Research

I'm currently pursuing number of overlapping research directions dealing with issues related to language, logic, epistemology, agency, and ethics in early Chinese philosophy.

• I am in the advanced stages of a project to write a book on Mohist ethics and political theory.

• Another project will be a book on knowledge and skepticism in early Chinese thought.

• My project to prepare a new edition of the later Mohist Canons and Explanations is on hold at the moment, because of more pressing concerns. More than half of the work has been completed, but I do not expect to have time to complete the rest before 2010. Among the central aims of the project are to avoid speculative emendations and to distinguish textual readings in which we have a high degree of confidence from those that are less justified.

• One of my deepest philosophical interests is in conceptions of action and agency in classical Chinese philosophy, which I hope to link up with contemporary issues in philosophy of action and ethics.

• A further area of activity for me is Daoist ethics, in particular the Zhuangzi. I believe this ancient text contains a mixture of ideas, of varying plausibility, that come at ethical issues from directions philosophers seldom pause to consider. Given an appropriate philosophical treatment, the Zhuangzi may have much to offer to contemporary ethical discourse.

I have much work in progress in each of these five areas. As I get the opportunity, I hope to clean up some of this material and post it here.