China start date
I know a lot of listeners are excited about the start of the series on philosophy in ancient China, and I am too! So as 2023 draws to an end I wanted to let you know that Karyn Lai are expecting to launch that series in March 2024, probably on March 10. We have already started writing scripts! (In fact, I am just working on one that is about writing and scripts: the materiality and transmission of philosophical texts in ancient China.) That will come two weeks after an episode in which I'll have a concluding chat with Chike about our coverage of Africana philosophy in the later 20th century. So glad to have these two fantastic co-authors that are making it possible for the podcast to cover these traditions of thought!
In reply to Will China/India receive the same attention as Africana? by dukeofethereal
Coverage
I think basically the answer is just "yes," at least in theory or in terms of my ideal planning: since the book series kind of constrains the size of the "chunks" it would make sense to me to do two books apiece on India and China (basically, "ancient" and "later"), just as for Africana. Not yet clear to me whether Japan and Korea (and maybe other cultures... Thailand, etc) would fit into a "later China" series. Sort of the equivalent of a problem we've discussed for Europe, like how do you get in "smaller" but worthwhile traditions, like Italian or Russian philosophy in the 18th-19th centuries, alongside "bigger" topics like German philosophy?
In reply to Coverage by Peter Adamson
"ancient" and "later"
I'm not the biggest fan of structuring Chinese and Indian philosophy into "ancient" and "later". Is there really no better way to structure it? I can't imagine that being anything but extremely constraining on the amount of philosophy you could cover and the narrative you write of it. Imagine if we did that for European philosophy! You have one series on "ancient" European philosophy, covering Ancient Greek and Later Antiquity as one, then you have to find a way to cover all of Medieval, Byzantine, Renaissance/Reformation, Modern, etc. as all under a single "later" series. That seems extremely constraining to the amount of content you could cover and the narrative you would have to tell to cover all the content under a single series, no? You definitely wouldn't be able to give justice to the story of European philosophy that way. Likewise with China and India.
If the podcast chunks get too big though, you can always cut it differently for the book versions, like what you have done with Africana.
In reply to "ancient" and "later" by Andrew
Cutting
Yes that's absolutely true: China and India should probably have three volumes apiece, each, just thinking about how much material there would be if I could read all the languages and find co-authors to do it. Indeed I often make the point that Indian philosophy should be compared not to ancient Greek philosophy, say, but to European philosophy as a whole.
But here I think I just have to make concessions to what is practically feasible. A book's worth of episodes takes about 3 years, in alternation with the episodes on Europe, and do I also want to cover Philosophy in the Americas among the "non-western" series. So what you're suggesting would need at least another 18 years to complete (3 books on China, 2 more on India, 1 on Americas). Also, though I may be wrong here, I'm not sure there is enough in terms of primary and secondary literature that I could read to allow me to do, like, 120 or 140 episodes on Chinese philosophy from the Han onward, or on Indian philosophy since antiquity. For all these reasons I think it's better to do one more volume's worth each on China and on India... if I even manage that, it is a lot to get through and I am not getting any younger!
In reply to Cutting by Peter Adamson
Quantity vs Quality
I can't comment on the amount of material there is to make use of, so yeah that I can imagine is a big constraint to what I am suggesting.
As for time, well, do we have to cover everything that would fall under "later China" and "later India"? Why not, say, do a period chunk that is comparable in scope as ancient India/China and come back to it later, similar to what you have done with classical India and will do with classical China? What I mean is, you could cover, say, Han (if that is big enough on its own for a series) and then start the Americas right after, returning to China later.
Telling the entire "History of Philosophy without any Gaps" was always going to be a Sisyphean task anyway, so it is a toss up between quality vs quantity I guess. Is it better to cover as much of India/China as possible, so that post-classical India/China can get the more exposure that both traditions need, at the cost of narrative granularity and depth each period deserves? Or is it better to have that depth and granularity, at the cost of maybe not getting around to everything? I don't know myself, even after arguing for the quality horn of the dilemma haha.
In reply to Quantity vs Quality by Andrew
Quality vs quantity
Thanks, that is a great point and I will have to think about it. Ultimately I guess it comes down to what co-authors would want to do and find feasible and interesting as a project. I do find it appealing to try to get to “now” as we did with the Africana series, which would tend to go against doing a series/book on only, say, "medieval" Indian philosophy. But it's really helpful to think about the option.
