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This article presents a philosophical and methodological remark on the paper of A. Krushinskiy "Subject, Space, Time: How to Read Ancient Chinese Text" at the Round Table on the project "Geography of Rationality" (Moscow, RAS Institute of Philosophy, March 31, 2020), which gives an alternative explanation for the appearance of translations and studies of unsatisfactory quality in modern Russian sinology. A. Krushinskiy attributes this to the fact that authors of these unsatisfactory works do not take into account the specifics of reading ancient Chinese texts, namely, ignoring the methodological theory of V. Spirin according to which ancient Chinese texts reveal additional semantic content, if read nonlinearly. The present article points that this is not due to ignoring the particular methodological achievements of V. Spirin, but because of the general methodological attitudes of authors writing about ancient Chinese philosophy. The article distinguishes three types of general methodological attitudes: "sophistic" (when material from the history of philosophy is used for the author's self-realization), "philosophical" (when material from the history of philosophy is used to solve a particular philosophical problem) and "historical" (when the description of material from the history of philosophy is the end in itself). It also shows methodological differences between these types that affect the style and methodology of scholars. The article pays special attention to the description of the general regulatory principles of the historian of philosophy, i.e. 1) accuracy in 'modernization', 'actualization' and 'comparative method'; 2) moderation in 'universalizations' and 'author's interpretations'; 3) distinction between 'subjects' of historical philosophical material (author/s, text, tradition); 4) special attention to contradictions and uncertainties in it; and 4) understanding that for a historian of philosophy 'true" is 'admissible'. It is concluded that problems with translations and studies of unsatisfactory quality arise mainly when authors consciously or unconsciously confuse these three general methodological attitudes in their texts and thereby mislead readers.

Cheng reviews 'The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy' by David S. Nivison.

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism, Shuchen Xiang argues that the Chinese cultural tradition was, from its formative beginnings and throughout its imperial history, a cosmopolitan melting pot that synthesized the different cultures that came into its orbit. Unlike the West, which cast its collisions with different cultures in Manichean terms of the ontologically irreconcilable difference between civilization and barbarism, China was a dynamic identity created out of difference. The reasons for this, Xiang argues, are philosophical: Chinese philosophy has the conceptual resources for providing alternative ways to understand pluralism. Xiang explains that "Chinese" identity is not what the West understands as a racial identity; it is not a group of people related by common descent or heredity but rather a hybrid of coalescing cultures. To use the Western discourse of race to frame the Chinese view of non-Chinese, she argues, is a category error. Xiang shows that China was both internally cosmopolitan, embracing distinct peoples into a common identity, and externally cosmopolitan, having knowledge of faraway lands without an ideological need to subjugate them. Contrasting the Chinese understanding of efficacy-described as "harmony"-with the Western understanding of order, she argues that the Chinese sought to gain influence over others by having them spontaneously accept the virtue of one's position. These ideas from Chinese philosophy, she contends, offer a new way to understand today's multipolar world and can make a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions in the critical philosophy of race

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword: China's Encounter with Michael Sandel / Evan Osnos -- I. Justice, Harmony, and Community -- 1. Community without Harmony? A Confucian Critique of Michael Sandel \ Chenyang Li -- 2. Individual, Family, Community, and Beyond: Some Confucian Reflections on Themes in Sandel's Justice \ Tongdong Bai -- 3. Justice as a Virtue, Justice according to Virtues, and / or Justice of Virtues: A Confucian Amendment to Michael Sandel's Idea of Justice \ Yong Huang -- II. Civic Virtue and Moral Education -- 4. Sandel's Ideas on Civic Virtue \ Zhu Huiling -- 5. Sandel's Democracy's Discontent from a Confucian Perspective \ Chen Lai -- III. Pluralism and Perfection: Sandel and the Daoist Tradition -- 6. Gender, Moral Disagreements, and Freedom: Sandel's Politics of Common Good in Chinese Contexts \ Robin R. Wang -- 7. Satisfaction, Genuine Pretending, and Perfection: Sandel's The Case against Perfection and Daoism \ Paul J. D'Ambrosio -- IV. Conceptions of the Person: Sandel and the Confucian Tradition -- 8. Theorizing the "Person" in Confucian Ethics \ Roger T. Ames -- 9. How to Think about Morality without Moral Agents \ Henry Rosemont Jr. -- 10. A Sandelian Response to Confucian Role Ethics \ Paul J. D'Ambrosio -- V. Reply by Michael Sandel -- 11. Learning from Chinese Philosophy \ Michael J. Sandel -- Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Index.