The Department of Philosophy at Cal State Long Beach is offering PHIL306: Philosophies of China & Japan in the coming FA17 semester. The course is already sufficiently enrolled to run, and is currently scheduled for Mondays & Wednesdays from 3:30pm-4:45pm. It is on the books as an historical and critical study of the philosophical thought of China and Japan, although instructors have broad latitude. (For example, if one wanted to admix Korean philosophy, or focus on particular philosophical themes or areas of concentration in East Asian Philosophy more generally, that would surely be acceptable.) Here is a course description from a recent iteration, just to give one example of what has been done in the past:
The philosophical traditions of China and Japan are vast and complex, and could never be exhaustively covered in a single semester. Consequently, the primary foci of this SP15 iteration of the course will be the major schools of classical Chinese philosophy and the development of Buddhism in China and Japan. Major themes and philosophical movements to be considered include Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese political philosophy, Ch’an and Zen Buddhism, as well as the philosophy of the Kyoto School in 20th century Japan. Although many of the texts of these traditions are discussed as religious tracts, we will approach the course from a decidedly philosophical perspective; in particular, we will approach the course texts critically and in search of how the authors’ understanding of human nature and the world are integrated with specific epistemological, axiological, and metaphysical claims. At times, we will compare some of these ideas with Western philosophy (e.g. Confucianism and virtue ethics); elsewise, we will remain vigilant about the unique social and historical contexts in which these philosophies arose.
Texts and Required Readings:
Van Norden. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Hackett, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-6038-468-0 (paperback).
The Sutra of Hui Neng, trans. Thomas Cleary. Shambala, 1998. ISBN: 978-1-57062-,348-6 (paperback).
The Heart of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō, trans. Norman Waddell & Masao Abe. SUNY Press, 2002. ISBN: 0-7914-5242-8 (paperback).
If interested and available, please send an expression of interest and a vita to either Cory Wright<Cory.Wright@csulb.edu> or the Philosophy Department Chairperson, Nellie Wieland <Nellie.Wieland@csulb.edu>.