Incidentally I was just reading something about commentaries on the Analects and there was a brief mention of the Vietnamese commentary tradition, which underscores the point about other Asian cultures not being forgotten.
In reply to Quality vs quantity by Peter Adamson
Quality vs quantity
If you accept the input of a random old time listener, it would make me quite sad if you skipped over material for the sake of being able to cover everything up to the present day. After all, the whole point of this series was supposed to be the opposite of the typical "The entire History of Chinese Philosophy: from Confucius to Mao in 200 pages!". I understand skipping stuff is inevitable or else we would still be covering Plato, but please avoid the temptation of prioritizing temporal and geographical extension over completeness. The thing that makes this project particularly valuable compared to most other histories of philosophy is its commitment not to have gaps. It would be sad if the project did indeed end up having a lot of gaps or else it couldn't have made "from 200 to 2000 in 60 episodes", because then it becomes just another (and forgettable) history of philosophy.
In reply to Quality vs quantity by Pablo
Q and Q
Yes I agree with that! Whatever I do, I would like to do it with chronological continuity and a fair degree of detail, as traditional in the podcast. You can see this from our approach to classical Chinese philosophy: 70 episodes to get only as far as the Han (2nd c CE).
In reply to Coverage by Peter Adamson
China series structure
While it's obvious that the China series this March would start with classical, do you plan to complete the series with classical China alone (like the India series)? Or end with some later thought (e.g. medieval, early modern)? After the rather successful approach to 20th century taken in Africana, it seems to me that at least some 20th century thought can be covered in this series itself?
There's still the challenge, of course, of not having covered Marx before Mao, but since Africana series too met the same challenge with full cognizance, I think it's an approach worth trying? There's also the temptation to rush to the contemporary (or, to allude to your FAQs, the so-called "big" Western early modern and modern names), but HOPWAG's comprehensiveness has been its strength: without any gaps inevitably leaves many gaps, but unjustified gap-leaving HOPWAG seldom does.
That said, I'm very excited for Zhuangzi! Been thinking about the idea of nestedness of dreams/selves in Fernando Pessoa (a philosopher-poet who I think SHOULD be covered in 20th century European phil eventually).
As for covering rest of East Asian philosophies, I'm not sure whether it's good to take a pan-East-Asian approach in the China series itself, or to save them for a later East Asia series. I'm not familiar with East Asian philosophies and civilisations, but I suppose Chinese and other civilisations were historically connected (including by a shared family of languages), but developed their own distinctive philosophical traditions? The national/nation-state identities associated with these civilisations only arose much later? I suppose the China series itself could cover some affinities with Japan and Korea, and Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, etc? Apologise again for my incredibly naive questions, no expert at all here!
In reply to China series structure by Tarun G
China series
For now the plan is actually to go up only as far as the Han, since this is Karyn’s specialist period and will give us enough for a volume in the book series. I would not want to skip from, like, the 2nd to the 20th century so ideally what I would like to do (also for India) is to have a second series of episodes and book on later Chinese philosophy that takes the story up to the 20th c, as with Africana. But we’’ll have to see whether I manage that.
In reply to China series by Peter Adamson
China series structure
Thank you for clarifying this, Prof. Adamson! The "classical first, later later" does sound good then, since there will be deep coverage of both classical and medieval to 20th c thought. After classical China, has the next non-Western series been planned? Would it be later India, or other east Asian philosophies?
In reply to China series structure by Tarun G
Next non-western
I think I mentioned this somewhere else here on the site but I am considering three options: later China (& maybe other Asian cultures?), later India, or philosophy in the Americas (Mesoamerican, Native American, Latin American). I am leaning toward the latter since it would be a really new thing to do, and give us a culture/geographical region that has otherwise not been covered except insofar as I'll be touching on it a little when talking about European colonialism from the European side of the story (very soon actually, as part of the series on the Counterreformation). A lot depends on availability of suitable co-authors too, though.
In reply to Next non-western by Peter Adamson
Next non-Western
Each option sounds compelling for its own reasons, and if you do find co-authors, covering Americas after China, then later India, China, and Americas would be cyclical. But I'd be equally excited for later India too, and there's plenty of material to cover for early modern, and 20th century India presents opportunities to cover formative thinker-activists in the Indian republic, as well as academic philosophers like Bimal Matilal.
