Faculty of Arts and Humanities | University of Macau

FAH/DPHIL International Hybrid Symposium - "Museum Ecologies Reconsidered: Cultural Value in the Web of Life" by Prof. Colin Sterling, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
2022-12-09 15:45 - 17:10 UTC | By Zoom
Abstract
In the face of rapid environmental breakdown and increased social and political uncertainty, cultural institutions around the world have mobilised to imagine alternative ways of living on and with the planet. This talk will argue that such shifts indicate more than simply a change in policy or practice, and instead point towards a fundamental reorientation of culture in the web of life. By focusing on the historical formation and evolving place of museums in this web, the talk will explore how museums have contributed to the planetary crisis through specific symbolic and material practices, but also how emerging approaches in the field might help to unravel some of the more destructive aspects of this entanglement. What might be gained if we begin to consider all museums as always co-constituted through nature? How can new museum strategies contribute to planetary flourishing?

Bio
Colin Sterling is Assistant Professor of Memory and Museums at the University of Amsterdam. He teaches across heritage and memory, museum studies and artistic research, and is a member of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. Colin’s research focuses on the intersections of heritage, ecology and artistic practice in and beyond the Anthropocene. He is the author of Heritage, Photography, and the Affective Past (Routledge, 2020) and co-editor of Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2020). He is co-editor of the journal Museums & Social Issues. From 2020-2021 he was project co-lead on Reimagining Museums for Climate Action, a design and ideas competition that led to an exhibition at COP26 in Glasgow.

FAH/DPHIL International Hybrid Symposium - "Architecture and Memory" by Mr. Lui Chak Keong
2022-12-13 15:00 - 16:10 | E21A-3118
Abstract
In addition to its basic use function, the building is also a space where many things happen. Buildings sometimes have a relationship with people’s memories. Architectural heritage reflects some values of society or collective memory. The lecture explores the relationship between architectural heritage and memory with some examples.

Bio
Lui Chak Keong is an Architect (Macao), Architecte du Patrimoine (France), Artist, has PhD in Design (Cultural Heritage Conservation), member of ICOMOS, and member of ICOMOS CHINA. He was born in Macao and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, Universidade Tecnica, Lisbon (Portugal) in 1999. Between 2000 and 2003, he worked as architect at the Culture Institute of the Macao SAR Government and he was mainly engaged in conservation & restoration projects. He also participated in the elaboration of documents for the application process of Macao’s Historical Center to be classified as World Heritage. From 2003 to 2005, he completed a specialist study on cultural heritage (conservation and reuse of ancient buildings and historical district) at Centre des Hautes Etudes des Chaillot in Paris, consequently he obtained the Diplome du Centre des Hautes Etudes des Chaillot – Post Master, as well as the professional qualification of Architecte du Patrimoine in France. In 2006 he opened his own design studio in Macao and he works mainly in heritage site projects. (http://www.citaplanningdesign.com) From 2008 to 2010, he was a member of the working group for the elaboration of Macao Urban Concept Plan at the Research Centre for Sustainable Development Strategies of the Macao SAR Government. From 2014 to 2017, he was a member of Cultural Heritage Committee of the Macao SAR Government. From 2020, he is a member of Urban Planning Commitee of the Macao SAR Government. Besides architecture, Lui chak keong is interested in a lot of visual art activities. He practices namely painting, installation, photography, and video, and he participated in many collective and individual exhibitions, including the 52nd Venice Art Biennale and the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale.

FAH/DPHIL International Hybrid Symposium - "The virtues of memory; What we remember and how we remember can be soul-destroying or life-enhancing" by Prof. Charles Raliaferro
2022-12-14 19:00 - 20:10
Abstract
Memory, meaning, and values are deeply interrelated. While memory enables us to transcend time through narratives, there is a sense in which we transcend time (the temporally present instant) every waking moment (and in dream states). We cannot live in temporal instants (the present “now” that has no duration); rather we live in durations, events or episodes that we are able to grasp and weave together through memory (re-cognition). Memory, as it shapes narratives and stories of ourselves and others– plays an indispensable role in our personal identity and understanding of the meaning and values of life. I suggest that we have obligations to remember, especially in terms of moral accountability, and from the standpoint of gratitude toward benefactors (including ancestors and teachers), and from the perspective of Christian theism. Memory is a virtue (a good power) that can be abused or used to be life-enhancing.

