•  140
    Tang Junyi on Mencian and Mohist Conceptions of Mind
    New Asia Academic Bulletin 19. 2006.
    Tang Junyi (T’ang Chun-i 唐君毅) was among the founders of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the first chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUHK, an influential scholar of Chinese philosophy, and one of the leaders of the New Confucian movement. In this article, I take issue with the line of interpretation he develops in a provocative 1955 study of Mencius and Mozi. Though I don’t make the connections explicit, Tang’s views and my critique of them are relevant to issues in contemporary discu…Read more
  •  46
    This note responds to an interpretation of Mohist Canon and Explanation B 671 published by John Makeham some years ago. Makeham’s interpretation makes significant contributions to our understanding of this passage, especially in calling attention to problems with two influential previous interpretations, those of A. C. Graham and Chad Hansen.3 Yet his reading presents difficulties of its own, which I will attempt to rectify here.
  •  137
    Happiness in Classical Confucianism: Xúnzǐ
    Philosophical Topics 41 (1): 53-79. 2013.
    This essay contributes to comparative inquiry concerning happiness through a case study of Xúnzǐ, a major Confucian thinker. Xúnzǐ’s ethical theory presents values and norms that fill the role of happiness indirectly, through the ideal figure of the gentleman. However, his working conception of psychological happiness and individual well-being turns on aesthetic values that go beyond the universal prudential values to which his ethical theory appeals. Hence I argue that his implicit conception o…Read more
  •  265
    Skepticism and Value in the Zhuāngzi
    International 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
  •  120
    Mohism
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  • Doctrinal Developments in MZ 14-16
    Warring States Papers. 2010.
  •  77
    Xunzi Versus Zhuangzi: Two Approaches to Death in Classical Chinese Thought
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 8 (3): 410-427. 2013.
  •  219
    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
  •  355
    On Wu-wei as a Unifying Metaphor
    Philosophy East and West 57 (1): 97-106. 2007.
    This provocative work is the most ambitious general study of pre-Qin thought to appear in more than a decade. It deals with what is increasingly recognized as one of the period's key themes, the ethical ideal of perfected action and the processes of cultivation, or uncultivation, by which it might be achieved. The book has two specific aims, one substantive, one methodological (p. vii). The substantive aim is to show that the notion of wu-wei, which Slingerland renders as "effortless action," fu…Read more
  •  1
    Is Mozi 17 a Fragment of Mozi 26?
    Warring States Papers. 2010.
    , originally was not an independent chapter in the Fei Gong (Condemning Aggression) series, but rather part of the ending of Mozi 26, the first of the Tian Zhi ¤Ñ§Ó (Heaven’s Intention) chapters. I will argue that we have no reason to..
  •  126
    This essay applies John Searle’s account of weakness of will to explore the classical Chinese problem of weak-willed action. Searle’s discussion focuses on the shortcomings of the Western classical model of rationality in explaining weakness of will, so he naturally says little about the practical ethical problem of overcoming weak-willed action, the focus of the relevant Chinese texts. Yet his theory of action, specifically his notion of the Background, suggests a compelling approach to the pra…Read more
  •  102
    School of names
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    The “School of Names” ming jia ) is the traditional Chinese label for a diverse group of Warring States (479-221 B.C.) thinkers who shared an interest in language, disputation, and metaphysics. They were notorious for logic-chopping, purportedly idle conceptual puzzles, and paradoxes such as “Today go to Yue but arrive yesterday” and “A white horse is not a horse.” Because reflection on language in ancient China centered on “names”.
  •  267
    Moism and self-interest
    Journal of Chinese Philosophy 35 (3): 437-454. 2008.
    The aim of this article is to clarify the role of self-interest in Moist thought and by doing so to refute the Self-Interest Thesis. Toward these ends, I will examine passages from the Mozi bearing on the role of self-interest in Moist ethics and psychology and show that, in each case, an alternative interpretation explains them better than the Self-Interest Thesis does. I will argue that the Moists recognize the obvious truth that self-interest figures among people’s basic motives, but they bel…Read more
  •  309
    Distinctions, Judgment, and Reasoning in Classical Chinese Thought
    History and Philosophy of Logic 34 (1): 1-24. 2013.
    The article proposes an account of the prevailing classical Chinese conception of reasoning and argumentation that grounds it in a semantic theory and epistemology centered on drawing distinctions (biàn ) between the similar and dissimilar kinds of things that do or do not fall within the extension of ‘names’ (míng ). The article presents two novel interpretive hypotheses. First, for pre-Hàn Chinese thinkers, the functional role associated with the logical copula is filled by a general notion of…Read more
  •  1
    The Mohist School
    In Bo Mou (ed.), History of Chinese Philosophy, Routledge. 2008.