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13Can Virtue Grow Out of Vicious Human Nature? Xunzi's Genealogy of Virtue ReconstructedPhilosophy East and West 74 (1): 89-108. 2024.Abstract:Xunzi's pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi 義 put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls "the compatibility problems," the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi's functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi's moral philosoph…Read more
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381Daoist Freedom, Psychological Hygiene, and Social CriticismComparative Philosophy 14 (2): 134-150. 2023.The article explores the inner logic and defining features of Daoist freedom. It argues that Daoist freedom can be meaningfully understood as psychological hygiene, and it suggests that Daoist xuan-jie (懸解) can be rendered possible only if one can rid oneself of intensional suffering—an idea ultimately inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche. This comparative approach enables the article to contribute to the received way of understanding Daoist freedom by stressing its dialectics: by being at ease with …Read more
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429The State of the Field Report X: Contemporary Chinese Studies of Tianxia (All-Under-Heaven)Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (3): 473-490. 2023.This article offers a critical overview of a set of normative theories, namely Tianxia 天下 (all-under-heaven), whose purpose is to provide a renewed conceptual framework for the improvement of the world system. First, the article introduces the origins, main features, and differences within Tianxia, before discussing two major criticisms leveled against it. The article then argues that the most powerful parts of these criticisms come from the challenges posed against Tianxia’s legitimacy. The art…Read more
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277Can Virtue Grow out of Vicious Human Nature? Xunzi’s Genealogy ReconstructedPhilosophy East and West. forthcoming.Xunzi’s pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi (義) put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls “the compatibility problems,” the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi’s functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi’s moral philosophy were …Read more
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228Harris, Eirik Lang, and Henrique Schneider, eds., Adventures in Chinese Realism: Classic Philosophy Applied to Contemporary IssuesDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (2): 331-333. 2023.
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229Freedom, Legalism (fajia) and subject formation: The question of internalizationPhilosophy and Social Criticism 40 (2): 171-190. 2014.With self-determination as its implication, freedom can create room for such psychological mechanism as internalization to perform the function of transforming the external social regulation into self-regulation. For this transformation to be viable, however, subject needs to be formed and subsequently social regulation becomes redundant, thanks to the formation of subject. Freedom as a necessary condition for the subject formation and this transfiguration of social regulation is often neglected…Read more
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361Is Confucian Political Meritocracy a Viable Alternative to Democracy? A Critical Engagement with Tongdong BaiJournal of Value Inquiry 57 (4): 625-640. 2023.In lieu of Abstract: With inequality of various sorts ballooning worldwide, a critique of democracy has come of age, and a change of political ethos is underway. Against this background, the critique of democracy becomes not only possible but also popular, and examples in China and many Western democracies abound. It is no exaggeration to say, in this context, that sufficient momentum has gathered to qualify the situation as "democratic recession," despite people may have different understanding…Read more
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161Review of Liang, Zhiping, Conducting Government: Ideas of Governance in Ancient China. Beijing: Sanlian Shudian, 2020, 337 pages (review)Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 20 (2): 331-334. 2021.
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178Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis, written by Jiwei Ci (2nd ed.)Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2 238-239. 2021.
Yun Tang
Sichuan University
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Sichuan UniversityRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Chinese Philosophy |
Philosophical Methods |
Political Realism and Utopianism |
Areas of Interest
Political Theory |
Moral Psychology |
Political Realism and Utopianism |