Humanities Forum Lecture - Learning from Chinese Philosophy
Wednesday, 25 September, 2024
Asian Studies and The Slattery Center of Ignatian Humanities
Present
Humanities Forum Lecture
“Learning from Chinese Philosophy”
by Dr. Bryan W. Van Norden
The best-selling author of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (Columbia University Press, 2017) and The Best 300 Professors in the US by The Princeton Review, James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Vassar College (USA), and Chair Professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University (China).
September 25 (Wed), 5 pm, Brennan Hall 228
Abstract:
When Europeans first encountered Chinese Confucians, Daoists, and Buddhists, they immediately recognized them as serious philosophers. However, this attitude changed due to the influence of imperialism and pseudo-scientific racism, so that (beginning with Kant) Chinese philosophy was dismissed and banned from academic philosophy in the West. Recently, works like my Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto have challenged the status quo and demanded that we return to the cosmopolitan ideal of multicultural philosophy. This lecture provides several examples of the profound and distinct philosophical debates that existed in China on issues such as consequentialism, human nature, ethical egoism, relativism, and skepticism.
Contact:
Ann Pang-WhitePhone: 5709416312