Classical Chinese Philosophy: A Brief Introduction
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- Throughout this video, I survey a number of thinkers from Classical Chinese philosophy including: Kongzi’s revivalism and virtue ethics, Mozi’s consequentialism and impartial caring, Yang Zhu’s ethical egoism, Mengzi’s Confucianism, The School of Name’s paradoxical argumentation, the Daodejing’s mysticism, the Zhuangzi’s relativism and skepticism, Xunzi’s Confucianism, and Han Feizi’s legalism. In doing so, I intend only to lay the foundations for further study of an all to understudied area of philosophy.
Music:
Kerusu - Remembrance
• Kerusu - Remembrance
Timestamps:
00:00 || Introduction
01:41 || Kongzi (Confucius)
04:36 || Mozi
06:41 || Yangzi (Yang Zhu)
08:48 || Mengzi (Mencius)
11:06 || School of Names (Huizi and Gongsun Long)
12:45 || The Daodejing (Laozi)
15:31 || The Zhuangzi
18:10 || Xunzi
20:02 || Han Feizi
22:28 || Conclusion
Sources:
W., Van Norden Bryan. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Hackett Pub., 2011.
Zhuangzi, and Brook Ziporyn. Zhuangzi: the Complete Writings. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2020.
Lau, D. C. Lao Tzu ; Tao Te Ching. Penguin Books, 1963. archive.org/details/taotechin...
Confucius, and D. C. Lau. The Analects Confucius. Penguin Books, 1979. archive.org/details/analectsl...
Baskin, Wade. Classics in Chinese Philosophy. Philosophical Library, 1972.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. “Consequentialism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 3 June 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/.
wow! thanks for doing this, it is of great help to me as I'm studying the Eastern Zhou Period, and most history books quickly breeze over the philosophy of that time... Which I now realise is a shame; how fascinating! I was especially stunned at how much of my vision of Taoism and mysticism was outright wrong. I am in awe of the work that was put into this video! The only error I spotted was the chinese characters at 7:10 which were switched.
Thank you for the kind words and the keen eye! I'll pin this comment to make clear this accident of mine and prevent misunderstanding.
@@IanWithyBerry you are indeed modest. Switching the two characters, 我為
， into 為我 is not always a mistake - as Classical Chinese often read from Right to Left - on signs and gates (and from up to down). Simple, nuanced hint. Great explanations! Keep them coming.
@@IanWithyBerry hindi language
Thanks for doing this! As a traditionally western raised university student much of Eastern philosophy and history was glossed over, this is a great start at filling in the gaps in my education
Concise, clear and informative.
Subbed 👌👏
Oh man this is a great overview!
Liked it a lot, great topic
This is great, sad to see only 1700 views!
I love the last philosopher; he's always at the end of every video
Why do u like han fei zi? Iirc his methods ultimately failed. The harsh laws made ministers and people turn against one another, causing alot of suffering in everyday life.
WHAT ANARCHY IS NOT by Larken Rose
[Excerpt]..."If not for a group of lawmakers telling the rest of us how to behave, we would all act like stupid, irresponsible, violent animals."
This claim implies one of two things. Either:
(a) We normal people have no idea what is right and wrong, unless and until politicians tell us; or
(b) The only reason we want to do the right thing and coexist peacefully is because politicians told us to.
A quick examination of your own motivations will show you that neither is true.
It's particularly odd to make this argument in a society where politicians are voted into power. If the people themselves have no moral code and no conscious and are just stupid, violent animals, why does almost everyone want government to keep the peace and protect the innocent? Would a population of vicious, heartless, evil people try to elect good people to keep the evil people in line? Obviously not.
The goodness and desire from order and peace comes from us, not the lawmakers we vote into office.
The implication is that the average person can't be trusted to run his own life but can be trusted to choose someone to run other people's lives.
Government is not a civilizing influence. It's actually an un-civilizing influence. People who would never personally rob their neighbors constantly use government to do it for them by way of taxation. People who would never dream of trying to control minute details of their neighbors' lives think it is just fine to vote for politicians to do it instead. Government gives everyone the opportunity and encouragement to rob and control other people without risk.
