Anticipating China

This book shows that failure to assess the significant cultural differences between China and the West has seriously affected our understanding of both classical and contemporary China, and makes the translation of attitudes, concepts, and issues extremely problematic.By providing parallel accounts of the contrasting developments of classical Chinese and Western traditions, Anticipating China offers a means of avoiding the implicit cultural biases which so often distort Western understanding of Chinese intellectual culture. The book shows that failure to assess the significant cultural differences between China and the West has seriously affected our understanding of both classical and contemporary China, and makes the translation of attitudes, concepts, and issues extremely problematic.David L. Hall is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso and author of a number of works, including Eros and Irony: A Prelude to Philosophical Anarchism; Thinking Through Confucius (with Roger T. Ames); The Arimaspian Eye (a philosophical novel); and Richard Rorty: Poet and Prophet of the New Pragmatism, all published by SUNY Press. Roger T. Ames is Professor of Philosophy and editor of Philosophy East and West. He is the author of The Art of Rulership: A Study in Ancient Chinese Philosophical Thought; Thinking Through Confucius (with David L. Hall); co-editor of Nature in Asian Traditions; Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice; and Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, all published by SUNY Press.