My research focuses mainly on early Chinese philosophy as well as its relevance to contemporary moral and political philosophy.
Publications
“Han-Wei-zi (韓韋⼦): The Notion of Bureaucratic Administration in Han Feizi (韓⾮⼦) and Max Weber (韋伯),” Philosophy of East and West, 73:4 (October 2023). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/909966
Review of Daniel Bell and Wang Pei's Just Hierarchy, Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (JCPC), Vol. 36 (August 2021)
Translation of Eric L. Hutton’s “Revisiting Xunzi’s Philosophy of Language (荀子语言哲学新探),” published in Overseas Research on Xunzi: Collected Papers (海外荀子研究论文集), forthcoming.
Works in Progress
Taming The Prince? A Comparison between Max Weber and Han Feizi
This project aims to compare Max Weber and Han Feizi on how to solve the “bad emperor” problem. Weber and Han Feizi advocate a similar conception of bureaucratic administration, which is essential for maintaining political order, due to its technical efficiency in carrying out complex administrative tasks. Moreover, they are similarly aware that monarchs are often ignorant and capricious and interfere with the operation of bureaucratic administration. In this sense, both are interested in how to solve the “bad emperor” problem within a shared framework that assigns most activities of government to the bureaucracy. However, their proposals for solving this problem are radically different from each other. I argue that this comparison can deepen our understanding of Han Feizi’s conception of “leadership,” and show that Han Feizi still has valuable insights for people today to deal with the problem of political leadership.