The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy

by Tiwald, Justin

• ISBN13: 9780199945498
• ISBN10: 0199945497
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197519431
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-05-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy collects new essays by both senior and up and coming contributors, on important texts and figures in the history of Chinese thought. The essays cover both well-known texts such as the Analects and the Zhuangzi as well as many of the lesser-known thinkers in the classical and post-classical Chinese tradition. Most of the chapters focus on thinkers or texts in one of three important historical movements: Classical ("pre-Qin") Chinese philosophy, Chinese Buddhism, and the Confucian response to Buddhism ("neo-Confucianism" broadly construed). The volume provides an accessible point of entry into the more challenging and technical post-classical tradition, including Chinese Buddhism and neo-Confucianism from the Song dynasty onward. Topics covered include ethics and its foundations, politics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, and metaphysics. Each essay presents cutting-edge work on important topics in the Chinese tradition and yet is written for a general philosophical audience.

Author Biography

Justin Tiwald is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. He works on Chinese philosophers and texts, especially those from the influential classical and neo-Confucian periods. His books include Neo-Confucianism, with Stephen C. Angle (2017) and Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy, with Bryan W. Van Norden (2014). With Eric L. Hutton, he is a series co-editor of Oxford Chinese Thought. Previously he was Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley and a research fellow at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
List of contributors

Part I: The Foundations of ethics
1. A Theological Voluntarist Consequentialism in the Mozi
Hui Chieh Loy
2. The Nature of Moral Norms in Xunzi's Philosophy
Philip J. Ivanhoe
3. Qing as the Foundation of Xunzi's Naturalist Ethics
Chenyang Li
4. Dai Zhen on the Common Affirmability of Ethical Judgments
Justin Tiwald

Part II: Ethics and Value
5. Well-Being in Early Chinese Philosophy
Richard Kim
6. Human Nature in the Ethics of Mengzi and Xunzi
David Wong
7. A Daoist Critique of Morality
Chris Fraser
8. Harmonizing Chinese Buddhist Ethics
Nicholaos Jones
9. Moral Failure, Ethical Roles, and Metaphysics in the Great Learning and the Mean
Bryan W. Van Norden

Part III: Philosophical Psychology
10. Virtuous Contempt (wù) in the Analects
Hagop Sarkissian
11. Kongzi as Therapeutic Philosopher
Erin Cline
12. Being Spontaneous: Zhuangzi on Mastery
Karyn Lai

Part IV: Politics
13. Dependence and Autonomy in Early Confucianism
Aaron Stalnaker
14. The Family-State Analogy in the Mengzi
Loubna El Amine
15. The Dao of Han Fei
Eirik Lang Harris

Part V: Metaphysics
16. When Buddha Nature was not Buddha Nature: Fo'xing, Shen, and the Birth of a Universal Mind in Early Medieval China
Tao Jiang
17. How It All Depends: A Contemporary Reconstruction of Huayan Buddhism
Li Kang
18. Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Metaphysics of Human Nature: Explanatory, Not Foundational
Yong Huang

Part VI: Knowledge
19. Xunzi and the Authority of Tradition
Eric L. Hutton
20. Laozi and Zhu Xi on Knowledge and Virtue
May Sim
21. Knowing-To in Wang Yangming
Waldemar Brys
22. Knowledge of Human Nature and Morality in Contemporary Confucianism
David Elstein

Index