Books by Mercedes Valmisa
Should We Use Unprovenienced Materials in our Research?, 2024
The immense outpouring of archaeological discoveries this past century has shed new light on anci... more The immense outpouring of archaeological discoveries this past century has shed new light on ancient East Asia, and China in particular. Yet in concert with this development another, more troubling, trend has likewise gained momentum: the looting of cultural heritage and the sale of unprovenienced antiquities. Scholars face difficult questions, from the ethics of working with objects of unknown provenance, to the methodological problems inherent in their research. The goal of this Element is to encourage scholars to critically examine their relationships to their sources and reflect upon the impact of their research. The three essays in this Element present a range of disciplinary perspectives, focusing on systemic issues and the nuances of method versus ethics, with a case study of the so-called 'Han board' MSS given as a specific illustration. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Adapting. A Chinese Philosophy of Action, 2021
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's... more Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Oxford University Press, 2021
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/adapting-9780197572962?cc=us&lang=en&#
Papers by Mercedes Valmisa
Practices of Truth in Philosophy. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Routledge), 2023
Mercedes Valmisa turns our attention to the relations between truth and practice in classical Chi... more Mercedes Valmisa turns our attention to the relations between truth and practice in classical Chinese philosophy. In this tradition, truth is conceived of, in a pragmatic-like spirit, as a series of embodied beliefs and perspectives that lead to fitting dispositions, emotions, and actions (regardless of whether they accurately describe the world, or whether there are other competing beliefs and perspectives that equally accurately or inaccurately describe the world). This means that we should care about truth because of its normative power to guide our behavior in the most fitting way, not because of a theoretical interest in accurately describing reality. Valmisa Oviedo traces the development of this conception of truth in the Mohists and Zhuangists, leading to two radically different sociopolitical and ethical positions: the Mohists used single-truth discourses to enforce ideological monopolies that could not allow pluralism in values, norms, beliefs, and practices, while the Zhuangists warned us against the dangers of such dogmatism.
The Craft of Oblivion. Forgetting and Memory in Ancient China, 2023
In chapter 9, “Wang Bi and the Hermeneutics of Actualization,” Mercedes Valmisa reflects on the c... more In chapter 9, “Wang Bi and the Hermeneutics of Actualization,” Mercedes Valmisa reflects on the conditions and premises that allow the process of intermediation with the present to take place. Starting from her analysis of the concise and influential essay written by Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249) as part of his commentary on the Zhouyi 周易, “Clarifying Images” (“Ming xiang” 明象), Valmisa shows how Wang Bi presents a novel, fertile theory of interpretation, which she calls the Hermeneutics of Actualization. This is a theory about how to properly understand the meaning of a text that has been inherited from the authoritative voices of earlier sages. In order to interpret correctly the signs transmitted from the past, the reader must reject a relation of identity where the sign is equal to itself and welcome the gap onto which a new actualization of meaning can be grounded in the present. As Valmisa puts it, signs store and communicate the author’s intentions but, in receiving them, the reader cannot stay at the superficial level of what the sign literally says but needs to search for the meaning in between the lines by paying attention to equivalences and structure. Reading in between the lines,
which allows the reader to have access to the intention and thus to actualize the text, implies, as Valmisa demonstrates, a subtle dialectic and simultaneous relationship between getting and forgetting.
Rujiawang, 2022
Mandarin translation of "We are interwoven beings" (Aeon, Nov 25, 2022)
Aeon https://aeon.co/essays/in-classical-chinese-philosophy-all-actions-are-collective, 2022
A dragon needs the clouds and the wind in order to fly. What happens when we too relinquish indiv... more A dragon needs the clouds and the wind in order to fly. What happens when we too relinquish individualistic reasoning?
Coming to Terms with Timelessness. Daoist Time in Comparative Perspective, 2021
This paper leads us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by tw... more This paper leads us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by two main sources: the Zhuangzi—a multifarious compilation from Warring States China (ca. 4th c. BCE)—and José Ortega y Gasset’s (1883-1955) Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in Metaphysics)—the transcripts of a course on metaphysics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20th century. Much as other ontologically subjective entities and events, situations do not preexist the intentional subject: instead, they are created alongside an act of noticing.
In Classical Chinese, shi 勢, commonly rendered “propensity” and the
closest the language comes to our concept of s ituation ,” denote s a dy-namic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities and processes as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are also important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situa-tions—as in the creation of worlds—hence the importance of understand-ing what the agent notices (Ortega’s reparar) and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world’s plural affordances.
