Y a-t-il eu des sophistes chinois? C'est en rassemblant et en examinant les textes et les témoignages qui nous sont parvenus au sujet de Hui Shi et de Gongsun Long, deux penseurs chinois des IVe et IIIe siècles avant notre ère, et en mettant en relief les contrastes entre ces derniers et ce qui nous reste des Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicos et Antiphon que l'auteur cherche à répondre à cette question. Le travail se divise ainsi en cinq parties essentielles. La (...) première offre une discussion approfondie de la méthode comparée en philosophie en vue de jeter les bases méthodologiques de l'enquête. La deuxième détaille l'enjeu philosophique de la comparaison: la sophistique correspond-elle à un stade d'évolution de la pensée ou cherche-t-elle à résoudre des problèmes philosophiques précis? Viennent ensuite deux monographies à caractère doxographique, la première consacrée à une analyse du problème des noms et de la philosophie de la rhétorique chez les sophistes grecs, l'autre à la collection, la traduction et l'interprétation des fragments de Hui Shi et de Gongsun Long. La partie finale reprend la question de départ à la lumière des résultats obtenus à travers l'examen des textes. (shrink)

First published in 1889. This re-issues the second, revised edition of 1926. Chuang Tzu was to Lao Tzu, the author of Tao Tê Ching, as Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, was to Bodhidharma, and in some respects St.Paul to Jesus; he expanded the original teaching into a system and was thus the founder of Tao-ism. Whereas Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century B.C, Chuang Tzu lived over two hundred years later. He was one (...) of the greatest minds produced by China; philosopher, metaphysician, moralist and poet. It is impossible to understand the spiritual depth of the Tao Tê Ching without the aid of Chuang Tzu. (shrink)

This is one of the most justly celebrated texts of the Chinese tradition - impressive for both its bold philosophical imagination and its striking literary style. Accepting the challenge of translating this captivating classic in its entirety, Burton Watson has expertly rendered into English both the profound thought and the literary brilliance of the text.

There is a view that Ruists never put much emphasis on qing and even saw it in a negative light. This is perhaps a misunderstanding, especially in regard to pre-Qin Ruism. In the Guodian Xing zi ming chu, the passage "dao begins in qing" (dao shi yu qing) plays an important role in our understanding of the pre-Qin notion of qing. This article concentrates on the "theory of qing" in both pre-Qin Ruism and Daoism and attempts a philosophical interpretation of (...) "dao begins in qing," and in the process offers philosophical interpretations of a number of important notions. (shrink)

There is a view that Ruists never put much emphasis on qing and even saw it in a negative light. This is perhaps a misunderstanding, especially in regard to pre-Qin Ruism. In the Guodian Xing zi ming chu, the passage "dao begins in qing" plays an important role in our understanding of the pre-Qin notion of qing. This article concentrates on the "theory of qing" in both pre-Qin Ruism and Daoism and attempts a philosophical interpretation of "dao begins in qing," (...) and in the process offers philosophical interpretations of a number of important notions. (shrink)

Among the many striking features of the philosophy of the Zhuāngzǐ is that it advocates a life unperturbed by emotions, including even pleasurable, positive emotions such as joy or delight. Many of us see emotions as an ineluctable part of life, and some would argue they are a crucial component of a well-developed moral sensitivity and a good life. The Zhuangist approach to emotion challenges such commonsense views so radically that it amounts to a test case for the fundamental plausibility (...) of the Daoist ethical orientation: If the Zhuangist stance on emotion is untenable, then other aspects of Daoist ethics may founder as well. In this essay, I explore what I call a Zhuangist ‘Virtuoso View’ of emotion and its connections with human agency, attempting to show that at least one version of a Zhuangist approach to emotion passes the ‘basic plausibility’ test. I begin by describing the Virtuoso View and sketching its theoretical foundation, which involves claims about human agency, the self, psychophysical hygiene, the good life, epistemology, and metaphysics. Next, I defend the Virtuoso View against three objections, namely that it abandons intentionality, that it interferes with a good life, and that it yields a schizophrenic conception of agency. I argue for three major theses. First, the Virtuoso View is easily intelligible and largely defensible. Second, it reflects a crucial insight into a fundamental dichotomy at the core of human agency: the unavoidable conflict within a self-aware human agent between an internal, engaged perspective and an external, detached one. Third, I suggest that certain problems or conflicts arising from the Virtuoso View actually reflect inherent features of the human predicament and thus are not mere conceptual defects. Hence even if we do not find the Virtuoso View wholly convincing, we can nevertheless gain much insight from it. (shrink)

In this article, I will look into the Zhuangist views on emotions. I will argue that the psychological state of the Zhuangist wise person is characterized by emotional equanimity accompanied by a general sense of calmness, ease, and joy. This psychological state is constitutive of and instrumental to leading a good life, one in which one wanders the world and explores the plurality of daos. To do so, I will first provide an overview of the scholarly debate on this issue (...) and unveil the disconcerting disagreement that underlies it. Then, I will survey some passages in the Zhuangzi and sketch my interpretation of the Zhuangist views on emotions. Next, I will examine the theoretical foundation for this interpretation by referencing the Zhuangist pluralism and their conception of the good life. Finally, I will look into some potential objections to the Zhuangist views on emotions and attempt responses to them. (shrink)

Zhuangzi purports to follow a particular method of viewing human emotion and suggests freeing oneself from worldly emotions—this is called “doctrine of non-emotion” (wuqing shuo 無情說). This article attempts to show that the idea of non-emotion in Zhuangzi does not in any way conflict with the expression of emotion in poetry, and moreover, it provides a foundation for the poet to express his emotions naturally and freely. We will use the Chinese poetry of the Wei-Jin Period—a period that is strongly (...) influenced by the philosophy of Zhuangzi, yet at the same time emphasizes the expression of the poet's emotion in poetry—as an example to show how fruitful it indeed is when Zhuangzi's philosophy becomes applied to Chinese poetry. (shrink)

This paper examines and defends a conception of the education of emotions found in the Zhuang-Zi. I begin by exploring four principal features of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy as it relates to the emotions: his epistemological perspectivism, his view of the self, his ethics of wandering and natural spontaneity, and his playful non-seriousness. Together these four features allow us to discern a general orientation to the education of the emotions, including a normative account of a good emotional life as well some (...) suggestions for a pedagogy for the development of such a life. (shrink)

First published in 1889. This re-issues the second, revised edition of 1926. Chuang Tzu was to Lao Tzu, the author of Tao Tê Ching, as Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, was to Bodhidharma, and in some respects St.Paul to Jesus; he expanded the original teaching into a system and was thus the founder of Tao-ism. Whereas Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century B.C, Chuang Tzu lived over two hundred years later. He was one (...) of the greatest minds produced by China; philosopher, metaphysician, moralist and poet. It is impossible to understand the spiritual depth of the Tao Tê Ching without the aid of Chuang Tzu. (shrink)

Discusses the conditions of possibility for intercultural and comparative philosophy, and for crosscultural communication at large. This innovative book explores the preconditions necessary for intercultural and comparative philosophy. Philosophical practices that involve at least two different traditions with no common heritage and whose languages have very different grammatical structure, such as Indo-Germanic languages and classical Chinese, are a particular focus. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel look at the necessary and not-so-necessary conditions of possibility of interpretation, comparison, and other forms (...) of interaction and how we can speak of similarities and differences in this context. The authors posit that it is necessary to dissolve the question of universalism versus relativism by replacing the ideal language paradigm with a paradigm of family resemblances and that it is not necessary to share a common language to engage in comparison. Numerous case studies are presented, including many comparisons of Western and Chinese concepts. (shrink)