CULTIVATION OF SELF IN EAST ASIAN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. Edited by RuyuHung. Educational Philosophy and Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 2020. Pp. x + 144. Hardback, $180.00; Paperback, $52.95.

In short, this special issue's collection of eight articles seeks to tackle “a wide range of issues in relation to self-cultivation from the East Asian perspective with diverse, creative and critical views.” What immediately holds this collection back is the lack of a sufficient introduction and, to a lesser extent, conclusion. The articles within are very much bound by various threads, but no effort has been made to bring these topics together or introduce the subject as a whole. It is for this reason that those who are not already familiar with the subject of self-cultivation may find this volume somewhat difficult. This is not to say, however, that this volume is bad. On the contrary, those who are interested in the notion of self, self-cultivation, Confucianism, and Daoism, would undoubtedly find great worth in this volume. In the first chapter, “Confucianism and Critical Rationalism: Friends or Foes?”, Chi-Ming Lam compares Confucianism and rationalism and ultimately asserts that “criticality plays a key role in self-cultivation.” In the second chapter, “Is Filial Piety a Virtue? A Reading of the Xiao Jing (Classic of Filial Piety) from the Perspective of Ideology Critique”, Hektor Yan challenges the popular notion that filiality is a “virtue.” Herein, Yan explores two components of filiality that are difficult to accommodate with one another: filiality's “tendency of naturalisation” and “critical reasoning.” In the third chapter, “‘Keep off the Lawn; Grass Has a Life Too!’: Re-invoking a Daoist Ecological Sensibility for Moral Education in China's Primary Schools,” Weili Zhao and Caiping Sun explore contemporary Daoist ecological moral education, ultimately asserting that “the concept of co-being contributes to the formation of a Daoist ecological sensibility in children's moral education.” In the fourth chapter, “The Illusion of Teaching and Learning: Zhuangzi, Wittgenstein and the Groundlessness of Language,” Michael Dufresne parallels Zhuāngzǐ and Wittgenstein, arguing that neither believed in the “essence of language or truth.” In the fifth chapter, “Donghak (Eastern Learning), Self-Other, and Social Transformation: Towards Diverse Curriculum Discourses on Equity and Justice,” Seungho Moon explores self-cultivation through the lens of Tonghak—a religious movement founded by Ch'oe Che-u (1824–1864) in 1860 in Korea—and its subsequent impact and implications for contemporary curriculum theory. In the sixth chapter, “Acting Without Regarding: Daoist Self-cultivation as Education for Non dichotomous Thinking,” Joseph Emmanuel D. Sta. Maria examines a perceived “tension” between Daoist non-dichotomous thinking and “soft” values. Herein, the dichotomy of being and nothingness is focussed on, with the question “How then can a person learn to think non-dichotomously, on one hand, and accept the ‘soft’ values, on the other hand?” being answered via “direct” and “indirect” means. In the seventh chapter, “The Purpose of the MBA: The Opportunity for a Confucian MBA to Overcome Neoliberalism,” Robert Shaw and Denghua Yuan offer insight into the Confucian MBA and make the case that the MBA model has the potential to “overcome neoliberalism.” In the final chapter, “Agency and Social Capital in Chinese International Doctoral Students' conversion to Christianity,” Devine Nesta and Qun Ding explore the religious conversion process of nine overseas Chinese doctoral students to Christianity. The paper concludes that the conversion process is gradual with “contributing personal, contextual and social factors” and ultimately comes about due to the experience of being “marginalised in the foreign country.” Although self-cultivation does bring these papers together, given the lack of introduction (it should be noted that there is an introduction albeit very short and lacking in discussion) and conclusion, it is perhaps best to, especially given the diversity of the topics addressed, focus on these studies in their own right. The selection of papers is undeniably interesting, and plenty of scholars will find extremely valuable information in them.