You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Genuine Pretending is an innovative and comprehensive new reading of the Zhuangzi that highlights the critical and therapeutic functions of satire and humor. Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio show how this Daoist classic, contrary to contemporary philosophical readings, distances itself from the pursuit of authenticity and subverts the dominant Confucianism of its time through satirical allegories and ironical reflections. With humor and parody, the Zhuangzi exposes the Confucian demand to commit to socially constructed norms as pretense and hypocrisy. The Confucian pursuit of sincerity establishes exemplary models that one is supposed to emulate. In contrast, the Zhuangzi parodies...
Hans-Georg Moeller argues that we can defuse our anxieties by recognizing that gender--like all identities--is social, not individual, and changes at different times and in different places.
This translation presents Daoism’s basic text in highly readable contemporary English. Incorporating the latest scholarship in the field (including the most recent discoveries of ancient manuscripts in the 1970s and '90s), the book explains Daodejing's often cryptic verses in a clear and concise way. The introduction interprets the Daodejing's poetic imagery in the context of ancient Chinese symbolism, and a brief philosophical analysis accompanies each of the 81 translated chapters of the Daodejing.
More and more, we present ourselves and encounter others through profiles. A profile shows us not as we are seen directly but how we are perceived by a broader public. As we observe how others observe us, we calibrate our self-presentation accordingly. Profile-based identity is evident everywhere from pop culture to politics, marketing to morality. But all too often critics simply denounce this alleged superficiality in defense of some supposedly pure ideal of authentic or sincere expression. This book argues that the profile marks an epochal shift in our concept of identity and demonstrates why that matters. You and Your Profile blends social theory, philosophy, and cultural critique to unf...
Justice, equality, and righteousness--these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of Western moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentali...
Hans-Georg Moeller has achieved the perfect blend with At the Center of the Circle: it is both a fascinating introduction to Daoist thought as well as an original and insightful contribution to Eastern philosophy. This book will take the place of The Tao of Pooh by Hoff. Like that book, At the Center of the Circle offers a comprehensive presentation of Daoist philosophy that is interesting and easy to follow. Two ways the present book differs from the earlier classic are (1) this one has a more rigorous philosophical grounding so teachers will not hesitate to use it in classes and (2) it takes into account the research and discoveries in the decades following the release of the Pooh book. It...
Jay Goulding's Daoist Phenomenology represents a lifelong project of interpolating the works of Martin Heidegger with the interweavings of Daoism and Zen. Illustrating styles of reading complex texts from Europe and East Asia, Goulding moves away from horizontal reading of simple comparisons on a single plain to vertical reading as a deep dive of ideas into ancient worlds. Vertical Reading is hermeneutic strategy that captures the depth of connection between phenomenology and Daoism, especially Heidegger and classical Daoists Laozi and Zhuangzi. His method reveals Daoist implications of Dogen's Zen and draws on writing and ideas from popular culture including Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, George Lucas' Star Wars universe and martial artist Bruce Lee. Original and wide-ranging, Goulding's interconnected approach to phenomenology and Daoism enhances and promotes further intercultural dialogues between two great traditions in world philosophies.
An Ironic Approach to the Absolute: Schlegel’s Poetic Mysticism brings Friedrich Schlegel’s ironic fragments in dialogue with the Dao De Jing and John Ashbery’s Flow Chart to argue that poetic texts offer an intuition of the whole because they resist the reader’s desire to comprehend them fully. Karolin Mirzakhan argues that although Schlegel’s ironic fragments proclaim their incompleteness in both their form and their content, they are the primary means for facilitating an intuition of the Absolute. Focusing on the techniques by which texts remain open, empty, or ungraspable, Mirzakhan’s analysis uncovers the methods that authors use to cultivate the agility of mind necessary fo...
Times of prolonged conflict spur great minds to seek a lasting peace. Thus was the case of Warring States China, which saw the rise of the Hundred Schools of Thought, including the Doadejing and the Han Feizi, and Renaissance Italy, which produced Niccolò Machiavelli. Witnessing their respective societies fall prey to internal corruption and external aggression, all three thinkers sought ways to produce a strong, stable state that would allow both the leader and the populace to endure. Fortune and the Dao: A Comparative Study of Machiavelli, the Daodejing, and the Han Feizi demonstrates where the shortcomings of each theory lie, with emphasis on the similarities among Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi. Jason P. Blahuta ultimately argues that if Machiavelli’s philosophy, the most comprehensive of the three theories, were supplemented by aspects of the Daodejing, the revision would potentially overcome the deficiencies of the original.
The liberating work of God calls the oppressed out of oppression and the oppressor out of oppressing. The challenge in seeking a thorough liberation of oppressors is to help them understand their need for freedom and how to seek this freedom in their own contexts. Patrick Oden provides a holistic biblical, historical, and theological analysis that diagnoses the underlying motivations and inclinations that lead to oppression. Part one addresses the context of oppression, in which most participants in oppression do not actively seek to harm others but are caught up in systems that tend toward the diminishment of others. Part two examines the biblical and early Christian response to oppression,...