So, government, rather than serving as a check against the imperfections of our nature, instead amplifies our greed, irresponsibility, and malice toward other human beings by giving us a legally acceptable and risk-free way to interfere with the lives and choices of our fellow men and women. It brings out the criminal and busy-body in everyone.
In contrast, in the absence of a ruling class, people would lose the ability to ask lawmakers to interfere with their neighbors' lives. And we would not have law enforcers who avoid responsibility for evil deeds by claiming they were just following orders.
Throughout history, far more theft, assault, oppression, and even murder has been committed by those acting on behalf of a supposed authority by anybody else. Even basically good people, when they believe in government, will condone things or do things which they know would be wrong if they did them on their own.
...
Ask yourself this: Have the thousands of laws, regulations, and taxes imposed on you by politicians made you a better person? Have they made you more productive or more caring?
...
Is society really best served by a small class of people forcibly imposing a centralized master plan on everyone else? Can the orders and threats of a ruling class make the world what it should be? Or would society be better served by human freedom and respect for individual rights? By voluntary cooperation and peaceful organization?
[from scott:]
Say these words: "trust, voluntary cooperation, and peaceful organization."
Now say these: "obligation, limitation, and force."
[:end from scott]
If the second option sounds better to you, maybe you should learn more about Anarchism.
Some dismiss Anarchism as a "Utopian idea" that would only work if everyone were generous and compassionate. Obviously, everyone is not generous and compassionate all the time. Look at the other side of the coin: If people are too stupid, greedy, and malicious to be free, aren't they too stupid, greedy, and malicious to be trusted with power over others?
Whether people are inherently good, bad, or some of each, giving a person power over others is not going to make that person better. In fact, power has historically been known to corrupt people or make them worse. Whereas, the discipline imposed by the equal freedom of everyone else brings out the best in human nature.
Most people today believe we need some form of government because they mistakenly believe that obedience to authority makes us all more civilized, moral, and peaceful. In reality, it has always done exactly the opposite.
Everyone knows that governments _can_ be corrupt, abusive, inefficient, counter-productive, even tyranical. Most people assume the way to fix that is to get the _right_ people into power. People have spent centuries trying to create a good society using different kinds of ruling classes, different legal structures, different ways of choosing rulers, and so on. But every governmental construction has resulted in freedom and riches for some and oppression, violence, and poverty for others.
What if, instead of deciding what the throne should look like and who should sit on it, all people of good will embraced the Non- Aggression Principle (NAP)?
What if, instead of looking to a ruling class to impose our values on society, we embraced the concept of Self Ownership?
These principles are simple and easy, to the point of being self evident. But they are diametrically opposed to the authoritarian principles that most of us have been indoctrinated with.
Anarchism does not mean chaos and violence or "every man for himself". Having no government does not mean having no morality, no organization, and no cooperation.
Simply put, Anarchism does mean no one is your master and no one is your slave.
Every time I see the upload notification and wonder if this will be the one that breaks the excellent content streak on this channel, I am always disproven. Your work is incredibly good :)
Thanks! :D
13:21 - For anyone curious, I would highly recommend Jia Fu Feng's translation/book on Tao Te Ching, and also the YT channel "Jason Gregory".
Very good video. I heard about a so called "School of Yin Yang" born also in that Warring States period. ¿Have you heard of it? I wonder if you can make a video about it.
Xun Zi was very influential in Korea during the Choseon encounter with catholicism in the 1790s and early 1800s. His idea of an innately bad human nature that needed to be cultivated encourged some Korean scholars to latch on to catholicism as a way of countering their evil human natures. They were much more interested in questions of morality over theology so early Confucian Catholic discussions in Korea focused on questions of how to enact filial piety and whether the ten commandments were adequate by Confucian standards. This also lead to the martyrdom of many of Korea's earliest catholics, many of whom were later beatified by the church.
Thanks a lot; will also surely check out Bryan Norden's book!
