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8What Does the Surfer Know That Confucius Doesn’t?: Zhuangzian Skill Stories and Hawaiian EpistemologyJournal of Chinese Philosophy 51 (1): 32-43. 2024.In her chapter “Models of knowledge in the Zhuangzi: Knowing with chisels and sticks,” Karyn L. Lai ponders Confucius’s conversation with the cicada catcher in the Zhuangzi. Lai asks, “What does the cicada catcher know that Confucius doesn’t?” The knowledge that Confucius and his disciples seek may be precisely what they can never have. I explore the epistemological rift between ways of knowing by applying Karen Amimoto Ingersoll’s distinction between “seascape epistemology” (based on Native Haw…Read more
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1Finding the Joy of Far-Flung Friends: Extending Oneself Through Terrestrial, Metaphysical, and Moral GeographiesIn Karyn L. Lai (ed.), Knowers and Knowledge in East-West Philosophy: Epistemology Extended, Springer Nature. pp. 255-274. 2021.This chapter is a sustained reflection on the sorts of place-based knowledge that characterise making one’s way around in a Ruist world. As we know, Confucius and Mencius spent much of their lives travelling, and, I argue, this was essential in forming their vision of a comprehensive and cohesive world order. I suggest three motifs for place-based knowing: terrestrial geography, metaphysical geography, and moral geography. Terrestrial geography includes physical, topographical, and social geogra…Read more
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28Confucius, Wisdom, and Political Participation: Benevolence and Timeliness in the AnalectsPhilosophy Compass 18 (2). 2023.This paper aims to address when the wise person should participate in politics. The question is addressed through engagement with the Analects. Rather than provide interpretations of key terms in the Analects, we provide an account of wisdom that draws from themes in the Analects. The case is made that the wise person is committed to participating in politics primarily because of the connection between wisdom and benevolence (ren 仁 in the Analects). We address challenges to the Confucian approac…Read more
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Men Tell Me Paternalism Is GoodIn Ian M. Sullivan & Joshua Mason (eds.), One corner of the square: essays on the philosophy of Roger T. Ames, University of Hawaiʻi Press. 2021.
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7“Terrestrial Identity” as Grounded Relationality: A Comparative Study of Contemporary Chinese and Hawaiian SourcesArgument: Biannual Philosophical Journal 8 (2). 2018.In this essay, I discuss a potential nexus for comparison between Hawaiian and Chinese philosophies grounded in what I call “terrestrial identity”. I bring Fei Xiaotong’s description of the formation of social identity in China, which is historically agrarian and inalienably place-based, to meet contemporary Hawaiian philosophical perspectives of personal responsibility, genealogical consciousness, and “seascape epistemology” to flesh out a new theory of relationality, one that includes the onto…Read more
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13A Comparative Study of ‘Existential Destitution’ in Pre-Qin Chinese Philosophy and Karl Jaspers in the Context of Homelessness in Hawai‘iDissertation, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. 2018.
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35The Philosophical Challenge from China ed. by Brian BruyaPhilosophy East and West 67 (3): 948-951. 2017.The Philosophical Challenge from China, edited by Brian Bruya, undoubtedly occupies an important place in the discourse about what practices and authorities are relevant to Philosophy as an academic discipline. Its confident reorientation of philosophical relevance in the context of Anglophone academics will hopefully speak meaningfully to any remaining skeptics of the usefulness of Chinese philosophy. The intended audience of this effort, however, is shrinking, or, more accurately, those willin…Read more
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18Wisdom of the Tao Te Ching: The Code of the Spiritual Warrior by Ashok Kumar MalhotraPhilosophy East and West 65 (4): 1312-1312. 2015.
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15An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies by Steve CoutinhoPhilosophy East and West 65 (2): 623-625. 2015.
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11All One Place: Reflections from the 11th East-West Philosophers’ ConferenceJournal of World Philosophies 1 (1): 164-166. 2016.Place was the theme of the 11th East-West Philosophers’ Conference, held in the urban heart of the Islands, Honolulu, from May 24-31, 2016.