Author Description

The theme of wisdom is taken as the focus of this book because it is a central concern of the late Julia Ching, University Professor, University of Toronto, and member of Canada s national academy, the Royal Society of Canada. This book is resulted from a conference organized by myself together with the late Professor Willard Oxtoby, Julia s husband, with the theme Wisdom in China and the West in memory of her. The conference took place on November 21-22, 2002, in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto. Julia Ching was an inquirer of wisdom. Acquiring Wisdom was the title of her first book, and the theme of wisdom was a life long research program of hers. All contributions presented in the Conference were by Julia s best friends, colleagues and PhD students. It was a very touching atmosphere and a most friendly occasion in which all discussions seemed to lead to a sense of intellectual harmony inspired by Julia Ching. Because of that atmosphere, Professor Willard Oxtoby was most happy and felt released at the end of the Conference. He intended to co-edit this volume with me but, unfortunately and very sadly, he died very soon, probably because of his unconscious desire to join Julia, within six months after the Conference took place. When editing this volume, I always think of this marvelous couple, Willard Oxtoby and Julia Ching and the sparkling of their lives shedding light on those of so many others. The content of this volume is organized into three parts. The first group, entitled Wisdom in Cross Reading, contains essays putting wisdom in the Chinese tradition into dialogue with Christianity, Judaism, other traditions in the West, and the Japanese tradition in the East. These are papers by Robert Neville, Hans Küng, Jordan Paper, Alan F. Segal, Milton Wan, Lloyd Sciban and Barry D. Steben. The second group of essays, entitled Wisdom in Confucianism, focuses on wisdom in the Confucian tradition, which is the major concern of Julia Ching,