The Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought was created to foster dialogue and interaction between scholars and students working on Chinese thought across different disciplines and through a variety of approaches. Submissions are invited for papers on any aspect of Chinese thought as well as papers dealing with comparative issues that engage Chinese perspectives.
This year’s conference will be held in-person March 10-12, 2023, at York University in Toronto. Our keynote speakers will be Chris Fraser, Edward Slingerland, and Mercedes Valmisa.
MCCT 2023 Schedule
Friday Schedule
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12:00-1:30 – Midday Panel Chair: Julianne Chung |
STANGE, Leland, “‘Democracy’ in the Zuozhuan” TSUI, Jean, “Bringing LAW to Law: Reclaiming Qing Philology to Recover the Innate Moral Order” GUTMANN, Timothy, “Reflections on Crises at Hand” |
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1:30-1:45 – Break |
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1:45-3:15 – Afternoon Panel Chair: Cheryl Cottine |
Sum Cheuk Shing, H.S., “Transforming the Body: Yao 藥 as “Material Substance” in Chinese Religions” McLeod, Alexus, “Correlative Metaphysics and Politics in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Chinese Martial Arts Manuals” ZAPPULLI, Davide, “Nothingness in Consciousness: A Metaphysics of Radical Creativity” |
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3:15-3:30 – Break |
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3:30-5:00 – Keynote Address Chair: Alexus McLeod |
FRASER, Chris (University of Toronto)
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Saturday Schedule
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9:45 -10:45 – Morning Panel Chair: Jing Iris Hu |
RATHNAM, Lincoln, “The Beauty of Ritual: Collective Action and the Emergence of Order in the Political Thought of Xunzi” COCKS, Sam, “Completing Principle, the Nonhuman, and Rectification” |
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10:45-11:00 – Break |
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11:00-12:00 – Midday Panel Chair: Zechen Wang
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WONG, Baldwin Bon-Wah, “Becoming Virtuous Through ‘Selfless’ Reading” WELLS, James, “Original Xin: The Problem of Untrustworthiness in Classical Chinese Thought” |
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12:00-1:45 - Lunch |
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1:45-3:15 – Afternoon Panel Chair: James Wells |
GAO, Sophia Feiyan, “Dynamics and Relational Agency in Care” LU, Yinghua, “The Phenomenology of Guilt” HU, Jing Iris, “Shame and Moral Contamination in Early Confucian Philosophy” |
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3:15-3:30 – Break |
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3:30-5:00 – Keynote Address Chair: Brian Hoffert
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SLINGERLAND, Ted (University of British Columbia)
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Sunday Schedule
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10:30-12:00 – Midday Panel Chair: Aaron Stalnaker
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YEUNG, Yat Ching, “Guaranteeing the Existence of All Dharmas: A Reassessment of Mou Zongsan’s Speculation of Tiantai’s Ontology” HUANG, Shih-Han, “Flexibility in Itself as an Ideal: The Playful Spirit of the Zhuangzi” BIRKENSTOCK, Ben, “Daoist Humility” |
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12:00-1:45 - Lunch |
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1:45-3:15 – Afternoon Panel Chair: Sam Cocks |
WALKER, Stephen C., “Why is Dào so Hard to Talk About?” SARKISSIAN, Hagop, “Mozi and Zhuangzi on the Dangers of Moral Convictions” CHUNG, Julianne N., “Questions Concerning Cosmic Emulation” |
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3:15-3:30 – Break |
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3:30-5:00 – Keynote Address Chair: Julianne Chung |
VALMISA, Mercedes (Gettysburg College) |
Abstracts (in order of presentation)
Leland Stange (Yale University): “‘Democracy’ in the Zuozhuan”
One striking feature of the Zuozhuan 左傳 (‘Zuo Tradition’ or ‘Zuo Commentary’), a sweeping historical account of the Chunqiu 春秋 (‘Spring and Autumn’) period, 722-453 BCE, is its frequent depictions of the common people or ‘multitudes’, zhong 眾, which feature prominently in a range of political and military decisions narrated throughout the text. Several early sinologists have relied on these passages to claim that a basic level of ‘democracy’ might have existed in China before the rise of larger states in the Zhanguo 戰國 (‘Warring States’) period, 453-221 BCE.
While this paper will agree with more recent commentators that these early scholars went too far in calling the people’s role in the Chunqiu ‘democratic’ in a procedural sense — the disparate states of the Chunqiu world in no way preserved a formal political position for the people akin to the Athenians in ancient Greece — it will argue that a non-proceduralist strand of democratic thinking runs throughout the text in a significant way. While political decisions are mostly left to ruling aristocrats, this paper will argue that the Zuozhuan recognises the people as a whole as the deepest source of political legitimacy in Chunqiu. To lose the support of the people, or multitude (wu zhong 無眾), throughout, means to have been utterly defeated. The non-ruling masses thus maintain a significant degree of informal political power, particularly expressed through their anger, by frequently placing the state on the verge of collapse. A close reading of the role of the people in the Zuozhuan therefore reveals a constant awareness among Chunqiu leaders to not succumb to the multitude’s whims — ruling based on majoritarian interests alone — but to transform the relationship between ruler and people (jun 君 and zhong 眾) in order to avoid the potential threat of unruly control by the mobbish masses. This means that while formal roles for the people do technically disappear in Zhanguo, as Mark Lewis has argued, this disappearance should not only imply a natural abandonment of ‘democratic’ thinking due to the practical requirements necessary to operate larger states. The text of the Zuozhuan instead reveals a conscious transformation in what ‘democratic’ or, in Chinese, zhong 眾 - thinking should mean within the context of political rule. The transformation is an attempt to both temper the role of the people and to preserve the political insights they may hold. The Confucians in Zhanguo, by insisting on min ben si xiang 民本思想, ‘people-as-root thinking’, might be referring to this legacy.
