Past Events

This is organized by the Philosophy Department. It is open to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. RSVP required: Alex Guerrero (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Bryan Van Norden, an expert on Chinese philosophy, will conduct a two-day mini course providing an overview of major figures and themes in Chinese Philosophy.  It will provide basic orientation and understanding to people who know nothing at all currently about Chinese Philosophy.  There are four lectures, each entirely self-contained, so that you can come to any one of them even if you have not attended the others. 

A) Thursday, October 20, 12-2pm: Mini-Course Lecture 1: "Learning from Chinese Philosophy" (presents an overview of how Chinese philosophy was originally accepted into the Anglo-European canon but later excluded due to pseudo-scientific racism, along with brief overviews of several ancient Chinese philosophers, including Kongzi [Confucius], Mozi, Mengzi, and Zhuangzi)

B) Thursday, October 20, 3-5pm: Mini-Course Lecture 2:  "Mengzi's Virtue Ethics" (introduces the Confucian Mengzi, and his conceptions of human nature, ethical cultivation, and the cardinal virtues)

C) Friday, October 21, 10am-12pm: Mini-Course Lecture 3: "Zhuangzi's Therapeutic Critique" (introduces the Daoist Zhuangzi, who presents arguments for skepticism and relativism) 

D) Friday, October 21, 2-4pm: Mini-Course Lecture 4: "Zhu Xi & Wang Yangming on Weakness of Will (briefly introduces the medieval "Neo-Confucian" synthesis of Buddhism and Confucianism, and how two seminal Confucian philosophers took opposing views on the possibility of acting against moral knowledge)