V torek, 23. 4. 2019, bo v Prešernovi dvorani ZRC SAZU (Novi trg 4, Ljubljana)

v okviru stoletnice Filozofske fakultete potekal simpozij s predavanji

svetovno znanih teoretikov in teoretičark vzhodnoazijske filozofije in estetike

Urnik predavanj

9.00–10.30 Graham Parkes (Vienna University, East China Normal University):MAKING THE CUT / KEEPING THE CONTINUITY: A ZEN APPROACH TO LIVING AESTHETICALLY

10.30–10.45 Odmor s kavo in čajem

10.45–12.15 Setsuko Aihara (Japanese artist from Vienna, member of the Portrait Society of America):ASPECTS OF JAPANESE VISUAL ARTS: PERSPECTIVES ON LANDSCAPE, REALITY, MASKS, AND SELF-PORTRAITS

12.30–13.45 Kosilo

14.00–15.30 Carine Defoort (KU Leuven):DID CONFUCIUS REALLY CARE ABOUT CORRECT NAMING? THE RECONSIDERATION OF A MODERN HYPE

15.30–15.45 Odmor s kavo in čajem

15.45–17.15 Roger T. Ames (Beijing University, University of Hawai’i):THEORIZING “PERSONS” FOR CONFUCIAN ROLE ETHICS: A GOOD PLACE TO START

Predavanja bodo v angleščini.

PRISRČNO VABLJENI!

VABILO

Setsuko Aihara: Portraits

Setsuko AiharaAspects of Japanese Visual Arts: Masks, Landscape Paintings, Decorative Screens, and Ikebana

In the Noh drama the actor behind the mask (and costume) is no longer there, having become the spirit of the mask. This illustrates the mutual permeability of self and other that is distinctive of the Japanese tradition, which has never subscribed to the dichotomy between subject and object.

Landscape brush paintings deriving from the Chinese tradition (sansui-ga 山水画) are not realistic re-presentations of nature based on the one-point perspective characteristic of later Western art (where a consistent subject observes objects), but rather portray an imaginative landscape or places for the enli-ghtenment of ‘men of culture’ (bunjin 文人).

Three dimensional volumes are expressed atmospherically usually without using lines or contours, pu-tting into question what is real about the ‘real’.

Paintings of flowers and birds (kacho-ga 花鳥画) on decorative screens or paper sliding doors (fusuma 襖) are arranged in bold com-positions according to a deep sense of ‘the pathos of things’ (mono no aware 物の哀れ), a central concern of Japanese arts since the Heian period (12th century). The underlying idea is that human life and the world of nature are not different.

The art of flower arrangement (ikebana 生け花) is another example of a ‘reconstruction’ of nature for the sake of achieving a natural bea-uty that expresses mono no aware. This kind of intervention into nature is quite different from a domination of the natural world throu-gh technology.

The absence of ‘subjectivity’ in the Japanese tradition means that the self-portrait was ne-ver a genre until the modern period. However, a consideration of the process of painting a self-portrait raises interesting questions (and confusions) concerning the relationships be-tween subject and object.

Graham ParkesMaking the Cut / Keeping the Continuity – A Zen Approach to Living Aesthetically

We begin by considering the notion of the ‘cut’ (ki-re 切れ) in Japanese aesthetics, which usually works as kire-tsuzuki 切れ続き, or ‘cut-continuation’. Then move on to cutting off the root of life (Zen Master Haku-in), cutting flowers to ‘make them live’ (the literal meaning of ikebana 生け花), the concealed cuts in the gliding gait of the Noh actor, the ‘dry landscape’ garden (karesansui 枯山水) cut off from the naturally wa-tered land around it, and then the celebrated cinematic cuts of the film-maker Ozu Yasujirō.

To conclude, we contemplate the far more consequential Western cut—the dichotomy (Greek: ‘cut in two’)—between the human and the so-called ‘inanimate world’. By following the Zen practice of treating things with respect for their ‘buddha-nature’ (busshō 仏性), we can find ways to fix our dysfunctional relationship with them, and even to ‘befriend’ them—but on a deeper level than the famous ‘KonMari method’ of the Netflix superstar Marie Kondo (though this also has its virtues).

Setsuko Aihara: A-Boys

Roger T. AmesTheorizing “Persons” for Confucian Role Ethics: A Good Place to Start

In 2011, I published Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary in which I argue that Confucian philosophy’s encounter with Western ethical theory is not its defining moment. Indeed, I try to use the Confucian et-hical vocabulary to express its own sui generis vision of the moral life as Confucian role ethics. On refle-ction, I am not sure that I have been able to convey in sufficiently clear terms the Confucian conception of a relationally-constituted person. I am persuaded that this is one of the most important contributions Confucian philosophy has to make to our contemporary discourse as a robust alternative to single actors playing to win.

G.W.F. Hegel in the introduction to his Encyclopaedia Logic famously observes that one of the most dif-ficult problems in any philosophical investigation is the question of where to begin. In this lecture, I will argue that the appropriateness of categorizing Confucian ethics as role ethics turns largely on the con-ception of person that is presupposed within the interpretive context of classical Chinese philosophy. If our goal is to take the Confucian tradition on its own terms and to let it speak with its own voice without overwriting it with our own cultural importances, we must begin by first self-consciously and critically theorizing the Confucian conception of person as the starting point of Confucian ethics.

The problem of using Western categories—today, virtue ethics—to theorize Confucian philosophy is an old and persistent story. In our own time, but with deep roots in the classical Greek philosophical narra-tive, individualism has become a default, commonsense assumption, if not an ideology. I will argue that the vocabulary of agents, acts, generic virtues, character traits, autonomy, motivation, reasons, choice, freedom, principles, consequences, and so on, introduces distinctions that assume this foundational individualism as its starting point.

And further, I will claim that Confucian ethics by contrast begins from the wholeness of experience, and is formulated by invoking a radically different focus-field cluster of terms and distinctions with fun-damentally different assumptions about how personal identities emerge in our human narratives, and how moral competence is expressed as an achieved virtuosity in the roles and relationships that come to constitute us. To fail to distinguish what I will call individual human “beings” from relationally-con-stituted “human becomings,” then, would mean that we have willy-nilly insinuated a contemporary and decidedly foreign notion of person into our investigation before it has even begun.

Carine DefoortDid Confucius Really Care About Correct Naming?The Reconsideration of a Modern Hype

Academic views on Confucius’ zheng ming vision tend to be remarkably consistent despite their mutual differences. The three recurrent characteristics are

(1) that it is considered a core notion in Confucianism and even in Chinese thought; (2) that it is expressed in some other Lunyu sayings that the one mentioning zheng ming, at least 6.23,

12.17 and 12.11; and (3) that it belongs to a much larger early Chinese debate.

I argue that this interpretation dates from the early 20th century and testifies to its times.

While this portrayal certainly had its merits and persuasive force, its continuous repetition in the acade-mic field has essentialized it into an undeniable fact, to the detriment of critical thinking.