The Chinese philosophers we will be studying include the Confucians
(Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi), the Daoists (or “Taoists,” Laozi
and Zhuangzi), and a few other less famous but equally interesting
thinkers (Mozi and Hanfeizi). This is the classical period of
Chinese philosophy, also known as the Warring States, between the
fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty in 771 BCE and the unification in
221 BCE by the Qin Dynasty (where we get our word “China”), before
the arrival from India of Buddhism, which you cans study in
Philosophy 302.
No single philosopher, in my opinion, had The Answer; if they did, we’d all know it by now. As Zhuangzi says, “If right were really right, it would be so different from not-right that there would be no room for argument” (Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, p. 224). It seems particularly unlikely that people from so long ago and far away would know the answers to our questions here and now. What makes this group of thinkers special, again in my opinion, is that together they raise questions and offer a set of perspectives that we can still use, like a complete palette of colors for an artist or kit of tools for a carpenter. Confucius described teaching as “reheating the past to feed the present” (Analects 2.11, Readings 6). My goal in this course is to help you enjoy and benefit from these philosophers as much as I have.
No single philosopher, in my opinion, had The Answer; if they did, we’d all know it by now. As Zhuangzi says, “If right were really right, it would be so different from not-right that there would be no room for argument” (Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, p. 224). It seems particularly unlikely that people from so long ago and far away would know the answers to our questions here and now. What makes this group of thinkers special, again in my opinion, is that together they raise questions and offer a set of perspectives that we can still use, like a complete palette of colors for an artist or kit of tools for a carpenter. Confucius described teaching as “reheating the past to feed the present” (Analects 2.11, Readings 6). My goal in this course is to help you enjoy and benefit from these philosophers as much as I have.
- Teacher: Paul Kjellberg