PHIL 213.001 – Asian Philosophy

Instructor: Karl Adam. This course meets TR 8:00 – 9:15 a.m. in CW 105.

What is the best way (dao) to live? What responsibilities do we have to others? Is human nature good, bad, or neutral? How can I cultivate myself to become a good person? What is the role of emotions in the good life? These are some of the questions central to the history of Chinese philosophy. We shall try to answer these and other questions by engaging with texts in Chinese philosophy from the Classical Period to the present. Note that although this course is called “Asian philosophy,” it is not possible to cover the Indian, Tibetan, Southeast Asian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese traditions of philosophy in one course with a useful level of depth, so we will only be studying the Chinese traditions (Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Legalism, Chinese forms of Buddhism, Chinese feminism, Chinese Marxism, etc.).