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Articles 31 - 60 of 114
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Review Of Jiang: A Confucian Constitutional Order - How China’S Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Jiang: A Confucian Constitutional Order - How China’S Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
How important is Jiang Qing, whose extraordinary proposals for political change make up the core of the new book A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future? In his Introduction to the volume, co- editor Daniel Bell maintains that Jiang’s views are “intensely controversial” and that conversations about political reform in China rarely fail to turn to Jiang’s pro- posals. At least in my experience, this is something of an exaggeration. Chinese pol- itical thinking today is highly pluralistic, and for many participants Jiang is simply a curiosity—if indeed they are aware of him. …
Review Of Makeham: Learning To Emulate The Wise, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Makeham: Learning To Emulate The Wise, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Not long ago, twentieth-century Chinese philosophy was little studied and poorly understood in non-Sinophone countries. Thanks in no small part to the energies of one person, John Makeham, this situation is improving rapidly. In less than a decade, Makeham has edited and contributed two chapters to New Confucianism: A Critical Examination, published Lost Soul: "Confucianism" in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse, inaugurated the “Modern Chinese Philosophy” series at Brill, and now edited Learning to Emulate the Wise, to which he contributes both introduction and epilogue as well as three chapters. As is well-known, the term “zhexue” …
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …
Review Of Dallmayr And Zhao :Contemporary Chinese Political Thought, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Dallmayr And Zhao :Contemporary Chinese Political Thought, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Judging by its contents, Contemporary Chinese Political Thought has two, somewhat different goals. On the one hand, it seeks to offer a broad, accessible introduction to the diversity of current Chinese political thinking. On the other hand, it also wants to give readers the opportunity to delve more deeply into some of the contested issues; in this way, the volume aims to display examples of the most innovative current thinking. The result is a somewhat uneven collection that succeeds partially at each goal. There is certainly much to recommend here, as I will explain, and even the volume’s shortcomings are …
Review Of Jiang: A Confucian Constitutional Order - How China’S Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Jiang: A Confucian Constitutional Order - How China’S Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
How important is Jiang Qing, whose extraordinary proposals for political change make up the core of the new book A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future? In his Introduction to the volume, co- editor Daniel Bell maintains that Jiang’s views are “intensely controversial” and that conversations about political reform in China rarely fail to turn to Jiang’s pro- posals. At least in my experience, this is something of an exaggeration. Chinese pol- itical thinking today is highly pluralistic, and for many participants Jiang is simply a curiosity—if indeed they are aware of him. …
Reply To Critics [Of Sagehood], Stephen C. Angle
Reply To Critics [Of Sagehood], Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
One could ask for no more generous yet stimulating a set of critics than Professors Swanton, Tiwald, and Marchal.1 In this short reply, I will take up each in turn.
A Response To Thorian Harris, Stephen C. Angle
A Response To Thorian Harris, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Philosophy is best conducted face-to-face, because it is in the continual back-and- forth of learning and teaching that takes place in conversation that we make the most progress. The opportunity to reply to a charitable and yet challenging review of one’s book, I have now discovered, is a surprisingly close approximation to face-to-face philosophy. This is all the more true when I have already learned from the reviewer’s teachers, was responding (in part) to them in my book, and now Thorian Harris offers his own perspective. I hope that my replies here, and Harris’s subsequent rejoinder, can help make the …
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The goal of the volume under review is to articulate the ways in which the governance of life in China has transformed over the last three decades. Under Mao, power was deployed toward the twin goals of maintaining “sovereignty” (i.e., Mao as ruler) and achieving utopian revolution; in the subsequent reform era, power has been increasingly exercised as “governmentality,” whereby the regime seeks to control and enhance the state’s population. The volume’s authors tend to agree that under the new configuration of power, citizens’ achievements of “adequate lives” has come to be valued as it was not under Mao. The …
人权与中国思想的中文版序 ［Preface To The Chinese Edition Of Human Rights And Chinese Thought］, Stephen C. Angle
人权与中国思想的中文版序 ［Preface To The Chinese Edition Of Human Rights And Chinese Thought］, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
自本书首次出版以来的这些年中,东西方的学者和普通公民仍在继续探讨人权的普遍性 与历史和文化特殊性之间的关系问题。中国在经济和政治实力方面的不断崛起无疑也增加了 中国人希望看到中国价值观崛起的渴望:一个拥有五千年文明历史的国家当然可以给当代世 界的贡献很多东西。近几年来,中国在“普适价值观”的倡导者与“中国模式”的支持者之 间掀起了一场广泛的争论。当然,人权并非是此场争论的唯一主题,争论也涵盖了经济和政 治组织、自由和福利之类的一般价值观,以及全世界是否或应否趋向一套单一的价值观等问 题。也许从此争论中可以得到的一个启示是,无论是对“普适价值观”还是对单纯“中国模 式”的单一理解而言,没有一个答案会适用于所有这些不同领域。
牟宗三论自我坎陷: 诠释与辩护, Stephen C. Angle