Jean Tsui (City University of New York, Staten Island): “Bringing LAW to Law: Reclaiming Qing Philology to Recover the Innate Moral Order”
After the 1895 Sino-Japanese War, China’s leading political reformer Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873-1929) was careful to present modern political knowledge in affective representational formats which were calculated to stimulate readers’ senses. In an intellectual climate that prioritized the study of language over man’s intuitive understanding, the emphasis Liang placed on a “mind-based” approach to knowledge, he argued, was not intended to be a protest against the “text-based” approach. It marked, on the contrary, an attempt to recover the true spirit of “early” Qing evidential research, a scholarly movement seeking to decipher and restore moral principles prescribed in the early Confucian classics with sophisticated philological and scientific research methods.
In his study of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) mature epistemology, Liang emphasized that objects of experience are “mind-dependent.” What appears to be an interpretative exercise can only be a form of “embodied” moral combat exhibiting a dialectic competition between the prescriptive moral “law” sanctioned by the state and the a priori moral “LAW” constituting man’s natural moral disposition. As the early Qing intellectuals Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613-82) and Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724-1777) questioned, challenged, and possibly rejected prescriptive moral doctrines with their own a priori moral intuitions, a position they proclaimed to object, they were to replace Confucian doctrines and become the ultimate source of moral authority. Through the incorporation of scientific research methods introduced to them by western missionaries, these early Qing intellectuals had succeeded in verifying the reliability of one’s moral gut instincts rather than the accuracy of the text.
By introducing an epistemic shift that promoted man’s natural moral agency toward the turn of the twentieth century, Liang was to restructure the past three hundred years of Chinese intellectual history by directing what he perceived to be the poorly executed Qing evidential research back to the right path. Beyond initiating a reconstruction of Qing intellectual history, this epistemic shift envisioned perhaps the most radical possible form of power transition― were people to replace the Qing monarchy with democratic governance, they would not replace the authoritarian rule with the power of the people, but the “LAW” of this boundless, indestructible, and interminable universe.
Timothy Gutmann (University of Southern Mississippi): “Reflections on Crises at Hand: Zhu Xi and Multicultural Education in the Humanities”
As the proportion of college students majoring in the humanities continues to decline, scholars have struggled to advocate for philosophy and related fields to diverse student bodies and pluralistic societies. Many such educators, including Bryan Van Norden, Kwame Appiah, and Alexus McLeod, among others, call for inclusion of a greater cultural range of primary sources in the humanities canon. However, those who take this approach are challenged to consider not only how to fit a greater diversity into the curriculum but also how new sources ought to inform the goals and assumptions of a rigorous humanistic education itself.
In this paper, I argue that the metaphysician, epistemologist, and exegete Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200 CE) presents a rigorous philosophy of education that acts an oblique challenge to the tradition of humanities education in modern universities. Though this tradition is universalist in its humanistic aspirations, it is historically very culturally specific, often identified with educators such as John Dewey (1859-1952) and Irving Babbitt (1865-1933), who worked in elite institutions in the United States and have extensive influence in China.
Those who look to Zhu as a potential source at first confront an apparently major problem with his thought, and the mature Confucian tradition more broadly, which is his emphasis on deep rather than broad learning. In other words, Zhu Xi appears to argue against the very expansive humanistic study they are trying to promote. Zhu persistently stresses that learners should focus narrowly on written texts one at a time and only take up additional texts once they perfectly comprehend the first. As a first step in deep reading, Zhu tells students to practice rote memorization without even trying to understand. Such a premodern scheme seems to present education as passive acquisition of content against which reformers such as Dewey promoted broad learning and critical-thinking skills as “capital to be invested” in individual development required for deliberative citizenship in a free society.
However, Zhu Xi also advocates gewu 格物, an epistemology of empirical investigation exercised in individual contemplation of nature. Though Zhu is remembered as a philosophical foundation of China’s imperial-service exam system, he discourages learning for the sake of others and merely studying to get ahead. I argue that Zhu Xi’s epistemology integrates the contrasting educational goals of rigorous receptivity and individual critical thinking under the rubric of discretionary judgment (quan 權). Zhu Xi’s understanding of quan can be held in productive tension with the liberal political subjectivity adumbrated in the modern humanities, and as such, his idea illustrates how broadening the humanistic canon can constructively challenge its assumptions.
H.S. Sum Cheuk Shing (University of Chicago): “Transforming the Body: Yao 藥 as “Material Substance” in Chinese Religions”
Seeking solutions for their health, protection, and soteriological goals, religious practitioners in late medieval China (approximately 600–1000 CE) turned to a variety of means that engaged both the mind and body. Such approaches included methods and techniques such as prayer, self-immolation, and other forms of ritual activity. While seals, spells, and talismans represent the most emblematic and commonly discussed forms of technologies utilized in these bodily practices, the multivalent term yao 藥, what I tentatively refer to as “material substances”— whether vegetal, animal, or mineral—remains a lesser explored and yet arguably more pervasive form of media across Chinese religions. This presentation considers two themes: (1) the elastic semantic quality of the character yao 藥 across medieval Chinese thought and bodily practice and (2) the use of yao 藥 by religious practitioners to change, manipulate, and transform human bodies.
