A Short History of Chinese Philosophy

I’ve read a lot of books over the years and And audited a graduate East West philosophy seminar at Peking University, the Harvard of China. The seminar was taught by Professor Roger T. Ames. So I have acquired a fairly decent understanding. But this volume really smoothed out places where I was still a little bit fuzzy, gave a nice analytical grid for future readings, and nicely confirm that I wasn’t too far off base anyway.If Chinese philosophy is new to you, this is a good book to get started with..

This book is pure joy to read the author is not only a scholar but excellent teacher and communicator.it is comprehensive but flows smoothly it is a great tool for learning Chinese Philosophy while enjoying it !

I got interested in Confucianism after seeing an exhibit on Korea at the Philadelphia Museum of art. I checked out a few books at the library and this was one of them. It is far and away the best (in presenting concepts, evolution of thought, and readability). But, as a bonus, I discovered that its chapters on the evolution and tenets of Taoism drew my interest and excited me to learn more. So I bought the book and expect to keep it and delve into it repeatedly in the coming years.If you're interested in philosophy you'll enjoy this book and take some erudition from it. For example, I learned that the Golden Rule was a tenet of Chinese principle long before Hillel's construction of it, and that Taoism preached universal love long before Jesus did.

I never had any idea of where or how Chinese Philosophy emerged. This books shows a clear line of how historic events effected (sponsored) the various schools of thought and how they threaded and departed over time.It is written without point of view and the writer writes well and is smart. Needless to say I really like the book

Best intro to Chinese philosophy out there.

This is a great recap of Chinese philosophy; it's easy to read and full of insights. It follows the history of China through through the great dynasties.

Really enjoyed Fung's perspective on Classical Chinese Authors. Maybe not a good read for fun but great when studied with a scholar or if the reader has had previously studied the topic.

Excellent Item and Fast Shipping! Thanks!

I did not understand everything in this book; but for someone who, like myself, had only a sketchy knowledge of Confucianism and Taoism it did give a reasonably workable account of Chinese Philosophy.Some things stood out for me:Almost the whole of Chinese philosophy seems to be, as A.N.Whitehead might have said, a footnote to Confucius and Lao Tzu, who lived a little more than a century before Plato. Even Chinese Buddhism seemed to have got a foothold in Chinese philosophy because so much of it chimed in with Taoism. I have never gone along with Whitehead's aphorism that "all Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato": it seems to me that Western philosophy has many other sources and is all the richer for it. If Fun Yu-Lang's account is right, there was not that richness of sources in Chinese philosophy.It is also interesting that, according to this book, almost the last contribution to Chinese philosophy was in the 16th century with the Neo-Confucianism of Wang Shou-Jen (1472 to 1528). Anything that followed is dealt with in a mere 23 pages of a 342-page text. It is as if there was nothing much new in western philosophy after the time of Machiavelli (1469 to 1527).The bulk of Chinese philosophy and its most valuable part seems to me to be devoted to how we should live. Chinese metaphysics seems to me mainly concerned with giving a metaphysical basis for ethics.The most distinctive note in Chinese philosophy seems to me to be the frequent insistence in Taoism on wu-wei, which means non-action or, to use a metaphor "going with the flow" and so being in harmony with the Tao. Most Chinese philosophy seems to assume that humans are naturally good, and need to shed whatever unnatural things clutter up their nature as they grow up.If all this sounds as if I thought that western philosophy is richer than that of China, it may because of my lack of understanding - or it may be because "a short account" cannot, for someone relatively new to the subject, do justice to the wealth of what Chinese philosophy has to teach.

A nice simple overview. Clear and informative. Logically sequenced and explained/argued. I definitely learnt some valuable things and was particularly intrigued by the connection between Buddhism and Taoism, and Chan (Zen) which came from that.

a good book and enjoyed reading it. postage and packing ok

Fung covers Chinese Philosophy from the Zhou to the 20th century. No doubt the details and discussion are lost in such a feat, but this book is still one of the first you should read on the subject. It covers the notable schools and philosophers in just enough detail to see the progression of thought. Chapters are focused but make sure to include important influences and side notes.No, this book is not authoritative and it is Fung's interpretation, but a generally reliable one. You'll have to read other texts to supplement your knowledge, but that is to be expected. 100% worth it and 5 stars considering the value I received from this overview of Chinese thought.

I had countless people recommend this book to me. After reading about this book, a native chinese friend of mine jokingly said 'you know more about chinese philosophy than most chinese'This book is about as exhaustive as it gets. It covers the entire history of Chinese philosophy from the warring states period to the years immediately following WW2. Despite all this it's about 400 pages and is pretty easy to read. I finished it in a few days. It's weird calling a book on philosophy a 'page turner' but it kind of is.The author is a chinese philosopher. He really understands the nuances of both western and eastern thought. He has a good, readerly prose style and embeds his exposition with lots of fun stories. Some of these stories are philosophical in nature, others are from history.He constantly compares and contrasts all of the different philosophies to one another, creating a cohesive narrative that helps tie everything together. He also ties things into the material and historical conditions that these philosophies arose in. While chinese history isn't the focus of this book, I ended up learning a lot about chinese history in the process.I learned analytic philosophy in uni and a bit of continental philosophy. Reading this helped to rewire my brain a bit and develop a more holistic way of thinking that stands in contrast to the more reductive approach of western philosophy. In the last chapter the author discusses what a good synergy between eastern and western thought looks like.I recommend this to basically everyone, but especially those familiar with western philosophy who want to see what they've missed out on.