Title: Body, Mind and Spirit in Warring States China: Comparative Perspectives
Lecturer: Lisa Raphals (Professor of Chinese, Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of California Riverside)
Chairperson: Yumi Suzuki (Post-doctorial Researcher, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University)
Date: 3:30pm, April 24th, 2019 (Wednesday)
Venue: Feng Qi Academic Achievements Exhibition, 5103 Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
This talk presents Chinese evidence that “parochializes the familiar” by using Warring States and Han excavated texts to argue for a largely tripartite model of the self in early Chinese texts, at least up to the Han dynasty. In this tripartite model, the self is composed of body in several senses (shen身,ti体,xing形), mind or heartmind (xin心) and spirit (shen神). I argue that there is a broad divergence between two views of a tripartite relation between body, mind and spirit in Warring States texts. One, which I call the mind- orxin-centered view,closely aligns mind and spirit, often in a hierarchically superior relation to the body. The other, which I call the spirit- or shen-centeredview, problematizes the relation between mind and spirit, and in some cases even aligns body and spirit in opposition to mind.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Lisa Raphals is Professor of Chinese, Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of California Riverside, and Chair, Program in Classical Studies and Program in Comparative Ancient Civilizations. Her books includeKnowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece(Cornell, 1992),Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China(SUNY, 1998), andDivination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece(Cambridge, 2013).
