1. It is common knowledge among scholars who are familiar with the Zhuangzi that Guo Xiang’s 郭象Commentary (henceforth the Commentary)1 written in the Xuanxue 玄學 era exerts tremendous influence on e...

Anger, far from being only a personal emotion, often signals a breakdown in existing societal structures like the justice system. This does not mean we should uncritically submit to our angry impulses, but it does mean that anger can reveal larger issues in the world worthy of attention. If we banish anger from the socio-political landscape, we risk losing its insights. To defend that claim, I turn to a range of sources from ancient China and Greece—philosophy, poetry, drama, and political (...) theory—that depict and analyze anger in a variety of situations and people. My basic claim is not that anger is simply “good” or “bad” but rather that it helps reveal and clarify our values, often pointing us towards real situations deserving of our ethical scrutiny. I situate the project amidst ongoing debates in analytic philosophy of emotions and feminist philosophy, joining the conceptual precision and clarity of the former with the latter’s attention to lived experience. Such cross-cultural, multidisciplinary conceptual analysis of anger parochializes Aristotelian understandings of anger by introducing different types and functions of anger. What role does anger play, for example, in a minister rebuking the king in an ancient Chinese court? How do Greek sources depict female anger differently than male anger, and why? By using ancient and comparative sources, I show how deeply anger is shaped by particular cultural and social structures, whilst remaining recognizably anger. (shrink)

In this expansive and highly original two-volume work, Jim Behuniak reformulates John Dewey's late-period "Cultural turn" and proposes that its next logical step is an "intra-Cultural philosophy" that goes beyond what is commonly known as "comparative philosophy." Each volume models itself on this new approach, arguing that early Chinese thought is poised to join forces with Dewey in meeting an urgent cultural need: namely, helping the Western tradition to correct its outdated Greek-medieval assumptions, especially where these result in pre-Darwinian inferences (...) about the world. Relying on the latest findings in Chinese philosophy, these volumes establish "specific philosophical relationships" between Dewey's ideas and early Chinese thought for this purpose, showing how together they can assist us in getting our thinking "back in gear" with the world as it is currently known through the biological, physical, and cognitive sciences. Volume One: Dao and Nature engages Dewey with themes generally associated with "Daoism," and includes discussion of the organization of organic form, teleology, cosmology, knowledge, the body, and technology. Volume One thus works to establish "Chinese natural philosophy" as an empirical framework in which to consider the cultural-level phenomena examined in Volume Two: Dao and Culture. (shrink)

In Mohist philosophy, the gnomon is a metaphor for the standard of valid arguments. This metaphor comes from the method of establishing due east and west by observing gnomon shadows at dusk and dawn. I argue that there is also an overlooked, implicit aspect of the gnomon metaphor that comes from its function of measuring the height of heaven indirectly through proportional calculation. The function of indirect measurement inspires a strategy of argumentation in Mohist ethics, which I call “analogical upscaling.” (...) Such an argument draws a parallel between small-scale and large-scale actions for the purpose of determining the Will of Heaven in a particular circumstance, just as the gnomon measures heaven’s physical height analogically. In the conclusion, I compare the epistemological status of light and shadow in the Mozi and Plato’s Republic. (shrink)

A longstanding orthodoxy holds that the Mohists regard the promotion of li (benefit, 利) as their ultimate normative criterion, meaning that they measure what is yi (just, 義) or buyi (unjust, 不義) depending on whether it maximizes li or not. This orthodoxy dates back at least to Joseph Edkins (1859), who saw Mozi as a utilitarian and an ally of Bentham. In this paper, we will argue that this orthodoxy should be reconsidered because it does not square with several passages (...) from the Mozi. That the Mohists place a strong weight on the promotion of ‘li for the whole world (tianxia zhi li, 天下之利)’ is uncontroversial. We argue, however, that in certain cases the Mohist moral calculus diverges in its rationale or outcome from li-promotionalism. This position rejects the orthodoxy by showing that Mohism and li-promotionalism are not entirely coterminous. (shrink)

This paper articulates the relationship between knowledge and qing 情 in the Zhuangzi. I argue that Zhuangzi has a twofold view of qing, which is structurally similar to his view of knowledge. I sta...

