PHILOSOPHY 210: Eastern Philosopy

Downloadable COURSE SYLLABUS  

YALE UNIVERSITY

Quang Phu Van, lecturer

Department of Philosophy

Email: <quang.van@yale.edu>

(203) 432-5097

Fall 2005

Lecture:  Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00-2:15

Discussion Section: TBA (1 hour/week)

Location: LC 317

Instructor: Quang Phu Van

Office: Luce Hall, 311 (34 Hillhouse Avenue)

Office Hour: 1-2 PM, Monday or by appointment

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to introduce students to Eastern philosophy through the study of philosophical and religious texts, and serves to foster interest in philosophy in general and in Eastern philosophy in particular. It also offers students an alternative to Western perspectives. Topics include reality, knowledge, self, right and wrong, non-attachment, the meaning of life, death, and aesthetics.

INSTRUCTION METHODS

This course introduces students to philosophy by using sources in Eastern philosophical traditions. The course is not a chronological survey, but is designed to get students engage in philosophical discussion with the authors they will be reading. The course participants are expected to do considerable reading in primary sources. The class meetings are divided between intensive lectures and discussion. Students are encouraged to form and participate in study groups.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:

(You can purchase the following books at the Yale Bookstore or on the Internet (used or new))

1-Shobogenzo: Zen Essays by Dogen (Zen Buddhism), (Paperback) translated by Thomas Cleary, Hawaii University Press, 1991.
 
2-The Upanishads, trans. and selected by Juan Mascaro (Penguin, Paperback) Penguin Books; Reissue edition (1965)

3-The Bhagavad Gita, (Paperback) Simon Brodbeck (Introduction), Juan Mascaro
Penguin Books; Revised edition (2003)

4-Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination (Paperback), Vedanta Press (1970)

5-Chuang Tzu Basic Writings, trans. by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press (Paperback)

6-Confucius-- The Analects, translated by  D. C. Lau, Penguin Classics (Paperback, 1998 or older)

7-Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by D. C. Lau, Penguin Classics (paperback, 1985 or earlier)

8-A Course Packet (To be announced)

COURSE OUTLINE

PART ONE:                Introduction

PART TWO:                What Is (Really) Real?

                                    -The Dao, Chuang Tzu’s Basic Writings and Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching

-Upanishads

PART THREE:            Is Knowledge Possible?

                                    -Butterfly Dream of Chuang Tzu and His Apparent Relativism and Skepticism (Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings)

                                    -Nagarjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Doctrine (Buddhism)                          

PART FOUR:              How Should One Live?

                                    -Confucianism: the concept of jen (or ren)  

                                    -Lao Tzu: Why must we follow the Dao? (Tao Te Ching)

                                    -Buddhism (The Four Noble Truths)

PART FIVE:                How Can I Know What is Right?

                        -Confucius (The Analects)

-Also Chuang Tzu’s “Forgetting Morality” 

                                    -Thich Nhat Hanh (“The Miracle of Mindfulness”)

MIDTERM EXAM

FIELD TRIP (Zen Meditation)

PART SIX:                  Who Am I?

                                    -Buddhist Theory of No Soul (“False Doctrine about the Soul and the Simile of the Chariot”)

-Zen Buddhism’s Striving for Non-Attachment (Hui Shen’s “Recorded Conversations”)

                                    -Atman (Upanishads)

-Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination

PART SEVEN:            Why Evil?

                                    -Hsun Tzu and Mencius

-“Is Death Anything to Fear?” (Bhagavad Gita)

PART EIGHT:            Philosophy and Life

                                    -Philosophy and life (Robert Eno’s “Cook Ding’s Dao and the Limit of Philosophy”)

-Dogen: Shobogenzo (Zen Buddhism)

-Aesthetics (Kuang-ming Wu’s The Butterfly as Companion)

FINAL WEEK:             TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAM DUE

ASSIGNMENTS:

For the most part, reading assignments will be made on a daily basis. Since the readings will serve as the primary springboard for class discussion, it’s important that students are prepared before each class. Besides class attendance and participation, there will be 10-12 quizzes, a mid-term and a final exam and a philosophical journal comprising daily reflections on philosophical issues. Since the quizzes serve to prepare students for the lectures and discussions, the 2 lowest scores will be dropped

GRADES:

            Class participation                  10%

            Quizzes                                    20%

            Philosophical journal                10%

            A mid-term exam                    20%

            A final exam (take-home)   40%

            _____________________________________

            TOTAL                                100%

BIBLIOGRAPH Y

Abe, Masao, A Study of Dogen, ed. by Steven Heine, Albany: State U. of New York Press, 1992.

Allison Robert, Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation, Albany: State U. of New York Press, 1989.

__________. “A Logical Construction of the Butterfly Dream,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1988).

__________. “On the Question of Relativism in the Chuang-tzu,” Philosophy East and West (1989).

Biderman, Schlomo, and Scharfatein, Ben-Ami, Rationality in Question: On Eastern and Western Views of Rationality, Leinen: E. J. Brill, 1989

Bielefeldt, Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation, Berkeley: U of California Press, 1988.

Bloom, Irene, “On the Matter of the Mind: The Metaphysical Basis of the Expanded Self,” in Munro ed. (1985), pp. 293-327.

_______. “Mencius,” in De Bary and Bloom, eds. (1990), pp. 191-208.

Bowker, John, The Meaning of Death, Cambridge: CUP, 1991.

Brereton, Joel, “Upanishads,” in De Bary and Bloom, eds. (1990), pp. 115-35.

Burford, Grace, “Theravada Buddhist Soterilogy and the Paradox of Desire,” in Buswell and Gimello, eds. (1992), pp. 37-61.

Collins, Steven, Selfless Persons, Cambridge: CUP, 1982.

Creel, H.G., Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-Tung, New York: Mentor, 1953.

Cua, A.S., Ethical Argumentation: A Study in Hsun Tzu’s Moral Epistemology, Honolulu: UHP, 1985.

________. “forgetting Morality: Reflections on a Theme in Chuang-Tzu,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1977).

Danto, Arthur, Mysticism and Morality, New York: Basic Books, 1972.

De Bary, Wm. Theodore and Bloom, Irene, eds., Approaches to the Asian Classics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.                

De Bary, Wm. Theodore, The Trouble with Confucianism, Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1991.

Dumoulin, Heinrich, Zen Buddhism: A History, New York: MacMillan, 1990.

Eno, Robert, “Cook Ding’s Dao and the Limit of Philosophy,” in Ivanhoe, ed. (1996).

Fingarrette, Herbert, Confucius—The Secular as Sacred, New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

_________. “Following the ‘One Thread’ of the Analects,” in Rosemont and Schwartz, pp. 373-405.

_________. “The Problem of the Self in the Analects,” Philosophy East and West, vol. 29 (1979), pp. 129-40.

Graham, A.C., Disputers of the Tao, La Salle: Open Court, 1989.

_________. Reason and Spontaneity, Totowa: Barnes and Noble, 1985.

Hall, David and Ames, Roger T., Thinking Through Confucius, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.

Hamburger, Max, “Aristotle and Confucius: A Comparison,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 20 (1959), 236-49.

Hansen, Chad, Language and Logic in Ancient China, Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1983.

________. “A Tao of Tao in Chuang-Tzu,” in Mair (1983), pp. 25-55.

Ivanhoe, Phillip J., “Reweaving the “One Thread” of the Analects,” Philosophy East and West, vol. 40 (1990), pp. 17-33.

________. “Zhuangzi’s Conversion Experience,” Journal of Chinese Religions 1991)