Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still Matters: The Relevance of Ancient Wisdom for the Global Age (Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy)

Traditional Chinese philosophy, if engaged at all, is often regarded as an object of antiquated curiosity and dismissed as unimportant in the current age of globalization. Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, this book, however, challenges this judgement and offers an in-depth study of pre-modern Chinese philosophy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Exploring the relevance of traditional Chinese philosophy for the global age, it takes a comparative approach, analysing ancient Chinese philosophy in its relation to Western ideas and contemporary postmodernist theories. The conversation extends over a broad spectrum of philosophical areas and themes, ranging from metaphysics, hermeneutics, political theory, religion and aesthetics to specific philosophical schools including Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. By engaging many time-honoured philosophical issues from a comparative perspective, this book bridges the gap between Eastern and Western thought and emphasises the need for a newly fortified global humanism and a deeper appreciation of different philosophical and religious values in an age gripped by large-scale crises. Arguing that traditional Chinese philosophy has immediate relevance to the many challenges of modern life, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian Philosophy and Asian Studies in general. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: why traditional Chinese philosophy still matters PART I The relevance of Confucian ethics for our time 1 Confucian role ethics: a challenge to the ideology of individualism 2 A theory of truthfulness (cheng 诚) in classical Confucian philosophy 3 Why does the Book of Rites still matter in contemporary China? A case study of the relevance of Tian Di 天地 to the age of globalization 4 Moral luck and moral responsibility: Wang Yangming on the Confucian problem of evil PART II Mutual empowerment of Chinese and Western thought 5 Responsive virtuosity: a classical Chinese Buddhist contribution to contemporary conversations of freedom 6 Translatability, strangification, and common intelligibility: taking Chinese landscape painting and philosophical texts as examples 7 Confucian exegesis, hermeneutic theory, and comparative thought 8 Spontaneity and reflection: the Dao of somaesthetics PART III Modern illuminations of ancient wisdom 9 Chinese philosophy’s hybrid identity 10 Knowing, feeling, and active ignorance: methodological reflection on the study of Chinese philosophy 11 Why the Yijing 易經 (Classic of Changes) matters in an age of globalization 12 Understanding Zen/Chan in the context of globalization: a new view on the nature of enlightenment Afterword : comments and reflections by an “outsider” Index Written by a team of international scholars, this book offers an in-depth study of pre-modern Chinese philosophy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Discussing the relevance of traditional Chinese philosophy for the global age, it takes a comparative approach, analysing ancient Chinese thought in relation to Western and postmodernist theories.