Project MUSE®: Philosophy East and West - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Philosophy East and West.daily12026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 50, no. 4 (2000) through current issueLatest Articles: Philosophy East and WestTWOProject MUSE®Philosophy East and West1529-18980031-8221Latest articles in Philosophy East and West. Feed provided by Project MUSE®A Bite of Philosophy by Ellen Ying Zhang (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987356
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In the mid-1990s, pragmatist philosopher Richard Shusterman--known for founding the field of somaesthetics--called for a restoration of the soma (the living, sentient, purposive body), as the indispensable medium for all perception and cognition. With a foreword by Shusterman, Ellen Y. Zhang's Shejian Shang de Zhexue 舌尖上的哲學 (hereafter A Bite of Philosophy) extends this project by arguing that philosophy concerns not only thinking but also embodied living, explored through the experiences of food, eating, and gustatory delight. Zhang's work questions the Western philosophical tradition from Plato to Hegel, whose hierarchical view of taste dismissed culinary enjoyment as a mere physical pleasure, inferior to the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallA Bite of Philosophy by Ellen Ying Zhang (review)2026-04-08text/htmlen-USA Bite of Philosophy by Ellen Ying Zhang (review)2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®154392026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08The Confucian Perspective on Friendship: Healing from Trauma, Moral Disruption, and Disconnection
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987357
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Trauma remains a concept that receives significant attention and reflection in contemporary discourse. Derived from the Greek word τραύμα, meaning wound, trauma initially denoted physical injury necessitating immediate medical attention. However, its scope has eventually expanded to encompass psychological injury.1 According to Paul Valent, "in traumatology, trauma refers to major upheavals and catastrophes that cause significant suffering."2 In this article, I focus on psychological injury or suffering evident in the disruption and disconnection experienced by trauma survivors following their encounters with traumatic events, circumstances, or situations. Disruption can manifest in various facets of human life
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallThe Confucian Perspective on Friendship: Healing from Trauma, Moral Disruption, and Disconnection2026-04-08text/htmlen-USThe Confucian Perspective on Friendship: Healing from Trauma, Moral Disruption, and Disconnection2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1084972026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Translating Science into New Dictates of the Way: The Tianyan Cosmology and Yan Fu's Ethical Imaginings
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987358
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In the late nineteenth century, the interaction between Chinese and Western cultures, fueled by military conflicts, left a profound impact on the cultural beliefs and values of the Chinese people. This interplay, marked by a series of historical events, challenged and eroded the authority of traditional Chinese ethical systems. Writing, or rewriting—to use André Lefevere's (1992) famous term—in the tumultuous years in the wake of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Yan Fu 嚴複 (1854–1921) effectively responded to national imperatives amid the consternation of the intelligentsia, who were disillusioned with prior reform endeavors, notably the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s and 1890s, hallmarked by
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallTranslating Science into New Dictates of the Way: The Tianyan Cosmology and Yan Fu's Ethical Imaginings2026-04-08text/htmlen-USTranslating Science into New Dictates of the Way: The Tianyan Cosmology and Yan Fu's Ethical Imaginings2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®953522026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Guo Xiang's Value Monism
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987359
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In his commentary upon the Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi 莊子, the Wei-Jin era Neo-Daoist philosopher, Guo Xiang 郭象 (ca. 252–312 C.E.), says many very interesting things about values and reasons, about all things axiological and metanormative.1 What Guo says is so interesting, in fact, that if one were to try to place his thoughts on these topics into contemporary value theory, one would not find a neat conceptual option or theoretical position into which he could easily fit. Guo seems to be offering something unique and novel, at least for us. Thus, the aim of this article is to discover and develop Guo's latent axiological views in terms of contemporary value theory so that we can both precisely identify his actual
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallGuo Xiang's Value Monism2026-04-08text/htmlen-USGuo Xiang's Value Monism2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®889322026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Intelligibility or Meaning: Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming on Cosmic Life
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987360
