This talk is hosted by the Department of Religion. This is a hybrid talk. Click here to register for Zoom streaming (in-person attendance does not need registration).
Abstract:
This talk outlines what I call a “joy in life” philosophy that is associated with the ancient figure of Yang Zhu. I first excavate evidence of reliable textual attributions to the forgotten philosopher Yang Zhu (5th -4th c. BCE), whom Mencius claims followed a doctrine of weiwo 為我, or “acting in service of the self.” Using such early evidence as a guidepost, I turn to an analysis of the most extensive, collected materials attributed to the figure of Yang Zhu: the “Yang Zhu” (Chapter 7) of the Liezi of early medieval times. I show that the so-called hedonistic parts of the Liezi that call for the pursuit of purely carnal pleasures seem actually to be an additional overlay in a deeper outlook, one that is obsessed with life and its joys as a function of death. This outlook idealizes both nourishing and finding joy or pleasure (樂) in life according to one’s natural lifespan, and can be fruitfully compared to Daoist writings on joy found in both the Liezi and Zhuangzi. While any attempt to disentangle post-Han writings from potentially earlier, Warring States layers is fraught with difficulties, it is nonetheless productive to use the “Yang Zhu” chapter of the Liezi as a basis for understanding the joy-in-life philosophy linked to the earlier figure of Yang Zhu, as well as both ancient and medieval forms of Daoism.
Bio
Erica Brindley, Head of Asian Studies and Professor of Asian Studies and Philosophy at Penn State University, is an intellectual and cultural historian of premodern East Asia. She has published extensively on a wide range of topics concerning early Chinese intellectual history and philosophy, as well as on issues related to identity and imperialism in the southern borderland regions of China. Her first three books all explore the many ways thinkers envisioned the self and other in the world: Individualism in Early China: Human Agency and the Self in Thought and Politics (University of Hawaii Press, 2010); Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2012); and Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE – 50 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2015). With Rowan Flad (archaeology), she is co-editor of the new multi-year series, Cambridge Elements, Ancient East Asia, which features multi-disciplinary and cutting-edge works by 25 established experts who work on ancient East Asia. Recently, her dedicated study of the ancient Mohist Order and their technical activities has been accepted for publication at Cambridge University Press. The manuscript examines the Mohists as a unique religious and social movement that developed quasi-military units and trained men in technical sciences, disputation, and ethics. Two other book projects examine the cultural legacy of the so-called individualist or egoist, Yang Zhu, and elucidate the metaphysics of resonance thought in Chinese philosophy. In her historical work on frontiers and Viet (Yue) / Chinese identity, Brindley thinks deeply about the networked relationships connecting what is now China to Southeast Asia – a region she has dubbed the SEAMZ (the Southeast Asian Maritime Zone). She is especially interested in the rhetoric of the “civilizing mission” and issues related to how the northern reaches of the SEAMZ became Chinese and were incorporated over the millennia into the Chinese realm.
