The history of art in Russia and China is closely intertwined in the XX century, including thanks to the creative and pedagogical activities of Russian artists who found themselves in exile. Largely thanks to them, Harbin and Shanghai became major art centers in the 1920s–1930s. This period is characterized by fruitful processes in the country's art and culture, but also political upheavals at the same time. The problem of the study is to determine the peculiarities of the perception and (...) interpretation by the emigrant masters of events from the life of the Chinese people, the atmosphere that prevailed in China. Thus, the subject of the study is the paintings and graphics of the largest emigrant artists of the specified period, and the object is the images of China of those years, conveyed in their works, and the means of implementing the idea. The main purpose of this article is to determine the range of themes and subjects that Russian emigrant artists addressed when creating images of contemporary China, as well as the specifics of their artistic embodiment. It is achieved by analyzing the historiography of this issue in Russian art criticism, as well as analyzing the creative works of such prominent representatives of the artistic intelligentsia in exile as M.A. Kichigin and his daughters, V.S. Podgursky, Ya.L. Likhonos, V.A. Asypkin. The study of the thematic component of their works shows that the masters were attracted by events from the life of ordinary people, as well as psychological portraits of residents of Chinese cities. Artistically, the artists remained committed to the Russian school, but allowed the influence of expressive features of Chinese painting. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is the history of entire knowledge, a definition made by Lenin.1 At the same time Lenin also pointed out that throughout the two thousand years of development of philosophy the struggle between idealism and materialism, between the lines or tendencies, has never come to a stalemate.2 Based on what Lenin had pointed out, Redanov [translation of the name in Chinese—Tr.] of the Soviet Union repudiated Alexandrov's definition of the history of philosophy. As (...) a matter of fact, in defining it as the history of knowledge, Alexandrov also drew his idea from Lenin's definition. The history of philosophy is the history of knowledge and also the history of the struggle between materialism and idealism. The two definitions should complement rather than exclude each other. However, in applying them a deviation will emerge as if the use of the one would invariably violate the other. In writing The History of Philosophy of West Europe, Alexandrov applied the idea that the history of philosophy is the history of knowledge; however, he did ignore the struggle between materialism and idealism and described the progress of knowledge as a peaceful, quantitatively gradual advance. Therefore Redanov's criticism of him was not without reason. After liberation, we accepted Redanov's definition and applied it to the study of the history of Chinese philosophy. Thus we developed another deviation: We only saw philosophers of the two camps fight with each other in the history of philosophy and devoted all our energy to assigning the previous philosophers into different camps instead of focusing our attention on the complicated course of an upward spiral of the progress of man's knowledge so as to sum up the experience and lessons of such a spiral development and its regular pattern. Some people now suggest that we repudiate Redanov's idea and revive Lenin's definition. There are also people who fear the repudiation of Redanov's definition would mean a repetition of Alexandrov's mistake. We believe Lenin's definition is correct and complete. Either Redanov or Alexandrov saw only one aspect of the matter to the neglect of the other. To overcome the one-sided emphasis in our research work, we must acquire a comprehensive understanding of what Lenin had defined. (shrink)

Three issues essential to our insight into the concept and function of historical consciousness, and the description thereof, form the core of this book: historical truth, historical comment and criticism, and ideology (including the historian's trustworthiness). Taking as a point of departure the workings of these concepts in Chinese historical thinking, the volume carefully draws comparisons with similar topics in the Western tradition. It thus advocates and shows a truly comparative approach that sets the stage for an intercultural dialogue (...) on this important subject. The first comprehensive work on the political and cognitive dimensions of Chinese historical consciousness set against its Western counterpart. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion by Selusi AmbrogioCatherine König-Pralong (bio)Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion. By Selusi Ambrogio. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. How Modern Historians of Philosophy Drew Their World MapsIn his latest book, Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European (...) Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion, Selusi Ambrogio presents an extensive survey of how Indian and Chinese traditions were conceived of and staged in modern European historiography. This study, which surpasses in detail and scope other works devoted to the same topic,1 reconstructs 150 years of philosophical historiography. Otto van Heurn's Barbaricae philosophiae antiquitatum libri duo (published in 1600) included for the first time contemporary and ancient Indian thinkers in the philosophical doxography; at the other end of the time span considered, Jacob Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae (1744) sanctioned the exclusion of Chinese and Indian thinkers by means of a detailed criticism of their pseudo-philosophies. Moreover, Ambrogio makes the choice to focus on the history of philosophy, unlike Étiemble, for example,2 who was interested in philosophy in a broad sense—academic and non-academic—as well as in travel accounts, the writings of the Jesuits, and those of their opponents, among other sources. According to Ambrogio, the histories of philosophy were more representative of "the common European understanding of these civilizations," since they "were not openly written for controversialist aims" (p. 2). Even though one may wonder whether defining philosophy ("what philosophy is and its role"—ibid.) and legitimizing its scholarly practice is a less political or less polemical undertaking than pamphlets, letters, and philosophical essays,3 it is probably true that philosophical historiography produced an effect of objectification or an appearance of neutrality.The author's main thesis is that the exclusion of all non-Greeks or non-Europeans from the history of philosophy does not date from the nineteenth century and Hegel, as is generally thought, but precisely from the moment when Indian and Chinese "civilizations" were considered by historians of philosophy and included in the philosophical historiography: from the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards (p. 3). Applying a segregationist model, modern historians of philosophy developed a dialectic of [End Page 203] identification—the author speaks of "reception"—and exclusion. They defined the European philosophical mind by demarcating it from other ways of thinking, which they situated in place and time on a civilizational world map. Encompassing the world from Europe produced in return processes of definition and situation. Philosophy was established in a territory and identified with a "culture" or "mind" that began to think itself in relation to the rest of the world under the name of Europe.4I will discuss Ambrogio's remarkable work in three moments. First, I will develop some particularly interesting conclusions drawn from the study; namely, they address periodization, the production of cultural categories, and the valorization of theory. I will then discuss the main thesis as well as some problematic issues, before concluding on the subject of a world absent from Ambrogio's book, the Near and Middle East.I. Logic of Time and Cultural TerritorializationAmbrogio's book is composed of three parts that address three successive historiographical models. First, the "perennialist universalism" (p. 57)—represented by, among others, Otto van Heurn, Thomas Burnet, Isaac Vossius, François Bernier, Georg Horn, and François de la Mothe le Vayer—included ancient India and then China in the "prisca theologia"; on the other hand, it described contemporary Indian and Chinese thinkers as "barbarian" philosophers. In this constellation, Buddhism began to function as the negative part of Oriental thought. According to the Jesuits, it had polluted and corrupted the original Chinese wisdom, often identified with Confucianism.The second model constructed an "Atheistic Asia," which was used either as a positive anthropological image (for example in Pierre Bayle), or as a negative foil for Lutheran philosophy and theology (for example in Johann Franz Buddeus). In the pages he dedicates to these endeavors, Ambrogio often moves away from philosophical doxography, represented by André-Fran... (shrink)

Recently discovered ancient silk and bamboo manuscripts have transformed our understanding of classical Chinese thought. In this book, Wang Zhongjiang closely examines these texts, and by parsing the complex divergence between ancient and modern Chinese records reveals early Chinese philosophy to be much richer and more complex than we ever imagined. As numerous and varied cosmologies sprang up in this cradle of civilization, beliefs in the predictable movements of nature merged with faith in gods and their divine (...) punishments. Slowly, powerful spirits and gods were stripped of their potency as nature's constant order awakened people to the possibility of universal laws, and from those laws was finally born an ideally conceived community, objectively managed, and rationally ordered. (shrink)

