 In writing about the concepts of integrity and vulnerability as they apply to early Confucian texts, Ing provides a particularly fruitful demonstration of how the comparative philosopher can set up a dialogical relationship between the texts and the contemporary inquirer, such that “the text shapes the questions we ask as much as the questions we ask shape our readings of the texts” (2017: 10–11). ‘Integrity’ is a term for which there is no readily translatable equivalent in classical Chinese. Ing first glosses it in a familiar way as wholeness and integration, but then relying upon the Confucian idea that persons are at least partly constituted by relationships, Ing proposes that integrity is understood as a social relation. The work of integration is not purely internal but also about tending to one’s current relationships as well as entering into new ones that further self-cultivation. Vulnerability also has the familiar meaning of susceptibility to harm, but Ing imbues it with a meaning at home in certain feminist analyses and in Confucianism: an openness and affectivity that comes with relationships, together with our human inability to predict, control and to fully know that to which we are open and how it will affect us. Our vulnerability to harm is of a piece with that which makes our lives most worthwhile. Because our relationships are plural and of different kinds, we are vulnerable to conflicts between their requirements. Confucians have traditionally been much concerned with conflicts engendered by one’s attempts to better a social and political world rife with corruption and immorality. One prominent stance toward these conflicts present in some of the most prominent Confucian texts such as the Mencius and the work of Zhu Xi is that an inability to resolve such conflicts stems from a lack of skill or virtue. The stories about Shun the sage-king told in the Mencius (cited in section 2 above) are presented as models of skilled and virtuous resolution of value conflicts. However, an alternative stance toward value conflicts also found in a tradition as rich and as diverse as Confucianism is that the world can sometimes defeat even the best we can muster from ourselves. One particularly striking apparent clash of values that resists harmonization is the story of Shen Ming as told by the Han Shi Waizhuan. Shen Ming became minister of Chu. Enemies captured and threatened to execute his father in an attempt to get him to turn against Chu. Known for his filiality, Shen nevertheless decided to attack and defeated the insurgents, and his father was killed. Unable to bear the fact that he did not fulfill his duties of filiality while maintaining loyalty to his ruler, Shen killed himself. The tragedy of this situation is compounded by Shen Ming’s being initially reluctant to accept the position because he feared conflicts between loyalty to ruler and filial care. He accepts only at his father’s urging him to do so, partly because he would with his salary be better able to support his father. An act of filial care thus leads to the father’s death for the sake of loyalty to ruler. That which is of greatest value to us can make our lives impossible. Such a conclusion is not unfamiliar, of course, but the path we take to get to it, through a dialogue between traditions, brings it home with a force and vivacity that demonstrates the power of comparative philosophy. 