Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy

A series of lectures that Mou Zongsan gave to graduate students at National Taiwan University in 1978, transcribed by his students and published in 1983. They offer an overview of Chinese philosophy by one of the leading New Confucians. Mou begins by arguing that Chinese philosophy centres on life and moral subjectivity, where Western philosophy has centred on nature and knowledge. He then treats the main schools in turn, including Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, the School of Names, Wei–Jin Xuanxue ('Learning of the Mysterious'), Chinese Buddhism and Song–Ming Neo-Confucianism. Throughout he uses Kant as a foil. Kant denied that humans have intellectual intuition; Mou argues that Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism all hold that the moral or awakened mind can know things as they are in themselves. He uses the Awakening of Faith's image of 'one mind opening two gates' to frame this, and gives special attention to the Tiantai Buddhist idea of a 'perfect teaching'.

It is the most accessible way into Mou's attempt to answer Kant from within Chinese thought, and a demanding but clear map of how a modern Confucian sees his own tradition.