Li, often translated as "ritual" or "ritual propriety," is among the most controversial notions of the Confucian philosophy. Its strong association with the Zhou tradition has caused it to be regarded with suspicion by both Western and Chinese representatives of modernity, mainly on the basis of the Enlightenment insistence of progressive rationality and liberation from the yoke of tradition. This work endeavors to offer a more balanced discussion of li by approaching it from the point of view of the Confucian (...) view of learning or education. It offers a general philosophical discussion of the limitations of the critique of tradition and of rationality's claim to authority, leaning on several Western sources, notably Hans-Georg Gadamer, John Dewey and Pierre Bourdieu. Through an exposition of the ancient Chinese worldview of time and continuous change, it further points to the inevitability of li's adaptable and flexible nature. This underscores the argument, running through the work, that Confucius and his immediate followers did not endorse a program of returning to the Zhou tradition, but rather of reviving the "spirit" of the Zhou culture, involving active and personalized participation in tradition's sustention and evolution. An emphasis on li, therefore, is far from suggesting irrationality---such a view rather indicates the narrow definition of rationality as handed over from the Enlightenment "tradition." The difficulties with such a definition reveal themselves when trying to distinguish between education and indoctrination on a rational vs. irrational basis. The ancient Confucian philosophy of education and personal cultivation steers clear of these problems altogether while at the same time insisting on teaching methods that maximize the student's own initiative and personal realization. In this regard, li reveals itself as an indispensable pedagogical tool, both deepening students' understanding of the significance of their tradition, enabling them to realize their own contribution to its continuous unfolding and thereby providing them with a profound sense of meaning in their daily activities. The concluding chapter brings the issue to the present, and begins with a critical discussion of the prospects of li in the modern world. Lastly, it turns to the state of education both in the world at large and in the People's Republic of China, pointing out some problems for the development of effective education, but certainly some promising signs as well. (shrink)

I examine what I take to be an important consideration for the later Wittgenstein: the understanding of a rule does not exceed or transcend an understanding of explanations or instructions in the rule. I contend that this consideration plays a central role in the later Wittgenstein's views on rule-following. I first show that it serves as a key premiss in a sceptical argument concerning our ability to follow rules. I then argue that this consideration is vital to Wittgenstein's case against (...) what I describe as a realist view of rules. This realist view requires that our understanding of a rule extend beyond what can be understood from any set of instructions or explanation. For Wittgenstein, because this is to transcend publicly available means of conveying understanding, this realist's understanding is a private understanding. He calls this private source of understanding an ‘intuition’ and the main line of argument against intuition in our understanding of a rule draws, appropriately, on what is called his ‘private language argument’. In this paper, I defend a non-verificationist reading of this argument and its use against the realist so-construed. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

A Modern Coleridge shows the interrelatedness of the discourses of cultivation, addiction and habit in Coleridge's poetry and prose, and argues that these all revolve around the problematic nexus of a post-Kantian idea of free will, essential to Coleridge's eminently modern idea of the 'human'.

In her book Specifications Grading, Linda B. Nilson advocates for a grading regimen she claims will save faculty time, increase student motivation, and improve the quality and rigor of student work. If she is right, there is a strong case for many faculty to adopt some version of the system she recommends. In this paper, we argue that she is mostly right and recommend that faculty move away from traditional grading. We begin by rehearsing the central features of specifications grading (...) and providing two examples of how to implement it in philosophy classes. In light of the examples, we argue that specifications grading fulfills two of Nilson’s central desiderata but not the third. Since specifications grading generates two benefits that when combined increase student learning, without adding or increasing burdens, we conclude that student learning increases when courses are revised to include aspects of specifications grading. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

