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The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (also known as Chuang Tzu), along with Confucius, Lao Tzu, and the Buddha, ranks among the most influential thinkers in the development of East Asian thought. His literary style is humorous and entertaining, yet the philosophical content is extraordinarily subtle and profound.

This book introduces key topics in early Daoist philosophy. Drawing on several issues and methods in Western philosophy, from analytical philosophy to semiotics and hermeneutics, the author throws new light on the ancient Zhuangzi text. Engaging Daoism and contemporary Western philosophical logic, and drawing on new developments in our understanding of early Chinese culture, Coutinho challenges the interpretation of Zhuangzi as either a skeptic or a relativist, and instead seeks to explore his philosophy as emphasizing the ineradicable "vagueness" of language, thought and reality.

This new interpretation of the Zhuangzi offers an important development in the understanding of Daoist philosophy, describing a world in flux in which things themselves are vague and inconsistent, and tries to show us a Way (a Dao) to negotiate through the shadows of a "chaotic" world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very nice
IN MEMORY OF MARIO PONTILLO

I have a reprint 1979.
Excellent illustrations throughout the book.

Please don't hesitate to check out my book that I published while in the U.S. Navy in 2003:
"Under the Rose: Poetry of Tragedy, Essence, and Romance"

A good book about Taoism and Chinese ART!!
The title of this book is misleading; it is not a philosophy book but rather primarily an art book.However, it is a nice book for someone interested in how Taoist thought influenced Chinese art.There is a short,thirty page, introduction which is actually quite good and informative. It's brief account of Taoist inner alchemy (yoga) was well-done.There aremany nice color pictures of Chinese art with commentary to show and explainhow Taoist thought was expressed and took form in Chinese art.I wouldhighly recommend this book for someone who is familiar with Taoist thoughtand wishes to explore it from another angle. ... Read more

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A wide-ranging consideration of Confucianism for Western readers. ... Read more

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This volume is the follow-up to Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming, which presented the first two Epochs of Confucian philosophy. The third Epoch, presented in this book, is that of Contemporary Neo-Confucian philosophy. It notes a paradigm shift from the late Ming to the early Ch'ing, which shows us how the line of Sung-Ming Neo-Confucian philosophy was broken. Then, background information is given to answer the question of how the phoenix was reborn from the ashes; at the height of the iconoclast May Fourth Movement in 1919, Liang Sou-ming, the forerunner of the movement, developed his ideas about East-West cultures and their philosophies. ... Read more

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This book maintains that early Chinese philosophers, whatever their philosophical school, assumed common principles informed the natural and human worlds and that one could understand the nature of man by studying the principles which govern nature. Accordingly, the natural world rather than a religious tradition provided the root metaphors of early Chinese thought. Sarah Allan examines the concrete imagery, most importantly water and plant life, which served as a model for the most fundamental concepts in Chinese philosophy including such ideas as dao, the "way," de, "virtue" or "potency," xin, the "mind/heart," xing "nature," and qi, "vital energy." Water, with its extraordinarily rich capacity for generating imagery, provided the primary model for conceptualizing general cosmic principles while plants provided a model for the continuous sequence of generation, growth, reproduction, and death and was the basis for the Chinese understanding of the nature of man in both religion and philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent book concerning Early Chinese philosophy...
This is a great book for people who are seriously interested in ancient Chinese philosophy. The book mainly deals with Confucius, Laozi, Mencius, Zhuangzi, and a little bit of Xunzi. Its basic arguement is that all philosophical thought around that period can be connected through the metaphors which they use to explain their ideas. Mainly, this counts for the metaphor "water," which is frequently used by virtually all ancient Chinese philosophers as a way of explaining their point. The author shows that in ancient China the properties of water were considered equal to the properties of human nature. Another popular metaphor among ancient Chinese philosophers is that of the plant and in particular its sprouts, which is once more connected to human nature. In her conclusion the author shows that through their metaphors a lot of the points made by the various philosophers are quite similar. This helps you understand why later on Chinese philosophy grew together and become a more collective principle.

Unearthing the root metaphors
Sarah Allan's The Way of Water and the Sprouts of Virtue is an absorbing book that yields productive insight into the thematic watersheds of Chinese philosophical discourse. Enjoyable for the general reader, it is also asubstantial work of scholarship that holds appeal for specialists insinology and Chinese philosophy. Drawing on the theoretical work oflinguist/philosophers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By;Philosophy in the Flesh, etc.), Allan endeavors to unearth what she callsthe "root metaphors" of early Chinese thought. She argues persuasively thatthe unique conceptual metaphors of Chinese thinking are to be found in theconcrete natural imagery of water and plant life. Allan's project is basedupon solid and meticulous scholarship into important early texts from theConfucian and Daoist traditions, as well as more obscure and difficultsources such as inscriptions on bronze and jade. The book includes Allan'sown lucid and well-informed translations of key passages from such texts asthe Analects, the Mengzi, the Zhuangzi, and the Daodejing. The Way of Waterand Sprouts of Virtue is a wonderful contribution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting, educational, but of limited utility
What I liked best about this book is that it indirectly explained why Tu Wei-ming wrote a book on the "Doctrine of the Mean" instead of "The Great Learning."According to Berthrong, Mou Tsung-san, Tu's teacher, down-played "The Great Learning."This was apparently because Mou had a philosophical disagreement with Chu Hsi.This makes me want to better understand Chu Hsi's connection to "The Great Learning."I know Chu Hsi picked "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the Mean" as 2 of the 4 books, but what did Chu Hsi say about the Great Learning that bothered Mou Tsung-san so much?This was the best part of the book for me.

On the negative side, there is nothing practical in the book. It is largely a theological book.If you are interested in a practiacal view of Confucianism, I recommend a book by Robert Canright: "Achieve Lasting Happiness, Timeless Secrets to Transform Your Life."This is the only book I know of that shows the average person how to benefit personally from the lessons of Confucius.

The appendix to Berthrong's book, "Trends in the Interpretation of Confucian Religiosity," is very good.He surveys 4 books by Wm. Theodore de Bary and 2 by Tu Wei-ming. His treatment is very thoughtful and informative.

Chapter one has a confusing element.Berthrong introduces four of what he calls "transforming encounters:" (1) feminism, (2) social justice, (3) ecology, and (4) religious pluralism.You think these are the "transforming paradigms" mentioned in the book's subtitle and you expect to see them explored as the book proceeds.No.The introduction to these 4 topics is the last you hear of them.

Berthrong mentions Charles Hartshorne's "dual transcendence" very frequently, but never defines or explains it.He must assume his readers are intimately familiar with Hartshorne.I had to resort to Google to investigate "dual transcendence."

Berthrong mentions Whitehead often and says that he believe in process theology, but I did not see a tight fit to Hartshorne's theories.

Overall, Berthrong is an intelligent and knowledgable writer and I would call this a stimulating dialog although it is not a great book.Even though books are in the realm of ideas and words, they have form and can be architected and designed. The architecture of this book is a hodge-podge of topics that interest Berthrong.This book needed more editing at the design level.

I did enjoy the book in spite of its flaws. ... Read more

Product Description
"Learning from Chinese Philosophies" engages Confucian and Daoist philosophies in creative interplay, developing a theory of interdependent selfhood in the two philosophical traditions. Karyn Lai draws on the unique insights of the two philosophies to address contemporary debates on ethics, community, and government. The issues discussed include questions on selfhood, attachment, moral development, government, culture, and tradition, and feminist queries regarding biases and dualism in ethics. Throughout the book, Lai demonstrates that Chinese philosophies embody novel and insightful ideas for addressing contemporary issues and problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful Illustrations and Explanations!
My copy of this book is well-loved, annotated, and flagged in many places. It is not a perfect book (see commentary in "Early China" on certain issues, such as Major's portrayal of the Xing-de text from Mawangdui) but overall it is far more information than has been available in English to a wide audience.
Contrary to the other reviewer's comments, I relished the footnotes for their explanations and areas of further study. If you are looking for one book to understand Daoism, especially the Daoist adepts at the court of Liu An, this is the book. It blows away the pop-Daoism you find in the typical feng-shui book, and sheds light on some of that practice as well.

How to read the unreadable
John S. Major takes the impenetrable Huainan Zi and penetrates it.The book is very academic and crawls with footnotes, but then I don't think there's any other way to deal with a 2,000 year old encyclopedia from aculture we know almost nothing about. If you're after cool, cosmic Dao,this ain't the book.But if you want to know how and what the inventors ofDaoism were really thinking, it definitely is. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Beware the careless errors in this book!
I was very happy to encounter this book, the first translation of one of the Chinese philosophical classics, considered a companion to the I Ching.

Just as the I Ching contains 64 unique Hexagrams, the T'ai Hsuan Ching contains 81 unique Tetragrams.

However, looking at the chart of Tetragrams in this translation, I saw that there are duplicates (for example, #5 and #31, and there are some others as well). I counted about 7 misprinted Tetragrams, taking into consideration the duplicates, and also taking note of the logic of how the Tetragrams progress and change in the chart as a whole.

Okay, so the chart at the beginning of the book was carelessly made and has numerous errors. But then the same errors are repeated throughout the entire book in printing the Tetragrams at the beginning of each chapter!

This makes it very difficult to study the work, when Tetragrams are mis-printed, and then the reader is depending on accuracy to study the commentary to the Tetragram.

For example, if Tetragram #5 and #31 are printed the same (as they are in this translation--also #13 and #17 are printed the same, and then there are the other errors), and you have two completely different commentaries for these identically written Tetragrams, what is a poor layman (non-specialist in Classical Chinese) to think?

Unless you take the trouble on your own to figure out the correct forms for these misprinted Tetragrams, it will completely throw you off. Just like if you had a book on the I Ching, and it printed Hexagrams #5 and #31--or #7 and #13--the same, as duplicates (yet with the different commentary each has). You can see the confusion.

I have never encountered an I Ching book which misprinted and duplicated Hexagrams. It is very disappointing that the scholar who translated the work, those who edited it, and a University Press publishing a series on "Chinese Philosophy and Culture", would allow such errors to go into print (however that may have happened).

I hope that is the extent of the errors, and I hope they will correct them in the next edition. It's very important that they care enough to do so.

A Valuable Text
I recently purchased a copy of this book [ "T'ai Hsuan Ching", by Master Yang Hsiung, published as "The Elemental Changes" , translated by Michael Nylan,SUNY Press (1994).]

This text has a powerful application, namely the reconstruction of the Enneagram nine-fold personality typology into a complete world. That is, not only personality or man, but man plus nature. This can be achieved by using the Mystery as a tool, which I will try to explain below. With it, all of the power of this I Ching-like text-- transforms and the the generation of new metaphors with new meanings -- is now possible. This was a potentially very wide application because of the large world-wide use of the enneagram for personality studies, transformations, and spiritual growth.It would be a revolutionary advance to Enneagram study. It would permit transforms, derivation of meaning, story sequences, musical applications. etc. Improved psychological evaluation (since it would include situations, context). It would also permit fortune-telling, similar to that of the I Ching, although I personally have no interest in that.

I have been applying the I Ching to the semiotics of music and drama, so that I work mostly with the I Ching. However, I have always been a little partial to the enneagram because the imagery and social code are western, as I am. The I Ching has more of a moral tone (essentially Confusian) than the enneagram as well. But the enneagram, however, because of its construction, is limited to a single plane of nine personalities, so that it is really just a personality typology.

The I Ching differs from this because it is a complete world-- that is, there are 8 types of personalities and 8 situations (nature, mood, the physical world) which these personalities can exist in. Moreover, the line structure of the I Ching permits transformations of personalities and situations by changing of line types from yin to yang.

This text provides a means of completing the enneagram project by introducing a line structure and 9 digrams of situations (nature, mood, etc.). It can do this because it has a base 3 line structure rather than the binary line structure of the I Ching (which therefore will not map directly to the enneagram) .

Let me try to explain how this can be done: ====================================== The Elemental Changes.

Your book contains I Ching-like sets of line graphs in base 3.

The Elemental Changes is made up of three types of lines:

- (a single long line, yang ) corresponding to Heaven - - (once broken line, yin) corresponding to Earth - - - (twice broken line, yin) corresponding to Man.

These are combined into digrams of which there are 9, the number of personality types in the enneagram. Apparently there is no evaluation of the digrams given in the Mystery. Obviously these could be interpreted as the 9 personality types in the enneagram, and with some imagination and help from the IC trigram interpretations, one could then create 9 "nature" or situation interpretations and then proceed as with the I Ching, ultimately feeding this back into the enneagram format. A simpler way to do this would be to use two personality type digrams, so that they are in interaction. These interactions have been well-characterized in enneagram theory.

