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A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and differenceHistorically, 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

This book is based on the study of the traditional Chinese philosophy, and explores the relationship between philosophy and people's fate. The book points out that heaven is an eternal topic in Chinese philosophy. The concept of heaven contains religious implications and reflects the principles the Chinese people believed in and by which they govern their lives. The traditional Chinese philosophy of fate is conceptualized into the "unification of Heaven and man". Different interpretations of the inter-relationships between Heaven, man and their unification mark different schools of the traditional Chinese philosophy. This book identifies 14 different schools of theories in this regard. And by analyzing these schools and theories, it summarizes the basic characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy, compares the Chinese philosophy of fate with the Western one, and discusses the relationship between philosophy and man's fate

"Doing Chinese philosophy" as a method proposed by Chen Shaoming offers a perspective that shifts from the study of the history of Chinese philosophy to the innovation or creation of the significance of Chinese philosophy. Chen defines the "Chinese philosophy" as a philosophy that embodies the cultural spirit or experiences of China. This approach calls for an expansion of resource beyond the traditional study of the history of Chinese philosophy and seeks to bridge classical thoughts with modern life experiences. It does not advocate a metaphysical presupposition for research but accepts methodological diversity while promoting the cultivation and use of imagination. This approach also aims at envisioning a philosophy field that is rich in thought and broad in scope.

The author looks at study of the Chinese intellectual tradition by non-Chinese, development of international cooperation among different traditions of scholarship of Chinese philosophy, practice of this philosophy and contemporary philosophical topics for which the heritage of Chinese Philosophy present crucial resources. (DÜI-Sen)

This Key Concepts pivot discusses the contemporary relevance of the ancient Chinese concept of Tianxia or 'All-Under-Heaven' and argues that the case for a new global political philosophy, 'All-Under-Heaven' is a conceptualization of the world as the composition of three realms: the physical, psychological and political, which places inclusivity and harmony at the heart of a global world view above other considerations, transcending the notion of nation state. In a highly interconnected and globalized world, the idea of Tianxia can offer a new 21st century vision of international relations and world order, based on a harmonized global organization defined by the "all-inclusiveness principle." Promoting the ontology of co-existence and relational rationality hand in hand with rational risk aversion in a globalized world, this pivot makes the case that Tianxia could offer a new vision for contemporary world order, redefining the universality and legitmacy of politics

The article discusses the processes that at the turn of the VI–V centuries B.C. were evolving to give rise to the authentic philosophical tradition in China. The author considers the formation of a community of people who keep themselves within the framework of certain reflective practices as the hallmark of this rise. The evolution set off during the "Iron Age Cold Epoch" that occurred on the planet in the early 1st millennium B.C. The civilizational response to this cool­ing in China was the extensive development of agriculture, which, in turn, led to demographic growth, the enhancement of the socio-political structure of society and the emergence of demand for competent managers. The social base for them turned out to be the lowest nobility – the "officers" shi. Unlike the aristocrats zhuhou at the highest tier of power, the "officers" shi were interested in main­taining the moral status of the "noble person" junzi. The existential space of this status could only be maintained through permanent reflection. The criterion for maintaining one's moral status was not only social behavior in accordance with this status, but also its existential experience, devotion not to external factors, but to an internal idea, responsibility to oneself. The Confucian effort to compre­hend and to pass on those reflective practices became the beginning of Chinese philosophy