PHIL 110 - Early Chinese Philosophy

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

What is the Way – the way for the individual to best live their life and for society to conduct its affairs? This was debated with great intellectual rigor and genius in China between the sixth and the third century BCE. This is the Chinese Classical Age, the seedbed from which all surviving traditions of thought native to China sprang. The present course is an introduction to the debates in that period. We study the competing conceptions of the Way espoused by the Ru (Confucians), the Mohists, and the so-called Daoists, among others. This course is centered on critical engagement with the ideas themselves, though there will also be supplementary discussions on the transmission, transformation, and fate of those ideas. The philosophical questions addressed include the following. Is the distinction between good and bad natural or conventional? Do people become good by nature or by culture? How should society be organized accordingly? What are the goals of social institutions? How do we find the Way, and how do we know if we have found it? This course situates the debates in their intellectual-historical contexts and bring out their continuing relevance. Gus Law.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS