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This book translates Lao Zhuang xinlun, a key work of contemporary Chinese scholarship. It offers a unique discussion of the Laozi, arguing - in contrast to standard Western scholarship - that the text goes back to Laozi as a single author and identifying him as an older contemporary, and even teacher, of Confucius. This places the Confucian Analects after the Daode jing and makes the text the most fundamental work of ancient Chinese thought. Chen explores decades of debates regarding these points, providing evidence based on materials excavated from Mawangdui and Guodian. His book is fascinating in its documentation of contemporary Chinese arguments and debates, offering a complete revision of the history of Chinese thought with Daoism as its major focus. The work is an absolute must for anyone studying Chinese philosophy and history. -- from back cover.
From China's most influential foreign policy thinker, a vision for a "Beijing Consensus" for international relations The rise of China could be the most important political development of the twenty-first century. What will China look like in the future? What should it look like? And what will China's rise mean for the rest of world? This book, written by China's most influential foreign policy thinker, sets out a vision for the coming decades from China's point of view. In the West, Yan Xuetong is often regarded as a hawkish policy advisor and enemy of liberal internationalists. But a very different picture emerges from this book, as Yan examines the lessons of ancient Chinese political thought for the future of China and the development of a "Beijing consensus" in international relations. Yan, it becomes clear, is neither a communist who believes that economic might is the key to national power, nor a neoconservative who believes that China should rely on military might to get its way. Rather, Yan argues, political leadership is the key to national power, and morality is an essential part of political leadership. Economic and military might are important components of national power, but they are secondary to political leaders who act in accordance with moral norms, and the same holds true in determining the hierarchy of the global order. Providing new insights into the thinking of one of China's leading foreign policy figures, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in China's rise or in international relations.
The Daode jing ("Book of the Dao and Its Virtue") is an essential work in both traditional Chinese culture and world philosophy. The oldest text of philosophical Daoism, and widely venerated among religious Daoist practitioners, it was composed around the middle of the 4th century BCE. Ascribed to a thinker named Laozi, a contemporary of Confucius, the work is based on a set of aphorisms designed to help local lords improve their techniques of government. The most translated book after the Bible, the Daode jing appears in numerous variants and remains highly relevant in the modern world. This guide provides an overview of the text, presenting its historical unfolding, its major concepts, and its contemporary use. It also gives some indication of its essence by citing relevant passages and linking them to the religious practices of traditional Daoism.
New Visions of the Zhuangzi is a collection of thirteen essays on the ancient Daoist philosophical work, presenting new angles and approaches. It overcomes the traditional division of schools in favor of topics, sheds new light on key philosophical notions, examines Zhuangzi's use of language, and explores issues of his use of language. In addition, it also applies modern neuroscience to its instructions, explores its vision of the ideal mind, and connects Zhuangzi's teachings to issues of education and community relevant in contemporary society.
Thomas Michael's study of the early history of the Daodejing reveals that the work is grounded in a unique tradition of early Daoism, one unrelated to other early Chinese schools of thought and practice. The text is associated with a tradition of hermits committed to yangsheng, a particular practice of physical cultivation involving techniques of breath circulation in combination with specific bodily movements leading to a physical union with the Dao. Michael explores the ways in which the text systematically anchored these techniques to a Dao-centered worldview. Including a new translation of the Daodejing, In the Shadows of the Dao opens new approaches to understanding the early history of one of the world's great religious texts and great religious traditions.
In an engrossing and evocative account of the profound changes overtaking China, Shanghai native Cheng Li shows us--from the grassroots--a country full of energy, irony, and paradox. Critics praise this work for its "wealth of information" and "stimulating insights". 26 photos. 6 maps.
In this bold, provocative collection, Wang Hui confronts some of the major issues concerning modern China and the status quo of contemporary Chinese thought. The book’s overarching theme is the possibility of an alternative modernity that does not rely on imported conceptions of Chinese history and its legacy. Wang Hui argues that current models, based largely on Western notions of empire and the nation-state, fail to account for the richness and diversity of pre-modern Chinese historical practice. At the same time, he refrains from offering an exclusively Chinese perspective and placing China in an intellectual ghetto. Navigating terrain on regional language and politics, he draws on China’s unique past to expose the inadequacies of European-born standards for assessing modern China’s evolution. He takes issue particularly with the way in which nation-state logic has dominated politically charged concerns like Chinese language standardization and “The Tibetan Question.” His stance is critical—and often controversial—but he locates hope in the kinds of complex, multifaceted arrangements that defined China and much of Asia for centuries. The Politics of Imagining Asia challenges us not only to re-examine our theories of “Asia” but to reconsider what “Europe” means as well. As Theodore Huters writes in his introduction, “Wang Hui’s concerns extend beyond China and Asia to an ambition to rethink world history as a whole.”
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
In The Humanist Spirit of Daoism, Chen Guying presents a concise overview of his understanding of the meaning and significance of Daoist philosophy. Chen is a leading contemporary Chinese thinker and spokesperson for a new Daoist approach to existential and socio-political issues. He was born in mainland China in 1935, but after having resettled to Taiwan, he received his education there and was a student activist in the 1960s. He became famous in the Chinese-speaking world with his writings on Nietzsche, Laozi and Zhuangzi. At present he is a Professor at Peking University. This volume collects representative essays from the past 25 years which not only outline Chen’s interpretation of Daoism as a deeply humanist way of thinking and living, but also show how he employs this philosophy in a critique of totalitarianism and neo-imperialism.
In Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism, Thomas Michael illuminates the formative early history of the Daodejing and the social, political, religious, and philosophical trends that indelibly marked it. This book centers on the matrix of the Daodejing that harbors a penetrating phenomenology of the Dao together with a rigorous system of bodily cultivation. It traces the historical journey of the text from its earliest oral circulations to its later transcriptions seen in a growing collection of ancient Chinese excavated manuscripts. It examines the ways in which Huang-Lao thinkers from the Han Dynasty transformed the original phenomenology of the Daodejing into a metaphysics that reconfigured its original matrix, and it explores the success of the Wei-Jin Daoist Ge Hong in bringing the matrix back into its original alignment. This book is an important contribution to cross-cultural studies, bringing contemporary Chinese scholarship on Daoism into direct conversation with Western scholarship on Daoism. The book also concludes with a discussion of Martin Heidegger's recognition of the position and value of the Daodejing for the future of comparative philosophy.