PHIL 6570 - [Chinese Philosophy]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 6657

Spring. Not offered: 2024-2025. Next offered: 2025-2026. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: At least one prior course in philosophy. Co-meets with ASIAN 4457/PHIL 4570.

Staff.

This course surveys major schools of classical Chinese philosophy: Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism. We focus on the Confucian vision of an ideal life, moral development, and self-cultivation, whereby one refines and reshapes one’s emotions to achieve ethical excellence and contribute to one’s community. We explore the Mohist advocacy of an ethics in which everyone is to be treated impartially, and the differences between Mohism and Confucianism in relation to key ethical issues. We emphasize the Daoist rejection of Confucian moral preaching and the idea that the “truth” can be captured through theorizing and argument, as well as the espousal in this tradition of “non-action” and intuitive action. We shall see how advocates of these different philosophies debated and borrowed ideas from each other.