Commonly translated as “drug,” “medicine,” “materia medica,” and even “elixir,” the
term yao 藥 subtly shifted from one premodern context to the next—sometimes signifying
substances that possessed curative properties, and at other times, merely referring to food for
general consumption. Prior to the emergence of organized Buddhist and Daoist communities in China, evidence from the Mawangdui and Shuanggudui manuscripts pointed to the significance of yao 藥 in dealing with magical, medical, and/or religious issues. Clearly drawing from this early substratum, medieval Daoists of various backgrounds continued to utilize material substances for a range of purposes such as the healing of illness, dispelling malefic entities, protecting the body from external harm, and achieving transcendence. With regards to Chinese Buddhism, institutional attitudes towards material substances revealed a tension between normative understandings and actual practices on the ground, perhaps reflecting Chinese Buddhists’ efforts to reconcile or even integrate indigenously produced knowledge into their own systems of thought and practice.
By centering Dunhuang manuscript sources, primarily recipe and ritual texts that feature
material substances, I access how practitioners might have implemented and circulated
knowledge about material substances, human bodies, and religious practices. Underlining the
importance of these sources as textual and physical containers of knowledge production, I also consider their position within the broader and larger corpus of canonically transmitted texts, religious and otherwise. In doing so, this presentation asks how and why religious practitioners turned to bodily practices that incorporated material substances either as a main or secondary component of a larger ritualized process. Additionally, I analyze how substances such as pine nut, dairy, and frankincense, to name just a few, served as material interfaces to engage in these practices. Simultaneously tracking the amorphous qualities of the term yao 藥 and its practical manifestations across a variety of texts, this presentation explores the sociocultural and material dimensions of the relationship between material substances and medieval Chinese practitioners.
Alexus McLeod (University of Indiana, Bloomington): “Correlative Metaphysics and Politics in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Chinese Martial Arts Manuals”
The late 19th and early 20th centuries in China saw the decline and collapse of the Qing dynasty and continual defeats by foreign powers and colonial influence. This led to the concerns of reformers in the late Qing and early Republican periods, focused to a large extent on various kinds of strength, including military strength. The ideas of the “physical culture movement” popular in the West at the time caught on in elite circles in China, and numerous thinkers and public figures advocated for strengthening of the individual body through exercise as a way of generating a kind of martial virtue among the people that they thought would strengthen the nation. Many in this period promoted new forms of exercise that they saw as uniquely Chinese, unlike the “gymnastics” and “calisthenics” of the West—particularly, the Chinese martial arts. It is during this period, beginning in the late 19th century, that we find a proliferation of martial arts programs, texts, and constructions of traditions. Most of the Chinese martial arts we know today originated during this period.
Many martial arts manuals that became popular during this period were as focused on philosophy and politics as they were on martial arts technique and physical conditioning. Looking at a selection of important martial arts manuals stretching from the 1880s to 1930s, including the literature of the famous Jingwu Athletic Association (精武體育會) of Shanghai, I discuss some of the main concepts and positions from earlier Chinese metaphysics and political thought found in these texts. I focus particularly on the inclusion of the correlative metaphysics popular during the Han Dynasty, and its modification to deal with political issues of the 19th and 20th centuries. I argue here that the association of Han metaphysics with the distant Chinese past, unfairly maligned philosophical systems (according to the martial arts authors), and the first large-scale Chinese empire, led these authors to associate it with the pressing political needs of their time. This led to the development of martial arts tradition and myth in these manuals that shaped conceptions of the martial arts in China then throughout the globe, as well as China’s self-conception in the 20th century. Martial arts manuals have been neglected by scholars, but as I show here, they hold the key to understanding crucial developments in Chinese and global intellectual and political history in the 20th century.
Davide Zappulli (University of British Columbia): “Nothingness in Consciousness: A Metaphysics of Radical Creativity”
The goal of this paper is to utilize the metaphysical view expounded by Wang Bi (226-249 CE) in his commentary to the Daodejing (道徳經) to propose a metaphysics of consciousness capable of explaining the phenomenon of radical creativity. Drawing from Margaret Boden (2004), I define radical creativity as creativity that transforms the imaginable space of possibilities, as opposed to merely creating new links in that space (combinational creativity) or discovering previously unknown portions of it (exploratory creativity). According to this definition, radically creative processes are mental processes that result in the generation of wholly new mental contents, that is, content that is not reducible to a combination of previously existing ones. Thus, if there is such a phenomenon as radical creativity, we need a metaphysics of consciousness capable of accounting for the generation of wholly new mental contents.
I argue that Wang Bi’s metaphysics provides the tools to satisfy this desideratum. According to Wang Bi, all existing entities (有 you) originate in nothingness (無 wu) through a process by means of which nothingness “carves” or structures itself. Drawing from the interpretation of nothingness given by Pang (2009) and Yao (2010), I explain that Wang Bi’s nothingness is not to be understood as mere absence but as a formless though ubiquitous presence and that, therefore, we can make metaphysical sense of the idea that particular entities are generated from nothingness when it acquires form. Moreover, I argue that entities generated from nothingness are not a combination of previously existing entities: they are wholly new elements of reality.