A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The essay asks whether contemporary Western empirical studies of moral education, as exemplified in the distinctive research programs of Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin Hoffman, can enter into productive dialogue with the Neo-Confucian theories of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). The proposed dialogue proceeds in two stages. I begin with Zhu’s notion of “lesser learning” and the role therein of ritual, and consider their relations to Kohlberg’s ideas about the construction of moral rules and Hoffman’s findings concerning parental discipline (and particularly “induction”). The second stage turns to Zhu’s “greater learning” and its central concept of reverence, which I explain is best understood …
Review Of Kurtz: The Discovery Of Chinese Logic, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Kurtz: The Discovery Of Chinese Logic, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
At the heart of Joachim Kurtz’s new book is the remarkable fact that up until 1898, no Chinese or foreign scholar had so much as claimed that the Chinese tradition contained explicit concern with logic; and yet scarcely a decade later, it was broadly accepted in Chinese scholarly circles that early China had seen sophisticated developments in logic. Within another few decades, in fact, a consensus was emerging that China had a two- millennia-long tradition of logical thought. How was this possible? What meanings did “logic” have for the various actors in this “discovery of Chinese logic”? What does this …
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The goal of the volume under review is to articulate the ways in which the governance of life in China has transformed over the last three decades. Under Mao, power was deployed toward the twin goals of maintaining “sovereignty” (i.e., Mao as ruler) and achieving utopian revolution; in the subsequent reform era, power has been increasingly exercised as “governmentality,” whereby the regime seeks to control and enhance the state’s population. The volume’s authors tend to agree that under the new configuration of power, citizens’ achievements of “adequate lives” has come to be valued as it was not under Mao. The …
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The goal of the volume under review is to articulate the ways in which the governance of life in China has transformed over the last three decades. Under Mao, power was deployed toward the twin goals of maintaining “sovereignty” (i.e., Mao as ruler) and achieving utopian revolution; in the subsequent reform era, power has been increasingly exercised as “governmentality,” whereby the regime seeks to control and enhance the state’s population. The volume’s authors tend to agree that under the new configuration of power, citizens’ achievements of “adequate lives” has come to be valued as it was not under Mao. The …
Review Of Kurtz: The Discovery Of Chinese Logic, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Kurtz: The Discovery Of Chinese Logic, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
At the heart of Joachim Kurtz’s new book is the remarkable fact that up until 1898, no Chinese or foreign scholar had so much as claimed that the Chinese tradition contained explicit concern with logic; and yet scarcely a decade later, it was broadly accepted in Chinese scholarly circles that early China had seen sophisticated developments in logic. Within another few decades, in fact, a consensus was emerging that China had a two- millennia-long tradition of logical thought. How was this possible? What meanings did “logic” have for the various actors in this “discovery of Chinese logic”? What does this …
A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The essay asks whether contemporary Western empirical studies of moral education, as exemplified in the distinctive research programs of Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin Hoffman, can enter into productive dialogue with the Neo-Confucian theories of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). The proposed dialogue proceeds in two stages. I begin with Zhu’s notion of “lesser learning” and the role therein of ritual, and consider their relations to Kohlberg’s ideas about the construction of moral rules and Hoffman’s findings concerning parental discipline (and particularly “induction”). The second stage turns to Zhu’s “greater learning” and its central concept of reverence, which I explain is best understood …
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Zhang, Kleinman, And Tu: Governance In Life In Chinese Moral Experience, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The goal of the volume under review is to articulate the ways in which the governance of life in China has transformed over the last three decades. Under Mao, power was deployed toward the twin goals of maintaining “sovereignty” (i.e., Mao as ruler) and achieving utopian revolution; in the subsequent reform era, power has been increasingly exercised as “governmentality,” whereby the regime seeks to control and enhance the state’s population. The volume’s authors tend to agree that under the new configuration of power, citizens’ achievements of “adequate lives” has come to be valued as it was not under Mao. The …
Reply To Justin Tiwald, Stephen C. Angle
Reply To Justin Tiwald, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Justin Tiwald and I have been debating the meaning of li 理 for several years now. At each step along the way I have learned from his comments and questions, and I have done my best to refine or revise my position as seemed necessary. I am grateful both to Justin and to the editor for the opportunity to continue that conversation here. Tiwald has very clearly articulated an understanding of li that he calls the “coherence-only” view and ascribes to me. He then points out that there are reasons to doubt that this “coherence-only” view can be correctly attributed …
Piecemeal Progress, Stephen C. Angle
Piecemeal Progress, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
What relevance do alternative moral traditions, such as early Chinese ethical thinking, have for people in the contemporary world? For example, suppose that we can find in early Confucian ethics particular values that are distinctively different from Western notions. How important would such a finding be today? According to three influential accounts of comparative ethics, the presence (or absence) of any given concept is not, on its own, of much significance. Chad Hansen, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Thomas Metzger all emphasize the importance of holistic units of analysis like “traditions” and “discourses” rather than focusing on individual ideas; all would suggest …
