Personal profile

Outstanding Professor of XIN’AO International Programme in the discipline of Chinese Philosophy at the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China

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Renmin University of China, School of Philosophy中國人民大學哲學院59, Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100872北京市海澱區中關村大街59號,郵編：100872Email: dennis.schilling@ruc.edu.cn; tel.: +86 -159 0113 9368

CV in short

Dennis Schilling, born 1962 in Aalen, Germany, studied Sinology, Philosophy and Japanology at the universities of Würzburg, Munich/Germany, Wuhan/China, and received his doctorate and his habilitation at the University of Munich (LMU). In his doctoral thesis, he comprehensively examines the origin and development of the “imitations of the ‘Book of Changes’” (擬易) from the Hàn dynasty to the Míng dynasty, a literary genre and tradition in Chinese canonical scholarship that includes several cosmological models such as Yáng Xióng’s Tài xuán jīng (揚雄太玄經) and practical divination manuals such as the Yì lín (易林). The study analyzes “imitation” as a compositional feature in literary composition, cosmological and political thought and divination practice.

In his habilitation thesis, Dennis Schilling discusses the revival of idealism of Yogācāra-Buddhism ( wéi shì xué 唯識學) in the revolutionary political thought of Tán Sìtóng (譚嗣同), Zhāng Tàiyán (章太炎) and other thinkers at the turn to the twentieth century. The study explores how Buddhist doctrines were molded into a psychology of martyrdom and an epistemology of mentalities that met the needs of political activism and propaganda.

In 2009, he published a new and annotated translation of the Book of Changes ( Yì jīng , 易經) in German language. His current research focusses on ideas of life and death in ancient and medieval China as well as on the metaphysics of time and change in Chinese philosophy.

Dennis Schilling previously worked at the University of Munich and the University of Marburg in Germany and at Kainan University (Taoyuan) and National Chengchi University (Taipei) in Taiwan. Since 2016, he has been researching and supervising PhD and Master’s theses at the research department of Chinese Philosophy of the School of Philosophy of Renmin University of China in Beijing and holds courses and lectures on Chinese Metaphysics, Philosophical Anthropology, Daoist philosophy and Yì jīng studies.

Research Fields

Chinese Philosophy:

Philosophical Anthropology;the Philosophy of the Book of Changes ; the Philosophy of the Zhuāng z ǐ ; medieval Chinese Buddhist Philosophy; Chinese Metaphysics; Chinese Epistemology; Chinese Philosophy at the End of the Imperial Era

Comparative Ethics:

Ethics in Chinese and Greek Antiquity

Sinology and History of Ideas:

Reception and Imitation: Paradigms of Transmitting Knowledge; Conceptual History of Chinese Philosophy; Historical Gender Studies; Literary Forms and Philosophical Genres; Chinese Philosophy in Early Europe; a Cultural History of the Chinese Language

current research projects:

l Concepts of Life in Ancient and Medieval China ― Biological and Anthropological Approaches

l New Approaches in Chinese Metaphysics: Time, Change and Persons

major publications:

l Yijing. Das Buch der Wandlungen (“Yijing. The Book of Changes“),Frankfurt: Verlag der Weltreligionen (Suhrkamp), 2009.A new German annotated translation of the “Book of Changes“ with a detailed introduction into the textual history, its main ideas, and its intellectual foundations.

l Spruch und Zahl. Die chinesischen Orakelbücher „Kanon des Höchsten Geheimen“ ( Taixuanjing ) und „Wald der Wandlungen“ ( Yilin ) aus der Han-Zeit. Mit einer Studie über die Entwicklung, Nachahmung und Neuschaffung des „Buches der Wandlungen“ ( Yijing ) von den Anfängen bis zur Ming-Zeit. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1998.“Spells and Numbers. The Chinese Oracle books ’The Canon of Supreme Mystery’ ( Taixuanjing ) and ’The Grove of Changes’ ( Yilin ) of Han dynasty. With a Study on the Development, Imitation and Reconstruction of the ’The Book of Changes’ ( Yijing ) from its Beginnings to Ming Dynasty“