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In his recent monograph titled The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy (2024), Robert Pippin argues that Heidegger's critique of Western metaphysics and its culmination in German Idealism, particularly in Hegel, revolves around the question of how beings are primordially available to us. Whereas in Western metaphysics, beings are, first and foremost, available through their intelligibility, for Heidegger, beings show up, first and foremost, in their meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit). In other words, according to the "logical prejudice" (Dahlstrom 2001) of Western metaphysics, the availability of beings is a matter of logical form, while, according to Heidegger, the focus on
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallIntelligibility or Meaning: Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming on Cosmic Life2026-04-08text/htmlen-USIntelligibility or Meaning: Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming on Cosmic Life2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®895612026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Dōgen and the Exploration Model of Buddhist Practice: A Non-Teleological Approach
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987361
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"Arriving is the fundamental point. Do not think that practice leads to the other shore. Because there is practice on the other shore, when you practice, the other shore arrives."Buddhist practice is commonly understood as a path from suffering to enlightenment. However, in the Chan and Zen traditions, this understanding was disrupted by the ideas of sudden enlightenment and original enlightenment. I contend that in the work of Huineng and especially Dōgen, a different understanding of Buddhist practice emerges, a non-teleological approach that I call the exploration model of Buddhist practice. In this essay, I defend this interpretation and argue that the exploration model is worthy of our attention as a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallDōgen and the Exploration Model of Buddhist Practice: A Non-Teleological Approach2026-04-08text/htmlen-USDōgen and the Exploration Model of Buddhist Practice: A Non-Teleological Approach2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®921702026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Wuwei in Early Chinese Political Thought: Between Empowerment and Control
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987362
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Wuwei is a recurring theme in the discourse on ideal government in Chinese political thought. Commonly interpreted as non-action, non-doing, or effortless action, wuwei is conventionally associated with exemplary rulers who exhibit moral and political leadership par excellence. While the ideal of wuwei was most frequently embraced and highly valued in Lao-Zhuang Daoism, Confucius also regards it as a political ideal, attributing it to Shun, one of the legendary sage kings of antiquity (Analects 15.5). Interestingly, Han Fei, a staunch critic of Confucianism, likewise endorsed wuwei as the desirable Way (dào 道) for the enlightened ruler, who secures peace and order in the state.1This broad acceptance across various
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallWuwei in Early Chinese Political Thought: Between Empowerment and Control2026-04-08text/htmlen-USWuwei in Early Chinese Political Thought: Between Empowerment and Control2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1000652026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Guided Theistic Rationalism: Al-AshʿArī's View of Faith and Reason
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987363
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The nature of religious faith is subject to diverse interpretations in theological discourse. It can be understood as a nonpropositional commitment to a supreme being, epitomized by trust or love for this being, or as an affirmation of specific propositional beliefs concerning the divine. As C. Stephen Evans has observed, even nonpropositional forms of faith require some foundational propositional beliefs, as a person's trust in God implies certain convictions about God's existence and nature (Evans 1998, p. 5). Theology seeks to articulate these propositional beliefs, with revealed theology presenting them as derived from sources regarded as directly connected to a divine being. Conversely, natural theology
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallGuided Theistic Rationalism: Al-AshʿArī's View of Faith and Reason2026-04-08text/htmlen-USGuided Theistic Rationalism: Al-AshʿArī's View of Faith and Reason2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®912272026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08The Asymmetry of Existence in Advaita Vedānta
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987364
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Advaita Vedānta is a monistic or (more accurately) non-dualistic school of Indian philosophy, systematized by Śaṅkara (roughly eight–ninth century C.E.). The term "Advaita" literally means "non-dual" or "non-secondness." The core position of this tradition maintains that Brahman, the divine reality that is the fundamental source of the appearance of the universe, is the one and only existent. As Eliot Deutsch writes, "Brahman is experienced as pure unqualified being. In fact, it alone truly 'exists'—which is to say that its manner of being is not comparable to the supposed existence of anything else" (Deutsch 1969, p. 10). For Advaita, the universe at best has only a kind of provisional existence such that its