In the Chinese tradition, the relationship between art and philosophy is conceptually explored in terms of the relationship between dao and wen, which may respectively be viewed as representing philosophy and art. Over history, discourses on dao 道 and wen 文 are central to studies of Chinese literature, art, culture, and civilization. But just as dao holds a range of ideas in Chinese philosophy, wen is also one of the most complex terms in Chinese tradition, (...) whose denotations and connotations are multifaceted and open to interpretations. This article argues that the elusive nature of wen can be understood adequately from the perspective of language philosophy and aesthetics via its relationship to the metaphysical principle of the Dao. By examining the discourses on wen and dao, this article advances a thesis with three interrelated ideas: wen as manifestations of the Tao is an instance of “humanized nature”; the birth of wen marked the beginning of reflections on literature and art, hence inaugurating aesthetics in the Chinese tradition; and the early discourses on wen have determined the distinctiveness of Chinese aesthetic consciousness. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Anglo-American philosophy of law of the 20th century, more specifically the philosophy of law of Ronald Myles Dworkin and his criticism of the legal positivism of Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart. The author presents the history of the criticism of legal positivism in Ronald Dworkin’s philosophy of law and distinguishes historical stages. The subject of the study is the critique of legal positivism but not the Hart-Dworkin debate itself, well known in Western philosophy of law. The (...) reason is that the discussion was conducted between Dworkin and Hart’s supporters but not between Dworkin and Hart by himself. The latter responded to the criticism only after twenty seven years. The article explains why Dworkin chose for his criticism Herbert Hart’s version of legal positivism. This is due to the fact that Dworkin highly appreciated Hart’s positivist theory of law and characterized it as the “most clear.” The article presents the methodological foundations of criticism of Hart’s legal positivism in Dworkin’s philosophy of law. It reveals a methodological divergence between the two legal theories, which directly affects the understanding of the concept of law and its content. Therefore, we can assume that the legal theories of Hart and Dworkin are two competing models of law: Dworkin’s model considers law as a set of rules and principles and Hart’s model acknowledges only rules and court decisions as a source of law. The article also presents the key principles of positivism criticized by Dworkin. These principles, firstly, interpret law as a set of legal rules determined through a special legal criterion, secondly, provide the judge with an opportunity to make a decision “at his own discretion” in a situation not regulated by law, and, thirdly, recognize only legal rights and obligations enshrined in legal regulations. It is important to note that in this article the author describes criticism as an independent phenomenon of legal philosophy with a particular focus on the history and foundations of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Via a hermeneutics focused on Chinese numerology and concentric arrangements, the book offers a novel construal of the textual universe proper to early China writings. The author lays bare distinguishable patterns of textual composition while relating them to corresponding patterns of thinking. He differentiates rhetorical variants through detailed studies of the Zhuangzi's Inner chapters, the Laozi, the Analects, and the Huainanzi. The philosophical depth and relevance of the Chinese ancient worldview appear in a fresh light when one unearths (...) the patterns into which its content is embedded. The focus on textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements also facilitates the reading of Chinese classics alongside other traditions. The book will be a valuable reference for scholars and graduate students studying Chinese literary criticism, Chinese philosophy, and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

Introduction: Chinese philosophy and the translation of disciplines -- The faces of masters literature until the Eastern Han -- Scenes of instruction and master bodies in the Analects -- From scenes of instruction to scenes of construction: Mozi -- Interiority, human nature, and exegesis in Mencius -- Authorship, human nature, and persuasion in Xunzi -- The race for precedence: polemics and the vacuum of traditions in Laozi -- Zhuangzi and the art of negation -- The self-regulating state, paranoia, and (...) rhetoric in Han Feizi -- Epilogue: a future for masters literature and Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The category of the meaning of history has long existed in European philosophy as one of its fundamental themes, which has undergone many collisions during its development. The last century has been marked by a radical revision of approaches to this theme both in the philosophy of history and in the tradition of intellectual history. In the twentieth century, Kant’s historical criticism was taken by German thought to its logical conclusion in such a way that the assertion (...) of the meaning of history has actually suffered a fiasco in the field of rationalist philosophy. The purpose of this article is to attempt to show how the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, witnessing the spiritual and political crisis of European and Russian culture, seeks a solution to this problem within the philosophy of history, reformulating the problem of the meaning of history in a metaphysical way. To do this, he investigates theologically the foundations on which the historiosophic projects of the New Age are built, and tries to resolve the contradictions in the understanding of Christian revelation that are revealed in them. Returning the question of the meaning of history to its theological source allows Berdyaev to reconcile the contradictory hopes of philosophers of history for the realization of the personal freedom of its subjects with the existence of a universally meaningful sense in it. (shrink)

