Coutinho respects the multiplicity of Daoist philosophies while also revealing a distinctive philosophical sensibility, and he provides clear explanations of these complex texts without resorting to oversimplification.

Drawing on several issues and methods in Western philosophy, from analytical philosophy to semiotics and hermeneutics, the author throws new light on the ancient Zhuangzi text. Engaging Daoism and contemporary Western philosophical logic, and drawing on new developments in our understanding of early Chinese culture, Coutinho challenges the interpretation of Zhuangzi as either a skeptic or a relativist, and instead seeks to explore his philosophy as emphasizing the ineradicable vagueness of language, thought and reality. This new interpretation of the Zhuangzi (...) offers an important development in the understanding of Daoist philosophy, describing a world in flux in which things themselves are vague and inconsistent, and tries to show us a Way (a Dao) to negotiate through the shadows of a "chaotic" world. (shrink)

An anthology of new translations of essential readings from the classical texts of early Chinese philosophy. It includes the Analects of Confucius, Meng Zi (Mencius), Xun Zi, Mo Zi, Lao Zi (Dao De Jing), Zhuang Zi, and Han Fei Zi, as well as short chapters on the Da Xue and the Zhong Yong. Pedagogically organized, it offers philosophically sophisticated annotations and commentaries as well as an extensive glossary explaining key philosophical concepts in detail.

: The role of vagueness in the Laozi is explored by investigating its connection with "process." First, a hermeneutic methodology is developed and adopted, derived from Peirce's notion of "abduction." Second, this notion is analyzed, and several distinctive characteristics, or "traces," of vagueness are identified. Third, evidence of these traces in the text of the Laozi is collected, with comments on their significance in the Daoist context.

Kok-Chor Tan argues that cosmopolitan liberalism can serve as a means to implement the ideal of moral universalism, if one sufficiently distinguishes non-toleration from intervention and moral universalism from dogmatism. In a further move, Tan claims that such an understanding of cosmopolitan liberalism can work to mutually regulate the behavior of states in the global arena. Tan’s co-panelists engage different aspects of his vision. Steve Coutinho underscores that changes within cultures do not typically result from a dialogue across cultures but (...) from within individual cultures. Instead of propping up universal morality on the ideal of cosmopolitan liberalism, we should, Coutinho proposes, work toward finding values that have been implemented to create practical circumstances that resemble those found in liberal cultures. Putting the spotlight on the historical context of liberal cosmopolitanism, Zachary Penman argues that to engage in a global dialogue, the onus is on cosmopolitan liberals to shift the geography of reasoning from imperiality to decoloniality. Equally, their decolonial partners in this dialogue should throw into light the normative content of their decolonial practical reason to facilitate the shift. Saranindranath Tagore encourages Tan to think about a more expanded account of autonomy that is set on a more explicit cosmopolitan register. To this end, he suggests that a cosmopolitan sensibility be fostered through education. Sympathetic to Tan’s larger project of a liberal cosmopolitanism that subscribes to epistemic modesty, Inés Valdez brings into focus structures of epistemic dogmatism that currently allow for political and economic control and exploitation of other peoples and their resources. Tan’s response considers how his own defense of liberal cosmopolitanism as well as his interlocutors’ responses relate to the broader project of decolonizing philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Companion to Angus C. Graham's Chuang Tzu: The Inner ChaptersSteve CoutinhoA Companion to Angus C. Graham's Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. By Harold D. Roth. Monographs of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, 20. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Pp. 243. Paper $18.00.Scholars of Chuang Tzu—and "children of Angus"—will enthusiastically welcome Harold Roth's A Companion to Angus C Graham's Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters, a (...) collection of A. C. Graham's scholarly studies of the Chuang Tzu. Thanks to Roth's concerted efforts, Graham's scholarship on the Chuang Tzu has now been made readily available in a single volume. A. C. Graham was one of the most distinguished Western scholars of classical Chinese philosophy and one of the leading interpreters of the philosophy of Chuang Tzu. His pioneering research—textual, linguistic, and philosophical—on the Chuang Tzu and on its philosophical predecessor, the Later Mohist Canon, have laid the scholarly groundwork for further explorations of this philosophical and literary masterpiece.This collection includes: Graham's "Textual Notes to Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters," first published as a scholarly monograph in 1982 as a supplement to the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, under the title "Chuang-tzu: Textual Notes to a Partial Translation"; "How Much of Chuang Tzu Did Chuang Tzu Write?" which first appeared in 1976 in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion; [End Page 126] "Chuang Tzu's Essay on Seeing Things As Equal," written in 1968 for the Bellagio Conference on Taoist Studies and first published in a volume of History of Religions; "Two Notes on the Translation of Taoist Classics," which first appeared in 1991 in Interpreting Culture Through Translation: A Festschrift for D. C. Lau; and "Taoist Spontaneity and the Dichotomy of 'Is' and 'Ought,'" first published in 1983 in Victor Mair's Experimental Essays on the Chuang Tzu. The Companion ends with a Colophon by Harold Roth, "An Appraisal of Angus Graham's Textual scholarship on the Chuang Tzu."Chapter 1 reproduces Graham's textual notes on his translation of the Chuang tzu. Graham had written his "Textual Notes to Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters" while working on his translation of the Inner Chapters, and he had hoped to include them in the final version of Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. Since this was not possible, Graham had them published instead by SOAS as a supplement to their Bulletin. Roth begins the Companion with a painstakingly reproduced computer-input version of Graham's original typewritten manuscript, which he also reorganized so that it corresponds to the (somewhat idiosyncratic) order and structure of Graham's translation. For ease of cross-reference, page numbers are provided to both Graham's translation and the Harvard Concordance (Chuang-tzu yin-te), the source text with which Graham worked.Chapter 2 is Graham's study, "How Much of Chuang Tzu Did Chuang Tzu Write?" This was written in large part as a response to Fu Ssu-nien's extraordinary and controversial claim that chapter 2, "Qi Wu Lun," is not the work of Chuang Tzu but of Shen Tao. In this paper Graham also attempts to identify how much of what he calls the "ragbag" chapters could have come from the same author as the Inner Chapters. The technique he uses is a straightforward tabulation of occurrences of characteristic usages and expressions in the various chapters, followed by a set of detailed comments. He compares carefully chosen idioms, grammatical particles and patterns, philosophical terms, and references to persons and themes. Comparisons are made specifically between the Inner Chapters, the "ragbag" chapters together with chapter 32, and the rest of the book.This is followed by a detailed justification of his "reconstruction" of what he believes to be the original introductory paragraph to chapter 3, "Yang Sheng Zhu." The next two sections put forward reasons for dividing the "Anarchist" chapters (8 to 11a, and 28 to 31) into two sections, the former group (8 to 11a) attributed to a person he calls the "Primitivist," the latter (28 to 31), following the argumentation of Kuan Feng, attributed to the... (shrink)