Confucian writings on ritual from the classical period (ca 8th-3rd centuries BCE), including instruction manuals, codes of conduct, and treatises on the origins and function of ritual in human life, are impressive in scope and repay careful engagement. These texts maintain that ritual participation fosters social and emotional development, helps persons deal with significant life events such as marriages and deaths, and helps resolve political disagreements. These early sources are of interest not only to historians and Sinologists, but also to (...) philosophers and social scientists; they contain enduring insights into the nature and status of rituals more generally. This chapter surveys classical Confucian theories of the origins and functions of ritual, and summarizes some strident critiques of them from contemporary thinkers in the Mohist, Daoist, and Legalist schools of thought. The aim is to indicate key issues as well as promising strategies for analyzing ritual in Confucian thought and action. (shrink)

The classical Chinese philosophical tradition (ca. 6th to 3rd centuries BCE) contains rich discussion of skill and expertise. Various texts exalt skilled exemplars (whether historical persons or fictional figures) who guide and inspire those seeking virtuosity within a particular dao (guiding teaching or way of life). These texts share a preoccupation with flourishing, or uncovering and articulating the constituents of an exemplary life. Some core features thought requisite to leading such a life included spontaneity, naturalness, and effortless ease. However, there (...) was also significant disagreement during this ‘Warring States’ or ‘Hundred Schools’ period on which skills were valuable, how one should cultivate them, and who exactly ought to serve as exemplars. In this chapter, I discuss two prominent types of expertise and their attendant skills. The first is expertise at a particular craft, occupation, or dao, which finds its most poignant celebration in the early Daoist anthology Zhuangzi. Interest in crafts or skilled occupations was likely motivated by a perceived (or implied) analogy with living a good life more generally. The second concerns ethical expertise, a prominent and widely held ideal within the Ruist (Confucian) and Mohist schools. Both maintain that ethical expertise consists of an ability to apply past models or precedents to current cases, though they diverge on what those models are and how to properly apply them. The aim is to provide non-specialists an overview of this literature in Daoism, Confucianism, and Mohism, while also providing suggestions about further research. (shrink)

The graph tong同and its associated concepts, such as da-tong (Great tong大同) and xuan-tong (mystic or dark tong玄同), have played important roles in the development of Chinese philosophy. Yet tong has received scant attention from either western or eastern scholarships. This paper is a first attempt to remedy such regret. Unlike usual understandings of tong as sameness or unity, this paper presents a nuanced account from early China, that is, ‘difference to one,’ a definition from the Mozi墨子. This definition can be (...) supported from etymological, textual, and lexical evidence. ‘Difference to one’ should not be solely attributed to a Mohist understanding; it in fact represents a common understanding of tong across philosophical streams in early China. This nuanced account provides new insights into the concept of tong in early philosophical texts, and furthermore breaks solid grounds for further studies of tong and its associated concepts. (shrink)

Comparison is fundamental to the practice and subject-matter of philosophy, but has received scant attention by philosophers. This is even so in “comparative philosophy,” which literally distinguishes itself from other philosophy by being “comparative.” In this article, the need for a philosophy of comparison is suggested. What we compare with what, and in what respect it is done, poses a series of intriguing and intricate questions. In Part One, I offer a problematization of the tertium comparationis (the third of comparison) (...) by examining conceptualizations of similarity, family resemblance, and analogy, which it is sometimes argued can do without a tertium comparationis. In Part Two, I argue that a third of comparison is already required to determine what is to be compared, and insofar as that determination precedes the comparison that tertium may be called “pre-comparative.” This leads me to argue against incomparability and to show how anything can indeed be compared to anything. In Part Three, I relate my arguments to what is today commonly labelled “comparative philosophy.” Finally, I raise some questions of ontology and politics in order to demonstrate the relevance of a philosophy of comparison. (shrink)

This essay argues that the “Heng Xian” bridges between two distinct discourses that were both prevalent in the late fourth century. One discourse focused on the origination of the natural world through a spontaneous process of differentiation, a position familiar from the Daodejing and “Tai yi sheng shui.” The other focused on the specific ways in which different kinds of things live, a position known primarily from Ru discussions centering on the concept of xing 性, the nature or spontaneous reactions (...) of a particular kind of thing. The “Heng Xian” attempts to account for the specificity of human life—including language and social organization—while remaining within a naturalistic view grounded in spontaneity. The essay concludes by reflecting on what the “Heng Xian” tells us about the status of human institutions. (shrink)