The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature (...) in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia. (shrink)

Hengxian: stages of cosmic unfolding -- Taiyi shengshui: textual structure and conceptual layers -- Fanwu liuxing: from oneness to multiplicity -- Huangdi sijing: governing through oneness -- Laozi: "Dao models itself" -- Laozi: "a great vessel" -- Han Laozi: variants and new readings.

This book provides an innovative, critical textual and literary analysis, in light of Song dynasty (960-11279) Chinese cultural and intellectual historical trends, of the Blue Cliff Record, the seminal Chan/Zen Buddhist collection of commentaries on one hundred gongan/koan cases long celebrated for its intricate and articulate interpretative methods.

The historical origins of the Kyoto School of Philosophy of modern Japan, represented by Kitaro Nishida and Hajime Tanabe, may be derived from both the ancient Chinese idea of Change and the ancient Indian Upanishadic idea of the mutual identity of Brahman and Atman. The ancient Chinese idea of Change signifies change as well as non-change, and even their dialectical unification. Both origins are structured by the self-identity of the opposed in logic, and these historical prototypes have been (...) developed into the various forms of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist philosophy. The notion of Nothingness or Emptiness rather than Being has been set up as the fundamental principle. The principle of Nothingness as ultimate reality has been connected with the logic of self-identity of theopposed, and this is evident in Nishida’s concept of the self-identity in absolute contradistinction that is equivalent to the Place of Absolute Nothingness. Even though Nishida’s idea of Place is directly and explicitly influenced by the ancient Greek idea of Topos, it has indirectly and implicitly been affected by the traditional agricultural society as well, in which the land is regarded as the self-identical substratum despite the cyclic time of the four-seasons change. The ancient Chinese idea of Change also reflects the agricultural society in which the cyclic time plays an important role on the basis of the unchanging self-identical land as the underlying substratum. Nishida succeeds in establishing the new logical expression of Eastern traditional thought, deeply hidden in consciousness, in relation toWestern philosophy. The uniqueness of Nishida’s idea of Place may have its main source in the traditional agricultural background, and in this sense his way of thinking may be rural in character. On the other hand, Tanabe, though following Nishida at first, turns to making criticism of the mentor with the establishment of the triadic logic of species as the dialectic, which is characterized by the perpetual self-negating conversion in action. In contrast to Nishida, Tanabe represents the urban type of thinking, which is in pursuit of transforming in life. While Nishida’s idea of Absolute Nothingness has an affinity with the ancient Chinese philosopher Laotzu’s idea of Nothingness from and into which every entity comes and goes, Tanabe’s concept of Absolute Nothingness as the principle ofconversion is more closed to the Buddhist idea of sunyata, i.e., Emptiness, which is devoid of any substance in itself. As regards evil, the difference between them is obvious in that for Nishida evil and time or history disappear into the ultimate horizon or place of Nothingness with the tendency toward a kind of monism of goodness, whereas for Tanabe evil copes with goodness and retains its own status throughout, never being reduced to the opposed. Even if so, both of them, however, fail to construct a philosophy of history from the epochal or durational viewpoint, compared to Heidegger and Jaspers. (shrink)