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallThe Asymmetry of Existence in Advaita Vedānta2026-04-08text/htmlen-USThe Asymmetry of Existence in Advaita Vedānta2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®883452026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Nishitani's Emptiness and Relational Thinking: Toward a Philosophical Pedagogy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987365
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At present, most people think that to transform society is one thing and to transform man is another, and that the former should be achieved before the latter. But in reality, these two aspects cannot be separated from each other so easily.Relationality is central to contemporary critical thought. Especially decolonial scholarship has recently critiqued the dominant (colonial) knowledge paradigm for focusing on isolated entities rather than relationships and fluidity (Mignolo and Walsh 2018, p. 135). This paradigm, it is said, reduces the "other" to an object, forfeiting relationality (Serequeberhan 2015, p. 92). However, relational thinking is gaining prominence across various disciplines (Walsh, Böhme, and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallNishitani's Emptiness and Relational Thinking: Toward a Philosophical Pedagogy2026-04-08text/htmlen-USNishitani's Emptiness and Relational Thinking: Toward a Philosophical Pedagogy2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1173042026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Animal Images in the Zhuangzi: Extended Dialogue and Relational Imagination
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987366
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The Zhuangzi is a philosophical treatise rich with nonhuman presence. Beings in the Zhuangzi appear as birds, fish, mammals, plants, trees, and mystical creatures; even the wind has participatory presence. The Zhuangzi famously opens with an image of a giant fish, Kun, that transforms into a majestic bird, Peng, who is carried by the wind to the southern pole. Just as the wind enables Peng's soaring, animal images often appear as participants that Zhuangzi plays with to convey his ideas. There is a great diversity of interpretations regarding the role of nonhuman figures, reflecting the complexity of the Zhuangzi itself. While scholarly readings differ in emphasis and interpretation, they share the insight that
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallAnimal Images in the Zhuangzi: Extended Dialogue and Relational Imagination2026-04-08text/htmlen-USAnimal Images in the Zhuangzi: Extended Dialogue and Relational Imagination2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1081262026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08What Is an Emotion? An Early Chinese Perspective in the Xing Zi Ming Chu
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987367
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What is an emotion? The dominant view among analytic philosophers and affective scientists is that an emotion is first and foremost an internal state triggered by an external event. As Robert Solomon (1995) asserts, "any question about emotion must initially come to terms with the fact that emotions are, first of all, in some sense to be defined, 'subjective' phenomena, 'in the mind' of the subject …" (p. 254). Furthermore, according to John Deigh (2018), the modern philosophical and psychological understanding of emotion as an inner state since the nineteenth century is largely characterized by two themes: (1) the identification of emotions with affective feelings and (2) the treatment of emotions as intentional
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallWhat Is an Emotion? An Early Chinese Perspective in the Xing Zi Ming Chu2026-04-08text/htmlen-USWhat Is an Emotion? An Early Chinese Perspective in the Xing Zi Ming Chu2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®952532026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08New Visions from Confucian Gongfu Philosophy: A Critical Reappraisal
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987368
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A Treatise on Confucian Gongfu Philosophy is Peimin Ni's Magnum Opus, bearing out his deep philosophical and personal wisdom from lifelong gongfu (transliterated also as kungfu) exercises, Confucian studies and practices, and Chinese and comparative philosophy. Ni's Treatise presents a creative way to salvage traditional Confucian teachings from modern criticisms. It establishes an alternative path for philosophy anchored not on the abstract theory of truth, but on the expertise in addressing effectively various concrete challenges in the art of life.Ni's Treatise comprises three parts. The first part has six chapters on gongfu epistemology, gongfu philosophy of science, gongfu ontology, and gongfu philosophy of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallNew Visions from Confucian Gongfu Philosophy: A Critical Reappraisal2026-04-08text/htmlen-USNew Visions from Confucian Gongfu Philosophy: A Critical Reappraisal2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®360022026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Response to Huaiyu Wang
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987369
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I am grateful for Huaiyu Wang's engaging review about my book, which is a summation of the most cherished outcomes of my lifelong pursuit in philosophy. The central thesis of the book is to reveal and articulate a gongfu 功 夫 perspective characteristic of traditional Confucianism and to propose it as a comprehensive philosophical approach that can hopefully bridge the gap between tradition and modernity, East and West, and theory and life. By gongfu, I mean the art of life, a general term upon which a whole cluster of sub-dimensions of practical life, such as effort-laden time/practice, abilities for good performance, approaches or methods of living, and functions and aims of human practice, can be appropriated
