Is there such a thing as Chinese Philosophy?

[HashiriKata]

Just as an opening thread (and hence the provoking sounding title ), so please say anything you'd like concerning any of the following questions:

What famous Chinese philosophers (ancient & modern) do you know?

Who can be considered the best known Chinese philosopher still alive?

If there is something that can be considered to be part of "Chinese philosophy", do you think it's still very relevant in the modern world?

If you're asked to say a few words about Chinese philosophy, what would you say?

[xuechengfeng]

I would say Confucius

[HashiriKata]

Question:

Who can be considered the best known Chinese philosopher still alive?

xuechengfeng replied:

I would say Confucius

[skylee]

xuechengfeng probably means this member of the forum.

[HashiriKata]

Indeed! I've found him:

I really like this post. Will you do this again? Xie Xie!

(Source: http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=3274 )

[xuechengfeng]

I'm glad someone figured it out

[madizi]

Modern Chinese philosophers? Feng Qi, Chen Guying,..... maybe Feng Youlan, but he is more of historian of Chinese Philosophy...

[J.B. Frog]

I'm reading this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0658010786/qid=1104778981

It's a collection of sayings and phrases with explanations of their history and meaning, and the author uses them to highlight some aspect of Chinese thought and culture. It's a decent place to start at least. I think you'll be disappointed if you're hoping for just one representative philosopher, although my weak, introductory understanding is that there's more overlap between different ones than in the West, but again, I'm a beginner.

I have to say, the book starts off (at least) pretty negative. The amazon reviews say the author loves Chinese culture so maybe it gets better.

[wushijiao]

I'm reading this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0658010786/qid=1104778981

I also read that book, and while I don't think it is absolutely great and it clearly doesn't claim to be authoritative or scholarly, it is highly accessible and fun to read. So many Chinese philosophy books get translated poorly or suffer from pedantic academicese, it seems.

I'd be interested to hear what other books people recommend about Chinese philosophy.

[gato]

I would recommend Sources of Chinese Tradition by William Theodore De Bary. The two volumes contains translated excerpts of works by most of the important thinkers with good introductions. Volume gets up to 1650s, and volume II all the way to the 1900s (with lots of interesting essays from the post-Imperial era).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231109393/qid=1104863272/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-7594278-4314560?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

It's a good source for learning classical Chinese, as well. Once you find an interesting author in the anthology, you can find the Chinese orgininal and read it along with the translation. Probably much more appealing than just reading randomly.

The World of Thought in Ancient China by Benjamin Isadore Schwartz is supposedly a very good book on the growth of philosophy in the classical era. It is an academic work, however.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674961919/qid=1104863512/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-7594278-4314560?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[alex]

don't forget Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi)

[carlo]

The Confucians are interesting from a social and historical point of view (sort of like reading the Bible to understand European history): start from the Analects (论语), brief and to the point.

Personally I think the Daoists (老子, 庄子 etc) are much more fun. I cannot comment on English translations as I haven't read any (and this stuff doesn't translate well), but these are free:

http://wenxue.0943.com.cn/wx/gw/zuzi/dao.htm

http://www.thetao.info/tao/simplified.htm

http://www.chinapage.com/laotze.html

http://www.zhuangzi.com/zzzb/index.asp

[zhuangzi]

It's unfortunate that thinkers like Hegel, who once remarked that China had never produced anything like a philosophy, were so ignorant to China's rich philosophical heritage.

Note my screen name. I am absolutely Daoist in the Zhuangzi sense, purely philosophical.

Sorry all, especially to the one who calls himself Confucius, but I actually despise Confucius. In the New Testament the Jews pointed to Moses. And still today, the Chinese point to Confucius, who I believe has screwed up the quality of more lives than anyone else. (I'm not talking about murderers or genocists -- I mean inhumane philosophies that deeply influenced entire societies for thousands of years.)

Zhuangzi loved to poke fun at Confucius and did so whenever he could. Sometimes he was rather scathing, but usually he was pretty mellow and humorous about it.

"When Confucius finally understood the errors of his ways and embraced *Daoism, he sent his followers away and hid himself among the reeds of a swamp. He dressed in animal skins and lived on acorns and chestnuts. Eventually he returned to such a state of natural being that his presence no longer frightened the birds and the beasts. Eventually, even human beings began to find him quite bearable!" -Zhuangzi

I love that guy! He has a perfectly distinguishable style in his writing which is exactly why many scholars of Chinese philosophy believe many of the chapters in The Zhuangzi where not written by Zhuangzi at all.