Chinese philosophy -- Eastern philosophy in general -- grew on me
Have you read dostoyevsky? Its totally unrelated but I finished brothers karamazov last month and ran through notes from the underground in a week and im totally infatuated woth dostoyevsky and the philosophy/psychology behind his character development there is so much potential content in his writings
That's great! I've read Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground. Although I can't say I've delved too deeply into either. I'm rather fond of Dostoevsky as well. His writing seems to capture the off-putting reality of human existence and the many problems it involves. I can't say I've come to the same conclusion as he had, a return to, albeit a higher form of, Christianity. What about his ideas do you find the most infatuating?
@@IanWithyBerry my understanding of it was less about returning to more conventional religious practices like Christianity and more about what the best way to face and move past the immense suffering in the world is. The last third of The Brothers Karamazov explores this through the suffering of a dying boy and I think Dostoyevsky's main point is what good is being an atheist when confronted with a child on his death bed? Ivan, perhaps the smartest and most cunning of the 3 Brothers essentially decends into madness and it is Alyosha, the religious brother who studied to be a monk that utilizes this boys demise to bring together his schoolmates and find a common love and understanding of this meek boy and all he's done throught the novel. Ivan makes outstanding points that are not to be ignored and Alyosha cannot answer many of them (see the grand inquisition chapter) but when faced with the real life suffering of a dying child, Ivan with all his education and staunch rational morality is left depressed and at odds with a cruel God he cannot understand, whereas alyosha is able to bring people together in love and bond over this tragedy
I surely cannot sum up the profundity of dostoyevsky adequately but I think he was less so promoting Russian orthodox Christianity and more so warning against the the dangers of an atheistic morality "without God all things are permitted." This atheistic morality shift rather than one based in the church is at part responsible for the Russian revolution and the gulag system that ravished Russia and gave us some of the worst historical atrocities we have seen, Dostoyevsky saw these gross violations of human rights before they surfaced in society and wrote about the potential for malevolence the attempts at a secular morality can excuse or overlook
@@willkamps3271 Ahh I see. Thanks for further explanation and further clarifying Dostoevsky's ideas! Hopefully I can work with them more intricately in the future.
I really love ancient Chinese philosophy and Chinese poem.
However, just like you said, the Classical Chinese philosophy and literature are highly ignored by the world.
Classical Chinese may not be a perfect Language for scientific purposes; but in my perspective it is the best language for literature.
Would you like to make some videos about Classical Chinese literature, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu is not only a philosophical book but also serves literal purposes.
I think that's a really good idea. My greater familiarity with philosophy makes it a bit easier to treat them in the context of philosophy, but one idea I might take up in the future would be to examine what is commonly grouped and considered as Daoist poetry and art, tracing some of their inspirations from the classics themselves. Thanks for the suggestion!
Going down the mountain searching for the overman I'm wondering if the people he was sending back to his cave represent a religion or a character trait and did he want mankind to become their own Gods or beyond God and Zarathustra found the man he was looking for in himself . I found your channel because I felt that the overman had a connection with the Buddha and my search led me here thanks
You are a genius!
Oh wow, Van Norden, he teaches at my school. He just came back from a leave of absence.
That's awesome! Do you have any interest in taking his courses or working with him? From his publications and work for Philosophical Gourmet, he seems like a giant in modern academic Chinese philosophy.
@Ian Withy-Berry Oh I definitely do, circumstances at Vassar are complicated with covid, so we'll have to see. I actually signed up for one of his courses, but I don't know for certain if I can take it. It's on Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, the former of which I focus my studies on. Hopefully in the end I can take it, lucky to have such amazing professors here.
@@hui-an-xin That's great and I hope you can! Good luck on your studies!
@@IanWithyBerry Thank you!
10:19 In China if you help someone who's injured you have to pay their medical bills, I imagine no one would do anything if you add a price tag to it.
Relativism is a logical by product of scepticism.
(You do not assign an absolute value to your particular form of life).
Is the fact that they teach Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all throughout the world proof of their "superior" philosophy or is it because of European cultural hegemony in the world?
What is bad human nature oppreasion,deceit,racism,colonialism ?????
We need a fine education of both eastern and western philosophy and also finding the commonality between each line of thought, such as how the philosophy of wabisabi [侘び寂び] (Japanese philosophy; not Chinese) is reminiscent of Stoicism; you find there's similarities between the two schools of thought.