethics, to understanding and responding to moral conflicts, to moral perception, to ethical education—Western philosophers could learn from Zhu and Wang, and the contemporary heirs of the Neo-Confucians could learn from their Western counterparts. In Sagehood I also dipped into some recent psychological literature on the lives and psychology of moral exemplars, which I used …
Mou Zongsan And His Nineteen Lectures On Chinese Philosophy, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Mou Zongsan And His Nineteen Lectures On Chinese Philosophy, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Mou Zongsan (1909-95) was a philosophical giant whose legacy looms large over Chinese-speaking regions of the world, and who is in the process of being discovered by non- Sinophone thinkers. Faced with many challenges to earlier Chinese self-understandings, Mou and his contemporaries undertook sustained, critical engagement with philosophical thought from outside their native traditions. In the twenty-first century, philosophers in the Western world are slowly beginning to follow suit. Some are motivated by worries about the narrowness or unsustainability of present Western trends; others are prompted by worries about the rise of China; and some are simply attracted to the …
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many thanks to Joseph Chan for his insightful review, and to the editors of this journal for allowing me this brief response. By the time this exchange appears in print, Joseph’s important book Confucian Perfectionism will have been published, and readers will be able to see all the more clearly the many ways in which Joseph’s and my visions of broadly democratic Confucian political philosophy overlap and, I think, reinforce one another. Still, there are places where we see things differently, and so dialogue like the present exchange—and the prior workshop on my book that Joseph generously arranged at his university …
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many thanks to Joseph Chan for his insightful review, and to the editors of this journal for allowing me this brief response. By the time this exchange appears in print, Joseph’s important book Confucian Perfectionism will have been published, and readers will be able to see all the more clearly the many ways in which Joseph’s and my visions of broadly democratic Confucian political philosophy overlap and, I think, reinforce one another. Still, there are places where we see things differently, and so dialogue like the present exchange—and the prior workshop on my book that Joseph generously arranged at his university …
