Journal of Chinese Philosophy Supplement – serie

In Chinese tradition Confucianism has been always botha philosophy of moral self-cultivation for the human individual and anideological guide for political institutional policy and governmental action.After the May 4th Movement of 1919 (WusiYundong ),Confucianism lost much of its moral appeal and political authority and entered akind of limbo, bearing blame for the backwardness and weakening of China.  Now that China has asserted its political rights among world nations, it seems natural to ask whether Confucianism as aphilosophy has a modern or even postmodern role to play for building modern China and for enlightening the world. This question is even more meaningful in light of the fact that there is a genuine need felt in Chinafor a return to its Confucian heritage and vision for purposes of sustaining societal harmonization and reconstructingcultural identity in the modern world.

The Journal of Chinese Philosophy initiates this volume on the origins of philosophy and their relations in philosophical languages, be it Chinese or Greek or European as not merely derived from the Greek. Given this understanding we see how a philosophical issue could be discussed significantly from both the European-Western position and the Chinese perspective. Each position and perspective embodies a different historicity and viewpoint as experienced in the vision and pursuit of reality and humanity. The contrast between the European and Chinese traditions of philosophy is impressive and yet mutually stimulating as shown in the works of Heidegger and post-Heideggerian authors. The authors of this book illustrate how the European-Western and Chinese approaches could be complementary and yet together could be philosophically insight-productive.

• Sixteen collected essays examine Chinese Philosophy around 4 major topics• Furthers and deepens fundamental inquiries, including: What is philosophy?  Is there more than one origin of philosophy?  Have we embraced other traditions as well as integrated others into our own?  How do we view Chinese philosophy in the multi-origins of the world philosophy and vice versa? • The second volume of the festschrift for celebrating the Journal of Chinese Philosophy’s 40th anniversary

This volume is devoted to studying the emergence and flourishing of new humanistically informed developments in philosophical hermeneutics within contemporary Chinese philosophy. By means of some articles published previously in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s, questions about the nature of philosophical understanding and the diversity of hermeneutic options in Chinese indigenous teachings – including Ruist (“Confucian”), Daoist, and Chinese Buddhist realms of exploration – are reintroduced. Following these seminal essays, a number of new pieces written by philosophers and sinologists active in evaluating basic orientations toward philosophical understanding in China are presented. Some offer new insights into the confluence of Gadamerian and Ruist approaches to philosophy, while others employ more critical methods to indicate why serious hermeneutic inquiries into these indigenous traditions and their most representative texts reveal significant challenges for the informed reader. The focus of this volume centers on issues arising in early Ruist and Daoist texts – the Analects and the Zhuangzi – and then moves to examine hermeneutic claims asserted in the synthetic philosophical efforts of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). A sequel dealing with modern and contemporary themes in Chinese hermeneutics will appear in the March 2007 issue of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy.

This anthology presents the distinctive insights of Chinese philosophy and their relevance to contemporary issues in a range of areas: moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, environmental ethics, medicine and psychological health. New, especially interdisciplinary researchApplies insights in Chinese philosophy from eminent scholars in the field of Chinese philosophy