Xunzi

Xunzi

Author: Xunzi

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-03-22

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0691169314

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi presents a more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius, articulating a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton’s translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever before. This edition features an introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index.


Xunzi

Xunzi

Author:

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2003-05-21

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0231521316

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Xunzi asserted that the original nature of man is evil, differing on this point from Mencius, his famous predecessor in the Confucian school. In the most complete, well-ordered philosophical system of his day, Xunzi advocated the counteraction of man's evil through self-improvement, the pursuit of learning, the avoidance of obsession, and observance of ritual in life. Readers familiar with Xunzi's work will find that Burton Watson's lucid translation breathes new life into this classic. Those new to Xunzi will find his ideas on government, language, and order and safety in society surprisingly close to concerns of our own age.


Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi

Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi

Author: Eric L. Hutton

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-09

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 9401777454

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents a comprehensive analysis of the Confucian thinker Xunzi and his work, which shares the same name. It features a variety of disciplinary perspectives and offers divergent interpretations. The disagreements reveal that, as with any other classic, the Xunzi provides fertile ground for readers. It is a source from which they have drawn—and will continue to draw—different lessons. In more than 15 essays, the contributors examine Xunzi’s views on topics such as human nature, ritual, music, ethics, and politics. They also look at his relations with other thinkers in early China and consider his influence in East Asian intellectual history. A number of important Chinese scholars in the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) sought to censor the Xunzi. They thought that it offered a heretical and impure version of Confuciansim. As a result, they directed study away from the Xunzi. This has diminished the popularity of the work. However, the essays presented here help to change this situation. They open the text’s riches to Western students and scholars. The book also highlights the substantial impact the Xunzi has had on thinkers throughout history, even on those who were critical of it. Overall, readers will gain new insights and a deeper understanding of this important, but often neglected, thinker.


Xunzi

Xunzi

Author: Xunzi

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780804714518

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Coming at the end of the great flowering of philosophical inquiry in Warring States China, when the foundations for traditional Chinese thought were laid, Xunzi occupies a place analogous to that of Aristotle in the West. The collection of works bearing his name contains not only the most systematic philosophical exposition by any early Confucian thinker, but also account of virtually every aspect of the intellectual, cultural, and social life of his time. Xunzi was a social critic and intellectual historian as well as a philosopher. He was also extremely active in the political and academic circles of his day, and his teaching had a great influence on the initial institutional organization of a unified China under the first Qin emperor, an influence that continued (though often unacknowledged) through later centuries. This is the first of three volumes that will constitute the first complete translation of Xunzi into English. The present volume consists of a general introduction and Books 1-6, dealing with self-cultivation, learning, and education. The translation is accompanied by substantial explanatory material identifying technical terms, persons, and events; detailed introductions to each book; and extensive annotation, with characters when desirable, indicating the basis of the translations. The general introduction recounts the biography of Xunzi, his later influence, the intellectual world in which he lived, and the basic terms that the ancient Chinese used to conceptualize nature and society.


Overcoming Our Evil

Overcoming Our Evil

Author: Aaron Stalnaker

Publisher:

Published: 2009-02-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781589015036

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Annotation. Overcoming Our Evil focuses on the way ethical and religious commitments are conceived and nurtured through the methodical practices that Pierre Hadot has called "spiritual exercises." These practices engage thought, imagination, and sensibility, and have a significant ethical component, yet aim for a broader transformation of the whole personality. Going beyond recent philosophical and historical work that has focused on ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, Stalnaker broadens ethical inquiry into spiritual exercises by examining East Asian as well as classical Christian sources, and taking religious and seemingly "aesthetic" practices such as prayer, ritual, and music more seriously as objects of study. Overcoming Our Evil examines and compares the thought and practice of the early Christian Augustine of Hippo, and the early Confucian Xunzi. Both have sophisticated and insightful accounts of spiritual exercises, and both make such ethical work central to their religious thought and practice. Stalnaker disentangles the competing aspects of Augustine and Xunxi's ideas of "human nature." His groundbreaking comparison of their ethical vocabularies also drives a substantive analysis of fundamental issues in moral psychology, especially regarding emotion and the complex idea of "the will," to examine how our dispositions to feel, think, and act might be slowly transformed over time. Throwing light on these seemingly disparate ancient figures in unexpected ways, Stalnaker redirects recent debate regarding practices of personal formation, and more clearly exposes the intellectual and political issues involved in the retrieval of "classic" ethical sources in diverse contemporary societies, illuminating a path toward a contemporary understanding of difference.


Confucian Moral Self Cultivation

Confucian Moral Self Cultivation

Author: P. J. Ivanhoe

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9780872205086

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A concise and accessible introduction to the evolution of the concept of moral self-cultivation in the Chinese Confucian tradition, this volume begins with an explanation of the pre-philosophical development of ideas central to this concept, followed by an examination of the specific treatment of self cultivation in the philosophy of Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi (Mencius), Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Yan Yuan and Dai Zhen. In addition to providing a survey of the views of some of the most influential Confucian thinkers on an issue of fundamental importance to the tradition, Ivanhoe also relates their concern with moral self-cultivation to a number of topics in the Western ethical tradition. Bibliography and index are included.


Human Nature, Ritual, and History

Human Nature, Ritual, and History

Author: Antonio S. Cua

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2005-03

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 0813213851

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this volume, distinguished philosopher Antonio S. Cua offers a collection of original studies on Xunzi, a leading classical Confucian thinker, and on other aspects of Chinese philosophy.


The Works of Mencius

The Works of Mencius

Author: James Legge

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2011-11-02

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 0486263754

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Full Chinese text, English translation on same page; editor's, Chinese commentators' annotations; dictionary of Chinese characters at rear. The Second Master in the Confucian tradition, in finest edition.