Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714) was a prominent Japanese Neo-Confucian scholar whose philosophical treatise, The Record of Great Doubts, is one of the central discourses in East Asia on the importance of qi, or the vital force that courses through all life. Available for the first time in English, this book emphasizes the role of the monism of qi in achieving a life of engagement. Ekken believes that moral self-cultivation must take place within the dynamic forces of nature and amid the rigorous demands of society and that the vitalism of qi provides the philosophical grounding for this vibrant interaction.

Qi 氣 (“vital energy”) is one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and culture, and neo-Confucian Zhang Zai (1020-1077) plays a pivotal role in developing the notion. An investigation of his philosophy of qi is not confined to his particularity, but sheds light upon the notion of qi as it is understood within Chinese and East Asian thought in general. Yet, his position has not been given a thorough philosophical analysis in contemporary times. The purpose of this book is to provide a thorough and proper understanding of Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi. Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi: A Practical Understanding focuses on the practical argument underlying Zhang Zai’s development of qi that emphasizes the endeavor to create meaningful coherence amongst our differences through mutual communication and transformation. In addition to this, the book compares and engages Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi with John Dewey’s philosophy of aesthetic experience in order to make Zhang Zai’s position more plausible and relevant to the contemporary Western audience.

From the late 1990s until today, China's sound practice has been developing in an increasingly globalized socio-political-aesthetic milieu, receiving attentions and investments from the art world, music industry and cultural institutes, with nevertheless, its unique acoustic philosophy remaining silent. This book traces the history of sound practice from contemporary Chinese visual art back in the 1980s, to electronic music, which was introduced as a target of critique in the 1950s, to electronic instrument building fever in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and to the origins of both academic and nonacademic electronic and experimental music activities. This expansive tracing of sound in the arts resonates with another goal of this book, to understand sound and its artistic practice through notions informed by Chinese qi-cosmology and qi-philosophy, including notions of resonance, shanshui (mountains-waters), huanghu (elusiveness and evasiveness), and distributed monumentality and anti-monumentality. By turning back to deep history to learn about the meaning and function of sound and listening in ancient China, the book offers a refreshing understanding of the British sinologist Joseph Needham's statement that “Chinese acoustics is acoustics of qi.” and expands existing conceptualization of sound art and contemporary music at large.

Featuring contributions from the world's most highly esteemed Asian philosophy scholars, this important new encyclopedia covers the complex and increasingly influential field of Chinese thought, from earliest recorded times to the present day. Including coverage on the subject previously unavailable to English speakers, the Encyclopedia sheds light on the extensive range of concepts, movements, philosophical works, and thinkers that populate the field. It includes a thorough survey of the history of Chinese philosophy; entries on all major thinkers from Confucius to Mou Zongsan; essential topics such as aesthetics, moral philosophy, philosophy of government, and philosophy of literature; surveys of Confucianism in all historical periods (Zhou, Han, Tang, and onward) and in key regions outside China; schools of thought such as Mohism, Legalism, and Chinese Buddhism; trends in contemporary Chinese philosophy, and more.

The notion of qi/gi (氣) is one of the most pervasive notions found within the various areas of the East Asian intellectual and cultural traditions. While the pervasiveness of the notion provides us with an opportunity to observe the commonalities amongst the East Asian intellectual and cultural traditions, it also allows us to observe the differences. This book focuses more on understanding the different meanings and logics that the notion of qi/gi has acquired within the East Asian traditions for the purpose of understanding the diversity of these traditions. This volume begins to fulfill this task by inquiring into how the notion was understood by traditional Korean philosophers, in addition to investigating how the notion was understood by traditional Chinese philosophers.

In The Philosophy of Change, the distinguished scholar of Chinese philosophy Chung-ying Cheng advances our understanding of the Yijing by analyzing its philosophy in comparison to Western philosophical traditions. Cheng focuses on critically comparing philosophies of science, religion, and metaphysics in Leibniz, Whitehead, Neville, and Cobb alongside classical Chinese views on reality, divinity, knowledge, and morality. The book begins and ends with questions related to the character of Chinese metaphysical traditions, which contrast with the mainline metaphysical traditions found in Western Europe and North America. Cheng argues throughout the book that the philosophical underpinnings of basic concepts in Chinese culture are ultimately rooted in key claims found within the Yijing 易經 and one of its standard commentaries, the Yizhuan 易傳. The book serves as a complementary volume to the author's previous book, The Primary Way: Philosophy of the Yijing, which lays out a comprehensive and systematic philosophy based on the symbolism and text of the classical document and its traditional commentaries.

