Philosophy Seminar Series: 17 March 2011, 2-3:45pm, Philosophy Resource Room; Speaker: Albert Galvany, Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of Humanities of the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain); and Research Associate at the Dept. of East Asian Studies of the University of Cambridge; Moderator: Professor Lisa Raphals
Abstract: The main theoretical initiatives that have been undertaken to resolve the conflicts inherent in political organization tend to identify the passions, the intrinsically impetuous side of human beings, as the main pitfall. Unlike all these efforts to reduce or tame people’s impulses, the Han Feizi considers that the instinctive dimension driving men to pursue what gives them pleasure and to reject what displeases them not only does not pose a problem for the project of achieving an effective political order, but also constitutes, in itself, the true foundation of the social order, the only possibility for fashioning a lasting social peace. The inclinations and aversions peculiar to human beings are what make possible, in the last instance, the application of punishments and rewards, that is, the true cement of law (fa) and, by extension, life in society. But if human beings are essentially defined by their impulsive quest for profit and the avoidance of damage, what happens then with those who do not fit in this scheme, with those who do not accept rewards and do not dare punishments? And, more important, is the sovereign also included in this human nature driven by passions according to the Han Feizi? These are some of the questions that I will try to solve in my talk.
About the speaker:Albert Galvany is a Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of Humanities of the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and Research Associate at the Dept. of East Asian Studies of the University of Cambridge. He has written a number of scientific papers on early Chinese intellectual history and classical Chinese philosophy for peer-reviewed journals such as Études Chinoises, Asiatische Studien, Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, Monumenta Serica, Philosophy East and West, and Asia Major.