This activity supports a discussion of the different views of the early Confucians and Zhuangzi on the ethics of funeral practices by priming students’ interest and engagement using a group discussion activity.
The activity helps motivate the Confucian focus on the relationship between ritual activity (li) and ethics.
This activity helps students question widespread beliefs (in western cultures) about individuality and independence. It helps illustrate the Confucian emphasis on community and the importance of our relations to others.
On a first reading – and a second and third – Analects does not always seem to Western readers like a philosophical work. In place of crisp definitions, arguments, and replies to criticisms, one finds anecdotes, snippets of conversations, and descriptions of what might seem trivialities – like how Confucius liked to straighten his mat! Many therefore find Analects dull, puzzling, strange, cryptic, frustrating or – worse – as a pseudo-philosophical text empty of any genuine moral insight. Such attitudes are encouraged by a history of racist and distorting stereotypes of aged sages spouting cryptic lines of ‘Oriental wisdom’.
Can a morally great / virtuous person choose the right thing to do in every situation all by herself, or does she need to follow moral rules as guides?
The early Chinese philosophers argued heatedly about how to care for the dead. In this unit, three of the most distinctive views of the period are presented. These can be treated together but also easily break apart for smaller lessons or units with other materials.
This is a two-week unit. Day one is on the history of lynching in the United States, featuring lynching photography and Ida B. Wells. Day two is Mengzi on human nature (with Rousseau as secondary reading). Day three is Xunzi on human nature (with Hobbes as secondary reading). Days four and five are the Milgram video and John Doris on situationism.
The Deviant Philosopher provides individual primers for particular schools of early Chinese philosophy. However, there are basic questions someone new to teaching any of these materials may have. The purpose of this more global primer is address some of these general questions and additionally provide sufficient background information and tips useful to philosophers new to early Chinese philosophy. Our goal in what follows, then, is simply to give philosophers some basic information that can help one feel more confident in wading into unfamiliar waters.
Early Confucianism is typically identified with the Confucian philosophers active during the period leading up to and during the Warring States era in China (6th – 3rd century BCE). The most familiar and discussed figures in this period are Confucius himself, Mengzi, and Xunzi. The period in which these philosophers lived was extraordinarily violent, chaotic, and troubling. Philosophical inquiry thus betrays an atmosphere of crisis, reflecting concerns about what had gone wrong, both politically and morally, and how it might be repaired.