Religion and the Philosophy of Life considers how religion as the source of civilization transforms the fundamental bio-sociology of humans through language and the somatic exploration of religious ritual and prayer. Gavin Flood offers an integrative account of the nature of the human, based on what contemporary scientists tell us, especially evolutionary science and social neuroscience, as well as through the history of civilizations. Part one contemplates fundamental questions and assumptions: what the current state of knowledge is concerning life itself; what the philosophical issues are in that understanding; and how we can explain religion as the driving force of civilizations in the context of human development within an evolutionary perspective. It also addresses the question of the emergence of religion and presents a related study of sacrifice as fundamental to religions' views about life and its transformation. Part two offers a reading of religions in three civilizational blocks--India, China, and Europe/the Middle East--particularly as they came to formation in the medieval period. It traces the history of how these civilizations have thematised the idea of life itself. Part three then takes up the idea of a life force in part three and traces the theme of the philosophy of life through to modern times. On the one hand, the book presents a narrative account of life itself through the history of civilizations, and on the other presents an explanation of that narrative in terms of life.

The book depicts a unique historical and cultural phenomenon, the philosophy of Chinese moral education, in an attempt to capture the essence of Chinese culture. While tracing the historical journey of this philosophy, the book rearranges and interprets the conceptual frameworks concerning moral education in various Chinese philosophical schools and religions. In so doing, it summarizes the ideas of human relations, man and nature, cosmology, moral virtues, and educational approaches, posing intriguing questions about how they have influenced Chinese characteristics, social norms, and value orientations. In particular, the book brings up discussions on the culture of family and state, the challenges that the philosophy had encountered in early modern and present China, as well as the prospect of regeneration of the philosophy and its significance for our world today. This is the book to read if you want to have a deep understanding about China and its belief and educational system.

This book makes Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) intelligible to those who are not familiar with the tradition, many of whom may choose to dismiss it off-hand or to assess it negatively) . Keekok Lee uses two related strategies: arguing that all science and therefore medicine cannot be understood without excavating its philosophical presuppositions and showing what those presuppositions are in the case of CCM compared with those of biomedicine. Such excavations enable Lee in turn to demonstrate the following theses: (1) the metaphysical/ontological core of a medical system entails its own methodology, how to understand, diagnose and treat an illness/disease; (2) CCM rests on process-ontology, is Wholist, its general mode of thinking is Contextual-dyadic, its implicit logic is multi-valent, its model of causality is non-linear and multi-factorial; (3) Biomedicine (in the main) rests on thing-ontology and dualism, is Reductionist, its logic is classical bi-valent, its model of causality is linear and monofactorial; (4) hence to condemn CCM as “unscientific”/”pseudo-scientific”/plain “mumbo-jumbo” while privileging Biomedicine as the Gold Standard of scientificity is as absurd as to judge a cat to be inferior to a dog, using the criteria of “goodness” embodied in a dog-show.

This book provides a conceptual overview of the evolution of Chinese philosophy from its earliest beginnings to the end of the imperial era, highlighting 38 of the most essential terms in the Chinese philosophical tradition. Written by prominent contemporary scholars from Mainland China, the respective chapters cover topics ranging from cosmology, benti metaphysics, human nature, self-cultivation, and methodology, to views on history and politics. Each chapter addresses one of the constitutive terms of the Chinese philosophical tradition and provides clear historical information on how it was used and developed during the key periods of Chinese philosophy.Highlighting both central concepts and essential structures of Chinese philosophy, the book allows readers to view the history of Chinese philosophy from the perspective of the Chinese themselves. Offering content that is both academically rigorous and accessible for a wider audience, this book is an indispensable reference guide for all students of Chinese philosophy.