The significance of teaching to the evolution of human culture is under debate. We contribute to the discussion by using a quantitative, cross-cultural comparative approach to investigate the role of teaching in the lives of children in two small-scale societies: Aka foragers and Ngandu farmers of the Central African Republic. Focal follows with behavior coding were used to record social learning experiences of children aged 4 to 16 during daily life. “Teaching” was coded based on a functional definition from evolutionary (...) biology. Frequencies, contexts, and subtypes of teaching as well as the identity of teachers were analyzed. Teaching was rare compared to observational learning, although both forms of social learning were negatively correlated with age. Children received teaching from a variety of individuals, and they also engaged in teaching. Several teaching types were observed, including instruction, negative feedback, and commands. Statistical differences in the distribution of teaching types and the identity of teachers corresponded with contrasting forager vs. farmer foundational cultural schema. For example, Aka children received less instruction, which empirically limits autonomous learning, and were as likely to receive instruction and negative feedback from other children as they were from adults. Commands, however, exhibited a different pattern suggesting a more complex role for this teaching type. Although consistent with claims that teaching is relatively rare in small-scale societies, this evidence supports the conclusion that teaching is a universal, early emerging cognitive ability in humans. However, culture structures the nature of teaching. (shrink)

Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982–1054 c.e.), more commonly known under his honorific title of Atiśa, is a renowned figure in Tibetan Buddhist cultural memory. He is famous for coming to Tibet and revitalizing Buddhism there during the early eleventh century. Of the many works that Atiśa composed, translated, and brought to Tibet one of the most well-known was his “Entry to the Two Realities” (Satyadvayāvatāra). Recent scholarship has provided translations and Tibetan editions of this work, including Lindtner’s English translation (1981) and Ejima’s Japanese (...) translation (1983). However, previously there was no known Indian or Tibetan commentary to this work. This article identifies for the first time a brief commentary to the Satyadvayāvatāra and discusses its content and purport in relation to early Madhyamaka philosophy in Tibet, and provides an annotated translation of the work. This early Tibetan commentary on the two realities (satyadvaya) provides important insight into how late eleventh century or early twelfth centuries Tibetan followers of Atiśa understood the tenets of Buddhist philosophy, the nature of valid cognition (tshad ma), and the importance of spiritual authority. The early Tibetan commentary to Atiśa’s Satyadvayāvatāra provides direct textual evidence of the beginnings of scholasticism in Tibet and offers an early perspective on the formative developments in the intellectual history of Tibetan Madhyamaka. (shrink)

This paper falls under the rubric of the sociology of knowledge, which bridges the gap between phenomenological philosophy and the human sciences. It presents an empirical investigation of the communicative construction of psychotherapeutic reality. I examine therapeutic talk and psychotherapists' reconstructions of the transition from state socialism in Germany in 1989. In both instances I show how psychotherapists' commonly shared interpretative conventions and rules of reasoning produce typical accounts. The first part of the paper shows how certain interpretative conventions and (...) rules of reasoning organize therapeutic talk and interaction in general. The second part focuses on how the interpretative conventions typical of therapy also inform psychotherapists' interpretations of the transition from state socialism. (shrink)

Divergent thinking as a creative ability and perceptual switching between different interpretations of an unchanging stimulus are thought to rely on similar processes. In the current study, we investigate to what extent task instructions and inherent stimulus characteristics influence participants’ responses. In the first experiment, participants were asked to give as many interpretations for six images as possible. In the second experiment, participants reported which of two possible interpretations they saw at any moment for the same line drawings. From these (...) two experiments, we extracted measures that allow us direct comparison between tasks. Results show that instructions have a large influence over the perception of images traditionally used in two different paradigms and that these images can be perceived in appropriate ways for both tasks. In addition, we suggest that the connection between the two phenomena can be explored interchangeably through three experimental manipulations: a) using a common set of images across both experiments, b) giving different task instructions for the two tasks, and c) extracting comparable metrics from both experimental paradigms. (shrink)

The Standards' ecumenical implications are critically assessed in view of the risks which their cross-denominational or cross-faith cooperation implications on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their secular commitments to mutual learning, non-proselytizing, professionalism, and efficiency assessment might carry for chaplains' properly spiritual orientation. The problem posed by the ambiguity of language is raised as a warning that concepts like human dignity have a profoundly different meaning in secular and Christian contexts. Invoking such concepts can be seriously misleading.

