In 1993, archaeologists unearthed a set of ancient bamboo scrolls that contained the earliest known version of the Dao de jing. Composed more than two thousand years ago, this life-changing document offers a regimen of self-cultivation to attain personal excellence and revitalize moral behavior. Now in this luminous new translation, renowned China scholars Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall bring the timeless wisdom of the Dao de jing into our contemporary world.In t...

The most widely read military classic in human history, newly translated and revised in accordance with newly discovered materials of unprecedented historical significance.Fluid, crisp and rigorously faithful to the original, this new text is destined to stand as the definitive version of this cornerstone work of Classical Chinese. Of compelling importance not only to students of Chinese history and literature, but to all readers interested in the art or the philos...

"To quietly persevere in storing up what is learned, to continue studying without respite, to instruct others without growing weary--is this not me?"--ConfuciusConfucius is recognized as China's first and greatest teacher, and his ideas have been the fertile soil in which the Chinese cultural tradition has flourished. Now, here is a translation of the recorded thoughts and deeds that best remember Confucius--informed for the first time by the manuscript version found at Ding...

In an era marked by geopolitical fragmentation and global crises, how can we envision a more stable and inclusive planetary order? This pioneering volume calls for a radical rethinking of international relations—moving beyond the Westphalian state system to embrace a civilizational dialogue rooted in shared histories, values, and mutual concern.The collection brings together leading scholars to explore the idea of tianxia (All under heaven) as a conceptual and moral framew...

Over the past generation, the rise of East Asia and especially China has brought about a sea change in the economic and political world order. At the same time, global warming, environmental degradation, food and water shortages, population explosion, and income inequities have created a perfect storm that threatens the very survival of humanity. It is clear now that the Westphalian model of individual sovereign states seeking their own self-interest will not be able to respond effectively...

Tianxia—conventionally translated as “all-under-Heaven”—in everyday Chinese parlance simply means “the world.” But tianxia is also a geopolitical term found in canonical writings that has a deeper historical and philosophical significance. Although there are many understandings of tianxia in this literature*,* interpretations within the Chinese process cosmology generally begin with an ecological understanding of intra-national relations that acknowledge the mutu...

Will democracy figure prominently in China's future? If so, what kind of democracy? In this insightful and thought-provoking book, David Hall and Roger Ames explore such questions and, in the course of answering them, look to the ideas of John Dewey and Confucius.Those most sanguine about the future of Chinese-Western relations presume that a modernized China will be essentially westernized as well. They believe that in order to enter the family of nations China must be transformed...

Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.Over the years, Roger T. Ames and his collaborators have consistently argued for a processual understanding of Chinese natural cosmology made explicit in the Book of Changes. It is this way of thinking, captured in its own interpretive context with the expression "continuit...

In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, fifteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The dozen essays collected here unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original essays on...

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.2021 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleIn Human Becomings, Roger T. Ames argues that the appropriateness of categorizing Confucian ethics as role ethics turns largely on the conception of person that is presupposed within the interpretive ...

The Westphalian model of international relations has given us a zero-sum game of winners and losers that has proven to be ineffective in addressing the pressing issues of our times. Philosopher Zhao Tingyang has argued that by conceptualizing international relations from the planetary perspective of tianxia, we can develop a sense of “worldness” that at once acknowledges the plurality of moral ideals defining of the world’s cultures and seeks practical ways to formulate a shared m...

In the light of Chinese prosody and various mutually illuminating major cases from the original English, Chinese, French, Japanese and German classical literary texts, the book explores the possibility of discovering “a road not taken” within the road well-trodden in literature. In an approach of “what Wittgenstein calls criss-crossing,” this monographic study, the first ever of this nature, as Roger T. Ames points out in the Foreword, also emphasizes a pivotal “recognition that these Chin...