Bio
Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Agent-Focused Moral Realism: Zhu Xi's Virtue Ethics Approach to Virtue Ethics” by Prof. Huang Yong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2023-02-01 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/96271731725
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The Moral realism is normally considered to consist of two theses: (1) (a) moral propositions can be true or false, and (b) at least some of them are true, and (2) their truth depends upon moral properties or facts that are mind-independent in a relevant sense. Moral realism, according to a well-known distinction, can be naturalistic, regarding moral properties and facts as natural ones, or non-naturalistic, regarding them as non-natural ones; according to a less-known, it can be action-focused, primarily concerned with the moral properties of rightness and wrongness of the action, or agent-focused, taking the moral properties of the goodness and badness of the agent as its primary concern. Combining these two classifications, we may have (1) non-naturalistic action-focused moral realism, (2) non-naturalistic agent-focused moral realism, (3) naturalistic action-focused moral realism, and (4) naturalistic agent-focused moral realism. In this talk, drawing on Zhu Xi’s work, I shall argue for and defend the 4th variety of moral realism.

Bio
Yong Huang, Ph.D in Philosophy (Fudan University) and Th.D in Religious Studies (Harvard University), is currently a professor and chairperson of Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The editor-in-chief of Dao: A Journal of Comparative philosophy and Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, Huang is the author of Religious Goodness and Political Rightness: Beyond the Liberal-Communitarian Debate, Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed, and Why Be Moral: Learning from the Neo-Confucian Cheng Brothers, as well as five books in Chinese. In addition, he has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters each in Chinese and English.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Small Atomes of Themselves a World May Make” by Prof. Claudio Calosi, University of Geneva, Switzerland
2023-02-15 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/94886729254
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atoms. Typically, this thesis is characterized by an axiom stating, more simply, that everything has atomic parts. In the talk I argue that the success of this standard characterization crucially depends both on how the notion of sum and composition are defined. In particular, I put forward a novel definition of mereological sum such that: (i) is not equivalent to extant definitions in the literature, provided no strong decomposition principle is assumed; (ii) can be used to claim that the standard characterization of atomism fails in that having atomic parts is not sufficient to be the sum of atoms; and (iii) delivers a purely mereological distinction between structured and unstructured wholes, (iv) accounts for cases of hierarchical composition.

Bio
Claudio Calosi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva, where he leads the project: The Metaphysics of Quantum Objects. He held various research positions at Oxford, Leeds, UNAM to mention the most recent ones. He specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of physics and philosophical logic. He dresses in black.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Kang Youwei on Sexual Equality” by Prof. Xinyan Jiang, University of Redlands, USA
2023-03-01 13:30 - 15:00 | E21A-G047
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/94306394241
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
This talk examines Kang Youwei’s view of sexual equality based on the study of his The Book of the Great Unity (Da Tong Shu 《大同書》). In the existing literature Kang’s feminism has rarely been discussed in depth, even though the volume on women’s oppression and liberation is one of the most significant parts of The Book of the Great Unity. In the talk I argue that Kang’s critique of the subjection of women is the most systematic, profound, and fierce in the history of modern Chinese philosophy. Although his theory of sexual equality is essentially the combination of liberalism, utilitarianism, and socialism, his work on the subject should be given a special place in modern feminist philosophy. Unlike Western feminist thinkers, Kang understood the suffering of oppressed women in non-Western countries, especially in China, and spoke out for them in a way that no one did before. His work on sexual equality remains very relevance today, especially to women’s liberation in developing countries.
Bio
Xinyan Jiang is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Redlands. She received her B.A. and M.A. in philosophy from Peking University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. She was a faculty member of the Department of Philosophy at Peking University before leaving China. She has taught and published in both Chinese and Western philosophy. Besides publishing numerous scholarly articles and several book chapters, she is also the author of two books and the editor of two anthologies. She was the founding chair of the Committee on Asian/Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies of the American Philosophical Association (1998-2002), Currently she is Deputy Executive Director for North America of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “After Order: Interregnum and Ethics of Disorder in Global Politics” by Prof. Xiaoyu Lu, Peking University, China
2023-03-15 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98714060738
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Departing from the concept of “failed world”, this lecture explores the politics of co-living in the time of uncertainty. The liminal and in-between state of international society is no longer a state of exception, but a state of inception that introduces overlapping layers of hybrid orders and norms. Instead of proposing alternative world orders as attempts to formulate a minimalist morality, this lecture overturns the direction of inquiry and asks how we can manage to live in disorder, in the absence of normative consensus. It proposes a new form of cosmopolitanism, that is built on and adapted to contingencies, risks and ruins of our existing political and ecological disasters, and envisions an emancipatory politics of dissensus.

Bio
Xiaoyu Lu is an Assistant Professor at School of International Studies at Peking University and was a Research Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Xiaoyu received MSc and DPhil degrees in Politics at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and previously worked at the United Nations Development Programme. His research focuses on conflict and peace, and International Relations theory, with field experience in Syria, Lebanon, Myanmar and Colombia. He is the founding director of PeaceLab that promotes conflict and peace studies and dialogues in China. His monograph titled Norms, Storytelling and International Institutions in China: The Imperative to Narrate is published with Palgrave MacMillan in 2021.

FAH/DPHIL Guest Lecture – “Kant's Philosophy of Moral Luck” by Prof. Samuel Kahn, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
2023-03-17 16:30 - 18:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95785802564
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In the modern moral luck debate, Kant is standardly taken to be the enemy of moral luck. My goal in this paper is to show that this is mistaken. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, I show that participants in the moral luck literature take moral luck to be anathema to Kantian ethics. In the second, I explain the kind of luck I am going to focus on here: consequence luck, a species of resultant luck. In the third, I explain why philosophers have taken Kantian ethics to reject moral luck and, in particular, consequence luck. In the fourth, I explain why these philosophers are mistaken, and I set out Kant’s theoretical framework for consequence luck. In the fifth, I clarify and defend this framework, and in the sixth, I interrogate and attack it.

Bio
Samuel Kahn is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. He received dual degrees in Philosophy and Bioengineering in 2005 from the University of Pennsylvania, and he received a PhD in Philosophy in 2012 from Stanford University. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and scholarships, including a Fulbright in 2008 and a Geballe in 2011. In 2013 Samuel won the Review of Metaphysics dissertation essay contest, and in 2015 he was included in the Prindle Institute for Ethics Young Philosophers Lecture Series. His work on Kant has won the prestigious Markus Herz prize (2011), and he is the first person to win the North American Kant Society Wilfrid Sellars prize twice (2019, 2021). He has published over 30 articles and book reviews in journals including Ethics, Kantian Review, Kant Studien, and British Journal for the History of Philosophy. His first research monograph, Kant, Ought Implies Can, the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, and Happiness, appeared with an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield in 2018; his second, Kant’s Theory of Conscience, appeared in the Cambridge University Press Element series in 2021.

FAH/DPHIL Philosophy Cafe: Session 2
2023-03-29 15:45 - 16:45 | E21A-3118

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “On Having and Lacking Certainty” by Prof. Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York, UK
2023-03-29 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/99459515373
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
This paper develops a phenomenological account of what it is to have and to lose an underlying sense of “certainty”. By drawing on themes in Wittgenstein’s later writings and also the phenomenological tradition, I conceive of having certainty in terms of the anticipatory structure of experience. It consists in a practical, non-localized, unwavering sense that things will work out, that one will be able to go on. This also involves the pre-reflective acceptance of a form of uncertainty. I conclude by suggesting that, by conceiving of certainty in this way and acknowledging its fragility, we can better understand various different disturbances to which human experience is susceptible.

Bio
Matthew Ratcliffe is Professor of Philosophy at the University of York, UK. He has also held positions at University College Cork, Durham University, and the University of Vienna. His work addresses issues in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of psychiatry. He is author of the books Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (Oxford University Press, 2008), Experiences of Depression: A Study in Phenomenology (Oxford University Press, 2015), Real Hallucinations: Psychiatric Illness, Intentionality, and the Interpersonal World (MIT Press, 2017), and Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience (MIT Press, 2022).

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Evil and the Problem of Impermanence in Japanese Philosophy” by Prof. Yujin Nagasawa, University of Birmingham, UK
2023-04-12 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/97086925839
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The problem of evil is widely considered a problem only for traditional Western monotheists who believe that there is an omnipotent and morally perfect God. I argue, however, that the problem of evil, more specifically a variant of the problem of evil which I call the ‘problem of impermanence’, arises even for those adhering to the philosophical and religious traditions of the East. I analyse and assess various responses to the problem of impermanence found in medieval Japanese literature. I argue that the only response that is potentially satisfactory requires supernaturalism. I conclude, therefore, that the problem of impermanence is a unique problem posing a greater challenge to naturalists than to supernaturalists.

Bio
Yujin Nagasawa is H. G. Wood Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Maximal God: A New Defence of Perfect Being Theism (OUP 2017), Miracles: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2017), The Existence of God: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge 2011) and God and Phenomenal Consciousness (CUP 2008).

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Class Traitors? The Assault on the Intellectuals’ Power in the Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi” by Prof. Yuri Pines, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
2023-04-26 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91556908494
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
One of the most notable features of the Warring States-period (Zhanguo 戰國, 453-221 BCE) political discourse is the extraordinary self-confidence of the intellectually active members of the shi 士 (men-of-service) stratum. Having positioned themselves as collective possessors of the Way 道, these shi intellectuals claimed recognition as society’s and the rulers’ moral guides. One of the major ways of asserting their superiority vis-à-vis the rulers was through proliferation of historical (and quasi-historical) narratives that uniformly placed the rulers at the position of recipients of their advisers’ wisdom.
In my study I want to explore the counter-discourse aimed at undermining the intellectuals’ authority. Two texts are most notable in their systematic assault on fellow intellectuals. The Book of Lord Shang (Shangjunshu 商君書) was arguably the earliest major text to turn tables on intellectuals who sought appointment due to their perceived moral superiority; but it was primarily Han Feizi 韓非子, which mercilessly exposed the moralizers’ fallacies and their abuse of history. Yet the authors’ assault on fellow intellectuals created a paradox. Dismissing their rivals’ subversive discourse, the authors undermined not just the rivals’ claims to be the rulers’ guides but also their own intellectual authority vis-à-vis the throne. The gains and losses of this “class betrayal” have interesting implications beyond the Warring States-period China.

Bio
Yuri Pines 尤銳 is Michael W. Lipson Professor of Asian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on early Chinese political thought, traditional Chinese political culture, early Chinese historiography, history of pre-imperial (pre-221 BCE) China, and comparative studies of imperial formations worldwide. His monographs include Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography (2020); The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China (2017); The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy (2012); Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era (2009); Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period (2002). He coauthored three-volume All-under-Heaven: Imperial China (in Hebrew), and co-edited five books.

FAH/DPHIL: The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay
2023-05-08 - 2023-05-31
The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay is awarded for excellence in philosophy. Students enrolled in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies undergraduate courses are eligible to enter an essay for the annual award.
Students are invited to submit an academic essay written as an assignment in one of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies’ undergraduate courses this academic year (AY2022/2023). Essays of any length are acceptable. The organisers reserve the right not to award the prize if essays are not of sufficiently high standard.
Please submit essays by e-mail with the subject line ‘Submission for the Mario Echano Prize’ to Maggie Wong at MaggieWong@um.edu.mo. Attach your essay to the message as a Microsoft Word document (other formats will not be accepted). Please give your name, student number, and the name of the course for which you wrote the essay, on the first page of the essay. The deadline for submission is Wednesday, 31st May 2023.
We look forward to your submissions.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Are conspiracy theories just theories about conspiracies?” by Prof. M. R. X. Dentith, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
2023-08-23 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92442442030
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In the academic debate concerning the apparent problem of belief conspiracy theories, a lot of ink is still being spilt as to what, exactly, counts as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Whilst some conspiracy theory theorists argue that we should keep to the evaluative or normative elements that are commonly found in ordinary language conceptions of what counts as a ‘conspiracy theory’ (that they are ‘mad. bad, and dangerous’) others have argued that a non-pejorative definition is more useful when seeking to analyse what, if anything, is wrong with such theories. By surveying that debate—which is occurring across multiple disciplines—we can see that whatever definitional choice we choose to make in our own work, it will have serious implications which will affect how we conduct our research into what, if anything, is problematic about belief in these things called ‘conspiracy theories’.

Bio
Professor M. R. X. Dentith is a leading scholar in contemporary social epistemology, especially concerning the epistemic status of conspiracy theories and theorizers. Professor Dentith has published extensively in leading philosophical journals such as Synthese, Social Epistemology, and Episteme. He has also published a monograph, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories, with Palgrave Macmillan.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Chinese Philosophy and the Method of Sublation: Epistemic Encounters in Transcultural Contexts” by Prof. Jana Rošker, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
2023-09-06 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95815495291
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The lecture will be dealing with problems encountered by Western researchers working in the field of Chinese philosophy. It will open with a discussion of intercultural and transcultural methodologies and illuminates some of the most common issues inherent in traditional intercultural comparisons in the field of philosophy. Taking into account the current state of the so-called postcomparative discourses in the field of transcultural philosophy and starting from the notion of culturally divergent frames of reference, it will then focus upon semantic aspects of the Chinese philosophical tradition and expose the need for discursive translations. On this basis, a new postcomparative approach in transcultural philosophical studies of Chinese philosophy will be suggested. In this context, I will propose the application of an innovative principle, based upon what can preliminary be denoted as the method of sublation.

Bio
Professor Jana S. Rošker, studied Sinology and obtained her PhD degree at the Vienna University. She is the first Slovene Sinologist, co-founder and long-standing Head of the Department of Asian studies at the University in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Altogether she spent over 10 years in China and Taiwan at several universities and research institutes. Her academic interests include Chinese epistemology, Chinese logic and Modern New Confucianism. In these research areas, she has published over twenty five books, and over two hundred articles and book chapters. She is chief editor of the journal Asian Studies (https://journals.uni-lj.si/as), president of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (ISCP), and the founder, first president and honorary member of the European Association of Chinese Philosophy (EACP).
She was awarded with several prestigious awards, as for instance the National Slovene Research Agency prize for extraordinary scientific achievements, the Golden Plaque of the University of Ljubljana, the National Žiga Zois prize for research work of national significance, the French-Taiwanese Cultural Foundation Prize, Bertrand Russell Society book award, and the most excellent research work award of the University of Ljubljana.

FAH/DPHIL: The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay
2023-09-07 - 2024-05-31
The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay is awarded for excellence in philosophy. Students enrolled in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies undergraduate courses are eligible to enter an essay for the annual award.
Students are invited to submit an academic essay written as an assignment in one of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies’ undergraduate courses this academic year (AY2023/2024). Essays of any length are acceptable. The organisers reserve the right not to award the prize if essays are not of sufficiently high standard.
Please submit essays by e-mail with the subject line ‘Submission for the Mario Echano Prize’ to Maggie Wong at MaggieWong@um.edu.mo. Attach your essay to the message as a Microsoft Word document (other formats will not be accepted). Please give your name, student number, and the name of the course for which you wrote the essay, on the first page of the essay. The deadline for submission is Friday, 31st May 2024.
We look forward to your submissions.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “How to Follow the Fact of Human Beings and Herd the Masses — Han Fei Zi’s View of Human Nature” by Prof. Bai Tongdong, Fudan University, China
2023-09-20 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95782628726
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Han Fei Zi’s understanding of human nature is far more complicated than the idea that human beings are bad, a view that is often. He acknowledges the fact that there is goodness in human nature, and it could render humans to live peacefully with each other under the condition of plentifulness. But under the condition of scarcity, humans’ goodness becomes ineffective, and the pursuit of material profit becomes the main driver of human actions. While the majority can only rationalize about short-term material interests, the few can do long-term planning. Other than rational capacity, there is another thing uniquely human, which is vanity. This is a secondary driving force of human actions. In few places, Han Fei Zi acknowledges the fact that there are the few who can transcend the pursuit of material profit and vanity, and hold onto virtues instead. These people are the disruptors of political regime, and should be suppressed. Between profit and harm, Han Fei Zi argues that the avoidance of harm is more powerful than the pursuit of profit, which is a reason that he emphasizes more the punishment than the reward in regulating people’s behaviors. In the end, I will show a few problems with this rather complicated picture of Han Fei Zi’s understanding of human nature.

Bio
Dr. Tongdong Bai is the Dongfang Chair Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University in China, and and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests include Chinese philosophy and political philosophy. He has two books published in English: China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom (Zed Books, 2012), and Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case (Princeton University Press, 2019). He is now working on the philosophy of Han Fei Zi (c. 280-233 BCE), a “Legalist” and a harsh critic of Confucians, as well as a real-life princeling who is often compared with Machiavelli and Hobbes. He is also the director of an English-based MA and visiting program in Chinese philosophy at Fudan University that is intended to promote the studies of Chinese philosophy in the world.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “For a Process Philosophy of Mind” by Prof. Rein Raud, Tallinn University, Estonia
2023-10-11 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92096145103
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The majority of both traditional and contemporary object-oriented ontologies rely on the presumption that reality has a selfsame structure that exists independently of the human mind, but nonetheless corresponds more or less exactly to the way in which human beings experience reality. In the present world, however, this view is being challenged from two sides: on the one hand, the calls for a “posthuman” or “post-anthropocentric” approach question the validity of privileging the human perspective against other living species, together with whom we are facing an ecological catastrophe, while on the other hand, the ever more intelligent forms of technology — and modes of surveillance and control that they make possible — infringe on the limits of human social agency in new and unpredictable ways. The talk will propose a systematic view on how to overcome the privilege of the human viewpoint by a reshuffling of our ontological and epistemological discourses through a dialogue of Western philosophical minority traditions and Asian thought, aiming at a radical process philosophy.

Bio
Professor Rein Raud (born 1961) is the Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies and Cultural Theory at Tallinn University. He is the author of “Being in Flux: A Post-Anthropocentric Ontology of the Self” (Polity 2021), on which his lecture strongly relies, as well as “Asian Worldviews: Religions, Philosophies, Political Theories” (Wiley 2021), “Meaning in Action: Outline of an Integral Theory of Culture” (Polity 2016) and a large number of articles on comparative philosophy, notably on the thought of Dōgen.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Pluralistic Theism and Religious Syncretism in Southeast Asia” by Prof. Jeremiah Joven Joaquin, De La Salle University, Philippines
2023-10-25 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98342254152
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Pluralistic Theism is the view that there are different and equally correct conceptions of the divine, and conjoining these varying conceptions need not imply a (logical) contradiction. I show how this view explains the contradictions implied by religious syncretism in Southeast Asia. I then compare and contrast the theoretical merits of this view with those of Ninian Smart’s Philosophy of Worldviews and John Hick’s Religious Pluralism. I conclude that the former view explains the target phenomenon better than the two latter views.

Bio
Jeremiah Joven Joaquin is a Professor of Philosophy at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, where he is also a Founding Fellow of the Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub. He works on philosophical logic, especially its applications to moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion. His latest work explores the application of gappy to glutty logics to issues in philosophical theology.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Sexual Creepiness” by Prof. Dan Demetriou, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.
2023-10-27 13:30 - 15:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95168727885
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Accusations of “sexual creepiness” appear to be on the rise. Why is this so, and are such accusations morally problematic? In this essay I will follow legal scholar Heidi Matthews in arguing that sexual creepiness is in tension with liberal and progressive moral commitments. Liberals and progressives may, as Matthews does, maintain a principled stance and reject creepiness as a category, just as they do sluttiness. But the costs of abandoning sexual creepiness may be high, and these costs should be tallied before creepiness norms are expunged. Empirical findings about what gets accused of being creepy suggest that creepiness norms may have been recruited to establish important social equilibria. It is plausible that recent technology, intersecting with the collapse of traditional courtship norms and higher percentages of unattached men, has resulted in a deluge of sexual proposition aimed at young women and fewer desirable mates for unattached older women. I advance the hypothesis that creepiness norms have been largely repurposed to control male sexual advances: first, by discouraging substandard male suitors from approaching young women who are unlikely to be interested in them (“prefiltration”), and second, by deflecting eligible older men away from young women and towards older women (“redirection”). The ethical question liberals and progressives must wrestle with is whether these benefits justify the moral costs.

Bio
Dan Demetriou is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Morris. An ethicist and social-political philosopher, he is the co-editor of Honor in the Modern World (Lexington/Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) and has recent and forthcoming work in the areas of sex ethics, monument ethics, gun rights, and migration ethics.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “The Problem of Contingency for the Descriptivist Account of Semantic Deference” by Dr. Ryo Tanaka, University of Tokyo, Japan
2023-11-08 17:30 - 19:00 | By Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98680905452
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Semantic deference is a phenomenon where the referents of linguistic expressions in an ordinary speaker’s vocabulary are determined by the use of the expressions by a group of experts about the relevant subject matter. For example, the meanings of terms such as ‘elm,’ ‘beech’ and so on for an ordinary speaker are partly determined by what botanists in her community say about the relevant tree kinds. Traditionally, the phenomenon has been taken to motivate semantic externalism, according to which meanings “ain’t in the heads” (Putnam 1975) of individual speakers. Those who challenge this tradition, however, attempt to provide a fully internalist-descriptivist account of semantic deference. On the internalist proposal, semantic deference is a matter of each individual’s cognitively associating a description such as [whatever thing that the experts are talking about when they use ‘C’] with the referential expression ‘C’ (Jackson 1998). In this paper, I argue that the internalist-descriptivist account faces the problem of contingency: different speakers can, problematically, come to mean different things by using the same term, by identifying different groups as meaning-determining “experts.” To respond to this problem, one needs to invoke communal linguistic norms that dictate which group of experts speakers should defer to, given the subject matter (cf. Ball 2020). I argue that implementing this strategy requires adopting some form of semantic externalism in the end.

Bio
Dr. Ryo Tanaka is a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy based at the University of Tokyo, Japan (JSPS postdoctoral fellow, History and Philosophy of Science Lab). He specializes in philosophy of language in the analytic tradition and also works in related areas such as philosophy of mind, ethics, as well as the Western early modern treatment of these topics. He is currently working on the research project entitled, “Moral obligation to explicate the semantic rules of one’s language.” He has published his work in journals such as The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Contemporary and Applied Philosophy (Japanese).

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Art as Inquiry: The Path of Chinese Lyric Aesthetic” by Prof. Danielle Macbeth, Haverford College, U.S.A.
2023-11-13 13:30 - 15:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/99485044779
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Beginning with music, through the emergence of lyric poetry, and culminating in the literati brush-and-ink landscapes of the Southern Song, something happened, something Kao Yu-kung calls Chinese lyric aesthetic. What is at issue for us here is the nature and character of this happening. I begin with a characterization of the fundamental orientation of Chinese thinkers (as contrasted with that of Indo-European thinkers), then turn briefly to the thought of Confucius and of Zhuangzi to expose the intellectual and existential roots of the lyric tradition. The lyric tradition itself is explicated as a working out of the Zhuangzian ideal of resonating, mirroring things as they are. Since our conception of Chinese lyric aesthetic can seem surprising, somehow unanticipated, the discussion concludes with an account of why this conception has for so long gone unremarked, an account that brings us full circle, back to the fundamental orientation of Chinese thinkers with which we began.

Bio
Danielle Macbeth is T. Wistar Brown Professor of Philosophy at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, USA. She is the author of Frege’s Logic (Harvard UP, 2005) and Realizing Reason: A Narrative of Truth and Knowing (Oxford UP, 2014), as well as many essays in, for example, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and the history and philosophy of mathematics. She was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) in Palo Alto in 2002-3 and has been awarded both an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Burkhardt Fellowship and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

FAH/DPHIL Philosophy Café: Session 3 "Why Do We Need Philosophy?"
2023-11-15 15:00 - 15:45 | Café Rose Garden

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Viewing Humans and the World Through Affairs” by Prof. Yang Guorong, East China Normal University, China
2023-11-22 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91442748446
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Understanding and shaping the world are always related with the transformation of the world from its original state into the actual world. The world in its original state is the world as it is of itself. It is only when humans function in the world in their various ways that the questions of understanding and shaping the world arise. The processes of people functioning in the world are also the processes of the unfolding of “affairs” (shi). Affairs (shi) are primarily interrelated with actual human activity. According to Chinese philosophy, “affairs are action” and “all affairs in the world arise from conduct.” “Affairs” also refers to the outcomes of people’s conduct and action. An outlook that sees the world in terms of affairs seeks to understand and shape the world on the basis of actual human activity and its outcomes.

Bio
Yang Guorong is a senior professor at East China Normal University, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, director of the China Modern Thought and Culture Research Institute at the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, and director of the academic committee of the university. He is also the Dean of Ma Yifu Academy at Zhejiang University, Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education, and a member of the 5th and 6th Philosophy Discipline Evaluation Groups of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. His main research areas include Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy between China and the West, ethics, metaphysics, etc. He has published more than 20 academic works, and various works have been translated into English and Korean. He has been published in Indian University Press, Brill, and others. His academic part-time positions include the President of the International Metaphysics Society (ISM), Academician of the International School of Philosophy (IIP), Former President of the International Society of Chinese Philosophy (ISCP) (2019-2022), President of the Chinese Philosophical History Society, etc.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “The Case for Commitment” by Prof. Sarah Paul, NYU Abu Dhabi
2023-12-01 13:30 - 15:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91741709275
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Theories of structural, instrumental rationality generally do not make reference to anything we might call ‘commitment’, beyond the sense in which all intentions are a kind of settled commitment. Some views do allow for things like commitment, resolutions, or faith to affect how we ought to reason, but these tend to be characterized as all-or-nothing notions whose role is to preserve inertia by preventing reconsideration and/or desensitizing us to new evidence. I conjecture that we’re led to this overly narrow conception of commitment by thinking of temptation as the primary cause of giving up on an end prematurely, and overlooking the importance of obstacles like procrastination and despair. In my talk, I will try to articulate a puzzle about acting in the face of uncertainty, concerning how we should navigate the tensions involved in trying hard to achieve a goal, while at the same time planning for the possibility of failure and remaining open to giving up. Such decisions are not only difficult to make, but also to live with over time. I argue that our understanding of these dynamics is deepened by bringing in a degreed notion of commitment that involves far more than merely blocking the effects of temptation.

Bio
Sarah Paul is Professor of Philosophy at NYU Abu Dhabi and a Global Network Professor of Philosophy at NYU. Before joining NYU in 2019, she was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for nine years. She is the author of Philosophy of Action: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Press 2021), as well as articles that have appeared in Ethics, Philosophers’ Imprint, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophical Studies. She is currently working on a book titled Striving with Jennifer Morton, under contract with OUP.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Intention, Ethics, and Convention in Daoism: Guo Xiang on Ziran (self-so) and Wuwei (non-action)” by Prof. Paul J. D’Ambrosio, East China Normal University, China
2023-12-06 15:00 - 16:30 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93533585933
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Much contemporary scholarship on ziran and wuwei views these concepts, which are often coupled, as being 1) anti-intention, effort, purpose, and self-consciousness; 2) indicative of a distinct type of ethics and/or morality; and 3) a rejection of following custom and convention. This discussion will draw largely on the philosophy of Guo Xiang to demonstrate that these widely agreed upon avenues of interpretation are limited and run contrary to other more nuanced readings of ziran and wuwei. I argue that ziran and wuwei are better appreciated as speaking to attitudes, that they should be understood in terms of degrees rather than categories, and that the Laozi and Zhuangzi offer them as advice for ways of reflecting—they are not standardizable ethical rules. In this way, we can see how ziran and wuwei include intention and effort, are anti (most forms of) ethics and morality, and are inherently intertwined with customs and convention.

Bio
Paul J. D’Ambrosio is a professor of Chinese philosophy at East China Normal University (ECNU), fellow of the Institute of Modern Chinese Thought and Culture, dean of the Center for Intercultural Research, co-director of the English language graduate program all at ECNU. In addition he serves as research fellow at the Ma Yifu Academy of Zhejiang University. He is coauthor (with Hans-Georg Moeller) of You and Your Profile (2021) and Genuine Pretending (both on Columbia University Press, 2017), author of 真假之间 (Between Genuineness and Pretense) (Kongxue tang, 2020), and editor (with Michael Sandel) of Encountering China (Harvard University Press, 2018). He has authored over 100 articles and reviews and translated almost a dozen books. Additionally, he is the founder and director of the online academic forum 四海為學 “Collaborative Learning.”

FAH/DPHIL Conference – "Spiritual Exemplars in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion"
2023-12-13 - 2023-12-14 | E21A-3118

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “State Ritual, Political Legitimacy, and Religious Practice of the Jidu in Imperial China” by Prof. Li Teng, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, China
2023-12-29 16:00 - 17:30 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92871894953
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The Jidu 濟瀆 (i.e., the Ji River 濟水), was one of the four waterways (sidu 四瀆) in imperial China. Even though it vanished a long time ago, the Jidu had always been a part of the traditional Chinese ritual system of mountain- and water-directed state sacrifices. From the Western Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty, it continuously received regular state sacrifices. However, Western scholars have failed to notice it. Some modern Chinese and Japanese scholars have studied the development of the Jidu sacrifice, but its embodied political and religious significances for the state and local society were largely ignored. To remedy this neglect, I provide here, with new discoveries and conclusions, the first comprehensive study of the Jidu sacrifice in imperial China.

In this lecture, I will analyze the ideas of state authority, political legitimacy, religious belief, and cosmology, as these underlie the ritual performance concerning the Jidu. I also argue that the Jidu was not only tightly associated with controlling water but was also a symbol and mechanism of political legitimacy. Relying on concrete official and local records, in the third section I further investigate the role that the Jidu God played in local society. I will prove that, after the Song dynasty, the Jidu God was transformed into a regional protector of local society and savior of local people in addition to an official water god.

Bio
Li Teng is now an Assistant Professor at Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, as well as post-doctor at Hebei Normal University. He got his PhD in Philosophy and Religious Studies from University of Macau in 2021. He is the coauthor of The Study of Buddhism in Modern Macau 當代澳門佛教問題研究 (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020). He has also published over twenty articles in Chinese and English.

FAH/DPHIL: MRI Public Forum - From Matteo Ricci to the Chinese Rites Controversy: A Historical and Theological Analysis
2024-01-03 15:00 - 17:00 | Library Auditorium (G012), University Library (E2)

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Funny Games: An Analysis of Humor as Gameplay” by Prof. Tatyana Kostochka, Ashoka University, India
2024-01-10 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92487286224
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In what he calls the “obligatory chapter” of his monograph Isn’t It Clever, Steven Gimbel surveys a number of traditional theories of humor: the superiority theory, the inferiority theory, the incongruity theory, the script-opposition theory, the cognitive-evolutionary theory, the relief theory, and, finally, the play theory. Of this last view, he says: “play theory […] is a view that virtually no philosopher holds, but which everyone includes in their obligatory cataloguing of theories of humor” (p. 31). People list the view because there is something undeniably attractive about a play theory of humor and yet, they reject it because it is also undeniable that not all humor is playful. In this talk, I will to convince you to join this virtually non-existent group of play theorists by laying out a version of the play theory—one that sees humor not just as play but as game-play. In particular, I will draw on insights from Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art to show that the gameplay view explains many of the aesthetic and ethical features of humor.

Bio
Tatyana Kostochka is an assistant professor of philosophy at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. She completed her PhD at the University of Southern California. Tatyana’s research is divided between two areas: moral psychology and Buddhist philosophy. In moral psychology, she is primarily interested in exploring the nature of moods and how they alter the way we interact with the world. In Buddhist philosophy, she is especially concerned with medieval Chinese and Japanese discussions about the precept against killing.