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallResponse to Huaiyu Wang2026-04-08text/htmlen-USResponse to Huaiyu Wang2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®197772026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08A Study on the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi by Lihua Yang (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987370
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Yang Lihua, a contemporary scholar of Chinese philosophy, has published influential works on Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism, and Daoism. His monograph A Study on the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi holds an important place in contemporary Zhuangzi studies in China. This book reformulates various themes in the Zhuangzi into a coherent, comprehensive system and offers remarkable insight into the text's role in Chinese philosophy.One of the most significant works in contemporary Zhuangzi scholarship is Liu Xiaogan's 劉笑敢 Zhuangzi Zhexue ji qi Yanbian 莊子哲學及其演變 (Zhuangzi's Philosophy and Its Transformation). In this book, Liu establishes the widely accepted assumption that the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi were composed as a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallA Study on the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi by Lihua Yang (review)2026-04-08text/htmlen-USA Study on the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi by Lihua Yang (review)2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®260032026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Placental Politics: Chamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam by Christine Taitano DeLisle (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987371
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Christine Taitano DeLisle's Placental Politics begins where human life is first sustained: the placenta, the ga'chong i patgon--the "child's companion," planted in the soil by CHamoru pattera (midwives) to bind newborn life to land and kin. When the U.S. naval colonial regulation occupied Guåhan in the early twentieth century and ordered pattera to burn the placenta as dangerous "waste," it was more than a biomedical intervention. It was a profound act of colonial severance, attempting to cut cordage between body and land, reproduction and sovereignty.DeLisle takes this practice of burial as her central analytic. "Placental politics" is not a metaphor but a lived practice, both cosmological and material--a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallPlacental Politics: Chamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam by Christine Taitano DeLisle (review)2026-04-08text/htmlen-USPlacental Politics: Chamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam by Christine Taitano DeLisle (review)2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®163982026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Introducing Chinese Philosophy: From the Warring States to the 21st Century by Douglas L. Berger (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987372
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Introductions of any sort typically entail compromises and simplifications. Equally frequent is the situation when the goals of such invitations to broader fields yield focusing on a single period or sphere of reflection, for instance, the formative period of thought. The production of a well-written overview that manages to cover distinct currents and epochs without sacrificing analytical depth, such as Berger's Introducing Chinese Philosophy, is a rare, if not unique, achievement. His strategy to analyse divergent cases representative of the various aspects of Chinese Philosophy rather than unfolding its monolithic historical stream paid off: both general and experienced readers will benefit from this extremely
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallIntroducing Chinese Philosophy: From the Warring States to the 21st Century by Douglas L. Berger (review)2026-04-08text/htmlen-USIntroducing Chinese Philosophy: From the Warring States to the 21st Century by Douglas L. Berger (review)2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®135802026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Outlines of Confucian Political Philosophy by Chunsong Gan (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987373
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At the beginning of this century, a major discussion emerged regarding the socalled "legitimacy of Chinese philosophy." The focus of the debate was whether Chinese philosophy conforms to the "standards" of Western philosophy. According to Derrida's perspective, China possesses thought, but its content struggles to align with what the West defines as "philosophy"--a tradition rooted in logical argumentation dating back to Greece and Rome. Thus, China lacks what the West terms "philosophy," and therefore, China has no philosophy. However, this issue had already been addressed over a century ago by pioneering scholars such as Hu Shi 胡適 and Fung Yu-lan 馮友蘭, who authored multiple works on their historical narrations of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/156/image/coversmallOutlines of Confucian Political Philosophy by Chunsong Gan (review)2026-04-08text/htmlen-USOutlines of Confucian Political Philosophy by Chunsong Gan (review)2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®250982026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08