The nine papers of this Supplement on these significant issues and important ideas are closely accentuated and critically discussed by well-established specialists, philosophers and historians, from various relevant disciplines of study.
Since 1973 Mawangdui excavations of silk manuscripts on Yijing and Daodejing, 1993 excavations of Bamboo texts in early Confucianism, 1997 Shanghai Museum acquisitions of Bamboo Manuscripts of additional texts on early Confucianism, and 2008 Tsinghua University Acquisitions of Bamboo Manuscripts to do with the Book of Documents, Classical Confucian and Daoist texts are undergoing a process of exegesis, emendation, textual re-reading and re- interpretation with regard to philological and historical scholarship.
These excavated texts from underground are no doubt tremendously significant and valuable, because they represent and indicate a genuine part of ancient intellectual history in China full of inquisitive intelligence and the insight of humanity. This should make us wonder how we are related to them and in what way they could deepen our knowledge about Confucianism and Daoism as both ways and contents of thinking. We can see how these texts can be read as human thoughts composed of analytical distinctions and empirical observations with well-considered evaluations in either explicit arguments or hidden ones. In this sense they address to us as philosophical dialogues and dialectical explorations, showing a process of inquiry and a way of thinking.
No systematic philosophical reflections have been undertaken on these texts until the prevent volume, which is developed with the purpose of understanding how, what and why philosophical issues of virtue, self, people, destiny, political rule, nature of humanity, and creativity in classical Confucianism and Daosim are proposed, formed and even transformed; and how at the same time these ideas strive to enlighten us about their importance for history of Chinese philosophy, contemporary global ethics and philosophy of humanity and the dao. The nine papers of this Supplement on these significant issues and important ideas are closely accentuated and critically discussed by well-established specialists, philosophers and historians, from various relevant disciplines of study.
