Unit information: Classical Chinese Philosophy in 2018/19

Unit name	Classical Chinese Philosophy
Unit code	PHIL30128
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Tho
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	N/A
Co-requisites	N/A
School/department	Department of Philosophy
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit is designed to introduce Classical Chinese philosophy in the age of the “Hundred Schools of Thought” (诸子百家) that flourished from the 6^th to the 3^rd century BCE. Against the caricature of “timeless wisdom” usually attributed to so-called “Eastern thought”, the unit will introduce this period of Chinese philosophy as having developed as systematic, pragmatic, and theoretical responses to concrete intellectual, social and political problems in a particular historical period. The unit will present material both historically and thematically. Among the schools, we shall examine the four main ones (Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism) by examination and contextualizing their central texts.

We will examine four crucial questions for these thinkers:

1. What is the relation between physical nature and human nature?
2. What is the relation between society and the person?
3. What are the sources of moral and social development?
4. What is the relation between language and knowledge?

The course is a survey and aims to immerse students in the intellectual world of the “Hundred Schools” that served as an important paradigm of Chinese intellectual development until the current day. It will allow students to be introduced to the mutually incompatible claims among the schools and master the basic aims, motivations and context of Classical Chinese intellectual culture and its stakes.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate sophisticated knowledge of classical Chinese philosophy and its role in the intellectual roots of Chinese society

2. Demonstrate skills in critical and logical reasoning, the construction and evaluation of arguments, and in written communication, with a sophistication appropriate to level H/6.

3. Demonstrate the ability to interpret historical philosophical texts with a sophistication appropriate to level H/6 including the use of contextual and comparative methodologies.

Teaching Information

2 x 1-hour lecture + 1 x 1-hour seminar per week

Assessment Information

30% In-class group presentation designed to test ILOs 1-3

70% 4000 word essay designed to test ILOs 1-3

Reading and References

1. The I Ching, or, Book of Changes, Trans. RJ Lynn, Columbia University Press, 2004.

2. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Ed. P.J. Ivanhoe and B. Van Norden, Seven Bridges Press, 2001.

3. Selections from: Bryan W. Van Norden, Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy, Hackett Publishing, 2011.

4. Hellmut and Richard Wilhelm, Understanding the I Ching: The Wilhelm Lectures on the Book of Changes, trans. by Cary F. Baynes and Irene Eber, Princeton University Press, 1995.