Dr. Franklin Perkins, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa professor of Philosophy and editor of Philosophy East and West, will explore “Friendship and Self-Cultivation in Classical Chinese Philosophy” as part of the On Friendship lecture series examining the subject of friendship through four different philosophical traditions.
Perkins
Perkins is scheduled to talk from 2 to 3:20 p.m., Wednesday, April 18 in D150. Perkins’ main teaching and research interests are in classical Chinese philosophy, early modern European philosophy, and comparative philosophy. He is the author of Heaven and Earth are not Humane: The Problem of Evil in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Leibniz: A Guide for the Perplexed, and Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light, and he was co-editor (with Chenyang Li) of Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems. .
The abstract of his talk:
“Chinese philosophers tended to approach human beings not as isolated individuals but rather as embedded in relationships and roles. One relationship that has similar status in both Confucianism and Daoism is friendship, which in turn is linked to self-cultivation. This talk will give an overview of early Chinese views of friendship, emphasizing the connections between friendship and self-cultivation.”
The ”On Friendship: East and West” lecture series is the first on the UH West Oʻahu campus to explore the topic of friendship. It is featuring talks by philosophers from the Greek, Islamic, Contemporary, and Chinese philosophical traditions and is sponsored by the Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity (SEED) grant from the University of Hawaiʻi system and the Philosophy Concentration at UH West Oʻahu.