University of Delaware

Alan Fox
Department of Philosophy

General Summary of Scholarship

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I see my scholarly interests going in two main directions. On the one hand, my work constitutes a search for increasing coherence in my understanding of the Chinese philosophical tradition. I have been approaching this through attention to some central problems and philosophical terminology, which have historically set the tone for philosophical discourse within and between schools. I am attempting to apply Western philosophical methodologies, both analytic and postmodern, to the Asian Philosophical traditions. I hope in doing so to find subtle and sometimes overlooked connections and influences between the various materials which constitute the philosophical literature.

On the other hand, I am interested in the problems of teaching Asian Philosophy, both in its own right and in the context of a Global Philosophy curriculum. To this end, my work has focused on developing materials and approaches for use by my colleagues, especially those who are not specialists in the Asian materials. This is how I hope to bring together the two strands of my scholarly interest - by sharing with my Western-trained colleagues new models for incorporating Asian philosophical traditions into a more comprehensive understanding of "World Philosophy."

Lately, the primary focus of my scholarship efforts has been early Daoist literature, namely the Dao De Jing of Laozi (ÀÏ ×Ó £º µÀ µÂ ¾­) and the Zhuangzi (ׯ ×Ó). I have been arguing against conventional readings of the texts which have their authors engaging in abstract metaphysical thinking. I offer alternative readings which are more concrete in the sense that they don’t prioritize some metaphysical, abstract reality above the concrete reality of everyday things. I am trying to show that, when read in this way, without filtering them through a foreign metaphysic, these texts demonstrate increased coherence. In addition, this approach uncovers problems and ideas that bear directly on contemporary philosophical discourse, but which make even more sense when understood on their own terms than when forced to fit alien paradigms.

I was surprised to find very little attention paid in the scholarly literature to the central Daoist notion of weiwuwei (Ϊ ÎÞ Îª), a term which plays a crucial role in both texts. My article in Asian Philosophy specifically deals with the idea of wuwei as it is found in the Zhuangzi, and I have also presented a paper comparing Zhuangzi’s and Laozi’s notions of weiwuwei for presentation under the auspices of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy, meeting in conjunction with the Eastern Divisional Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. This paper is currently being edited for publication.

I am, as I have indicated, deeply concerned with the problems facing non-specialists when trying to incorporate Asian materials into the curriculum of a "World" or "Global" Philosophy course. I am therefore currently also at work on an article to be submitted to Teaching Philosophy on teaching Daoism through Chapter One of the Dao De Jing. This will in turn serve as the foundation for my textbook on the Dao De Jing; there is nothing like it available. In addition, I am developing a paper on paradigms for helping students to understand the Hindu/Buddhist controversies. I have presented this paper twice: once to faculty and students at Wesley College, and once to the Philosophy faculty at our own Departmental Colloquium.

My work on the ethical implications of Daoism has also led me to develop what I believe is an independent and original line of thought regarding Chinese notions of freedom, destiny, and inevitability. I will soon be able to articulate a new theory of the meanings of these terms in general Chinese philosophical discourse, one which shows the coherence in Chinese thought while not overlooking the variations and subtleties of the representative traditions. Specifically, it develops a line of thought regarding the relationship between the early Daoist literary tradition on the one hand, and its more concrete and unrefined, though obscure, predecessors on the other.

I have also been working on another project for some time now, involving the notion of the non-autonomous individual as found in classical Chinese and in classical Greek Thinking. My refereed paper on the notion of justice in Confucius and Plato was first presented last year at the Seventh East/West Philosophers Conference held at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. This paper has been accepted for publication by the journal Legal Studies Forum. Since that time, I have developed further a few of the ideas in that paper, and a revised version of it has been presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November of 1995.

Finally, I also have a long-term project in the works, a translation and analysis of a very influential commentary to a pivotal text in the process according to which the foreign tradition Buddhism becomes integrated into Chinese culture. This will finally allow me to return to the area I investigated in my dissertation. Otherwise, all of my publications and presentations so far have represented an approach independent from that of my dissertation research.

I am very busy, and as my thinking develops, my productivity goes up and my contributions to the field become more unique and more substantial. I am now actively serving as a book reviewer for both Asian Philosophy and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, and Philosophy East and West has asked me to referee submissions sent to them in my area of research. I was invited to contribute three articles on Chinese philosophers to a book entitled Great Thinkers of the Eastern World, published in 1995 by HarperCollins Publishers. I am clearly earning the respect of colleagues all over the US and abroad.