Given the sheer amount of material, later India could be two books too (early modern, and 19th, 20th-21st century). Interview guests, I'd imagine, could also include leading intellectual historians, biographers, and social scientists since there's a LOT of original political thought coming out of colonial and post-colonial India. (There's, of course, plenty of work in other areas too - e.g. Matilal's writings across almost all the major areas of philosophy, and his pioneering of comparative/fusion philosophy)
In parallel, as the Europe/West series approaches modernity, would there be a separate series for (North) America and the US distinct from the Europe one? Again, many key thinkers have been covered in the Africana series, but philosophers like Thoreau, James, Dewey, and perhaps some of the 18th-century founding figures and documents. But for modern and contemporary Western philosophy, it seems to me that two parallel/serial series might offer clearer coverage?
In reply to Next non-Western by Tarun G
In reply to Giraffes in China by G. Tarun
Giraffe in China
Nice! I will definitely use that at some point here on the site, thanks.
In reply to Giraffe in China by Peter Adamson
Giraffe in China
Or as book cover?! I'm sure longtime HOPWAG listeners/readers know the giraffe references by now.
In reply to Next non-western by Peter Adamson
Next non-western
Seconded on the Americas, that would be phenomenal. I have James Maffie's book on Aztec philosophy, it's quite good but I haven't gotten very far into it. I'm also attempting to learn as much about Haudeosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy as I can. Definitely this is oft-neglected territory. Big-picture obsessive that I am, I'm also mindful that Oceania could be unrepresented, so perhaps it would be a good option to shoehorn that in with the Americas, so that all places outside Afro-Eurasia can be covered. Maybe you could call it The Indigenous World or something along those lines.
In response to Tarun G's last question, I would expect that the U.S. would have it's own separate tranche like you've been doing with the Italian Renaissance, France, England, and beyond.
To be quite honest, I'm concerned that you might not be able to complete this whole entire series because of the instability of the whole online ecosystem; between the advent of malefic AI being unleashed upon the world, the chaos & mayhem of online media platforms, the stability of all Big Data clouds, etc,...so if we have something like a Systems Collapse this decade, that would put an end of this whole thing, not to mention all other long-term chronological podcasts. Who knows, we might be able to get our own personal Peter Adamson AI dopplelganger to generate all kinds of crazy HoP podcasts. Weeeeee!!!! Oh well, at least there's pen, paper and old-school printing presses!
In reply to Next non-western by Christopher S
The future
I love the idea that when the entire internet collapses, you and a few other people will react by saying, "NO, what about Peter's podcast?!"
But seriously, thanks for the encouragement on Philosophy in the Americas. If you have reading suggestions for me, by all means send them over if you have a chance and I'll file them away for later (maybe by email: peter.adamson@lrz.uni-muenchen.de).
The idea of philosophy in the US as its own series is also interesting.
Tentative list of episodes for Chinese Philosophy
Since we're weeks away from the long awaited Classical Chinese Philosophy (announced back in 2018) to air, when will you upload the list of tentative episodes for the series professor?
In reply to Tentative list of episodes for Chinese Philosophy by dukeofethereal
Chinese episodes
Good grief, have we really been planning it since 2018?
Thanks for the reminder, I had been holding off because the opening episodes were a bit in flux but I think I could do it now... see over on the Blog.
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Will China/India receive the same attention as Africana?
Will you be devoting the same amount of episodes of India/China like you have for Africana, especially when India/China work spans longer and there are more materials to cover ?
If you are covering Classical China with Karyn before the rise of Neo-Daoism and entry of Buddhism, we still have several centuries to cover before we even hit Medieval China for example (700-800 years to 1000ad China) then a lot more philosophy during Song-Ming-Qing-Post Qing/Communist China.
Probably 2 extremely large books, might even be 3.
Same for India, you stopped with Dignaga, we still have a lot of content to cover with Ganeri.
I did enjoy Africana but I would preferred more work to be covered on content with actual written philosophy that is contemporaneous with Western Philosophy. For example Tibetan Philosophy/Japan/Korea.