The Zhuangzi explains that the relational affordances that we actual-ize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-construct one another over time. This acknowledgment is crucial to re-train our agency in order to illuminate our own blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move be-yond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world.
Early China, 2019
Early Chinese texts make us witnesses to debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans ha... more Early Chinese texts make us witnesses to debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans had over the course of events, the outcomes of their actions, and their own lives. In the midst of these discourses on the limits of the efficacy of human agency, the notion of ming 命 took a central position. In this article, I present a common pattern of thinking about the relationship between the person and the world in early China. I call it the reifying pattern because it consisted in thinking about ming as a hypostasized entity with object-like features. Although external and independent, ming was not endowed with human qualities such as the capacities for empathy, responsivity, and intersubjectivity. The reifica-tion of fate implied an understanding of ming as an external, amoral, and determining force that limited humans without accepting inter-communication with them, thereby causing feelings of alienation, powerlessness, and existential incompetence. I first show that the different meanings of ming hold a sense of prevailing external reality, and hence can be connected to the overarching meaning of fate. Then, I offer an account of the process of reification of fate in early China and its consequences, theoretical and practical, through cases study of received (Mengzi 孟子) and found (Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道) texts. I end with some reflections on the implications of ming as a nonpersonal and nonsubjective type of actor for both early Chinese and twenty-first-century accounts of agency. Overview Early Chinese texts make us witnesses to (sometimes implicit) debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans had over the course of
Philosophy Compass, 2019
This paper challenges the view that contentment leads to personal freedom and autonomy and argues... more This paper challenges the view that contentment leads to personal freedom and autonomy and argues for a relational and exercise concept of de facto freedom in the Zhuangzi 莊 子. I first review influential interpretations of freedom in the Zhuangzi that equate freedom with contentment and nonfrustration, starting with Guo Xiang's 郭象 (d. 312 CE). By putting these interpretations in dialog with contempo- rary social philosophy (Christman, Meyers, Pettit, Elster, and Khader), I reflect on the two seminal problems of the psychologizing causal and procedural approaches that allow the interpretation of freedom as contentment: the “happy slave” problem and the “sour grapes” problem. Proving this account of freedom inadequate, I argue for a different inter- pretation of freedom in the Zhuangzi that resembles a weakly substantive and constitutive account of freedom and autonomy in modern‐day social philosophy terms, such as Marina Oshana's. The theory of freedom that I analyze in the Zhuangzi, however, helps us correct the risk of material determinism of the constitutive account, offering a descrip- tion of relational freedom and autonomy as constituted by socio‐material conditions but not determined by them.
《中國哲學與文化》 第16輯：《漢學、哲學與比較——方法論爭議》, 2019
内容提要：研究早期中国哲学的学者均普遍认为，缺乏作者和思想学
派的资料，对以哲学为本的研究非常不利。就着这个观点，本文提出异议：
汉学研究所提供的文献、文学、语言、历史的知识，可融贯于早期中国哲... more 内容提要：研究早期中国哲学的学者均普遍认为，缺乏作者和思想学
派的资料，对以哲学为本的研究非常不利。就着这个观点，本文提出异议：
汉学研究所提供的文献、文学、语言、历史的知识，可融贯于早期中国哲学
的研究，并产生良好的影响。
蒋韬在２０１６ 年提出了“汉学挑战”的论述。就此，本文论证，汉学正好
提供一个机会，结合不同的研究方法及角度，从而更有效地处理具体的哲
学议题。我以自己对“命”的研究为例，解释如何以多个文本为基础，梳理
哲学问题，做“没有作者的哲学”，并显示：融贯汉学研究所提供的各种方
法、知识、研究工具，不仅无损哲学研究，更为其注入新气象。
我采取了“后学科”的研究角度：受到前学科文化（例如早期中国文
化）的启发，“后学科”的角度在提问时，往往从整体出发，不囿于各个学科
的既定模式和分类；并开辟新路向，容纳创意，追寻意义，以产生可行的新
联系。
New Visions of the Zhuangzi, 2015
This contribution (to the collective volume New Visions of the Zhuangzi) begins by repositioning ... more This contribution (to the collective volume New Visions of the Zhuangzi) begins by repositioning the Zhuangzi as a whole within pre-Qin thought under the impact of newly excavated materials. Moving away from the traditional classification of texts according to schools, it focuses instead on varying approaches to life issues. Centering the discussion on life situations and changes we have no control over, including the unpredictable vagaries of fate (ming 命), it outlines several typical responses. One is adaptation, finding ways to go along with what life demands, and even avail oneself of the new opportunities it brings about. Another is a turning inward, a focus on the inner self, hold-ing on to ethical and other standards and making sure one does the right thing regardless of the outcome of one’s actions.
