For anyone looking to understand Chinese philosophy, here is the place to start. Introducing this vast and far-reaching tradition, Ronnie L. Littlejohn tells you everything you need to know about the Chinese thinkers who have made the biggest contributions to the conversation of philosophy, from the Han dynasty to the present. He covers: * The six classical schools of Chinese philosophy (Yin-Yang, Ru, Mo, Ming, Fa, and Dao-De) * The arrival of Buddhism in China and its distinctive development * The central figures and movements from the end of the Tang dynasty to the introduction into China of Western thought * The impact of Chinese philosophers ranging from Confucius and Laozi to Tu Weiming and some of the Western counterparts who addressed similar issues. Weaving together key subjects, thinkers, and texts, we see how Chinese traditions have profoundly shaped the institutions, social practices, and psychological character of not only East and Southeast Asia, but the world we are living in. Praised for its completely original and illuminating thematic approach, this new edition includes updated reading lists, a comparative chronology of Western and Chinese philosophers, and additional translated extracts.

Within a century of the Arab Muslim conquest of vast territories in the Middle East and North Africa, Islam became the inheritor of the intellectual legacy of classical antiquity. In an epochal cultural transformation between the eighth and tenth centuries CE, most of what survived in classical Greek literature and thought was translated from Greek into Arabic. This translation movement, sponsored by the ruling Abbasid dynasty, swiftly blossomed into the creative expansion and reimagining of classical ideas that were now integral parts of the Islamic tradition. Romance and Reason, a lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, explores the breadth and depth of Islamic engagement with ancient Greek thought. Drawing on manuscripts and artifacts from the collections of the National Library of Israel and prominent American institutions, the catalogue's essays focus on the portrayal of Alexander the Great as ideal ruler, mystic, lover, and philosopher in Persian poetry and art, and how Islamic medicine, philosophy, and science contended with and developed the classical tradition. Contributors include Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Leigh Chipman, Steven Harvey, Y. Tzvi Langermann, Rachel Milstein, Julia Rubanovich, Samuel Thrope, and Raquel Ukeles. Exhibition Dates: February 14-May 13, 2018

Contemporary scholars of Chinese philosophy often presuppose that early China possessed a naturalistic worldview, devoid of any non-natural concepts, such as transcendence. Challenging this presupposition head-on, Joshua R. Brown and Alexus McLeod argue that non-naturalism and transcendence have a robust and significant place in early Chinese thought. This book reveals that non-naturalist positions can be found in early Chinese texts, in topics including conceptions of the divine, cosmogony, and apophatic philosophy. Moreover, by closely examining a range of early Chinese texts, and providing comparative readings of a number of Western texts and thinkers, the book offers a way of reading early Chinese Philosophy as consistent with the religious philosophy of the East and West, including the Abrahamic and the Brahmanistic religions. Co-written by a philosopher and theologian, this book draws out unique insights into early Chinese thought, highlighting in particular new ways to consider a range of Chinese concepts, including tian, dao, li, and you/wu.

A groundbreaking and superlatively accurate new translation of Laozi’s The Dao De Jing, from the bestselling translator of The Art of War, promising to be the first English edition based on direct translation from the oldest known copies of the ancient Chinese text. One of the most significant and popular books in the history of human thought, and China’s earliest philosophical classic, The Dao De Jing has served for millennia as a brilliant guide to living healthily and happily, to treating the Earth with respect, and to understanding our place in the cosmos. The Dao is as vitally important to today’s world as it was during the Bronze Age, presenting us with clear and unexpectedly sane answers to some of the most pressing questions and challenges of our time. This beloved classic teaches us to become one with nature, with all people, and with the world; with the ultimate intention of illuminating the path to peace and promoting the conditions for harmony—within the self and in the greater world around us. Renowned translator J. H. Huang has spent over two decades researching the Dao, resulting in the most accurate translation to date based on the oldest known transcripts of the text. Huang’s translation is the first to incorporate four major archaeological findings, which have been preserved for millennia in ancient tombs, most of which were only discovered in the late twentieth century: the Guodian Chu slips, the Mawangdui silk texts, the Fu Yi version, and the Peking University bamboo slips. Huang argues that these key source materials “contextualize The Dao De Jing much in the same way the Dead Sea Scrolls illuminate the New Testament.� The result is a groundbreaking translation that offers readers the first opportunity in over two millennia to thoroughly comprehend all of the teachings contained in these eighty-one chapters. 

This is the first study to compare the philosophical systems of secular scientific philosopher Mario Bunge (1919-2020), and Moroccan Islamic philosopher Taha Abd al-Rahman (b.1945). In their efforts to establish the philosophical underpinnings of an ideal modernity these two great thinkers speak to the same elements of the human condition, despite their opposing secular and religious worldviews. While the differences between Bunge's critical-realist epistemology and materialist ontology on the one hand, and Taha's spiritualist ontology and revelational-mystical epistemology on the other, are fundamental, there is remarkable common ground between their scientific and Islamic versions of humanism. Both call for an ethics of prosperity combined with social justice, and both criticize postmodernism and religious conservatism. The aspiration of this book is to serve as a model for future dialogue between holders of Western and Islamic worldviews, in mutual pursuit of modernity's best-case scenario.

This book interprets the Tao Te Ching from the perspective of personal cultivation. The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu is regarded as one of the greatest books of wisdom ever written in history, but few can grasp what it says in entirety. Embedded in each of its 5,000 Chinese characters are highly profound messages. Master Sim Pooh Ho is a Tai Chi Master and the leader of a Tai Chi lineage that traces back centuries. In his book Decoding the Tao Te Ching, he combines the ancestral teachings of Tai Chi with his practice and provides readers with unique insights into Lao Tzu's ancient book.The Tao Te Ching is difficult to comprehend because many of the concepts it introduces are elusive. What is Tao and Te, being and non-being or yin and yang? The concepts, however, are discernible in Tai Chi because they are what make the practice work. Decoding the Tao Te Ching is written in a simple manner by a Tai Chi master, and translated in an accessible way by his senior disciple Tekson TEO, thus making it an enlightening read to all English readers interested in this topic.