Week 10, Lecture 1 Learning Objectives Define ziran 自然. Discuss the role dao 道 played in translating Buddhism into Chinese. Kongzi died in 479 BCE, just before the Warring States period began to rage. Over the next two centuries the states that had broken away from the Zhou dynasty fought one another for supremacy. Finally, in 221 BCE, the [...]

The image of water is frequently invoked in Daoist texts. Water is of the greatest efficacy because it mirrors the world around it but does not impose onto the world its own values. Think of water filling a jug. Water embraces the emptiness, rapidly, and effectively demonstrates the shape of its container. In the classical [...]

Week 9, lecture 2 Learning Objectives Discuss philosophical realism. Define xin 心. Realism, as we use the term in Philosophy, generally means that things, stuff, “the world out there” exist independently of whether or not we observe it. If what is real does exist independently of whether or not we observe it, then how do [...]

  Week 9, Lecture 1 Learning Objectives Define dao 道 Discuss the role of paronomasia in the Ruist tradition (li 禮, li 利, li 里; ren 人, ren 仁, ren 訒) Dao 道 can be rendered as “path,” or “the way,” or “road,” but we should consider the metaphysical implications of the use of the definite [...]

We've just reviewed the way in which Ruists (like Kongzi and Mengzi) understand the concept tianming 天命 and how this supports their understanding of moral actions. Here we will consider the ways in which Mozi rejects the Ruist project and insists on a consequentialist lens for deciding moral actions. Previously we pointed out that Kongzi looked [...]

Week 8, Lecture 2 Learning Objectives Define utilitarian ethics. Discuss consequentialism and fatalism found in Mohist and Ruist philosophies. Utilitarianism: the right action is that which produces the overall greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Happiness is understood to be the same thing as pleasure. The overall pursuit is to structure society in [...]

Harmony is the chief accomplishment of human activities in the Analects. We look to 2.14 and 15.22 for discussion of the culinary nature of the term rendered commonly as “harmony” (he 和). Rosemont, Jr. and Ames state, that “harmony is the art of combining and blending two or more foodstuffs so that they come together [...]

Week 8, Lecture 1 Learning Objectives Discuss differences between harmonia (αρμονία) and he (和) Explain Kongzi’s “golden rule” Harmonia, from which we derive our word “harmony” is another critical term for the ancient Greeks. In our current usage, harmony indicates a state of being well-blended, a mode of unity in which each element is properly-apportioned in [...]

This is the final installment of frequent questions raised by my students when reading Hannah Arendt's essay "Auschwitz on Trial," my responses follow. For Questions 1–5; for Questions 6–10. Question 11: Is it possible that the defendants denied the truth because they didn't want to accept the truth of the crimes they committed in Auschwitz? [...]

For ease of reading I have split the "Frequent Reactions to Arendt's "Auschwitz on Trial" into several sections. You can read the first  (questions 1–5) responses here. Question 6: Didn’t the people on trial know better? It seems to be the case that the people on trial didn't think about whether or not it was [...]