My professor, Wm. Theodore de Bary, arguably Chan's successor, occasionally raises points in class regarding problems with Chan's work. In Wm. de Bary's point of view, the problems are not serious but they are worth addressing in a revision. For example, Chan uses the phrase "Doctrine of the Mean" following an earlier translation while a more accurate translation would be simply "The Mean". Chan has similar problems with English-language usage, but these only occur in exceptional instances. More often he gets bogged down in terminology that was commonly in use during his period but now seems dated.

Another matter to bring up, although not necessarily a problem, is Chan's personal faith in Christianity, which may have influenced his choice of word usage and selection of materials.

Objections aside, this is a wonderful book that anyone with more than a passing interest in Chinese philosophy will find useful. After reading this book, one might want to move on to Prof. de Bary's newly-revised "Sources of Chinese Tradition", and then on to more specialized works.


A useful, but often problematic, anthology.   November 15, 2000
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

We owe a great debt to the late Professor Chan for having translated this anthology of selections from over 2,500 years of Chinese philosophy. To my knowledge, this is the only anthology that gives so many selections from so many different periods in Chinese history. Perhaps there never will be a book like this again, at least by one scholar, because I doubt anyone else is competent to translate so many texts from so many different periods.

That being said, this book also has serious limitations. Arbuckle's review (which is nearby) expertly identifies many of them. Here are some more. Chan's English is much better than my modern Chinese, but he still sometimes lapses into incoherence. With a few exceptions, his comments on the translations are both confusing and confused. Chan likes to use Western philosophical terminology, but he is not in command of it. It is neither accurate nor helpful to describe the Ch'eng-Chu wing of Neo-Confucianism as "rationalistic," and the Lu-Wang wing as "dynamic idealism."

For many of the philosophers that Chan covers, this is still the best source for translations. This is especially so of later Chinese philosophy. I know of no better translation of selections from Ch'eng Yi and Ch'eng Hao, for example. But for many other philosophers, you would be better off with translations with a more narrow focus. Daniel Gardner's _Learning to Be a Sage_ is a great source on Chu Hsi. And I would (not surprisingly) recommend the anthology I co-edited for translations from ancient Chinese philosophers. (D.C. Lau, Victor Mair, and Burton Watson have also produced more extensive translations of major early Chinese philosophers. Look up their names here on amazon.com.)


Good Anthology   July 28, 2000
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

A bargain anthology that includes extended selections from well-known and lesser-known Chinese works, with brief historical introductions and notes. There is a companion volume covering Indian literature.