Taipei
Taiwan
FRANCAIS | ENGLISH


Responsable: Frank Muyard

École française d'Extrême-Orient
Institute of History and Philology
Academia Sinica, Nankang 11529
Taipei
Taiwan
Tel: +886 2 2652 3177 / 2782 9555 #275
Fax: +886 2 2785 2035 frank.muyard@efeo.net


PRESENTATION
Seminar: Stéphane Feuillas
16 DECEMBER 14
Speaker:
Mr. Stéphane FEUILLAS
(Professor, Paris-Diderot University, France)
(Research Fellow, Research Center on East Asian Civilizations, France)

Title:
THE ZHUANGZI, A CONFUCIAN POLITICAL WORK?
A Reading by Wang Anshi (1021-1086) and his School
以儒解莊


Date:
Tuesday, December 16, 2014, at 3pm

Venue:
Conference room at the 2nd floor, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy,
Academia Sinica, Nankang District, Taipei City

Abstract:
In the reception that has been done since the late nineteenth century in Europe and in the Western Sinology of the twentieth century, the Zhuangzi 莊子 is the work of a thinker who seems to reject all legitimacy to the political field, offering a natural philosophy of self-liberation that leaves little room for social considerations and articulations. His criticism of values often put in ridiculous and laughable scenes despising princes or Confucius himself seems to be the source of a Chinese form of anarchist thought. There is thus some paradox to consider the Zhuangzi as a book that helps to gain a better approach to the Confucianism of the Master and that that could provide an intellectual and theoretical base to  “a best policy”. Yet that was the task which some Northern Song thinkers 北宋 (960-1127) dedicated themselves to, and especially those who define a interventionist and centralized policy often likened to a kind of ancient Legalism. Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101) was not the only one who shared the idea that the Zhuangzi as a book had to be read as a helping tool to a better understanding of Confucian thought. But Wang Anshi王安石 (1021-1086) is even more remarkable in leading this interpretative turn of the Zhuangzi, failover which was to be continued and amplified in his school by Lü Huiqing 呂惠卿 (1032-1111). The purpose of this conference will be to highlight this paradox and to show how the Zhuangzi could play a role in redefining the Confucian literate missions and in the development of a theoretical basis for policy decision.

(The seminar will be held in English and co-chaired by Ms. Paola Calanca, Head of the EFEO Taipei Center, and Mr. Huang Kuan-min, Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. Registration in not required.)

 lecture