Whose Tradition? Which Dao?, livre ebook

In an incisive work of comparative philosophy, James F. Peterman considers the similarities between early Chinese ethicist Confucius and mid-twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Their enduring legacies rest in no small part on projects to restore humanity to healthy ways of living and thinking. Confucius offers a method of answering ethical questions designed to get his interlocutors further along on the Dao, the path of right living. Struggling with his own forms of unhealthy philosophical confusion, Wittgenstein provides a method of philosophical therapy designed to help one come into agreement with norms embedded in our forms of life and speech. Highlighting similarities between the two philosophers, Peterman shows how Wittgensteinian critique can benefit from Confucian inquiry and how Confucian practice can benefit from Wittgensteinian investigations. Furthermore, in presenting a way to understand Confucius's Dao as concrete language games and forms of life, and Wittgenstein's therapeutic interventions as the most fitting philosophical orientation toward early Confucian ethics, Peterman offers Western thinkers a new, sophisticated understanding of Confucius as a philosopher.
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: A Prologue to an Unlikely Project
2. Confucius, Wittgenstein, and the Problem of Moral Disagreement
3. Confucius, History, and the Problem of Meaning
4. Wittgenstein and the Problem of Understanding at a Distance
5. How to Be a Confucian Pragmatist without Losing the Truth
6. Saving Confucius from the Confucians
7. The Dilemmas of Contemporary Confucianism
8. Fingarette on Handshaking
9. Acknowledging the Given: Our Complicated Form of Ritual Life
Afterword: The Way Backward or Forward: Wittgenstein or Confucius?
Notes
Bibliography
Index