My proposal is then to posit nothingness as an aspect of consciousness to explain the phenomenon of radical creativity. According to this view, there is a level at which consciousness is simple and undifferentiated – the nothingness aspect – and all particular mental contents are generated by a process through which the nothingness aspect structures itself. I argue that this metaphysics of consciousness allows us to explain nonradical kinds of creativity in terms of the combination and exploration of already existing mental contents and radical creativity as the process of generation of wholly new mental contents from the nothingness aspect.
The paper is organized as follows. The first section provides some important distinctions employed in the debate about creativity. The second section turns to interpret passages from Wang Bi’s commentary on the Daodejing and the main text to provide a presentation of Wang Bi’s metaphysics of creation. The third section uses Wang Bi’s metaphysical framework to articulate a metaphysics of consciousness and argues that the proposed metaphysics allows us to explain radical creativity. Finally, the fourth section addresses some objections to the proposed account.
Lincoln Rathnam (Duke Kunshan University): “The Beauty of Ritual: Collective Action and the Emergence of Order in the Political Thought of Xunzi”
State of nature arguments seek to explain how a justified or legitimate government might come into existence. Such arguments generally have two distinct parts. They consist of both (a) an account of what human life was (or would be) like in the absence of government and (b) an explanation of how and why people sought (or would seek) to establish government and leave the state of nature. Any attempt to offer (b) must clarify how people could overcome a collective action problem. Even when everyone has good reason to want a government to be established, the absence of government and its sanctions makes it difficult to motivate the conduct required in order to establish it. In this paper, I argue that Xunzi provides a powerful way of addressing such problems by rooting the appeal of norms in part in the sense of beauty. I defend the merits of Xunzi’s view through an extended comparison with Thomas Hobbes.
Hobbes is among the foremost theorists of the state of nature. In recent years, scholars have suggested that Xunzi addresses some of the same questions as Hobbes and defends answers that are similar in important respects (Wong 2000, 136-137). Xunzi’s presentation of human life in the absence of good government does indeed resemble Hobbes’ account of the state of nature. Both thinkers claim that under such circumstances our lives would be riven with conflict due to our unruly desires. Hobbes, however, seems to offer a more definite account of how people could get out of the state of nature. In Hobbes’ theory, people recognize the ills of that state and agree to establish a sovereign to rule over them. While Xunzi makes it clear that the true king resolves the problems that arise in the absence of government, it is not entirely clear how his government is actually established.
According to Benjamin Schwartz, the justification of government is simply not something that Xunzi considers (1985, 295). Harris, on the other hand, points out that Xunzi indicates that the ruler’s position is justified by his ability to provide various goods for the people (2016, 117). Even this, however, does not explain how the ruler actually gets people to comply with ethical, legal, or ritual norms. What we need is an account of how the ruler can provide an individual with good reason to support his claim to rule before being able to guarantee that his commands will be backed up with punishments or that they will receive general compliance.
I argue that Xunzi does in fact provide the theoretical resources with which to address the collective action problems raised by state of nature theories. This is an advantage of his theory in relation to that of Hobbes. The individuals in Hobbes’ state of nature are interested in right conduct only insofar as it is instrumentally rational in the sense that it helps them satisfy their desire to preserve their lives. While it is desirable, from the point of view of the Hobbesian individual, to lay down one’s arms if others will do the same, one can never be sure that they will do so. Individuals supposedly agree to create the sovereign, but that agreement cannot be enforced before the sovereign is in existence. For Xunzi, on the other hand, right action in general, and compliance with ritual in particular, involves its own distinctive satisfactions. That is to say, it is in part an end in itself. Its beauty exerts an attractive force on human beings. This suggests that human beings in the state of nature would have some reason to comply with the ritual obligations introduced by the original rulers. Xunzi thus gives us at least the beginning of a theory of how the sage kings might have overcome the collective action problem that confronts individuals in the state of nature.
Sam Cocks (University of Wisconsin – La Crosse): "Completing Principle, The Nonhuman, and Rectification"
As has been argued quite forcefully, one feature of Neo-Confucianism is an explicit and holistic concern for the natural environment. Mary Evelyn Tucker and others consider Neo-Confucianism to be "anthropocosmic" because a vital component of actualizing humaneness is tending to and bringing all things to completion. Individuals who are uncorrupted by selfish desires (siyu) can perceive the principle (li) of things and successfully participate in this completion. On the one hand, we can regard the former as primarily conservative and anthropocentric in the sense that perceiving and deferring to principle leads humans to the moderate and sustainable use of natural resources, mainly for human culture. On the other, there is a strong appreciation for the vitality and direction that things exhibit prior to their incorporation into human culture and resistance to any permanent, human-centered labeling of objects. We can see this in the thought of such thinkers as Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and at times, Zhu Xi.
I argue there is a tension between these two approaches that can be explored in terms of the well-known Neo-Confucian suggestion that the human person forms "one-body" with the cosmos and should act to tend to each aspect of the body. According to Wang Yangming, human life involves a series of choices whereby we often sacrifice one part of the body over the other. His example is our apparent willingness to surrender our hand for the sake of our head. Clearly, that is undesirable but necessary. In a similar sense, we choose to use nonhuman entities to advance human interests. According to Anthony Cua's reading of Wang Yangming, it is plausible to assume that we should rectify the previous action and somehow reckon with what remains incomplete.
