{"product_id":"living-chinese-philosophy","title":"Living Chinese Philosophy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eContrasts classical Greek ontology (\"the science of being in itself\") with Confucian \"zoetology\" (\"the art of living\").\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2025 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCHOICE \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eOutstanding Academic Title\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLiving Chinese Philosophy\u003c\/i\u003e, Roger T. Ames uses comparative cultural hermeneutics as a method for contrasting classical Greek ontology (\"the science of being in itself\") with classical Chinese \"zoetology\" (\"the art of living\"), which is made explicit in the \u003ci\u003eYijing\u003c\/i\u003e易經or \u003ci\u003eBook of Changes\u003c\/i\u003e. Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle give us a substance ontology grounded in \"being \u003ci\u003equa\u003c\/i\u003e being\" or \"being \u003ci\u003eper se\u003c\/i\u003e\" (\u003ci\u003eto on he on\u003c\/i\u003e) that guarantees a permanent and unchanging subject as the substratum for the human experience. This substratum or essence includes its purpose for being (\u003ci\u003etelos\u003c\/i\u003e) and defines the \"what-it-means-to-be-a-thing-of-this-kind\" (\u003ci\u003eeidos\u003c\/i\u003e) of any particular thing, thus setting a closed, exclusive boundary and the strict identity necessary for a particular thing to be \"this\" and not \"that.\" In the \u003ci\u003eBook of Changes\u003c\/i\u003e, we find a vocabulary that makes explicit cosmological assumptions that are a stark alternative to this substance ontology. It also provides the interpretive context for the canonical texts by locating them within a holistic, organic, and ecological worldview. To provide a meaningful contrast with this fundamental assumption of \u003ci\u003eon\u003c\/i\u003e or \"being,\" we might borrow the Greek notion of \u003ci\u003ezoe\u003c\/i\u003e or \"life\" and create the neologism \"\u003ci\u003ezoe\u003c\/i\u003e-tology\" as \"the art of living\" (\u003ci\u003eshengshenglun\u003c\/i\u003e生生論). This cosmology begins from \"living\" (\u003ci\u003esheng\u003c\/i\u003e生) itself as the motive force behind change and gives us a world of boundless \"becomings\": not \"things\" that \u003ci\u003eare\u003c\/i\u003e but \"events\" that are \u003ci\u003ehappening\u003c\/i\u003e, a contrast between an ontological conception of human \"beings\" and a process conception of what the author calls human \"becomings.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"State University of New York Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54486685843800,"sku":"9781438499529","price":36.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781438499529.jpg?v=1777903260","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/living-chinese-philosophy","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}