INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM SERIES ON
COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
“MORALITY AND RELIGIOUSNESS:
CHINESE AND WESTERN”
In Celebration of the 40th Founding Anniversary of
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
August 14-15, 2013
PROGRAMME OF SYMPOSIUM
Tuesday, August 13
7:00-9:00 pm
Reception at the pub of Tavistock Hotel
Wednesday, August 14
10:30-11:00 am
Welcome Speech (by Professor Xinzhong Yao)
Introduction to Symposium (by Professor Chung-ying Cheng)
Memorandum for Sessions (by Doctor Linyu Gu)
Symposium Photo
11:00 am-1:00 pm
Session I: “Chinese Philosophical Origin in Morality and Religiousness”
Chair: Professor Nicolas Bunnin
11:00-11:30 Professor Chung-ying Cheng (Hawaii), “From Kant’s Moral Philosophy
of Religion to Confucian Religiousness in Moral Practice”
11:30-12:00 Professor Eric S. Nelson (UML), “Religious or Secular Ethics? The
Debate over Confucius in German Philosophy”
12:00-12:30 Doctor Linyu Gu (Hawaii), “From Pragmatist ‘Religiousness’ to
Cosmological ‘Non-Religiousness’: A Study of Fellowship”
1:00-2:00pm Lunch at the Conference Room
2:00-3:50 pm
Session II: “God, Morality, and Beyond”
Chair: Professor T. H. Barrett
2:00-2:50 Professor Richard Swinburne (Oxford), “God and Morality”
2:50-3:20 Professor Anne Cheng (College de France), “Morality and Religiousness:
the Original Formulation”
3: 20-3:50 Professor Lauren F. Pfister (HKBU), “Beyond Moral and Religious
Conventionalities: Reflections on the Western Inscription of Zhāng Zài (1020-1077)
and the Onto-hermeneutics of Paul Tillich (1886-1965)”
3:50-4:20 Tea/Coffee Break
4:20-5:50 pm
Session III: “Dialogue between Chung-ying Cheng and Richard Swinburne”
Chair: Professor Lauren F. Pfister
Themes:
1. How do we come to have the notion of God (or equivalent notion) and in what
sense from a philosophical—theological point of view? How do we understand
question of
conceptual equivalence if there is one?
2. What do we mean by transcendence? What is the distinction between external
transcendence and internal transcendence?
3. How does God relate to human religion or religiousness: Can we have religion and
religiousness without God or its equivalent?
4. How do religion and religiousness relate morality and ethics? Do we need a
religious foundation for morality or instead a moral foundation for religion?
5. How does Confucianism (Classical versus Neo-Confucian) relate to religion and
religiousness and in what sense?
6. How does Confucianism differ from Christianity and in what better defined
essential
way? How Confucianism and Christianity relate to each other?
6:00-7:30 pm Dinner at “River Room,” King’s Building
Thursday, August 15
9:30-11:00 am
Session IV “Tradition and Modernity”
Chair: Professor Eric S. Nelson
9:30-10:00 Professor T. H. Barrett (SOAS), “Situating Ethics in the Historical
Chinese Religious Worldview: The Role of the Interpersonal”
10:00-10:30 Professor Nicholas Bunnin (Oxford and KCL), “A Theme from Cai
Yuanpei”
10:30-11:00 Professor GE Zhaoguang (Fudan, presented by Dr. Suzanne Xiao Yang),
“Will Cultural Difference Lead to Conflict between China and the West?”
11:00-11:30 Tea/Coffee Break
11: 30 am-1:00 pm
Session V: “China and the West from Scientific Perspectives”
Chair: Professor Timothy Connolly
11:30-12:00 Professor Oliver Davies (KCL), “Encounter between China and the
West: Neuroscience, Ethics, and Universalism”
12:00-12:30 Professor XIAO Wei (Tsinghua), “Mental Health and Bioethics: The
Contemporary Narrative Turn”
12:30-1:00 Doctor Suzanne Xiao Yang (KCL), “Contemporary” Conceptions of
World Order in China: Post-Westphalian and All-Under-Heaven
1:00-2:00 pm Lunch at the Conference Room
2:00-3:30 pm
Session VI : “Morality and Religiousness in Early Confucianism”
Chair: Professor Oliver Davies
2:00-2:30 Professor Timothy Connolly (ESU), “Socrates and the Early Confucians on
the Examined Life”
2:30-3:00 Professor Richard King (Berne), “Virtues and Relationships in Mencius”
3:00-3:30 Professor Xinzhong Yao (KCL), “Three Confucian Pathways to Moral
Religiousness”
3:30-4:00 pm Tea/Coffee Break
4:00-5:30 pm
Session VII: Roundtable Discussion
Chairs: Professor Anne Cheng and Professor Xinzhong Yao
Theme: “About and Above ‘Morality and Religiousness’” (by All Participants)
5:30-6:00 pm
Closing Remarks of the Symposium (by Professor Chung-ying Cheng)