David L. Hall

Lao zi

A groundbreaking new translation of the most important text in Chinese spirituality, derived from the recently discovered Guodian Bamboo Texts, introduces a regimen of self-cultivation to attain personal excellence and moral behavior and is accompanied by authoritative commentary on the the influential document. Reprint.

A Philosophical Translation

Dao De Jing

Roger T. Ames

A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong

Focusing the Familiar

"The conception of culture and philosophy's role within it developed in this work permits interesting formulations of a number of important issues and concepts: the relations between the utopian and utilitarian functions of philosophic theory; the character of the aesthetic and mystical sensibilities; the meaning and function of metaphor and of irony; the value of theoretical consensus; the nature of philosophic communication; and the distinctive relation of Plato and Socrates as a model for philosophic activity." — David L. Hall With Eros and Irony, David Hall re-evaluates the cultural role of philosophy, probing to the very heart of questions in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of culture. Two central arguments structure the book: the first is that in modern culture the autonomy of the aesthetic and religious sensibilities has been seriously qualified by an overemphasis on narrowly rational moral interests. The second is that philosophic activity must be construed in terms of two conflicting elements: the desire for completeness of understanding, and the failure to achieve such understanding. Hall provides a historical survey of philosophic thought, encompassing Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Whitehead. He also avails himself of sources outside of philosophy, in such diverse fields as poetry, psychology, physics, and Eastern religion, to create a work that not only addresses key issues in philosophy, but also has deep implications for science, art, religion, morality, and cultural self-understanding.

A Prelude to Philosophical Anarchism

Eros and Irony

老子

A new translation of the most important text in Chinese spirituality introduces a regimen of self-cultivation to attain personal excellence and moral behavior and is accompanied by commentary on the document.

"making this Life Significant" : a Philosophical Translation

Daodejing

Examines the issues of self (including gender), truth, and transcendence in classical Chinese and Western philosophy.

Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture

Thinking from the Han

Confucius

Thinking Through Confucius critically interprets the conceptual structure underlying Confucius' philosophical reflections. It also investigates "thinking," or "philosophy" from the perspective of Confucius. That authors suggest that an examination of Chinese philosophy may provide an alternative definition of philosophy that can be used to address some of the pressing issues of the Western cultural tradition.

Thinking Through Confucius

The Zhongyong--translated here as Focusing the Familiar--has been regarded as a document of enormous wisdom for more than two millennia and is one of Confucianism's most sacred and seminal texts. It achieved truly canonical preeminence when it became one of the Four Books compiled and annotated by the Southern Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200). Within the compass of world literature, the influence of these books (Analects of Confucius, Great Learning, Zhongyong, and Mencius) on the Sinitic world of East Asia has been no less than the Bible and the Qu'ran on Western civilization. With this new translation David Hall and Roger Ames provide a distinctly philosophical interpretation of the Zhongyong, remaining attentive to the semantic and conceptual nuances of the text to account for its central place within classical Chinese literature. They present the text in such a way as to provide Western philosophers and other intellectuals access to a set of interpretations and arguments that offer new insights into issues and concerns common to both Chinese and Western thinkers. In addition to the annotated translation, a glossary of terms gives in concise form important senses of the terms that play a key role in the argument of the Zhongyong. An appendix addresses some of the more technical issues relevant to the understanding of both the history of the text and the history of its English translations. Here the translators introduce readers to the best contemporary textual studies of the Zhongyong and make use of the most recent archaeological discoveries in China to place the work within its own intellectual context.

This book is a discussion of the nature and import of Richard Rorty's philosophy, particularly as it relates to his reevaluation of American pragmatism. Rorty's thinking is assessed within the context of both modern and postmodern intellectual trends, and his thought is contrasted with that of his principal contemporaries in America and Europe, including Donald Davidson, W. V. O. Quine, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.

David L. Hall

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