What the above implies leads to an interesting set of problems. For example, how does this concern a nonhuman animal's principle when using the animal for ritual sacrifice for human needs? Does Tianli (Heavenly Principle) grant the animal a principle that is and is not human-centered? If so, what might rectification involve? Does rectification involve an action that works to nurture those aspects of principle that do not seem to refer more directly to human need and culture (i.e., food, homes)? Or is there simply a priority of human needs, and no need to retrospectively make amends for those perhaps less valuable features of principle (li) that do not reach fruition?
After responding to these questions, for the sake of comparison, I will turn to environmental ethicist Paul Taylor and his claim that each living thing is an end-in-itself and should be allowed to pursue its interests without interference. However, Taylor is also clear that human influence and need lead to inevitable environmental damage, requiring humans to restore the moral balance these activities disrupt. My claim is that Taylor advances a clearer idea of what rectification could mean and that such a perspective assists us in understanding and furthering the promise of Neo-Confucianism. Here, I will also examine the link between principle and self-determination. Clearly, the meta-ethical and normative questions surrounding environmental ethics are complex. This paper is an attempt to grapple with those real and daily tensions that arise in our attempts to expand the scope of moral concern to include the nonhuman.
Baldwin Bon-Wah Wong (Hong Kong Baptist University): “Becoming Virtuous through ‘Selfless’ Reading: How Zhu Xi and John Rawls use Reading as a Spiritual Exercise”
Amid the recent explosion of scholarly literature in Confucian political theory, the Confucian “gong-fu” (工夫) has not received sustained critical attention. In the Confucian tradition, “gong-fu” means the spiritual exercises that cultivate people to become virtuous. Confucians, particularly the Song-Ming Neo-Confucians, have intensively discussed what gong-fu is effective. In this article, I focus on Zhu Xi’s discussion of a kind of gong-fu, reading. I argue that Zhu Xi proposed a “selfless” way of reading books as a spiritual exercise for people to cultivate their virtues. This way of reading was, coincidentally, also mentioned by contemporary political philosopher John Rawls in some of his unpublished manuscripts on teaching and studying the history of thought. I finally argue that by promoting this “selfless” way of reading, citizens can acquire civic virtues that can facilitate healthy public discussions in a democratic society.
Zhu Xi’s teachings on how to read can be summarized in three points. First, Zhu Xi emphasized that readers should avoid any biases and prejudices. Their minds should be like “mirrors” that reflect the true thought of the authors. Instead of interpreting the texts according to one’s preconceptions, one should empty his mind, read line by line slowly, and eventually understand the true meaning of the authors. This cultivates readers with the virtue of patience. Secondly, Zhu Xi proposed a charitable attitude during reading. Readers should be very careful in criticizing the ideas shown in the texts. Rather, readers should understand the intellectual context of the authors, put themselves into the shoes of the author and make the best possible sense of the author’s ideas. This cultivates readers with the virtue of charity. Finally, Zhu Xi advised that readers should always regard the authors to be more intelligent and insightful than themselves. Thus, before criticizing the authors, readers should reflect on what they can learn from those authors first. This cultivates readers with the virtue of humility. In brief, Zhu Xi believes that reading books is a spiritual exercise that enables people to get rid of self-centered thoughts and gradually acquire the virtues of patience, charity, and humility.
After reconstructing Zhu Xi’s “selfless” theory of reading, I further argue that a similar method of reading is also proposed by John Rawls. Apart from his works in political philosophy, Rawls is the same famous for the revitalization of studying the classics in the history of moral and political thought. By studying his unpublished writings stored in the Harvard archives, I discovered a striking similarity between Zhu Xi and John Rawls, two great minds in the Eastern and Western cultures, in how one should read a text and how reading can shape a person to become more patient, charitable and humble. Finally, I argue that this “selfless” way of reading should be promoted in the civic education of a democratic society. As numerous political theorists suggested, political polarization and echo chambers have become pressing problems in many democratic societies. One way to address these problems is that civic education should include more educations that are related to the cultivation of patience, charity, and humility. So long as people are used to patiently reading the texts and making the best sense of the ideas inside, they are more willing to listen to the ideas of their fellow citizens and understand their ideas sympathetically in public discussions.
In sum, this article has two contributions. First, it explains how Zhu Xi argues that reading can facilitate people to become virtuous, and this echoes Rawls’s view of reading. Secondly, it argues the contemporary significance of this spiritual exercise and shows how reading enables students to acquire some civic virtues that are crucial in contemporary democracies.
James Wells (York University): “Original Xin: The Problem of Untrustworthiness in Classical Chinese Thought”
In this article, I contrast the Confucian virtue xin, of keeping one’s word, with other classical Chinese schools’ solutions to the ethical and political problems caused by untrustworthiness. Following Mengzi’s critique of Agrarianism and his and Xunzi’s critiques of Mohism, as well as Xunzi’s exhortation to learning, I argue that Confucianism offers a middle ground between two extremer responses to deficiencies of trust which remove the conditions under which individuals can be faithful to one-another. I conclude by briefly examining how this middle-ground understanding of xin might interact with Western theories of trust.
I begin by framing the problems that xin is needed to respond to in terms of the rectification of names. Unless the use of a name properly corresponds with the actuality of the world, people will never be able to trust that their words or deeds have been understood reliably, that they have a reliable means of understanding others, and in the sincerity of another’s intentions. This raises the further issue of how it is possible for people to flourish when words, customs, or insincere intentions might always be used to mislead.