habilitation thesis:

l Die Rezeption des Yogācāra-Buddhismus im politisch-philosophischen Denken Chinas am Ende der Kaiserzeit. Eine Studie zu den Werken von Tán Sìtóng (1865–1898) und Zhāng Bĭnglín (1869–1936)

co-edited volumes:

l How should one live? Comparing Ethics in Ancient China and Greco-Roman , Hamburg: De Gruyter Verlag, 2011. (together with Richard King)

l Schreiben über Frauen in China. Ihre Literarisierung im historischen Schrifttum und ihr gesellschaftlicher Status in der Geschichte , Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004. (together with Jianfei Kralle)

l Die Frau im alten China. Bild und Wirklichkeit. Studien zu den Quellen der Zhou- und Han-Zeit , Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001. (together with Jianfei Kralle)

other translations:

l Lieddichtungen aus der Yuan-Zeit , Beijing: Renmin University Press, 2019. (together with Jin Ye-Gerke and Anna Stecher)

selected published papers:

l Edit by Number: A Response, in DAO. A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (2023), pp. 633-646.

l The Historical Dynamics of Chinese Thought and the Thesis of Early Enlightenment: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Xiao Jiefu, in Contemporary Chinese Thought 52, no. 4 (2022), pp. 194-200.

l Virtue in the “Book of Changes”, in Journal of Chinese Philosophy 48 (2021), pp. 117-129.

l »Losgelöst wie ein treibendes Boot«. Die Existenzphilosophie des xiā oy á o im Buch Zhuāng z ǐ , in Der Mensch als » homo viator « , ed. Marc Röbel und Werner Schüßler, Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 2021, pp. 157-174.

l Place as a category in the “Treatise on Name and Reality” (Míng shí lùn名實論) [in the Gōng s ūn Lóng z ǐ ], in The Gongsun Longzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives , ed. Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo & Wolfgang Behr, (Worlds of East Asia; 28), Berlin, New York etc.: Walter De Gruyter, 2020, pp. 207-239.

l A Manual for Divination: The Yi jing or the ‘Book of Changes’. The New Introduction into James Legge’s translation I Ching or Book of Changes , London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2020, pp. 8-30.

l 「道」與時間 (Dao and Time), in《老子道文化研》( Studies in the Culture of L ǎ o z ǐ and the Dào ), ed. Hé Jiànmíng (何建明), first issue, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2019, pp. 1-17. [in Chinese]

l Drawing a Conceptual Triangle–Introduction to the Special Theme “Comparing Virtues, Roles, and Duties in Early China and Graeco-Roman Antiquity”, in Frontiers of Philosophy in China 14(1), 2019, pp. 1-13.

l Reconsidering Human Dignity in a Confucian Context: A Review of Ni Peimin’s Conceptual Reconstruction, in DAO. A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 15 (2016), pp. 619-629.

l Vorstellungen von Liebe in der Antike Chinas, in L iebe–mehr als ein Gefühl. Philosophie–Theologie–Einzelwissenschaften , ed. W. Schüßler and M. Röbel, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2016, pp. 135-158.

l Cosmic Life and Human Life in the “Book of Changes”, in The Good Life and Conceptions of Life in Early China and Graeco-Roman Antiquity , ed. Richard King, Hamburg: DeGruyter, 2015, pp. 117-143.

l Embleme der Herrschaft: Die Zeichen des Yì jīng und ihre politische Deutung, in Oriens Extremus 50 (2012) pp. 47-74.

l Equality in Modern Chinese Thought, in Traces of Humanism in China. Tradition and Modernity , ed. Carmen Meinert, Bielefeld/London: Transcript/Transaction, 2010.

l Das antike chinesische Trauerritual, in Sterben, Tod und Trauer in den Religionen und Kulturen der Welt. Gemeinsamkeiten und Besonderheiten in Theorie und Praxis , ed. Christoph Elsas, Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 2007, pp. 87-109.

editorial tasks:

l Dao. A Journal of Comparative Philosophy

l Frontiers of Philosophy in China