Author Archives: tjneenan

Extended Innate Knowledge as a Path to Virtue and Happiness

Posted on by
Reply

Brad Cokelet

Associate Professor, University of Kansas

Extended Innate Knowledge as a Path to Virtue and Happiness: Wang Yang-ming’s optimistic Neo-Confucian Model of Human Self-Perfection

The presentation will be on the neo-Confucian philosophy Wang Yang-Ming (1472-1529) and his optimistic Neo-Confucian model of human self-perfection. It will focus on interpretive debates about how to understand his view and on how to assess it today. In short, Wang argues that all human beings have innate knowledge of good and bad and that to live well and embody true virtue we need only recognize and extend that knowledge into in all our activities and all the corners of our lifeworld. Wang explicitly pitched this optimistic, egalitarian view as an alternative to Zhu Xi’s then overwhelmingly influential theory, which pictures people as initially mired in a kind of ignorance that can only be overcome by diligent study and reflection. On Zhu Xi’s broadly intellectualist view – which is commonly compared to Aristotle’s and Plato’s – we must study texts and the things of the world to gain knowledge of the principle or principles that govern the universe. The basic idea is that we need to gain philosophical or metaphysical knowledge via education and long study before we can embody that knowledge in sagely virtue and ease. Wang rejected that potentially elitist picture, offered an egalitarian alternative, and argued that the pursuit of genuine knowledge and action are unified in a way Zhu Xi’s followers missed – because they assumed that one should first aim to gain knowledge through long philosophic and textual study and only then aim to embody that knowledge in virtuous activity.

The documents may be accessed here.

Tuesday, May 10th, 4:30PM, Swift 403

This workshop will focus on two pre-circulated documents and will be largely discussion based. The first is a brief introduction to the project, the second a recently published review to help people to understand the background motivations that have sparked Professor Cokelet’s interest in Wang and debates about how to interpret him. Workshop participants should feel free to read as much or as little as they want!

___________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

The Looping Structure of Buddhist Thought (Or, How Chan Buddhism Resolves the Quantum Measurement Problem)

Posted on by
Reply

Robert Sharf

Professor; Chair of the Berkeley Center for Buddhist Studies
The Looping Structure of Buddhist Thought (Or, How Chan Buddhism Resolves the Quantum Measurement Problem)

Is there a world out there when nobody is looking? This is a question that medieval Buddhist scholiasts struggled with over many centuries, giving rise to a variety of competing positions. In this article, I identify a loop that runs through and structures seemingly antithetical positions—some realist, some antirealist—in these debates. My claim is that the loop is a feature of our lifeworld, and thus any serious reflection on the mind/ world relationship is bound to get entangled in it. Even modern physics has come up against it, such that rival positions advanced by quantum theorists are structurally analogous to positions proffered in medieval Buddhist writings. I conclude by turning to the Chan Buddhist tradition, which is often mischaracterized as hostile to philosophical analysis. Chan is among the few Buddhist schools that recognize, foreground, and cele- brate the manner in which mind and world enfold each other. As such, this paper foregrounds the decidedly philosophical insights of the Chan tradition.

This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper (available here) and will be largely discussion-based.

Friday, March 4th, 5:00PM, Swift 200

_____________
The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Progressive Confucianism & Its Critics

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen C. Angle

Professor of Philosophy and East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University

Progressive Confucianism & Its Critics

For more than 2500 years, the teachings of Confucius have been debated and developed as times have changed. New social or political circumstances and new knowledge have meant that Confucianism itself has continually been in a process of renewal. A recent moment in this development took place in the spring of 2017, when the U.S.-based Confucian philosopher Stephen C. Angle took part in a series of dialogues with Chinese Confucians in Beijing. The dialogues engage with topics like the relation between Confucianism and modernity; its status as philosophy, religion, and/or chief ingredient in a distinctively Chinese culture; the status of pivotal modern Confucians like Kang Youwei and Mou Zongsan; and more generally, the prospects for what Angle calls “Progressive Confucianism.”

The papers may be accessed here.

Friday, February 25th, 4:30PM, Swift 200

This workshop will focus on two pre-circulated documents and will be largely discussion based. The first is an Introduction to the project, the second a translated dialogue. Workshop participants should feel free to read as much or as little as they want!

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Conceptuality and Marx’s Concept of Productive Labor

Posted on by
Reply

Conceptuality and Marx’s Concept of Productive Labor

Rebekah Rosenfeld

PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions

Respondent: William Underwood

PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago. To RSVP and receive a Zoom link as well as the password to access the paper, please email Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu).

Tuesday, February 15th, 12:30PM (Virtual Event)

The paper may be accessed here.

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

The Idol and Modernity in Nietzsche and Marion

Posted on by
Reply
Mat Messerschmidt
Ph.D. Candidate, The Committee on Social Thought
The Idol and Modernity in Nietzsche and Marion
Respondent: Xinyue Zhang
Ph.D. Student, Committee on Social Thought
This paper (this chapter) explores the meaning of modernity for Nietzsche, arguing that modernity is, for him, a crisis that involves a kind of physiological overload or overstimulation. The real catastrophe of modernity, however, lies not in this overload itself, but in the modern idols that serve to protect us against utter overwhelming. Referring to Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological treatment of idolatry, I investigate the meaning of the word “idols” in the phrase “Twilight of the Idols,” arguing that the idol serves as a buffer against the event of Becoming, and that the last man is the individual who, through the idolatrous survival mechanisms of modernity, evades Becoming entirely, threatening to sever humanity from the source of its vitality permanently.
The paper may be accessed here.
Tuesday, February 8th, 12:30 PM, Swift 200
Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

 

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.