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is common for recent authors on the topic of “civility” to spend some time sketching
the history of their subject.1 One narrative goes like this: civility emerges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is part of a larger trend toward disciplining bodily appetites that enables a new kind of cooperation among individuals. Civility interweaves politeness and political respect; it undergirds modern notions of republicanism, civil society, and the public good. In more recent decades—some writers point to World War I as a turning point, but for others, it is the 1960s—civility has declined or at least changed …
Reply To Justin Tiwald, Stephen C. Angle
Reply To Justin Tiwald, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Justin Tiwald and I have been debating the meaning of li 理 for several years now. At each step along the way I have learned from his comments and questions, and I have done my best to refine or revise my position as seemed necessary. I am grateful both to Justin and to the editor for the opportunity to continue that conversation here. Tiwald has very clearly articulated an understanding of li that he calls the “coherence-only” view and ascribes to me. He then points out that there are reasons to doubt that this “coherence-only” view can be correctly attributed …
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is common for recent authors on the topic of “civility” to spend some time sketching
the history of their subject.1 One narrative goes like this: civility emerges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is part of a larger trend toward disciplining bodily appetites that enables a new kind of cooperation among individuals. Civility interweaves politeness and political respect; it undergirds modern notions of republicanism, civil society, and the public good. In more recent decades—some writers point to World War I as a turning point, but for others, it is the 1960s—civility has declined or at least changed …
Translating And Interpreting The Mengzi: Virtue, Obligation, And Discretion, Stephen C. Angle
Translating And Interpreting The Mengzi: Virtue, Obligation, And Discretion, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
The essay focuses on two aspects of the translation and interpretation of Mengzi in Bryan Van Norden’s new translation. First, I argue that Van Norden’s explanation of virtues in terms of obligations is potentially problematic, and show instances in which this unusual understanding of virtue influences the translation itself. Second, I highlight the ways in which Van Norden’s translation and commentary have effectively thematized the role of “discretion (quan 權)” in Mengzi’s text, and make some suggestions for how we can arrive at an even deeper understanding of this important concept.
A Reply To Ruiping Fan, Stephen C. Angle
A Reply To Ruiping Fan, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
I have been offered the chance for a brief reply to Professor FAN’s response to my review, and would like to make just two points. In the penultimate paragraph of his response, Professor FAN raises the question of the efficacy of Confucian moral commitments in contemporary China, and suggests that we can get evidence of this efficacy by comparing China with Eastern Europe. I agree that such a comparison may be very helpful, but suggest that it cannot be undertaken in a superficial way. For one thing, the differences between the two regions are more complicated than …
Review Of Ruiping Fan- Reconstructionist Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle
Review Of Ruiping Fan- Reconstructionist Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Reconstructionist Confucianism is fascinating, provocative, and in several ways novel. It is the first English-language, full-length effort to re-articulate Confucianism so that it speaks to the specific ethical challenges of the contemporary world. Fan’s background as a bioethicist enables him to enter deeply into a series of moral and political issues. Furthermore, FAN’s methodology is distinctive and his conclusions are quite at odds with much that has been written about contemporary Confucianism. As such, the book deserves broad attention: readers with a wide range of backgrounds and research agendas will find stimulating arguments to engage them. Having found …
Wang Yangming As Virtue Ethicist, Stephen C. Angle
Wang Yangming As Virtue Ethicist, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Three ideas are implicit in the title of this chapter. To begin with, it is constructive to view
WANG Yangming 王陽明 (1472-1529), widely acknowledged as the most influential Confucian
thinker of the Ming dynasty, as a virtue ethicist. Second, because Wang has much in common with many other Neo-Confucian philosophers, the Neo-Confucian approach to ethics quite generally can be fruitfully understood as a type of virtue ethics. If this is true, then a third idea also follows, namely that Western virtue ethicists should pay attention to Wang and to Neo- Confucian philosophy, because here is a new (to the …
Rethinking Confucian Authority And Rejecting Confucian Authoritarianism, Stephen C. Angle
Rethinking Confucian Authority And Rejecting Confucian Authoritarianism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Early Confucianism saw "Tian" 天 or Heaven as the source of authority, as kings ruled in accord with its "mandate." The clearest communication of Tian's intentions comes through the actions of the "people" (min 民), whose well beingthus forms the bedrock of Confucian politics. The essay begins by rehearsing the strengths and the limitations of such a framework, as well as pointing to a tnesion concerning the status of "the people" that runs throughout traditional Confucianism. Next, I analyze Kang Xiaoguang's 康小光 contemporary Chinese effort to justify an authoritarian state by means of an only modestly revised version of …