The article reveals the features of the formation and functioning of aesthetic research in such two areas of Marxism as Soviet and Chinese. The study identified three key stages in the development of aesthetics in Soviet Marxism – the pre-war (the 1920s and 1930s), late Stalinism and the Khrushchev thaw, and the late period (1970-1980s). It should be noted that in the context of Soviet Marxism, the key tasks were that aesthetics becomes influential and in-demand science, included in the (...) program of "technical progress" and "education of the builder of communism", important ideological, aesthetic, and applied field of philosophy. Therefore, in addition to the fact that purely ideological works were developed within the framework of aesthetic discourse, aesthetics itself in Soviet Marxism was able to develop thanks to contacts with semiotics, psychology, anthropology, cultural history, and sociology. Relying on a selective stream of translations of Western philosophies of art, Soviet aesthetics is beginning to resonate with global trends, which is facilitated by the unspoken consensus of the idea of aesthetics as a part of philosophical and humanitarian knowledge that has its own autonomy. Proved that in China culture and the cultural revolution are inextricably linked with the Marxist projects of critiquing capitalist modernity and building alternative modernity. Aesthetics and culture also were at the center of attention in Chinese Marxist circles. In this respect, the diverse practices and designs of Chinese Marxism are similar to those of Western Marxism or an equally distinct variety of Euro-American Marxist intellectual enterprises. Aesthetic Marxism in China had a dual mission – to criticize the internal contradictions of revolutionary hegemony and to offer a constructive vision of culture in a post-revolutionary society. This is the value of Chinese aesthetic Marxism, the implications of which go beyond China proper in the world of global cultural criticism. Moreover, being non-Western, Chinese aesthetic Marxism deliberately questioned the inherent Eurocentrism of Marxism. If this Eurocentrism is to be challenged and problematized, the questions posed by Chinese aesthetic Marxists cannot be ignored. (shrink)

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism, Shuchen Xiang argues that the Chinese cultural tradition was, from its formative beginnings and throughout its imperial history, a cosmopolitan melting pot that synthesized the different cultures that came into its orbit. Unlike (...) the West, which cast its collisions with different cultures in Manichean terms of the ontologically irreconcilable difference between civilization and barbarism, China was a dynamic identity created out of difference. The reasons for this, Xiang argues, are philosophical: Chinese philosophy has the conceptual resources for providing alternative ways to understand pluralism. Xiang explains that “Chinese” identity is not what the West understands as a racial identity; it is not a group of people related by common descent or heredity but rather a hybrid of coalescing cultures. To use the Western discourse of race to frame the Chinese view of non-Chinese, she argues, is a category error. Xiang shows that China was both internally cosmopolitan, embracing distinct peoples into a common identity, and externally cosmopolitan, having knowledge of faraway lands without an ideological need to subjugate them. Contrasting the Chinese understanding of efficacy—described as “harmony”—with the Western understanding of order, she argues that the Chinese sought to gain influence over others by having them spontaneously accept the virtue of one’s position. These ideas from Chinese philosophy, she contends, offer a new way to understand today’s multipolar world and can make a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions in the critical philosophy of race. (shrink)

Introduction -- Approaching reality: Chinese ontology and the potentiality of time -- Cinema of thought: directed consciousness in Chinese Marxist film theory -- Soft film theory: life in all its presence and concreteness -- Fey Mou: the presence of an absence -- Cinema of ideation, cinema of play: the early Cantonese sound film -- Conclusion.

The articles in this collection were all selected from the first five volumes of the Journal of Dialectics of Nature published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences between 1979 and 1985. The Journal was established in 1979 as a comprehensive theoretical publication concerning the history, philosophy and sociology of the natural sciences. It began publication as a response to China's reform, particularly the policy of opening to the outside world. Chinese scholars began to undertake distinctive, original research (...) in these fields. This collection provides a cross-section of their efforts during the initial phase. To enable western scholars to understand the historical process of this change in Chinese academics, Yu Guangyuan's `On the Emancipation of the Mind' and Xu Liangying's `Essay on the Role of Science and Democracy in Society' have been included in this collection. Three of the papers included on the philosophy of science are discussions of philosophical issues in cosmology and biology by scientists themselves. The remaining four are written by philosophers of science and discuss information and cognition, homeostasis and Chinese traditional medicine, the I Ching (Yi Jing) and mathematics, etc. Papers have been selected on the history of both classical and modern science and technology, the most distinctive of which are macro-comparisons of the development of science in China and the west. Some papers discuss the issue of the demarcation of periods in the history of science, the history of ancient Chinese mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, machinery, medicine, etc. Others discuss the history of modern physics and biology, the history of historiography of science in China and the history of regional development of Chinese science and technology. Also included are biographies of three post-eighteenth-century Chinese scholars, Li Shanlan (1811-1882), Hua Hengfang (1833–1902), and Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940), who contributed greatly to the introduction of western science and scholarship to China. In addition, three short papers have been included introducing the interactions between Chinese scholars and three great western scientists, Niels Bohr, Norbert Wiener, and Robert A. Millikan. (shrink)