I then outline the two responses to this issue which remove the need for xin. Agrarians and Daoists advocate for a return to a simpler state, in which people exist in smaller communities and lack the means and need to engage in the kind of collective action that requires a virtue of xin or promise-keeping. Mohists and Legalists advocate for a more complex social structure instead, in which people’s conduct is controlled by either a strict hierarchy in the former, or a strict system of reward and punishment in the latter, both of which replace xin or faithfulness between people with obedience to a higher authority.
By contrast, Confucians maintain that one needs an innocent mindset, as the Agrarians and Daoists claim, but that this also requires active effort and complex rituals and education to cultivate. One also needs a means of co-ordinating activities that safeguards people from deception, as the Mohists and Legalists claim, but Confucians argue that this must come from and be cultivated by people themselves, rather than through an impersonal autocratic system.
I conclude by outlining how this interpretation of xin as a middle-ground position might supplement the current comparative literature on trust. In particular, it more clearly lets Confucianism account for the background social norms that play a central role in many Western accounts of trust, while also showing why Confucians are suspicious of positions which establish too strict or too loose a theory of norms, as the two extremes that I outline do.
Sophia Feiyan Gao (University of New South Wales): “Dynamics of Power and Relational Agency in Care: A Hybrid Mencian-Feminist Model of Care”
This project proposes a hybrid model of care that can help to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of power and relational agency in care. In particular, it incorporates the receptive empathy developed by feminist care ethicist, Nel Noddings, and Confucian notions, such as ceyin (sympathetic pain), shu (sympathetic thinking), and li (rituals), in Mencian philosophy.
First, I argue that this hybrid model can better empower the cared-for. Noddings argues for a receptive account of empathy, which requires the one-caring to take in the cared-for’s reality by suspending herproject, and then think and feel on behalf of the cared-for. Noddings’ unique focus on the cared-for’s realities helps to identify and address the cared-for’s needs more accurately. Moreover, its respect for freedom, which is manifested in the cared-for’s freedom of expressing needs and pursuing her project, helps to avoid the danger of paternalism. However, considering the over-demandingness of receptive empathy, Mencian philosophy contributes to the empowerment of the cared-for when receptive empathy cannot be achieved. For example, ceyin and shu imply that caring for others is grounded in our shared humanity regardless of others’ social status, gender, and so on, thus highlighting the equality among different sides of care relations. Moreover, compared with Noddings’ focus on the cared-for’s expressed and immediate needs, Mencius’ focuses on caring through moral cultivation and caring through rituals can help to empower the cared-for in a long run and in a sustainable way.
Second, I argue that this hybrid model can help to empower the one-caring, whose vulnerability might be increased through care. Noddings’ emphasis on the cared-for’s responses helps to confirm the one-caring’s contribution. However, since Noddings' account requires the one-caring to let herself be occupied by the other’s reality, it may put the one-caring’s needs and autonomy at risk of exploitation. In contrast, as ceyin and shu imply the acknowledgment of the one-caring’s distinct perspective from the cared-for, they may help to avoid the manipulation or marginalization of the one-caring. Moreover, ritual requirements regarding the responses to care may provide socially understandable ways to communicate gratitude and foster the one-caring’s dignity.
Third, considering the dynamics of power in care, I argue that the relational agency should be
understood as fluid and subject to continuous changes. In other words, both one-caring and cared-for are subject to vulnerability and their roles may shift throughout the care practices. The significance of this project lies in its comparative and constructive nature. First, it offers a
contemporary revised Confucian approach to care, guided by contemporary feminist concerns which help to uncover and construct the overlooked gender dimension in Confucianism. Second, as a localized feminist project developed in dialogue with the Confucian tradition, it shows how feminist care ethics with a western origin can be revised to better foster gender equality in the Confucian cultural context, and to provide other feminist localizing projects.
Yinghua Lu (University of Toronto): “The Phenomenology of Guilt: A Clarification with Confucian Discourse”
With the help of phenomenological analysis, this paper elucidates the experience of guilt by examining discourses in Confucianism and the writings of Western scholars. The opening section investigates the nature of the feeling of guilt, which is rendered in academic studies as a feeling of either wrongdoing or not treating others well. After having clarified its nature of wrongness, the second section continues with the classification of two dimensions of guilt, namely, external conviction and internal self-accusation. The tension between the two leads us, in the next section, to working out the paradox between two opposite virtues in Confucianism: the joy of clear conscience and the uneasiness of guilty conscience. Based on the inquiry into the phenomenon of guilt in the first three sections, the last section expounds its effect, enabling us to see the relevant moral and religious issues more clearly.
Jing Iris Hu (Concordia University): “Shame and Moral Contamination in Early Confucian Philosophy”
Relative lack of philosophical discussion of external social factors has led to theoretical ambiguities regarding the concept of shame, and to disregard of systemic patterns of socially induced shame. Vulnerability to shame prompted by external social factors should be understood as natural signs of our sociality and communal affiliation, I point out. On the conceptual level, I argue, shame and stigma should be clearly defined and decoupled so as to avoid misattributing features of stigma to shame. Inspired by the Confucian philosopher Xunzi’s work, I discuss two types of shame—in Xunzi’s terms, “shame that comes from the circumstances” and “shame that comes from inner dispositions”—to help us differentiate between shame caused by social situations, such as being insulted or slighted, and shame that arises primarily from an inner sense of moral failure. This distinction, I argue, helps us understand our vulnerability to shame-causing circumstances as a common condition, leading the way to a more nuanced discussion of when shame can be constructive and when it is not. It is only after looking carefully at social triggers of shame, such as stigmatization, that we can appreciate the moral potential of shame when it is not due to harmful triggers.