Socially extended knowledge has recently received much attention in mainstream epistemology. Knowledge here is not to be understood as wholly realised within a single individual who manipulates artefacts or tools but as collaboratively realised across plural agents. Because of its focus on the interpersonal dimension, socially extended epistemology appears to be a promising approach for investigating the deeply social nature of epistemic practices. I believe, however, that this line of inquiry could be made more fruitful if it is connected with (...) the critical notion of epistemic responsibility, as developed in feminist responsibilism. According to feminist responsibilists, at the core of epistemic responsibility is a critical disposition toward correcting epistemic injustice. This epistemic idea is highly relevant to the epistemological context of illness, where patient testimony is often disregarded. Hence, though restricted to the epistemological context of the experience of illness, this chapter delves into epistemic injustice and its robust mechanisms. I thus explore what responsible epistemic practices should involve in order to redress that injustice and how epistemic responsibility should be socially extended. The discussion proceeds as follows. First, by relying on Arthur Frank’s innovative work on illness narratives, I focus on chaotic bodily messages from patients overwhelmed by suffering and then explain why these messages should count as genuine narratives or testimonies despite their inarticulateness. Second, I elaborate on how epistemic injustice concerning such narratives (i.e., chaos narratives) is produced and reproduced, in particular how both a dominant sociocultural norm and our inherent vulnerability can contribute to its production and reproduction. Finally, I propose an extended form of epistemic responsibility that ameliorates this aspect. Laying particular emphasis on the epistemic role of mature empathy, I characterise the extended epistemic responsibility in terms of extended empathic knowledge. (shrink)

This paper divides the sophisms and paradoxes put forth by Chinese thinkers of the pre-Qin period of China into six groups: paradoxes of motion and infinity, paradoxes of class membership, semantic paradoxes, epistemic paradoxes, paradoxes of relativization, other logical contradictions. It focuses on the comparison between the Chinese items and the counterparts of ancient Greek and even of contemporary Western philosophy, and concludes that there turn out to be many similar elements of philosophy and logic at the beginnings of Chinese (...) and Greek civilizations. (shrink)

The attitude toward li 利 is often identified as a key difference between the Mencius 孟子 and the Mozi 墨子. A common view is that for the Mencius, rightness (yi 義) and li are incompatible; but for the Mozi they are not necessarily so. In this paper I argue that the Mencius and the Mozi are in broad agreement on the issue of li, and their attitudes toward li are not as different as may seem at first glance. If we (...) take a finer-grained understanding of li in two ways, namely the self-regarding li and the other-regarding li, then both the Mencius and the Mozi would criticize the former but encourage the latter. The term li in the Mencius has a range of meanings, and it is not clear whether the Mencius actually opposes all li-pursuing activities. Mencius would agree with Mozi that, at least in some cases, one is obligated to seek li for others. Furthermore, despite their criticism of self-regarding li, both Mencius and Mozi allow that in some cases it is morally permissible to act from the motive of self-regarding li, as long as this motive coexists with the motive of rightness. That is, self-regarding li and rightness are not always mutually exclusive, even for Mencius, who seems to be more critical of li. (shrink)

Quantum gravity is supposed to be the most fundamental theory, including a quantum theory of the metrical field (spacetime). However, it is not clear how a quantum theory of gravity could account for classical phenomena, including notably measurement outcomes. But all the evidence that we have for a physical theory is based on measurement outcomes. We consider this problem in the framework of canonical quantum gravity, pointing out a dilemma: all the available accounts that admit classical phenomena presuppose entities with (...) a well-defined spatio-temporal localization (“local beables” in John Bell's terms) as primitive. But there seems to be no possibility to include such primitives in canonical quantum gravity. However, if one does not do so, it is not clear how entities that are supposed to be ontologically prior to spacetime could give rise to entities that then are spatio-temporally localized. (shrink)

The concept of tong played an important role in early Chinese political thought, as in the “Shangtong” chapter of the Mozi and the “Liyun” chapter of the Liji. Nevertheless, tong as a political thought has received little scholarly attention. In this article, I diverge from the common understandings of tong as sameness or unity and call on etymological and textual evidence to suggest that tong fundamentally refers to “difference to one.” In light of this understanding of tong as “difference to (...) one,” I focus on the “Shangtong” and the “Liyun” and compare the two visions of political tong that the two chapters present. With this research, I argue that the “Shangtong” and “Liyun” represent two different political streams as to how to unite a society with early China’s differences and divisions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It has recently been argued that in Analects 17.21, Confucius advises a disciple to do something that he, Confucius, believes to be morally wrong. According to Frederick Choo, despite believing that it is morally wrong to not properly observe the three-year mourning ritual for a deceased parent, Confucius tells Zai Wo that he should do so. Choo offers two justifications for Confucius’s doing this. In this essay, I argue that the justifications Choo offers for Confucius’s advising Zai Wo to (...) do what he believes to be morally wrong are untenable. Indeed, I argue that Confucius does not, in fact, advise Zai Wo to do what he believes to be morally wrong. Instead, I argue that Confucius’s advice to Zai Wo in Analects 17.21 is best understood as an expression of exasperation and sarcasm. (shrink)

