Table Of ContentPhilosophical Horizons
Modern Chinese Philosophy
Edited by
John Makeham (La Trobe University)
volume 18
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mcp
Philosophical Horizons
Metaphysical Investigation in Chinese Philosophy
By
Yang Guorong
Edited and translated by
Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Daniel Sarafinas,
Sharon Small, Ady van den Stock, and
Stefano Gandolfo
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Contents
List of Significant Chinese Philosophical Concepts vii
Translators’ Introduction to Philosophical Horizons ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The Dual Character of Philosophy 6
3 Problems and Methodology 14
4 The Completion of the Person and Its Multiple Dimensions:
Education within a Philosophic Horizon 22
5 The Content of Value Concepts 39
6 Ethical Life and Practical Morality 43
7 The View of Man and the View of Matter: the Philosophical
Implications of Ecological Problems 60
8 Metaphysics and Other Matters: Responses to a Number of
Philosophical Questions 70
9 Chinese Philosophy as Philosophy 96
10 Chinese Philosophy: Questions and Their Evolution 129
11 Identification and Recognition 140
12 Dao and Chinese Philosophy 146
13 The Question of Human Nature in Chinese Philosophy 166
14 The Idea of Reason and Rationality in Chinese Philosophy 178
15 The Study of Philosophers in History 197
vi Contents
16 The Concept Gongzheng (“Justice”) in the History of Chinese
Thought 209
17 The World of Emotions in the Book of Songs 221
18 Metaphysical Principle and Principle of Value: the Way (Dao 道)
and Natural Spontaneity (Ziran 自然) in the Philosophy of
the Laozi 238
19 Meritocratic Politics: Its Meaning and Limitations 256
20 The Great (Modern) Debates: Substance and Function, Past and
Present, China and the West 272
21 Analytic Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy 288
22 Metaphysical Thought in a Post-Metaphysical Age: an Interview with
Yang Guorong 303
Bibliography 327
Index 330
Significant Chinese Philosophical Concepts
biran 必然 (“what is necessarily the case”)
chengji 成己 (“completed self,” “refined self”)
chengren 成人 (“complete person,” “perfected person,” “refined person”)
dangran 当然 (“what should be the case”)
dao 道 (“way” “method” “principle”)
de 德 (“power,” “virtue”)
du 度 (“proper measure”)
fa 法 (“law” “method”)
gong 公 (“public,” “general,” “to make public”)
gongzheng 公正 (“justice”)
he 和 (“harmony”)
jian’ai 兼爱 (“universal love”)
jing 经 (“dogma,” “guideline,” “constant”)
jingjie 境界 (“state of mind,” “spiritual state,” “realm”)
junzi 君子 (“superior person”)
li 礼 (“ritual” “ritual propriety”)
li 理 (“principle,” “reason,” “defining pattern,” “coherence”)
lixing 理性 (“rational,” “reason”)
liyi 礼义 (“ritual propriety and morality”)
lizhi 理智 (“intellectual reason”)
ming 名 (“names”)
qi 气 (“material force,” “air,” “stuff”)
quan 权 (“measure,” “expedient,” “transitory”)
ren 仁 (“humaneness,” “benevolence”)
shi 实 (“actualities”)
shi 事 (“thing[s],” “event[s],” or “matters”)
shiran 实然 (“what should be the case,” “the way things are”)
shu 恕 (“reciprocity”)
si 私 (“private,” “individual,” “secret”)
tianming 天命 (“the mandate of heaven”)
tong 同 (“sameness”)
wu 无 (“non-being,” “non-presence,” “to lack”)
wuwei 无为 (“non-action,” “doing non-doing,” “acting without interfering”)
xiao 孝 (“filial piety”)
xing 性 (“nature,” “disposition,” “natural tendencies”)
yang 阳 (“bright,” “light,” “higher”)
yi 义 (“appropriate,” “human relations,” “duty,” “equitable”)
viii Significant Chinese Philosophical Concepts
yin 阴 (“shade,” “dark,” “lower”)
you 有 (“being,” “presence,” “to have”)
zheng 正 (“central, “straight/upright,” “to align/correct”)
zhengming 正名 (“rectifying names”)
zhengyi 正义 (“justice”)
zhong 中 (“nascent equilibrium”)
zhong 忠 (“faithfulness”)
zhongshu 忠恕 (“faithfulness and reciprocity”)
ziran 自然 (“self-so,” “natural,” “spontaneity”)
Translators’ Introduction to Philosophical Horizons
Paul J. D’Ambrosio is associate professor of Chinese philosophy at East China
Normal University in Shanghai, China, where he also serves as Dean of the
Center for Intercultural Research, fellow of the Institute of Modern Chinese
Thought and Culture, and the program coordinator ECNU’s English-language
MA and PhD programs. He is the author of 真假之间 (Sincerity and Pretense
in Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Genuine Pretending) (Kong Xuetang Press,
2019), co-author (with Hans-Georg Moeller) of Genuine Pretending (Columbia
University Press, 2017), editor (with Michael Sandel) of Encountering China
(Harvard University Press, 2018). Additionally, he has authored over 50 articles,
chapters, and reviews, and has translated several books on Chinese philosophy.
Ady Van den Stock is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Languages
and Cultures at Ghent University in Belgium. His research is focused on the
development of Sino-Islamic traditions of thought in modern China and on
modern Chinese philosophy, specifically New Confucianism and Marxism. He
has published a monograph devoted to the latter topic entitled The Horizon
of Modernity: Subjectivity and Social Structure in New Confucian Philosophy
(Brill, 2016) and translated the work of Chinese philosophers such as Li Zehou,
Yang Guorong, and Feng Qi. He currently serves as Executive Director of
the Académie du Midi Philosophical Association and as board member of the
European Association for Chinese Philosophy.
Dan Sarafinas is from Pembroke MA. He holds a B.A. Phil. from Loyola
Marymount University, an M.Phil. from Zhongnan University, and is currently
a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Macau. He has served on translation
teams working on texts by Li Zehou, Yang Guorong, and Guo Qiyong.
Sharon Y. Small is currently a post-doctoral fellow at East China Normal
University. She received her PhD from the Department of Philosophy at Peking
University where she specialized in Ancient Chinese Philosophy with focus on
Daoism using recently excavated manuscripts. Her research interests include
both Ancient and Modern Chinese thought along with the development of
ideas and language in Pre-Qin times. Aside from research, Sharon currently
works as a translator for contemporary Chinese scholars.
Stefano Gandolfo was originally trained in Economics and Philosophy (B.A.
double major, cum-laude, Honors in Philosophy) at Yale University where
