SICEP

Biography

Bryan W. Van Norden is a disciple of Professor Philip J. Ivanhoe, in the intellectual lineage of David S. Nivison and Lee H. Yearley.  Van Norden is Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor at Yale-NUS College (Singapore).  He is also James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Vassar College (USA), and Chair Professor in Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University (China).   A recipient of Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Mellon fellowships, Van Norden has been honored as one of The Best 300 Professors in the US by The Princeton Review. Van Norden is author, editor, or translator of nine books on Chinese and comparative philosophy, including Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy (2011), Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy:  Han to the 20th Century (2014, with Justin Tiwald), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2nd ed., 2005, with P.J. Ivanhoe), and most recently Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (2017).  His hobbies are poker (he has played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas) and video games.  

A Brief Description of How NOT to Rectify Names: Confucius on the Philosophy of Language

Confucius visited the state of Wei when it was in a political crisis.  He was asked what the first step should be in resolving the crisis, and gave the surprising answer:  “It would, of course, be the rectification of names” (Analects 13.3). In this talk, I discuss the dramatic setting of this passage, its likely date of composition, and the history of its interpretations. This last topic illuminates Hans-Georg Gadamer’s thesis that interpreters inevitably bring presuppositions to the text, but that these presuppositions can be either enabling or disabling in the project of achieving genuine understanding.

Date and Time

2019. 06. 05 (Wed) 4-6pm

Place

Sungkyunkwan University International Hall 9B114