Theoretical methods for empirical state determination of entangled two-level systems are analyzed in relation to information theory. We show that hidden variable theories would lead to a Shannon index of correlation between the entangled subsystems which is larger than that predicted by quantum mechanics. Canonical representations which have maximal correlations are treated by the use of Schmidt and Hilbert-Schmidt decomposition of the entangled states, including especially the Bohm singlet state and the GHZ entangled states. We show that quantum mechanics does (...) not violate locality, but does violate realism. (shrink)

Cross-cultural scholarship in ritual studies on women's laments provides us with a fresh vantage point from which to consider the function of women and women's complaining voices in the epic poems of William Blake. In this essay, I interpret Thel, Oothoon, and Enitharmon as strong voices of experience that unleash some of Blake's most profound meditations on social, sexual, individual, and institutional forms of violence and injustice, offering what might aptly be called an ethics of witness. Tracing the performative function (...) of Enion, Jerusalem, Vala, and Erin in Blake's later epics, The Four Zoas and Jerusalem , I argue for the close connection between the female laments and the possibility of redemption, though in Blake such "redemption" comes at the cost of the very voices of witness themselves. (shrink)

This article introduces three arguments that share a single conclusion: that a comprehensive science of language cannot describe relations of semantic reference, i.e. word–world relations. Spelling this out, if there is to be a genuine science of linguistic meaning, then a theory of meaning cannot involve assigning external, real-world, objects to names, nor sets of external objects to predicates, nor truth values to sentences. Most of the article tries to explain and defend this broad conclusion. The article also presents, in (...) a very limited way, a positive alternative to external-referent semantics for expressions. This alternative has two parts: first, that the meanings of words and sentences are mental instructions, not external things; second, that it is people who refer by using words and sentences, and word/sentence meanings play but a partial role in allowing speakers to talk about the world. (shrink)

An introduction to Thomas Hobbes as a systematic and not merely political philosopher. Best known for his contributions to political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes set out to develop a coherent philosophical system extending from logic and natural philosophy to civil and religious philosophy. In this introduction to Hobbes’s thought, Otfried Höffe begins by providing an overview of the entire scope of his work, making clear its systematic character through analysis of his natural philosophy, his individual and social anthropology, and his political (...) thought. He then offers an innovative examination of religious and ecclesiastical questions, touching not only on the political implications of religion so important to Hobbes, but also on his attempt to reconstruct Christianity in terms of a materialistic philosophy. He also explores Hobbes’s continuous critique of Aristotle and Aristotelian Scholastics, in which Höffe argues that Hobbes and Aristotle have much more in common philosophically than is normally supposed—and certainly more than Hobbes himself acknowledged. Finally, Höffe sketches the influence Hobbes had and continues to have on the development of legal and political philosophy. “A thoroughly successful introduction to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes ” — Reinhard Brandt, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, in praise of the German edition. (shrink)

In this article, I present the arguments of three republican women philosophers of eighteenth-century France, focusing especially on two themes: equality (of class, gender, and race) and the family. I argue that these philosophers, Olympe de Gouges, Marie-Jeanne Phlipon Roland, and Sophie de Grouchy, who are interesting and original in their own right, belong to the neo-republican tradition and that re-discovering their texts is an opportunity to reflect on women’s perspectives on the ideas that shaped our current political thought.

Over the last few decades the study of Shīʿī Islam has witnessed a growing interest in specific aspects and perspectives of Shīʿī philosophers and theologians. The monograph authored by Sayeh Meisami focuses on the views of two of the most influential thinkers in Shīʿī, namely the eleventh century Ismāʿīlī thinker Ḥāmid al-Kirmānī and the Twelver mystic and thinker Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, better known as Mullā Ṣadrā. Throughout the five chapters, the textual comparative analysis of their thought shows how multifaceted epistemological (...) and cosmological keys are transmitted from al-Kirmānī to Mullā Ṣadra, and ultimately become interwoven with their respective theories about the legitimacy of the Imām. Epistemology, cosmology, and political theory thus become, in the author’s analysis, the fil rouge that characterize the development of Shīʿī mystical and political philosophies up to the advent of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran. (shrink)