Yat Ching Yeung (Temple University): Guaranteeing the Existence of All Dharmas: A reassessment of Mou Zongsan’s speculation of Tiantai’s ontology
This paper aims to critically analyze Mou Zongsan’s Tiantai’s ontology as the bedrock to preserve the ontological foundation of the existence of all dharmas according to his Buddha-Nature and Prajñā《佛性與般若》and Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy《中國哲學十九講》and to explore Mou’s unique contribution to Tiantai’s ontology.
Mou suggests that only the complete/perfect teaching (yuan jiao 圓教) from Tiantai Buddhism is sufficient to guarantee the existence of all dharmas. Therein, he relies heavily on his “two-level ontology” based on Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna and his ontological reading of Tiantai’s three-fold truth. However, Mou’s Tiantai ontological speculation has been criticized in many ways. Some argue that he fails to explain the necessary existence of ordinary things. Others argue that the notion of “Three Thousand Worlds in One-Moment Thought” should be better interpreted practically, soteriologically, or even epistemologically rather than ontologically. Furthermore, some accuse Mou of textually overinterpreting Zhiyi and superimposing an ontological stand to Tiantai Buddhism. Nonetheless, even if these concerns are reasonable, the existence of all dharmas remains a concern of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. If Mou’s account is theoretically plausible and capable of replying to the above criticisms, it can shed light on the Buddhist ontological commitment and avoid solipsism within the Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist framework.
Shih-Han Huang (Duke University): “Flexibility in Itself as an Ideal: The Playful Spirit of the Zhuangzi”
The Zhuangzi is notoriously difficult to interpret. But one of the few things most scholars agree on is the importance of being flexible in the Zhuangzi. Three lines of interpretation exist in the literature: flexibility for practical success (e.g., Fraser; Valmisa), for mystical unification (e.g., Roth; Yearley), and for epistemic reason (e.g., Hansen; Wong). In contrast to these three, I argue for flexibility in itself as a Zhuangzian ideal.
My starting point is the reflection on Moeller and D’Ambrosio’s “genuine pretending” interpretation. I share their basic intuition that, considering the Zhuangzi as a whole (including its narrative, images, etc.), the spirit of the Zhuangzi can be represented by a playful figure. However, I doubt that they fully develop this idea. The worry is that they emphasize the “medicinal” function of genuine pretending. According to their interpretation, to maintain our
sanity in this stressful world, the Zhuangzi recommends that we flexibly adopt different roles in different situations—without being committed to any of them. I argue that this practical concern about sanity not only turns their interpretation into a version of the practical interpretation, but also turns their “playful” protagonist into an effective agent (who acts flexibly for practical success) and loses all the fun.
To bring playfulness back, we need flexibility in itself as an ideal. I argue for this ideal by drawing our attention to how the Zhuangzi presents symbols of flexibility (e.g., the image of a swimming fish transforming into a flying bird) and how they appeal to us (in comparison to Nussbaum’s images of the hard gem and the tender young plant). I argue that we find the Zhuangzian symbol of flexibility fun, interesting, and playful, and are invited to play along. That is, we are guided to experience flexibility as playfulness. I argue that this experienced appeal of playfulness is the direct proof of the value of flexibility in itself.
Finally, I explore whether my interpretation is compatible with the other three interpretations. I argue that my interpretation is coherent with Wong’s perspectival interpretation (which emphasizes reflection-driven exploration). Both playfulness and perspective reflection drive the Zhuangzian spirit to always go further and be open. On the other hand, my interpretation is not incompatible with the other two (given that one can pursue some sort of flexibility for a goal and, at the same time, enjoy that flexibility in itself) but may be in potential tension with the other two (given that fulfilling the goal of practical success and mystical reunification may require persistence).
Ben Birkenstock (Trinity Western University): “Daoist Humility: How Ancient Chinese Wisdom and Modern Psychology are Telling Us to Be Natural by Going Against the Flow”
This paper develops a Daoist account of the virtue of humility in light of psychological research. Wary of self-deprecation, contemporary psychology has redefined humility as comprised of accurate self-perception and other-focus, but provides little explanation as to how these “twin dimensions” coincide and produce humble behavior. The Daodejing (5-3rdcenturies BCE) provides a helpful perspective on humility. Any effort or ambition pushed too far becomes counterproductive. By embracing lowliness and identifying with socially-undesirable conditions, we subvert self-destructive vanity. Psychological studies over the past century tellingly suggest that the human mind only has limited capacities for cognitive control, and that prescribing symptoms—ironically intending the very outcomes we usually avoid—is often more productive than trying to control them. I propose that a conception of humility as the tendency of choosing to accept unwanted outcomes and situations when necessary is more practical and realistic than the current “twin-dimensional” account.
Stephen C. Walker (University of Chicago): “Why is dào so hard to talk about?”
Chapter 22 of the Zhuāngzǐ features an intricate dialogue about dào—or, more precisely, an intricate monologue about dào that Lǎozǐ launches into when an unsuspecting Kǒngzǐ voices
interest in the topic. It is difficult to reconstruct what “dào” refers to for this version of Lǎozǐ: he throws many intuitions at the reader and seasons them with questions that he doesn’t answer. The aim of this presentation is twofold: (1) to attempt that reconstruction in some depth and (2) to analyze the rhetorical decisions that this Lǎozǐ seems to make. On my interpretation, the dào in question is the source of dé, conceived as infinite and almost certainly equivalent to things themselves in their ever-changing totality; Lǎozǐ’s evasive way of addressing Kǒngzǐ on this topic, along with his disparaging remarks about knowledge and speech, likely draw on his
anxiety (qua character) that Kǒngzǐ will misinterpret dào as finite.