While the former appears in several chapters of the Zhuangzi, notably in chapter 6, the latter is central to the Qiongda yishi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Opportunity), a manuscript excavated at Guodian. However tempting it may be to characterize one approach as Daoist and the other as Confucian, they both appear within the Zhuangzi compilation together with a third approach to fate, showing the fluidity of philosophical discussion and the futility of thinking along the lines of traditional boundaries.
The compound tianming 天命 appears in none of the inscriptions of the Western Zhou bronzes that hav... more The compound tianming 天命 appears in none of the inscriptions of the Western Zhou bronzes that have been unearthed to date. Among these, there are nonetheless 14 bronze objects whose inscriptions record certain words (such as daling 大令 or daming 大命) that can be identified with the ideology of the Mandate of Heaven later developed and transmitted by the received tradition. In this paper I examine the context and meaning of the Mandate of Heaven related words in these bronzes by comparing the idea of Heaven’s appointment of the king to the ruling position with the kingly procedure of empowering and entitling officers in court. I argue that, while the expressions such as tianling 天令 can in certain instances be associated with particular commands, they certainly are never limited to these commands: they appeal to a meaningful relationship between past and present by which the present achieves recognition, power and legitimacy, and introduce the figure of Heaven in the human equation as the ultimate ground for politics. This study tentatively concludes that although, given the limited length and specific purpose of the inscriptions’ material format, we cannot know the level of completeness that the ideology of the Mandate of Heaven had by the Early Western Zhou period, there is much to learn about the features of this ideology through the analogy with royal appointments also recorded in the bronzes.
Daoísmo: Interpretaciones Contemporáneas, 2016
When we discuss Taoism, and especially when do it with regard to the Zhuangzi 莊子, spontaneity is ... more When we discuss Taoism, and especially when do it with regard to the Zhuangzi 莊子, spontaneity is an almost inevitable commonplace. The idea that spontaneity is one of the most important values in the Zhuangzi was exposed by Angus Graham for the Anglo-Saxon audience, and divulgated among the Chinese public by Liú Xiàogǎn 劉笑敢 and Chén Gǔyīng 陳鼓應. In the last few years, Hungarian psychologist Csikszentmihalyi has popularly combined Taoist spontaneity with the idea of flow. In the state of flow the person carries out an activity for the sake of the activity itself –namely, autotelically, and acts with complete spontaneity given that none of his/her movements requires thought or mediation.
My study consists of three parts:
First, I deal with the definitions of “spontaneous” and of the word that is usually translated as “spontaneous” in Chinese texts, zìrán 自然 (literally, so-of-itself), as well as its use in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that spontaneity is not part of the axiological project of the Zhuangzi. Instead, we find that the idea of adaptation is related to human values, whereas spontaneity is in the Zhuangzi a term merely descriptive of natural objects.
Second, I analyze the famous Zhuangzian stories of skills, which are often quoted to argue for the value of spontaneity in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that the goal of these stories is to develop a new type of vital attitude as “second nature” or “background ability” (John Searle). Since this attitude is mediated and achieved through effort, it is not spontaneous.
Third, I explain how confusing this “second nature” with “spontaneity” in recent scholarship (i.e. Edward Slingerland) has led to the so-called wú-wéi 無為 and zìrán paradoxes (paradox of non-action and of spontaneity). I argue that these paradoxes disappear when we understand correctly the meaning of wú-wéi and zìrán in the Early Chinese textual context.
The Zhuangzi 莊子 contains numerous strategies for achieving freedom. Freedom is understood as the ... more The Zhuangzi 莊子 contains numerous strategies for achieving freedom. Freedom is understood as the state achieved after liberation from both exclusive socio-cultural impositions and from the constraints of reductionist worldviews and systems of values. Among these strategies, the Zhuangzi proposes that the person undergo a process of widening the “horizon of expectations” and of expansion of the “field of phenomenality.” I will discuss this topic by presenting the function and implications of (1) “Speculative Linguistic Structures” ( wúyòng 無用 , wúyán 無言, wújǐ 無己, wúqíng 無情, wúmíng 無名, wúzhī 無知 and wúwéi 無為) that subvert the traditional theoretical background; and (2) the idea of Monstrous (represented by physically extravagant characters and the perfected person 至人 itself), that overturn prejudices and stereotypes and opens up unthought-of possibilities of the field of phenomenality in the Zhuangzi.
