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144Knowledge and Error in Early Chinese ThoughtDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10 (2): 127-148. 2011.Drawing primarily on the Mòzǐ and Xúnzǐ, the article proposes an account of how knowledge and error are understood in classical Chinese epistemology and applies it to explain the absence of a skeptical argument from illusion in early Chinese thought. Arguments from illusion are associated with a representational conception of mind and knowledge, which allows the possibility of a comprehensive or persistent gap between appearance and reality. By contrast, early Chinese thinkers understand mind an…Read more
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Action and Agency in Early Chinese ThoughtJournal of Chinese Philosophy and Culture 5. 2009.In this lecture, I present a sketch of how action and agency are conceived of in pre-Qín 先秦, or classical, Chinese thought, along the way drawing some contrasts with familiar Western conceptions of action. I will also comment briefly on how the ideas I present might affect our interpretation of early Chinese texts and how they might help us to relate early Chinese thought to contemporary action theory and ethics.
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44Two roads to wisdom? Chinese and analytic philosophical traditions (review)Journal of Chinese Philosophy 32 (2). 2005.
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130Skepticism and Value in the ZhuāngziInternational Philosophical Quarterly 49 (4): 439-457. 2009.The ethics of the Zhuāngzi is distinctive for its valorization of psychological qualities such as open-mindedness, adaptability, and tolerance. The paper discusses how these qualities and their consequences for morality and politics relate to the text’s views onskepticism and value. Chad Hansen has argued that Zhuangist ethical views are motivated by skepticism about our ability to know a privileged scheme of action-guiding distinctions, which in turn is grounded in a form of relativism about su…Read more
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82Mohist canonsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.The Mohist Canons are a set of brief statements on a variety of philosophical and other topics by anonymous members of the Mohist school , an influential philosophical, social, and religious movement of China's Warring States period (479-221 B.C.). [1] Written and compiled most likely between the late 4th and mid 3rd century B.C., the Canons are often referred to as the “later Mohist” or “Neo-Mohist” canons, since they seem chronologically later than the bulk of the Mohist writings, most of whic…Read more
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17Ethics in Early China: An Anthology (edited book)HKU Press. 2011.An anthology in honor of Professor Chad Hansen, Ethics in Early China is an original collection of ground-breaking essays exploring classical Chinese ethical and psychological theories. Part One presents a series of provocative interpretations of classical Chinese ethical theories, while Part Two relates early Chinese thought to contemporary ethical discourse.
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28Xunzi Versus Zhuangzi: Two Approaches to Death in Classical Chinese ThoughtFrontiers of Philosophy in China 8 (3): 410-427. 2013.
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75The Limitations of Ritual Propriety: Ritual and Language in Xúnzǐ and ZhuāngzǐSophia 51 (2): 257-282. 2012.This essay examines the theory of ritual propriety presented in the Xúnzǐ and criticisms of Xunzi-like views found in the classical Daoist anthology Zhuāngzǐ. To highlight the respects in which the Zhuāngzǐ can be read as posing a critical response to a Xunzian view of ritual propriety, the essay juxtaposes the two texts' views of language, since Xunzi's theory of ritual propriety is intertwined with his theory of language. I argue that a Zhuangist critique of the presuppositions of Xunzi's stan…Read more
Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
Areas of Specialization
Asian Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Asian Philosophy |