Paul Goldin, "The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them" (Princeton UP, 2020)
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What is the background of the host and sponsor for this episode?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
at oculi-mundi.com while you listen. Jerry's guests include Zakiya Suwel, who's an English broadcaster and writer on Finding Albion, Jo Schmidt, who's the head of maps at the Zurich Central Library, Pat Seed, a U.S. historian on Ptolemy's World Map, John Romero, who's a legendary video game producer on The Doom Game Creator, Elif Sharak, a well-known Turkish-British novelist, and Chet Van Duser, historian who will tell you about Martin Waldseemuller's Carta Marina of 1645. I highly encourage you to subscribe to What's Your Map? It's available on Apple, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Welcome to the New Books Network.
So thanks, Paul, for joining me today to talk about your book, The Art of Chinese Philosophy. So I wanted to begin by asking just kind of how you, I know you've been working on this stuff a long time, but how you came to working on Chinese philosophy in particular, and then also the project of this particular book.
How I got interested in Chinese philosophy is that I opened some books and discovered that they were very interesting, and that was the beginning of a lifetime commitment. I didn't quite expect it. I was always interested in China, so in school I was reading a lot about Chinese history, Chinese language, and I thought I needed to read the great classical philosophers and I never stopped. Now, how I started this book is an easier question to answer. I've been teaching an introductory seminar on Chinese thought at Penn since my very first year there. And after more than two decades of that, I felt I had... my own interpretations of all these texts, and I thought they were worth publishing. But it took a long time to write.
The idea germinated probably about 15 years ago, and I thought it would be easy to write, and then I sat down and I realized that the book would be pointless unless I had something new to say. And for vast stretches, I didn't yet. So I took my time, and I'm glad I did, because... At this point, I do think, like it or not, I'm the only person who could have written it. That's my perspective and my perspective only. And 15 years ago, I would have borrowed more from other people.
So what guided your choice of text for this book in particular? So the selection of texts, I know you do some of the standard, like the Analects, the Tao Te Ching, things like that. But why these texts in specific?
So I think those are the eight most important ones. I didn't have a set number, but eight does work. And my criteria are they constantly refer to one another, either directly or through unmistakable allusions or problematizing a philosophical position that would have been apparent to any ancient reader as coming from this other text. Some of them are known from tombs. Some of them are rare in tombs. But I don't think anyone would argue with those eight. You could add a ninth, but I don't know which one it would be. Whichever text comes in ninth on the list of the most influential classical philosophical texts is miles behind number eight. There are some other military texts. But philosophically, I think Sun Tzu is the most original of them.
That's probably the most unconventional choice. But I think it's important. It's partaking of the same philosophical discourse. I think it's aimed at very similar readers. And it's a magnificent book.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the background of the host and sponsor for this episode?
0:00–7:44
2
How did Paul Goldin become interested in Chinese philosophy and what motivated his book project?
7:44–18:17
3
Why were these eight specific classical Chinese texts chosen for the book?
18:17–31:45
4
How does Goldin divide the eight texts into the three thematic sections of Heaven, the Way, and the Titans?
31:45–42:24
5
What is the significance of the commentarial tradition for understanding Chinese philosophical texts?
42:24–53:40
6
How does Goldin explain the emergence of the concepts of Heaven and the Way across the selected works?
53:40–1:05:10
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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Jonathan Quong, "Political Philosophy: The Puzzle of Legitimate Injustice" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Philippe Huneman, "When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian Approaches to the Concept of An Organism" (Routledge, 2026)
Rivka Weinberg, "The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time" (Oxford UP, 2026)
PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)