Book Reviews by Mercedes Valmisa
Monumenta Serica Journal of Oriental Studies, 2019
Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion, 2018
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Books by Mercedes Valmisa
Papers by Mercedes Valmisa
which allows the reader to have access to the intention and thus to actualize the text, implies, as Valmisa demonstrates, a subtle dialectic and simultaneous relationship between getting and forgetting.
In Classical Chinese, shi 勢, commonly rendered “propensity” and the
closest the language comes to our concept of s ituation ,” denote s a dy-namic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities and processes as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are also important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situa-tions—as in the creation of worlds—hence the importance of understand-ing what the agent notices (Ortega’s reparar) and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world’s plural affordances.
The Zhuangzi explains that the relational affordances that we actual-ize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-construct one another over time. This acknowledgment is crucial to re-train our agency in order to illuminate our own blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move be-yond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world.
派的资料，对以哲学为本的研究非常不利。就着这个观点，本文提出异议：
汉学研究所提供的文献、文学、语言、历史的知识，可融贯于早期中国哲学
的研究，并产生良好的影响。
蒋韬在２０１６ 年提出了“汉学挑战”的论述。就此，本文论证，汉学正好
提供一个机会，结合不同的研究方法及角度，从而更有效地处理具体的哲
学议题。我以自己对“命”的研究为例，解释如何以多个文本为基础，梳理
哲学问题，做“没有作者的哲学”，并显示：融贯汉学研究所提供的各种方
法、知识、研究工具，不仅无损哲学研究，更为其注入新气象。
我采取了“后学科”的研究角度：受到前学科文化（例如早期中国文
化）的启发，“后学科”的角度在提问时，往往从整体出发，不囿于各个学科
的既定模式和分类；并开辟新路向，容纳创意，追寻意义，以产生可行的新
联系。
While the former appears in several chapters of the Zhuangzi, notably in chapter 6, the latter is central to the Qiongda yishi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Opportunity), a manuscript excavated at Guodian. However tempting it may be to characterize one approach as Daoist and the other as Confucian, they both appear within the Zhuangzi compilation together with a third approach to fate, showing the fluidity of philosophical discussion and the futility of thinking along the lines of traditional boundaries.
My study consists of three parts:
First, I deal with the definitions of “spontaneous” and of the word that is usually translated as “spontaneous” in Chinese texts, zìrán 自然 (literally, so-of-itself), as well as its use in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that spontaneity is not part of the axiological project of the Zhuangzi. Instead, we find that the idea of adaptation is related to human values, whereas spontaneity is in the Zhuangzi a term merely descriptive of natural objects.
Second, I analyze the famous Zhuangzian stories of skills, which are often quoted to argue for the value of spontaneity in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that the goal of these stories is to develop a new type of vital attitude as “second nature” or “background ability” (John Searle). Since this attitude is mediated and achieved through effort, it is not spontaneous.
Third, I explain how confusing this “second nature” with “spontaneity” in recent scholarship (i.e. Edward Slingerland) has led to the so-called wú-wéi 無為 and zìrán paradoxes (paradox of non-action and of spontaneity). I argue that these paradoxes disappear when we understand correctly the meaning of wú-wéi and zìrán in the Early Chinese textual context.
Book Reviews by Mercedes Valmisa
which allows the reader to have access to the intention and thus to actualize the text, implies, as Valmisa demonstrates, a subtle dialectic and simultaneous relationship between getting and forgetting.
In Classical Chinese, shi 勢, commonly rendered “propensity” and the
closest the language comes to our concept of s ituation ,” denote s a dy-namic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities and processes as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are also important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situa-tions—as in the creation of worlds—hence the importance of understand-ing what the agent notices (Ortega’s reparar) and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world’s plural affordances.
The Zhuangzi explains that the relational affordances that we actual-ize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-construct one another over time. This acknowledgment is crucial to re-train our agency in order to illuminate our own blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move be-yond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world.
