Considering, Questioning and Reimagining Harmony: Multicultural, Multihistorical and Multidisciplinary Reflections

by Karyn Lai (Editor), Rick Benitez (Editor), Chenyang Li (Editor)

Overview

Are harmony and disruption mutually exclusive? This collection critically examines the concept of harmony and its association with perfection.

Harmony is pursued by individuals, families, societies and nations as a fundamental value. Yet it often comes at the cost of freedom, creativity and individuality. This book explores ways in which it may be misleading to regard harmony as opposed to difference or to think that harmony and disruption are independent.

Featuring examples of historically and culturally diverse perspectives of harmony, an international line-up of contributors reflect on ideas from ancient Greek, Chinese, Indian and Japanese thought. They draw on modern and contemporary thinkers and from music and design perspectives. The range of historical and cultural reflections make it possible to re-imagine the concept and practice of harmony, either by incorporating a role for disruption, or by recognising a dynamic in which disruption balances the overreach of harmony.

By including historically and culturally diverse perspectives of harmony to widen the horizons of consideration, this collection present a more inclusive understanding of this major philosophical and political concept.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350453234
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/30/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	687 KB

About the Author

Karyn Lai is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Her research in Chinese philosophy engages Chinese and Western philosophical traditions. She is author of Introduction to Chinese Philosophy (2nd ed., 2017), which has been translated into Chinese, Korean and Portuguese.

Rick Benitez is Emeritus Professor in Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He studied Classics and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is an editor (with Karyn Lai and Hyun Jin Kim) of Cultivating a Good Life in Early Chinese and Ancient Greek Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2019).

Chenyang Li is Professor of philosophy at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he founded the philosophy program. He is the author of The Tao Encounters the West: Explorations in Comparative Philosophy (1999), The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony (2013), Reshaping Confucianism: A Progressive Inquiry (2023) and over 100 essays.
Karyn Lai is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Rick Benitez is Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. Considering Harmony

1. The Bow and the Lyre: Structural Opposition and Harmonic Tension in Heraclitus- Rick Benitez
2. The Conceptualisation of Harmony in Indian Aesthetic Thought: the Santa Rasa- Meera Baindu
3. A Principled and Context-Sensitive Harmony Within and Without: Zhu Xi's Conception of Harmony- Yat-Hung Leung

Part II. Questioning Harmony

4. The Zhuangzi: Disruptive and harmonious engagements with the world- Karyn Lai
5. Kaibara Ekken on Making Room for Disagreement: An Edo Confucian Defense of Moderate Adversariality- Matthew D. Walker
6. Harmony and Hegemony: Enactivism and Oppressive Equilibria- Lee Wilson
7. A Buddhist Critique of Harmony- James Mark Shields
8. Real harmony of the self: Enactivism and the Kyoto School- Yuko Ishihara&Katsunori Miyahara

Part III. Reimagining Harmony

9. Strong Harmony- Chenyang Li
10. The Harmony of Opposites in Design and Philosophy- Derek Lomas&Haian Xue
11. Music and the existential significance of harmony- Goetz Richter
12. Making Harmony Safe for Democracy- Avery Kolers
13. Constitutional Dialogue as Active Confucian Harmony- Sungmoon Kim

Index

Editorial Reviews

This volume is comparative philosophy exemplified – generative, lucid, gripping, and provoking. Drawing on classical traditions from around the globe and applying them to contemporary philosophical and political questions, these essays together provide a variety of ways of thinking about harmony as a virtue and a value, as well as ways in which the search for harmony might actually contribute to the ongoing ills of this world. Harmony, this volume shows us, is a concept that connects self and world, aesthetics and politics, intuition and reason and the heart—mind. We may only hope it does so for the good.” —Yarran Hominh, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bard College, USA

“In modern western thought, the concept of Harmony remains severely under theorized, either restricted to aesthetics, or when used in other domains, understood naively, almost unthinkingly as conflict—free agreement. This important book opens up new avenues of inquiry that show that harmony is rich, complex, multivalent and internally dissonant, with immense moral resonance for both individuals and societies. A compelling collection of essays.” —Rajeev Bhargava, Honorary Fellow and Founder Director, Parekh Institute of Indian Thought, CSDS, Delhi, India

From the Publisher