In my reply to George Crowder’s criticism of my essay on the Soviet Revolution in the last issue of Analyse & Kritik, I discuss two problems: the nature of a reasonable value pluralism and the relation between ethics and philosophy of history. Concerning the first, I insist on the necessity of an objective rank ordering of values; with regard to the second, I side with Kant, who builds philosophy of history on ethics, and reject the Marxist idea that (...) ethics is itself grounded in philosophy of history. (shrink)

The research programme of the philosophy of information (PI) proposed in 2002 made it an independent area or discipline in philosophical research. The scientific concept of ‘information’ is formally accepted in philosophical inquiry. Hence a new and tool-driven philosophical discipline of PI with its interdisciplinary nature has been established. Philosophy of information is an ‘orientative’ rather than ‘cognitive’ philosophy. When PI is under consideration in the history of Western philosophy, it can be regarded as a shift of large tradition. (...) There are three large traditions at large, known as Platonic, Kantian and Leibniz-Russellian. In the discussion of the position of the possible worlds, we have modal Platonism and modal realism, but both of the theories are made in the framework of Western philosophy. In this essay, it is argued that possible worlds could be seen as worlds in information, which is then an interpretation of modal information theory (MIT). Our interpretation is made on the basis of Leibniz’s lifelong connection with China, a fact often overlooked by the Western philosophers. Possible world theory was influenced by the Neo-Confucianism flourishing since the Song Dynasty of China, the foundation of which is Yijing. It could be argued that Leibniz’s possible world theory was formulated in respect to the impact of the thoughts reflected in Yijing, in that one of the prominent features is the model-theoretic construction of theories. There are two approaches to theory construction, i.e., axiom-theoretic and model-theoretic. The origin of the former is from ancient Greece and the latter from ancient China. And they determined the different features of theoretic structures between the oriental and occidental traditions of science and technology. The tendency of the future development of science and technology is changing from the axiom-theoretic to the model-theoretic orientation, at least the two approaches being complementary each other. To some extent, this means the retrospective of tradition in the turning point of history, and some of the China’s cultural traditions might become the starting points in formulating the future Chinese philosophy of science and technology. (shrink)

This book offers timely contributions to the process of conceptualizing a Latin American specificity and its forms of integration in larger contexts, both on the level of thought and the level of political and social praxis. To produce a critical reading of philosophy while also developing a philosophy of criticism is essential in cultures that continue to struggle for the decolonization of both thought and life. This book allows Anglophone readers access to the world of ideas of some of the (...) most relevant Latin American thinkers of our age. Through a comprehensive discussion of the works and contexts of thinkers such as of José Carlos Mariátegui, Enrique Dussel, Bolívar Echeverría, and Roger Bartra to Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Peter Sloterdijk, Mabel Moraña demonstrates that Latin American thought has not only been inseparable from Western philosophy but also from the determinants of its history and social struggles. By doing so, Mabel Moraña provides an extensive perspective on the connections between historical moments, social structures, and discursive practices. With its interdisciplinary focus, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students in Latin American studies, comparative literature, world literature, and philosophy. (shrink)

Hegel’s famous criticism of Laozi in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, has been a center of controversy in comparative philosophy. It is often regarded as an example of the unfair treatment of Chinese philosophy by its Western counterpart, that the West is measuring the East according to its own standard, imposing on the latter its understanding of what philosophy should be, passing judgment on China that it has no mature philosophy, or, if it has, that it (...) is still in an unsophisticated, primitive stage. However, there has been little serious and detailed discussion about Hegel’s argument in this important and representative document in the dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophy. Most of the .. (shrink)