The paper, although polemical for the most part, also presents a substantive thesis. The polemical part is directed at the claim that the Platonic Socrates held that philosophy as a practice is to be devoted to the care of self and others, and that the expression of emotion is an important aspect of the philosophic life. To undermine that claim, counter-examples from the autobiographical narrative in the Phaedo and the speeches of Diotima and Alcibiades in the Symposium are brought in. (...) Once analysed at the required depth, those passages show that, on the contrary, Plato's Socrates remains consistently dispassionate both in his life, as he narrates it, and in the views he is made to express in the two dialogues. Rather than promoting self-expression, Socrates never ceased to warn us against misology. (shrink)

This essay examines the language of the Heng Xian and suggests that the text purposefully plays with Ru-style rhetoric, particularly that associated with the “Heart Method” for self-cultivation. The playful rhetoric is reminiscent of writings collected in the Zhuangzi and the use of parables associated with fourth century BCE philosopher Hu Shi.

The topic of developing professionalism dominated the content of many academic medicine publications and conference agendas during the past decade. Calls to address the development of professionalism among medical students and residents have come from professional societies, accrediting agencies, and a host of educators in the biomedical sciences. The language of the professionalism movement is now a given among those in academic medicine. We raise serious concerns about the professionalism discourse and how the specialized language of academic medicine disciplines has (...) defined, organized, contained, and made seemingly immutable a group of attitudes, values, and behaviors subsumed under the label of "professionalism." In particular, we argue that the professionalism discourse needs to pay more attention to the academic environment in which students are educated, that it should articulate specific positive behaviors, that the theory of professionalism must be constructed from a dialogue with those we are educating, and that this theoretical and practical discourse must aim at a deeper understanding of social justice and the role of medicine within a just society. (shrink)

Employees with self-perceived misattributed culpability or incompetence are on the receiving end of complaints, reprimands, or accusations which, from their perspective, incorrectly assume that that they have fallen short of required standards or outcomes. We analyzed an archive of 23 personal stories featuring SMCI, which had been provided by 16 Hong Kong Chinese employees. The stories indicated that the most severe impacts on employee morale had arisen from punitive and targeted feedback based on misrepresentations by superiors, who had engaged in (...) blame deflection, politicking and manipulation, conflict and retaliation, and/or prejudice and stereotyping. We also identified organizational processes, such as soliciting and accepting voice and engaging in problem solving discussions that could attenuate any adverse emotional impact. (shrink)

This thesis presents a social ontology. It takes its problem, the emergence of social structure and order, and the relationship of the macro and the micro within this structure, from social theory, but attempts a resolution from the perspectives of contemporary French philosophy and complexity theory. Due to its acceptance of certain presuppositions concerning the multiplicity and connectedness of all life and nature it adopts a comparative methodology that attempts a translation of complexity science to the social world. It draws (...) both this methodology and its inspiration from the work of Michel Serres. After explaining this methodology, it presents a critique of the work of those prominent philosophers of multiplicity who have written on the social: Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and Manual DeLanda. Having argued for the need of a ‘non-unit’ of social organisation, it then unsuccessfully surveys the work of Michel Foucault and Gabriel Tarde in search of such a ‘non-unit’. It produces one by extracting elements from different theorists and then proceeds to offer a novel explanation of how these expectations first emerge from the ‘social noise’ and then go through a complex process of self-organisation to produce social structure. Apart from complexity theory, this explanation draws on the temporal ontologies of both Serres and Deleuze. In doing so, it argues that the social replication necessary for this self-organisation cannot be achieved through direct imitation. Instead, it draws on an idea from Stuart Kauffman and argues that this is achieved through autocatalysis. Finally, it argues that social structures and what is perceived to be social order are the effect of the codification, to varying degrees, of these emergent expectations. It concludes that this structure is at its most creative when on ‘the edge of chaos’, when at a point of social chaosmos. (shrink)