You then have an 9x9 digram matrix similar to that of the I Ching (which uses trigrams). Using this, the digrams are stacked to form tetragrams, of which there are 81. These are constructed and read top to bottom, opposite to that in the IC. One could for example have the 9 personality types as the column numbers and 9 situations as the row numbers, giving 81 the tetragrams that would expand the enneagram to another dimension-- in other words, instead of just 9 personality types, you would have 81 mixtures of personality in a situation.

The 81 tetragrams have all been interpreted by Hsuing in the text. Each has 9 line appraisals and fathomings, apparently obtained with line changes as in the IC.

Interestly, the translator equates 64 of the tetragrams to the IC hexagrams.

It's essentially a done deal, one would only have to carry out the leg-work.

another gate widenning the basis for living cyclical symbols
this is another brick of cultural basis regarding the oracular mentality in action after the codification of the IJING during the Han dynesty. I've found the book 'workable' enough and more; Still, there are some mistakesregarding the graphic attributions to the text; moreover - as a historicaltextbook, asserting the flow of seasons and a specific arena of anciantchinese polity - the prospect of "modern" usage is quite limitedbut with a pointed analogy to the more formal Chinese atmosphere of aconfucian cleric in the first century A.D; thus, i would like to see thisbook as being the first in a row of unfoldment-vehicles of symbols unto ourera as "users".Keep On Translating this!! ... Read more

Product Description
Confucianism is one of the most influential philosophical traditions in the world, with profound and challenging insights on human nature, virtue, ethical cultivation, and the foundations of morality and civilization. In this collection of essays, most never before published, Nivison presents nuanced and subtle interpretations of key thinkers from over two thousand years in the Confucian movement. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

On Getting Oracular
It is always fascinating to see these old texts coming back to light. Nylan deserves much credit for his interesting work on the text. Even so, several misunderstandings seem to accompany the re-emergence of this text. One of the editorial reviews claims that Nylan's text translation (for the Suny series) was the first to appear in a European language. That is incorrect,Derek Walters version('The Alternative I Ching,' 1986) was already available, accompanied by similarly bold claims. Like Walters, Nylan claims special advantages for the 'tri-partite' division of the Tai Hsuan Ching. Walters had argued that the Tai Hsuan Ching accorded a more complete, active role to 'man' - as against the Yi-Ching's allegedly 'fixed' dualistic system.All of this shows a poor grasp of what the Yi Ching (and Tai Hsuan Ching) actually teach.The 'Tso chuan' section of the Yi-Ching stresses that 'Heaven, Earth and Man' are what comprise the Tao. Every trigram (and hexagram) in the Yi Ching reflects this threefold unity ('the 'three powers' or 'san-tsai') - and the Yi-Ching makes this clear on every count. Human 'agency' is therefore vital to the Yi-Ching. It was not a 'new' idea with the Tai Hsuan Ching. The antiquity of this intuition is evident in the formation of the Chinese script, the old Ku-wen forms, giving the character for 'king' or 'kingship' as a representation of the 'san-tsai' or 'three powers' - linked by a vertical stroke, anciently, the kingly-priest in whom the 'san-tsai' were united or focused. It is a basically a 'trigram' - crossed by a vertical line. Like Walters, Nylan makes some rather bold claims for the Tai Hsuan Ching. But trying to place it in 'competition' against the Yi-Ching - is naive. The Tai Hsuan Ching, along with another text called the 'Lien Shan' (Mountains Standing Together' - has been included in the 'Imperial Oracle' of China. Nevertheless, Chinese history and culture tells its own story. The sexagenary cycles and yin-yang system connected with the Yi-Ching have governed everything of relevance - the cosmic calendar, medicine/healing arts/Taoist yoga, feng-shui, the martial arts, military strategy (Sun-tzu's ideas were based on it) against which, the role and influence of the Tai Hsuan Ching or Lien shan, have remained obscure, shadowy and marginal.

real manifestations in the contemporary era apply
This classic has continually amazed the reviewer with its high incidence of "reality".One can only conclude that this is a reference oracle of the highest order and its time has come inthe post-milleniumworld.It is indeed a reincarnation.It has applications as a dailycalendar,intensewisdom to be considered at any time, and a livingoracle.The tripartate philosophy supercedes the I Ching in many ways.Thisis well worth a look for any divinatory scholar.Highly recommended. ... Read more