TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: This Is The Way: Chinese Philosophy Podcast

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31 episodes
2024 to 2026
Median: 85 minutes
Collection: Philosophy

Description (podcaster-provided):

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

This podcast explores major themes in Chinese philosophy through close readings of influential classical texts and conversations with scholars. Much of the discussion centers on the Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, and later Neo-Confucian traditions, with attention to how these traditions develop ethical ideals, conceptions of personhood, and views about social and political order. Episodes frequently use specific passages from foundational works such as the *Analects*, *Mengzi* (Mencius), *Daodejing*, *Zhuangzi*, and *Mozi* as starting points for broader philosophical analysis.

A recurring focus is moral cultivation: how people become virtuous, what psychological resources support ethical growth, and how practices such as ritual, reflection, and disciplined learning shape character. The podcast examines tensions within ethical life, including partiality to family versus impartial concern for strangers, the role of shame and other emotions in moral change, and competing accounts of the “good life.” Alongside normative questions, the show often investigates methodological issues about interpreting texts—how to read attentively, how commentary traditions function, and how philosophical reading can be both personally transformative and intellectually rigorous.

The podcast also addresses political and social philosophy in early China, including arguments for rule by law rather than discretion, debates about the foundations of political authority, and Daoist critiques of ambition, technological striving, and conventional moral posturing. Another thread is the analysis of language and reasoning, using famous paradoxes and dialogues to probe how early thinkers understood categories, names, and the relationship between words and reality.

Across these topics, the discussions aim to connect historical arguments to enduring philosophical questions about action and intention, persuasion and disagreement, virtue and hypocrisy, and the balance between individual fulfillment and ethical responsibility. The overall approach combines textual interpretation with conceptual clarification, often contrasting rival schools to illuminate the stakes of their disagreements.