(*Some Daoists like to claim that Confucius eventually converted to Laozi's logic, but this is entirely unsubstantiated legend.)

When I started studying Hegel and Peirce and Levi-Strauss and Saussure and even Neitzsche, I couldn't help but see Zhuangzi in most of Europe's great modern and post-modern philosophies. Zhuangzi and Laozi had preceded them by a couple of thousand years!

I was raised in an ultra-conservative christian setting, and Zhuangzi came to me at the perfect time and freed up my mind. I view him as my philosophical "savior."

I think the most striking similarity between Moses and Confucius is how panoptic their systems became after a few centuries of authoritarian mental abuse. One simply could not survive in this rigid, prescribed system, without falling in line and giving up all sense of will.

Remember even Deng Xiaoping's famous remark (which I feel still describes most Chinese): "Never be a leader."

Emperor's loved Confucius and his leadership ethics. In fact I believe Confucianism is precisely what kept most of the emperors in power as long as they were. Note, most dynastic changes were coup d'etats, often from foreign forces.

It was Mao Zedong who gave the Chinese people the courage to rebel against Confucius. In that respect alone he was a Jesus figure. He was China's first feminist and outlawed the binding of the feet, arranged marriages and other unfair practices.

China has slipped back into Confucianism, as that system now supports the role of Communist leaders.

But as globalization continues, and the democratizations of technology, finance and information buy up all the waterfront property along the Yangzi, the Chinese will rebel again. And this time Human Rights dogs and informed consumers won't stand for another round of tanks, threatening a global boycott of all things Made in China.

[gato]

Emperor's loved Confucius and his leadership ethics. In fact I believe Confucianism is precisely what kept most of the emperors in power as long as they were. Note, most dynastic changes were coup d'etats, often from foreign forces.

The historian Ray Huang's theory is that Confucianism was one of the few effective ways for the emperors to hold their empires together because they didn't actually have the modern communication technology to do it, and so encouraging self-restraint and deference towards authority was the next best thing. (See Huang's "China: A Macrohistory," 《中国大历史》 in Chinese.)

Huang, by the way, was a history professor in some no-name school in upstate New York and didn't get much respect because he was doing things that was fashionable in his circle, and I think he was eventually fired by the school. His work has, however, generated remarkable interest in both China and Taiwan, and their Chinese translations seem to be widely read. For example: http://www.xys.org/pages2/Huang-Renyu.html

[madizi]

I think that it wasn't Confucius' intention to "screw up" people's lives. It was after his death that emperors and scholars abused his doctrine. In the begining of Han, they merged Confucian and Legalist thought and presented it as pure Confucian thought (it was because Legalism was very unpopular). The most remarkable scholar who has done that was Dong Zhongshu.

I think Confucius' intentions were good, not bad.

[wushijiao]

See Huang's "China: A Macrohistory," 《中国大历史》 in Chinese.)

It's interesting that this book spends a good deal of time talking about the physical characterictics of China's geography, China's agriculture and China's philosophy combined. In other words, philosophical or political systems don't appear in a vacuum. Or, maybe, a political or philosophical system can appear at any time by any eccentric thinker, but it will only be picked up and used if it suits the conditions of a particular country.

Karen Armstrong notes that all agricultural societies had strongly centralized, authoritarian, hierarchical political systems. Similarly, democracy has had trouble working in countries with simple economies. So, is it fair to blame Confucius for some of the abuses of his doctrine? I'm not sure. I think there are a lot of other factors involved.

[bhchao]

It was Mao Zedong who gave the Chinese people the courage to rebel against Confucius. In that respect alone he was a Jesus figure.

I should start drinking Red Bull more often. That mentality contributed to the highly destructive efforts to destroy traces of China's cultural heritage from 1966-1976.

He was China's first feminist and outlawed the binding of the feet, arranged marriages and other unfair practices.

That honor unfortunately belongs to 洪秀全. Footbinding was already outlawed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the early years of ROC.

[skylee]

I think footbinding was first banned by the early Qing Emperors Shunzhi / Kangxi. It was not successful, though.