派的资料，对以哲学为本的研究非常不利。就着这个观点，本文提出异议：
汉学研究所提供的文献、文学、语言、历史的知识，可融贯于早期中国哲学
的研究，并产生良好的影响。
蒋韬在２０１６ 年提出了“汉学挑战”的论述。就此，本文论证，汉学正好
提供一个机会，结合不同的研究方法及角度，从而更有效地处理具体的哲
学议题。我以自己对“命”的研究为例，解释如何以多个文本为基础，梳理
哲学问题，做“没有作者的哲学”，并显示：融贯汉学研究所提供的各种方
法、知识、研究工具，不仅无损哲学研究，更为其注入新气象。
我采取了“后学科”的研究角度：受到前学科文化（例如早期中国文
化）的启发，“后学科”的角度在提问时，往往从整体出发，不囿于各个学科
的既定模式和分类；并开辟新路向，容纳创意，追寻意义，以产生可行的新
联系。
While the former appears in several chapters of the Zhuangzi, notably in chapter 6, the latter is central to the Qiongda yishi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Opportunity), a manuscript excavated at Guodian. However tempting it may be to characterize one approach as Daoist and the other as Confucian, they both appear within the Zhuangzi compilation together with a third approach to fate, showing the fluidity of philosophical discussion and the futility of thinking along the lines of traditional boundaries.
My study consists of three parts:
First, I deal with the definitions of “spontaneous” and of the word that is usually translated as “spontaneous” in Chinese texts, zìrán 自然 (literally, so-of-itself), as well as its use in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that spontaneity is not part of the axiological project of the Zhuangzi. Instead, we find that the idea of adaptation is related to human values, whereas spontaneity is in the Zhuangzi a term merely descriptive of natural objects.
Second, I analyze the famous Zhuangzian stories of skills, which are often quoted to argue for the value of spontaneity in the Zhuangzi. I conclude that the goal of these stories is to develop a new type of vital attitude as “second nature” or “background ability” (John Searle). Since this attitude is mediated and achieved through effort, it is not spontaneous.
Third, I explain how confusing this “second nature” with “spontaneity” in recent scholarship (i.e. Edward Slingerland) has led to the so-called wú-wéi 無為 and zìrán paradoxes (paradox of non-action and of spontaneity). I argue that these paradoxes disappear when we understand correctly the meaning of wú-wéi and zìrán in the Early Chinese textual context.
Readings will be provided in English and no prior knowledge of Chinese is required. Primary sources are not particularly lengthy but their language and content might be dense and complex. This is a reading and discussion seminar, and all participants are expected to engage with the primary sources in a thoughtful way and to meaningfully contribute to class discussions.
The limits of knowledge, the efficacy of action, death and happiness, change and transformations, friendship and humor, perspectivism and skepticism, playfulness and freedom, emptiness and the dao. The Zhuangzi is about living, thinking, knowing, acting, feeling, loving, changing, and dying well in a messy world.
This class follows the format of a graduate seminar. We read the text prior to class in an active, critical, and reflective manner (i.e. taking notes, asking questions, identifying themes and arguments, searching relevant concepts, acknowledging the literary form and style, finding secondary sources for further explanation, coming up with our own readings and interpretations, etc.). In class, we read line by line together and discuss until we are ready to move on to the next chapter. Readings will be provided in English, and no prior knowledge of Chinese is required.
"Chinese Philosophy: Paths between Convergence and Divergence"
December 3, 2021
more info:
https://eacp-eu.weebly.com/online-conference.html
What: Graduate Workshop
When: April 16 and 17, 2016
Where: 202 Jones Hall, Princeton University
The flyer in attachment contains information about the panels we have created and the speakers. All events are free and open to the public.
For more information about the schedule and to register for meals, please contact Mercedes Valmisa at [email protected] by February 15, 2016.
I offer a critical and systematic analysis of an extraordinary model of successful action that I call “adaptive agency” or “adaptation” (yin 因). As opposed to other models of action attested in early texts, such as the prescriptive and the forceful, the adaptive agent necessitates great capacity of situational awareness, reflection, flexibility, and creativity in order to produce responses ad hoc: strategies of action designed for specific, non-permanent, and non-generalizable life problems. This model for choosing an action as an adjusted response to a specific situation guarantees the agent a higher success rate in his actions, let these be in political, military, professional, medical, religious, ethical or ordinary life contexts.
This dissertation is both born from a new methodological orientation and a contribution toward establishing it, by means of exemplifying how we can build meaningful critical theories in Early Chinese philosophy and intellectual history without using the obsolete hermeneutical categories of school of thought, book and author. I trace tensions and similarities in the Early Chinese approach to the problem of agency cross-textually, using a large range of textual materials and research methods. The philosophical proposal of adaptive agency is particularly suitable to this kind of methodological project, for it consistently appears across a wide variety of texts, authors, and intellectual orientations throughout the Early Chinese period, and therefore could not be studied by using the traditional hermeneutical categories.