Chapter 34 Part B: The Complete Works of Chu Hsi

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A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy covers the entire historical development of Chinese philosophy from its ancient origins to today, providing the most wide-ranging and authoritative English-language anthology of Chinese thought available. This superb book brings together key selections from all the great thinkers and schools in every period—ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary—and presents these texts in their entirety. Each selection is accompanied by explanatory aids and scholarly documentation that shed invaluable light on all aspects of Chinese thought.

Featuring elegant and faithful translations of some of the most important classical writings, some translated here for the first time, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy is an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in Chinese philosophy and culture.

Chapter 36: Wang Fuzhi

Posted on by Simon Fokt

A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy covers the entire historical development of Chinese philosophy from its ancient origins to today, providing the most wide-ranging and authoritative English-language anthology of Chinese thought available. This superb book brings together key selections from all the great thinkers and schools in every period—ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary—and presents these texts in their entirety. Each selection is accompanied by explanatory aids and scholarly documentation that shed invaluable light on all aspects of Chinese thought.

Featuring elegant and faithful translations of some of the most important classical writings, some translated here for the first time, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy is an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in Chinese philosophy and culture.

On self-deception: from the perspective of Zhu Xi’s moral psychology

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In order to construct a satisfactory theory of cheng-yi 誠意, Zhu Xi 朱熹 develops an account of how self-deception is possible—a profound problem that has puzzled many philosophers. In Zhu’s opinion, zhi 知 can be divided into two categories: a priori knowing and empirical knowing. The further division of empirical knowing defines three sorts of self-deception: the self-deception caused by one’s ignorance, the self-deception caused by one’s superficial knowing, and the self-deception that may occur when one acquires genuine knowledge. In this paper, I will construct a theoretical model of self-deception that follows Zhu’s criterial definition of self-deception in Daxue Zhangju 大學章句, thereby accounting for the possibility of these three sorts of self-deception. Better understanding of Zhu’s conception of self-deception could, moreover, open fruitful avenues for further work on his metaphysics and moral psychology.

Neo-Confucianism: Metaphysics, Mind, and Morality

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Solidly grounded in Chinese primary sources, Neo Confucianism: Metaphysics, Mind, and Morality engages the latest global scholarship to provide an innovative, rigorous, and clear articulation of neo-Confucianism and its application to Western philosophy. Contextualizes neo-Confucianism for contemporary analytic philosophy by engaging with today’s philosophical questions and debates Based on the most recent and influential scholarship on neo-Confucianism, and supported by primary texts in Chinese and cross-cultural secondary literature Presents a cohesive analysis of neo-Confucianism by investigating the metaphysical foundations of neo-Confucian perspectives on the relationship between human nature, human mind, and morality Offers innovative interpretations of neo-Confucian terminology and examines the ideas of eight major philosophers, from Zhou Dunyi and Cheng-Zhu to Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi Approaches neo-Confucian concepts in an penetrating yet accessible way

A phenomenology of whiteness

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The paper suggests that we can usefully approach whiteness through the lens of phenomenology. Whiteness could be described as an ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they ‘take up’ space, and what they ‘can do’. The paper considers how whiteness functions as a habit, even a bad habit, which becomes a background to social action. The paper draws on experiences of inhabiting a white world as a non-white body, and explores how whiteness becomes worldly through the noticeability of the arrival of some bodies more than others. A phenomenology of whiteness helps us to notice institutional habits; it brings what is behind to the surface in a certain way.

Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Chapter 2: “Sexual Orientation”

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Focusing on the “orientation” aspect of “sexual orientation”, Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being “orientated” means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached. A queer phenomenology, Ahmed contends, reveals how social relations are arranged spatially, how queerness disrupts and reorders these relations by not following the accepted paths, and how a politics of disorientation puts other objects within reach, those that might, at first glance, seem awry.

Sexual Orientations: The Desire View

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Talk about sexual orientations is widespread in our society and our culture, but very few analytic philosophers have paid attention to questions about the nature of sexual orientations, such as what sexual orientations are and what “sexual orientation” means. This chapter examines the main theories that are available in the recent and growing literature on this issue, including behaviorism, ideal and ordinary versions of dispositionalism, structuralism, and views according to which sexual orientations are mental states such as sexual desires. It discusses several objections to these views, and develops and defends a new version of the view that characterizes sexual orientations in terms of sexual desires.

Performativity, Precariety and Sexual Politics

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Gender performativity is one of the core concepts in Judith Butler’s work. In this paper Butler re-examines this term and completes it with the idea of precarity, by making a reference to those who are exposed to injury, violence and displacement, those who are in risk of not being qualified as a subject of recognition, There are issues that constantly arise in the nation-states, such as claiming a right when there is not a right to claim, or being forced to follow certain norms in order to change these norms. This is particularly relevant in the sexual policies that are shaped within the nation-states.

Introduction to The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy

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In this introductory chapter to “The Routledge Companion of Feminist Philosophy”, Garry, Khader and Stone examine the different applications of feminist philosophy outside political philosophy, as well as the different questions concerning this subdiscipline, other than the impact of gender in society and the injustices arising from it. While doing so, the editors advocate for a revision of the history of feminist thought in philosophy that takes a more intersectional approach, an approach that fully considers the role played by authors belonging to a minority group(s). This short chapter provides a quick overview of two very important questions. A first question is how the use of feminist approaches can enrich different more mainstream areas in philosophy, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and metaphysics, but also question the philosophical canon. A second question is how considering the voices that are underrepresented in the philosophical canon, including female and non-binary philosophers, but also, non-Western traditions, can shift our understanding of mainstream philosophical issues.

Why Feminists Should be Materialists and Vice Versa

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In this article, Droege defends a nonreductive account of materialism, which in her view, can be endorsed by feminists since it considers the dynamic relations among mind, body, and environment. Droege shows how “new materialism” or nonreductive materialism preserves the role of social interactions in explaining the constitution of mental states, while at the same time, also considers the role of the physical. Droege argues that ignoring the physical is a mistake that some feminists commit that prevents us from offering a full picture of the nature of social constructs, such as “gender”. In the materialist view that Droege supports, physical causation is seen as “indeterminate, constantly in flux, and potentially both disruptive and supportive of human projects”. Droege closes the article by showing how feminist methods, by taking an interdisciplinary approach, can provide a more nuanced picture of the nature of the mind, one that considers both the role of the physical and social world.