Michael Ing's The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism is the first monograph in English about the Liji--a text that purports to be the writings of Confucius' immediate disciples, and part of the earliest canon of Confucian texts called ''The Five Classics,'' included in the canon several centuries before the Analects. Ing uses his analysis of the Liji to show how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters (...) of Confucianism, Ing demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure. (shrink)

This book is about the necessity, and even value, of vulnerability in human experience. In it, Michael Ing brings early Chinese texts into dialogue with questions about the ways in which meaningful things are vulnerable to powers beyond our control; and more specifically, how relationships with meaningful others might compel tragic actions.

This essay explores the positive aspects of resentment in early Confucian thought. Specifically, it argues that from an early Confucian perspective, resentment is a frustration or anger that occurs when those close to us withhold their care or when they otherwise injure us. Stated succinctly, resentment is a result of frustrated desire for affection. It is a sign that we require the care of significant others, and that we are vulnerable to their concern or neglect. When understood appropriately, resentment signals (...) genuine recognition of meaningful relationships; it is a sign that we are affected by those that ought to matter to us. Importantly, resentment has a creative dimension in that it can lead to the production of literature aimed to channel frustrated desire toward realizing the Confucian dao 道. These texts work to connect the author’s resentment with the reader’s possibility of remaking the world in a way desired by the author. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that there are ample resources in the English-speaking academic community to enable philosophers who cannot read Chinese to work with material from the Western Han dynasty in their research or teaching. It discusses three kinds of resources, with the aim of developing a community of philosophers engaged in a sustained conversation about Western Han thought. These resources are histories that describe various aspects of the Han dynasty, translations of key texts, and intellectual (...) histories that examine specific thinkers or texts from the Han. This article also provides a detailed example of one way in which Western Han texts demonstrate the diversity of Chinese philosophy with regard to value conflicts. (shrink)

This essay highlights an alternative tradition of understanding value conflicts in early Confucian thought. In contrast to a prominent position among interpreters that argues for the resolvability or harmonization of conflicting values, I argue that some early Confucians conceptualized value conflicts as irresolvable. In other words, when meaningful aspects of a situation come into tension with each other and values are threatened to be either left unfulfilled or harmed, early Confucians put forth a variety of views. Some believed that all (...) values could be tended to as long as one had the moral imagination of a sage, whereas others saw the world as a place where irreconcilable conflicts between values could occur for even the most profound people. Within this diversity, I take up a view about irresolvable value conflicts where the confrontation with a deep value conflict leaves behind a moral remainder that can mar even the character of a sage. (shrink)

In January 1902, Joseph Mokuʻōhai Poepoe began publishing a monthly journal titled Ke Kanawai (the law). As an attorney, author, and editor, Poepoe endeavored to provide resources in ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) for Kanaka (Hawaiians) living in a world now governed by American law. The three extant issues (January through March) contain a column titled “Kakaolelo—Logika,” a transliteration of “logic” paired with the term “kākāʻōlelo,” commonly glossed as “oration,” “counsel,” or “debate,” but traditionally referring to cultural specialists that (...) advised leaders and were known for being adept in speaking. This column is likely the earliest prolonged engagement with western philosophy by a Kanaka writing in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. The purpose of this article is to lay the groundwork for further discussing questions of comparative philosophy in a Hawaiian context. Thus, the article proceeds in two parts. First, I contextualize the column within its historical setting; then, I translate the column. This will set the stage for future work of interpretation and comparison. (shrink)

Abstract:The Kumulipo has become one of the best-known compositions in Kanaka (Hawaiian) culture. This article focuses on sections 8–11 of the chant, which describe the coming forth of humanity in the context of the shift from Pō (darkness) to Ao (light). This shift is a pivotal moment in the chant, and it signals something distinctive about being human, namely the ability to organize complex societies on the basis of moʻokūʻauhau (genealogies). This ability is rooted in an awareness of oneself as (...) a being uniquely situated in time and place among a myriad of other beings all originating in the fecundity of Pō. Such self-awareness enables the construction of relational differences that support robust communities by means of kinship and other networks, but it also provides humanity with the ability to contend over our place in the genealogical cartography of the world and to ruin the otherwise flourishing world. The Kumulipo, as such, highlights an ambivalence associated with the rise of humanity. (shrink)

pThis article thinks through the work of Kanaka (Native Hawaiian) philosopher Davida Malo (1795–1853) and puts it in dialogue with the work of Richard Armstrong (1805–1860). It argues that Malo offers an account of being human that entails the proper management of impulses (makemake) and intentions (manaʻo) in ways that lead to flourishing (hoʻokūʻonoʻono) in complex communities (kauhale) overseen by leaders (aliʻi) that are informed by the examples of leaders from the past. Standards for proper living, in this setting, are (...) constructed by the community, the members of which are informed by their own experiences and the experiences of their ancestors (kūpuna) as the latter sought to ease the burdens (kaumaha) they confronted in daily life. Armstrong offers a similar picture of human beings as creatures that must learn to observe their intentions and to cultivate intentions that foster proper communal living—a community that Armstrong conceptualizes as a single family (hoʻokahiʻohana). Unlike Malo’s description, however, the standards of this family construct are based on universal laws of right and wrong that only pertain to humans and their standing before a divine figure understood as the Biblical God. The significance of this piece is not only to show how Malo and Armstrong may have conversed over the question of how to live well, but also to begin a conversation in the field of world philosophies about the viability of Kanaka ways of life./p. (shrink)

In Moral Exemplars in the Analects, Amy Olberding offers a self-reflexive and thought-provoking interpretation of the Analects. Scholars of China will find her book valuable in that it provides a holistic reading of the Analects that preserves the tensions in the text. Ethicists will find it valuable in that it furthers discussion on the role of emulating paradigmatic figures in moral development.Olberding characterizes her project as an attempt to "discern a governing logic that renders the Analects' compelling moral sensibility intelligible (...) as moral theory" (p. 1). The difficulty of interpreting the Analects, Olberding explains, is that the text does not offer an explicit moral theory. Instead it reads more like .. (shrink)

This article will argue that Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 recognized a tension between being himself and the natural transformations of the world. While he advocated a kind of ziran zhuyi 自然 主義, he did not believe that he, or human beings in general, were predisposed to accept the inevitable changes of the world. Hence, his "naturalism" is not necessarily about fitting into his natural surroundings, despite the fact that he relies on these surroundings in his poetry, and that contemporary scholars sometimes (...) see his work as "pastoral." Through an examination of "Returning to Live on the Farmstead" and several other of Tao's poems I will demonstrate two things: Tao saw... (shrink)