Lǎozǐ’s forest of images and questions consistently implies that we should understand dào in terms of openness and all-pervasiveness; it also suggests that we cannot understand dào as a cause of anything if that means construing it as distinct from its effects. Being a cause that is its own effects just means, once more, that it is infinite—that we should reference that infinity
whenever we are curious about how something has arisen. The closest thing we get to a definition of “dào” in this dialogue equates it with “accidental pairing and responding” (偶⽽應 之, exploiting both relevant meanings of 偶), and I take this to mean that things as such are
always responding to each other, of necessity, and that this fact about them is the basis from
which every determinate course of action gets drawn.
Throughout his twisting exposition, Lǎozǐ repeatedly advises Kǒngzǐ to distrust or dismiss what he knows—and to prefer silence over speech where dào is concerned. I will argue that this is not best understood as a mystical posture, whereon dào would be defined as what lies beyond all power of knowledge or language to grasp. Dào’s lack of definition is precisely the point, which means that knowledge and language grasp it exactly as much as their opposites do. The details of Lǎozǐ’s remarks suggest that what he wants to rule out is not the use of knowledge and language to access or engage with dào but rather the assumption that this process has a limit.
If dào is on both sides of every distinction, then teaching it or learning it is a never-ending project; the culture of asking about it in the way that Kǒngzǐ does, with expectations of determinate answers and the intention of wielding dào as a criterion of goodness or success, involves (this Lǎozǐ thinks) excessive reliance on arbitrarily constricted viewpoints.
Hagop Sarkissian (City University of New York, Baruch): “The Dangers of Moral Convictions (and what to do about them)”
Each of us has convictions about what is morally right and morally wrong. While in the grips of such convictions, we are motivated to take action and persuade others to accept or endorse what we think is right. Our moral convictions can jolt us out of complacency and impel us to realize the values we hold dear. Yet while our moral convictions can energize and enrich our lives, they can also have disturbing consequences. When our moral convictions are implicated in a particular issue, we become intolerant of disagreeing others and are less willing to engage in cooperative efforts to resolve our disagreements. We devalue procedural fairness. We loosen our epistemic standards. We dehumanize others.
In this talk, I will outline the nature of moral convictions and their behavioral consequences, drawing from recent work in the cognitive sciences. Next, I argue that two texts in the classical period of Chinese thought—the Mozi and Zhuangzi—affirm both that a) falling into the grips of moral convictions is endemic to human existence and b) they should be a source of grave concern. The Mozi claims that prior to Heaven’s establishment of a ruler, diverging convictions of what is right (yi 義) tore families apart and drove individuals into acts of violence. Similarly, some of the most passionate passages of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi describe how our senses of right and wrong seem to impel us into lives of pointless and wretched conflict, blinding us to alternative perspectives and ways of life.
After drawing some parallels between these texts, I go on to note they present us with radically different methods of dealing with the dangers of moral convictions. The Mozi suggests that our convictions can all be unified, whereas the Zhuangzi invites us, through various means, to laugh at them. In closing, I will attempt to make an initial assessment as to which of the methods is more promising.
Julianne N. Chung (York University): “Questions Concerning Cosmic Emulation”
In his paper, “‘Following the Way of Heaven’: Exemplarism, Emulation, and Daoism,” Ian James Kidd notes that while many traditions recognize certain human beings as exemplars of virtue—that is, as models for a good or flourishing human life—less commonly discussed are traditions that recognize nonhuman entities as exemplars of this kind. On Kidd’s view, a sustained case study of forms of exemplarity found in the Zhuangzi suggests there are traditions that incorporate what might be termed a “cosmic” rather than a “human” mode of emulation (cosmic emulation for short). This paper addresses three questions that arise in connection with exploring what cosmic emulation, given Kidd’s account, might involve, and probes the broader significance of considering the topic of cosmic emulation.
First, if Dao, nothingness, and emptiness can only be figuratively, metaphorically, or otherwise non-literally described, might it still be possible to literally emulate them? If not, is it possible to non-literally emulate them instead? Indeed, one might think that there is a sense in which much emulation is non-literal, as it plausibly involves less literal copying than it does, perhaps just for starters, analogical or associative extension and application. Because of this, considering cosmic modes of emulation might make it easier for us to conceive of and to explore potential non-human exemplars of virtue more broadly construed, as it illuminates the possibility that we can conceive of figurative, metaphorical, or otherwise non-literal “emulation”, possibly alongside literal emulation.
Second, might not only aesthetic experience, but also aesthetic appreciation, be required in order to effectively engage in cosmic emulation—not only in light of the possibility that aesthetics is prior to ethics, but also in light of the possibility that Dao, nothingness, and emptiness cannot be literally described? If so, what are the precise contours of those experiences, or instances of appreciation?
Third, might cosmic emulation be of the deepest priority, at least in some traditions, as ultimately all other exemplars of virtue that we might seek to emulate are themselves emulating the ground or source of the world as experienced? If so, might we expect an account of how all supposed human virtues fundamentally stem from cosmic emulation?