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Throughout much of Chinese history, Mencius (372-289 B.C.) was considered the greatest Confucian thinker after Confucius himself. This study begins a reassessment of Mencius by examining his ethical thinking (how one should live) in relation to that of other early Chinese thinkers.
Throughout much of Chinese history, Mencius (372-289 B.C.) was considered the greatest Confucian thinker after Confucius himself. This study begins a reassessment of Mencius by examining his ethical thinking (how one should live) in relation to that of other early Chinese thinkers.
Shortlisted for the PEN Hessel-Tiltman Prize 'A terrific book, rich and endlessly thought provoking. . . If you are looking for one book to understand the core ideas of Chinese civilisation, read this' - Michael Wood An engrossing history of ancient Chinese philosophy and culture from an eminent Cambridge expert We are often told that the twenty-first century is bound to become China's century. Never before has Chinese culture been so physically, digitally, economically or aesthetically present in everyday Western life. But how much do we really know about its origins and key beliefs? How did the ancient Chinese think about the world? In this enlightening book, Roel Sterckx, one of the foremost experts in Chinese thought, takes us through centuries of Chinese history, from Confucius to Daoism to the Legalists. The great questions that have occupied China's brightest minds were not about who and what we are, but rather how we should live our lives, how we should organise society and how we can secure the well-being of those who live with us and for whom we carry responsibility. With evocative examples from philosophy, literature and everyday life, Sterckx shows us how the ancient Chinese have shaped the thinking of a civilization that is now influencing our own.
This book traces the genealogy of early Chinese conceptions of emotions, as part of a broader inquiry into evolving conceptions of self, cosmos and the political order. It seeks to explain what was at stake in early philosophical debates over emotions and why the mainstream conception of emotions became authoritative.
By departing from traditional sinological approaches, this method uncovers a detailed picture of certain shared underlying views of sense perception in the Lun Yu, the Mozi (including the Neo Mohist Canons), the Xunzi, the Mencius, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi."--BOOK JACKET.
For two thousand years the Mencius was revered as one of the foundational texts of the Confucian canon, which formed the basis of traditional Chinese education. Today it commands considerable attention in current debates on Asian values raging in classrooms and boardrooms in both East Asia and the West. This volume, which represents the work of fifteen respected scholars of early Chinese thought and culture, is an especially timely effort to bring the Mencius under fresh scrutiny. Making use of recently excavated manuscripts, the contributors approach the Mencius from novel perspectives, challenge established interpretations, and confront anew issues that continue to attract and divide students of this classic text. The famous Mencian doctrine of the goodness of human nature forms one main focus. Questions of context and interpretation bring into sharp relief key hermeneutical issues that surround the text: Does the Mencius present a coherent and systematically developed ethical teaching? Or should it be read as a composite work, comprising different layers of material that reflect different emphases and conflicting doctrines? Traversing contested territories and exploring new
Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledgethe subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditionsas all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.
That bad things happen to good people was as true in early China as it is today. Franklin Perkins uses this observation as the thread by which to trace the effort by Chinese thinkers of the Warring States Period (c.475-221 BCE), a time of great conflict and division, to seek reconciliation between humankind and the world. Perkins provides rich new readings of classical Chinese texts and reflects on their significance for Western philosophical discourse.
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.