October 17

Xunzi, the third great classical Confucian philosopher, is best-known for arguing that “human nature is bad.” In this class we’ll explore what he means by that, what he thinks we should do as a result, and how he justifies his solution. At the core of his answer is the idea of “ritual,” which today probably sounds very antiquated. We’ll examine the ways in which an emphasis on ritual meshes well with modern understandings of human psychology, and enables us to both temporarily control our desires, and permanently transform them over time.