Based on the symbolism of the trigrams, the Yi-Jing cosmic model offers possibilities in a coordinate system with eight octants to discuss different philosophical developments in parallel. It forms a framework for further elaboration of theory and methodology of comparative philosophy. This paper is restricted to extracting, analyzing and comparing common features from the perspectives of the Yi-Jing model. Achieving harmony is the subject of a new paper under construction. The philosophical developments in the quadrants, Naturalism, Moralism, Rationalism and Humanism, (...) are characterized by a fundamental difference between subject and object. This difference remains intact in the octants, but specified developments underline the subject and others the object. In Naturality man or woman does not consider him- or herself more valuable than other life forms, as in Daoism and ecocentrism. In Existentiality man or woman places his or her “ego” at the center and should give meaning from itself, as in existentialism. In Connectivity emphasis is on the human being, looking for liberation, as in Buddhism and parts of Hindu philosophy. In Normativity the subject focuses on the object, through norms and values, as in ancient China and Greek culture, and in modern technology assessment. In Rationality man or woman sees him or herself as more important. In Differentiality an anti-subject attitude arises, which led to phenomenology, hermeneutics, postmodernism and difference thinking. In Sociality, emphasis is on society and reality determines the idea. In Humanity emphasis is on the person, as in Confucianism, which strives for harmonious human relationships. (shrink)

The introduction to this special issue describes the emergence of the virtue ethics approach within the study of Confucian virtues in recent decades. It will first examine scholarly contributions to the discussion of Confucian virtue ethics and then raises questions concerning whether or not de 德 in early Confucian texts is identical with arête or virtue. It will then investigate the meaning and implication of de in Confucian contexts and make an argument for a new type of Confucian de ethics. (...) It will finally come to the project on de and virtue ethics in early Confucian texts and define its purpose and boundaries. (shrink)

Indirect situationist critiques of virtue ethics grant that virtue exists and is possible to acquire, but contend that given the low probability of success in acquiring it, a person genuinely interested in behaving as morally as possible would do better to rely on situationist strategies - or, in other words, strategies of environmental or ecological engineering or control. In this paper, I develop a partial answer to this critique drawn from work in early Confucian ethics and in contemporary philosophy and (...) psychology. From early Confucian ethics, I lean on the concept of li, or ritual. Ritual represents both a set of situational manipulations that are especially effective at directly producing moral behavior and at indirectly cultivating virtue over time, and also a virtue that consists of facility with and expertise in these situational manipulations. Appealing to the particular example of social power, I then argue that one is justified in attempting to acquire virtue if one knows that one will frequently encounter circumstances in which purely situationist strategies lose effectiveness, if these circumstances also carry moral urgency: the risk of great harm or opportunity for great benefit to others is high, and if utilizing the potent combination of situationist strategies and virtue envisioned by the early Confucians as ritual is possible. (shrink)

The cultural difference between the philosophies of West and East has been assumed for so long that it has attained the status of a fact. Recent developments in social and political theory have undermined this facticity by pointing toward the processes which produce such "facts," convincingly arguing that there are vested social and political interests which lie behind the designation of cultural "others." The presumption of the fact of cultural difference is thus hardly innocent observation. The critique of Orientalism, as (...) instigated by Edward Said, is usfuell but limited in this regard, and this dissertation is an attempt to further the critiques of Orientalism by investigating the central, but previously unexamined, concept of culture which underpins such critiques. ;This dissertation specifically examines the presumed split between Western and Chinese philosophy by carefully tracing part of the history of how Chinese philosophy comes to be understood as Chinese. For this purpose, it analyzes the work of a sampling of prominent and divergent "Western" thinkers on the "problem" of China, demonstrating that what lies behind the history of the Western/Chinese "difference" is a process of Western self-identification concomitant with a certain cultural desire. The assertion of a difference in philosophies ultimately speaks more about Western cultural desires than about the "nature" of Chinese culture and thought. The results of this line of thought are then applied to the concepts of democracy and gender, played out against the tableau of the presumed "cultural difference" between the West and China. ;This dissertation can thus be seen as arguing against the notions of culture and cultural difference as they appear in their current manifestations in liberal multiculturalism. Although seemingly opposed, the insights of Foucauldian theories of discourse and Lacanian analyses of subjective desire are utilized for this analysis. The conclusion, an argument for an understanding of culture and cultural difference which adequately captures the deep interfusion of human populations and its agonistic quality, is an attempt to escape some of the deadlocks faced by contemporary multiculturalism and to point to the directions which the ongoing diminishment of global distance compels our self-understanding as "cultured" subjects. (shrink)

A growing number of scholars have come to view Confucians and other Chinese thinkers as virtue ethicists. Other scholars, though, have challenged this classification. This essay discusses some of the problems that surround this debate, points out shortcomings in some of the criticisms that have been made, and offers suggestions about how best to develop a productive discussion about the issue.