session 2 (4/4) - Early China, Chinese Philosophy

[Brigette Wang]

“My father” was a good father, but he did the wrong thing. I know, and so does he. What he did was wrong, there is no doubt about it, and it cannot be justified in any way. However, I am not qualified to judge him, but the will of the heaven. The heaven made the rules to maintain human social order, so everyone, including my father, understood what was right and what was wrong. I believe “my father” has been told that good is rewarded and evil is punished. If I can, I hope he has the courage to correct himself and do something according to the rules to make up for it. But if he chooses not to do any penance, we all have to accept the consequences, which is that he will be punished from the heaven.

 

[Brigette Wang]

As part of my middle school and high school ancient Chinese studies, I had the opportunity to learn and recite a large number of classic sentences from masters like Confucius, Xunzi, and etc. As experience grows, I used to like Confucius, Mozi and Laozi respectively. Read it again today, marveled at the wisdom of our ancestors, and I have to say, I love them all.  No matter how they expressed it, they were actually talking about "balance" or "harmony" - individual, community or country.  Human society is by no means a blank slate. Instead, human societies have developed complex, multi-dimensional structures from different aspects and levels, wandering in the universe. Those philosophers and their thoughts are like strong ropes, pulling or binding each other, making up for each other's inaccessibility, thus maintaining the balance or harmony of human society more or less.  And in different historical periods or regions, one of their thoughts may be favored successively.

[Ying Yu]

Thanks for Professor Dube's videos! I've learned so much interesting knowledge about Chinese Philosophy and history. I searched Ban, Zhao(班昭)， as mentioned in the video. I felt so surprised that although she was such a knowledgeable woman and she helped to finish the history book of Han Shu (汉书)， she still believed that women are born the subordinate to men. She even wrote a book about how women should behave well in her family with so many detailed rules. Although she lived many thousand years ago under the limitation of the historical period, I felt so uncomfortable about her thinking.

 

 

Moreover, I want to mention that the First Emperor of Qin, who let people make Terra cotta warriors was such a creative and humanistic man. Although he was described as a tyrant in the Chinese history books, I still believe that he had a kind face in his life. In addition, the excavation of Terra cotta warriors let the whole world know what the apperance of Qin people looked like.

[Hannah Klein]

Thanks Lingjing for sharing more information on tangrams. I'm curious to learn more about how the tangram is related to greek philosophy. These different traditions approach some of the same key questions that humans have been grappling with for centuries!

[Ying Yu]

I still have no idea about how to teach Chinese philosophy for my young age students, but I really love this topic! I can tell that there is a big difference between western Philosophy and Chinese philosophy.

I didn't read the arts of war, but I know this book is so famous in western  countries. Maybe I can tell some stories from this book to my students. They will understand better about Chinese philosophy from this book.

 

[Ying Yu]

Mohist is such a interesting philosophical idea

[Ying Yu]

I have the same feelings as you that Chinese Philosophy to be so interesting.

[Author]

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