This paper engages with comments offered by Timothy Connolly, Ann Pang-White, and Bryan Van Norden to my essay “Confucian Rituals and Aristotelian Habits.” I begin by briefly restating my argument from that previous work and then identify a number of potential disanalogies that might be drawn between li 禮 and hexis. I attempt to address these disanalogies by exploring, amongst other things, the different pictures Aristotle and Confucius may have had of human nature and the cosmos, the tension between social engagement and intellectual contemplation, and the aesthetical dimensions of virtue.
This article examines the relationship between wu 無 and dao 道 in the Daodejing 道德經 to explore its resonances with decolonial thought––understood here first as the dismantling of colonial impositions within the philosophical imaginary, and subsequently as a resource for resisting new forms of monoculturalism. It argues that the prevailing tendency to interpret these terms through Western metaphysical frameworks––such as the transcendence/immanence dichotomy and the categories of “nothingness” and “being” ––perpetuates a long tradition of epistemological hegemony. This imposition cannot be dismissed as mere flawed hermeneutics. Though often well-intentioned, such an approach assimilates the text’s distinctive concepts into familiar paradigms, thereby neutralizing their disruptive potential and obscuring the Daodejing’s ethical-political core. The analysis demonstrates that characterizing wu as absolute nothingness, relative nonbeing, or Heideggerian being generates insurmountable conceptual contradictions and perpetuates a colonial reading of the text. Moving beyond this critique, the article proposes a decolonial reorientation by recovering wu not as a metaphysical ground but through its dynamic, lessening function within dao’s circular process. This approach takes the Daodejing as a text of strategic resistance, emphasizing practices of weakening, return, and unlearning. By framing its process of “decreasing daily” as a preparatory practice for epistemic humility, the article uncovers a profound resonance with María Lugones’s decolonial project of “living with uncertainty.” Ultimately, this reading situates the Daodejing as an interlocutor in decolonial philosophy, highlighting how its ancient strategy of self-weakening and open-ended engagement with the world offers a resource for challenging dominant, oppressive logics.
This paper examines translation-induced misinterpretations in comparative studies of Xunzi (sic)(sic), where poor word choices mislead readers unfamiliar with the text's cultural context. Such errors intensify when scholars uncritically adopt flawed translations and impose modern categories, notably Freudian ones, on ancient texts. A key example is misinterpreting Xunzi's ren (sic) (restraint) and bi (sic) (beclouding) as "repression" and "obsession." Although "repression" originally meant restraint and "obsession" denoted persistent thoughts, their post-Freudian connotations-unconscious suppression and compulsive behavior-psychologize ren and bi as neurotic mental states, unsupported by Xunzi's text. This approach further blurs the fundamental difference between Xunzi's theory of li (sic) (propriety, ritual), an endeavor aiming at ethical cultivation and social harmony, with Freud's theory of ritual as behaviors rooted in compulsive neurosis, overlooking the fact that Freudian ritual hinges on unconscious mental states, thus oversimplifying and distorting their respective frameworks. By addressing these translation-driven misconceptions, this paper clarifies the distinct ideas of Xunzi and Freud, advocating for translations and interpretations that respect Xunzi's Confucian context and ensure comparisons with thinkers like Freud are grounded in their unique philosophical frameworks.
