Menzius war ein prominenter politischer Denker des antiken China und ein hochrangiger Berater des mächtigen Fürsten von Qí. Im Werk Mèngzi “Junker Mèng” sind Dialoge zu politischen Fragen überliefert, die er mit wichtigen Fürsten, mit seinen Gefolgsleuten und mit Gegnern führte. Angesichts des Niedergangs der Zhou-Könige sind Fragen der Herrschaftsform sowie der adäquaten Verwaltung zentral. Dabei behandelte er anthropologische Aspekte der geistigen Konstitution der Menschen und verteidigte so die traditionelle verwandtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Organisation und ihre Werte. Das Werk bietet eine (...) neue Rekonstruktion der Biographie und der Zeit des Menzius, eine darauf fussende Übersetzung in neuer Anordnung mit detaillierten Kommentaren sowie umfangreiche Anhänge zu Chronologie, Geschichte, Personen und zentralen Begriffen. Es richtet sich an ein sinologisches Fachpublikum und an ideengeschichtlich Interessierte. (shrink)

This introductory chapter reviews the history of the reception of philosophy from Asia and the Islamic World in Western philosophy and argues in favor of conceptualizing philosophy from a more globally informed point of view.

Thinkers in the Zhànguó period of Chinese history debated intensely whether men were by nature “good” or “bad”. This debate has for many years been an important focus of sinological interest, but usually these properties were not attributed to men, but rather to so-called “human nature” (xìng 性) – thus, in effect, mirroring well-known (and problematic) “European” positions and discussions. The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to redirect attention to the original Zhànguó positions and to explore (...) the reasons for their variance by offering novel and close historical readings of relevant passages, and on the other, to propose a viable historical reconstruction of the common anthropological assumptions underlying these positions by blending it with the traces of a dominant cognitive image present in the texts. This calls for a systematic rethinking of the role of hearts (in the plural), desires, and behavioural patterns in their interplay and as elements of a concept of the psychological build of human beings current in early China. (shrink)

The study of early Chinese manuscripts is still a young and developing science. Much of the exuberance is fueled by the fact that great quantities of manuscripts, especially those on bamboo and silk from the early period, have been discovered since the 1970s, and recent finds and developments seem to confirm that this cornucopia will hardly be exhausted in the near future. There is no doubt that these literary and documentary sources are in fundamental ways contributing to our knowledge of (...) various periods in Chinese history, but now that the first excitement over these obvious gains has abated, the sobering discussions of methodological problems must also be conducted in order to secure the foundations for the interpretation of the sources. (shrink)

_Concepts of Philosophy_ challenges received conceptions of philosophy by way of critical engagement with Chinese and Japanese sources. Built on philologically sound readings of specific texts, the book lifts the discussion on the concept of philosophy to a global plane.