Here, I consider three issues in Jon Stewart’s Hegel’s Interpretation of the Religions of the World chapter on Hegel’s treatment of Chinese religions in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. First, I show how Stewart’s compilation of multiple courses into one unified entity hides the substantial promotion of its status in the 1831 lectures. Second, I contend that rather than identifying Hegel’s Chinese religion with the ancient Zhou practices as Stewart does, Hegel sees it as referring to (...) state Ruism up to and including Hegel’s time. Finally, I posit that the main challenge is distinguishing Hegel’s method of philosophical history from other forms of history and the consequences this has for evaluating the determinate religions. In the process, I argue for a broad dialectical interpretation over one committed to each step in Hegel’s treatment of these religions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History, and: Women in DaoismZhou YiqunUnder Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History. Edited by Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 310.Women in Daoism. By Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 296.Anyone who looks for a quick taste of (...) what is exciting and important about the research of the past two decades on Chinese women's history should pick up the reader edited by Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng. In eighteen chapters, each with a translator's preface and an introduction to the selected text, Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History covers the period from the Tang to the Qing (when the Confucian orthodoxy steadily became entrenched), includes twelve genres, foregrounds women's own voices, and repeatedly introduces the non-Han peoples to the spotlight. The guiding standard for the choice of the diverse, rich, and in many cases new historical materials in the book is that they form a "dialogue" with and provide a "counterpoint, critique, or confirmation" of Confucian values and norms about gender roles (p. 5). The clearheaded and balanced attention to not only "counterpoint" and "critique" but also "confirmation" produces a dynamic and nuanced picture of Chinese gender relations that is radically different from the old stereotypes and yet remains firmly grounded in the reality of a society where Confucianism provided the most important system of values and institutions against which almost all other ideas and practices in traditional China have to be understood.The most crucial confirmed point is perhaps the high value set on family and household in Confucianism, which serves here to explain the considerable power and influence that Chinese women were able to wield despite their confinement in the inner quarters. The funerary biographies by Chen Liang (chapter 4), Luo Rufang (chapter 6), and Zhang Xuecheng (chapter 14), all eminent Confucian scholars, commemorate [End Page 684] women who upheld their families with principle, courage, and practical wisdom and attribute to them their kinsmen's success and sometimes sheer survival. As evidence from the other end is a letter that Gu Ruopu, a seventeenth-century matriarch and poet, wrote to her sons, in which she asserts "every fiber and every grain that this family owns are the fruits of my industry and hardship over several decades" and offers household instructions with indisputable authority (chapter 9). Always keeping in mind the assertiveness and authority of a matriarch like Gu and the deep admiration and emotion shown in the three biographies by the male elite will help us understand the recognition of women's functions and contributions in Confucian ethics and put in the right perspective the alternative means of self-fulfillment for Chinese women that is abundantly featured in the same volume.In its broad representation of alternative value systems, multiple voices in a single author or text, and formerly ignored populations and practices, the book offers an excellent sampling of the recent research agendas in Chinese women's history. Religion provides a prime example of the areas where the discovery and celebration of diversity and multiplicity are the order of the day. The two Daoist and Buddhist hagiographies (chapters 1, 2) and a rare extant autobiography of a Buddhist laywoman (chapter 8) set religious salvation above and against the obligations of family life.These voices of discontent form a contrast with the biographies by Luo Rufang and Zhang Xuecheng (chapters 6, 14), which either suggest a possible resolution of the conflict within the domestic context or insinuate highly ambiguous meanings of religion for contented Chinese mothers and wives. Besides religious and spiritual cultivation, communities such as poetry societies are shown as providing women with strong intellectual and emotional support beyond the kinship network (chapters 11, 12), and literary authorship creates an illusory world in which a frustrated woman of talent seeks communion with former worthies (chapter 16). Romantic love is likewise shown to be in a position to contend with family relationships, as suggested by the contrasting treatments of love letters and family letters in the seventeenth-century epistolary... (shrink)