Julius Geissler

Summary of doctoral thesis: In my doctoral project, I investigate how the philosophy of change of the Zhōuyì周易 (“Changes of the Zhōu”) and its traditional commentaries (in particular the Xìcí Zhuàn 繫辭傳, or “Commentary on the Appended Phrases”) engenders a paradigmatic normative framework that manifests in and structures the debate between different ethical proposals in Warring States texts, with a focus on Confucian writings of the 4th and 3rd century BCE. I argue that adopting this interpretive framework illustrates the manner in which theoretical and practical dimensions of these texts interlock, conjoining metaphysical questions about the structure of reality and human beings’ ability to relate to it with ethical and spiritual proposals of the good life. While being mainly a project in the history of philosophy, this thesis also aims to provide an interpretive context of these historical issues that allows for a comparative and contemporary exploration of the question of how an ethical outlook can be founded on human beings’ positionality and role within a cosmos driven by generative processes of change and transformation.