This essay sets out to search for an equivalent Chinese word to the English word ‘justice’ in classical Chinese language, through ancient Chinese philosophical texts, imperial codes and idioms. The study found that there does not seem to be a linguistic sign for ‘justice’ in classical Chinese, and further, yi resembles ‘justice’ in some ways and has been used sometimes to translate ‘justice’, but yi is a complex concept in traditional Chinese philosophy with multiple meanings and it is dissimilar to (...) ‘justice’ in their semantic and pragmatic meanings in Chinese and English legal culture. While ‘justice’ is a keyword and fundamental to Western law, yi is not a legal word or concept in classical Chinese in traditional China. Given its complexity, yi does not have a one-to-one equivalent in English. It sometimes carries a sense of ‘righteousness’ and occasionally ‘justice’, but yi and ‘justice’ are not equivalent. In view of these, it becomes understandable that the translations of yi in contemporary Chinese usage vary ranging from ‘friendship and justice’ to ‘greater good’, among others. The meaning of yi is still uncertain and context sensitive as it was two thousand years ago. (shrink)

The Mohist conceives the dao-following issue as “how we can put dao in words and speeches into practice.” The dao-following issue is the Mohist counterpart of Wittgenstein’s rule-following problem. This paper aims to shed light on the rule-following issue in terms of the Mohist answer to the dao-following problem. The early Mohist takes fa（法, standard）and the later Mohist takes lei（類, analogy）as the key to the dao-following issue. I argue that the way of fa is not viable. Fa comes in various (...) forms, but all of them are regarded as being cut off from everyday life and therefore subject to various interpretations and, hence, incapable of action-guiding. On the other hand, the Mohist lei represents a kind of life world action drama. A lei situates various elements of action in the context of an everyday life scene. I argue that lei is more qualified than fa in answering to the dao-following issue. I also show that lei substantializes what McDowell calls the “course between a Scylla and a Charybdis” hinted in terms of Wittgenstein’s idea of “custom,” “practice,” and “institution” in regard to the rule-following problem. (shrink)

According to A. C. Graham, ‘the crucial question’ for the early Chinese thinkers was ‘Where is the Way [dao]?’–‘the way to order the state and conduct personal life’ rather than ‘What is the Truth?’1 This observation is most apt when applied to the thinking of Mozi and his followers as it is exemplified in the ethical and political chapters of the eponymously named text .2 A striking feature of the Mohists’ thinking, however, is the concern they have with yan , (...) and the role they assigned to yan in their ethical project. Part I of this article will outline the nature and scope of the Mohists’ concern with yan. In the Mohists’ conception, right yan is the linguistic counterpart to proper dao. And conduct that follows dao is a matter of affirming the right yan and taking it as a model in one’s actions. The Mohists’ concern with yan is prominently exhibited in their proposing objective standards, or ‘gauges’, by means of which any yan may be assessed. Part II introduces these gauges and discusses how they function as standards for right yan and right conduct. Given the generally pragmatic outlook of their thinking, the question remains as to whether, in their conception of yan, the Mohists conceived of language exclusively in terms of its action guiding function, and whether they deployed the notion of truth at all. Part III discusses this issue, arguing that there is a minimal sense in which yan that are positively assessed by the gauges are true, and that the Mohists are not insensitive to the distinction between descriptive as opposed to action guiding uses of language. Part IV briefly discusses how the Mohists’ attitude towards yan contrasts with those of early Confucian and Daoist thinkers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to explain the Mohists’ perceived inconsistences of the following three propositions in the Mojing since we attribute to them an unconditional love toward human beings: A thief is a man. Killing a thief is not killing men. A thief is a man. Loving a thief is not loving men. Zang is a man. Loving Zang is loving men. The attribution of unconditional love toward human beings is not unusual to the Mohists when we render (...) the Mohist idea of jian’ai as universal love. My interpretation first suggests that we can consistently interpret the Mohist ethical position as intentional utilitarianism. Second, I claim that Mohist universal love includes some generality, though it does not have to mean universality without exception. This Mohist generality will be explained through the generic use of nouns. (shrink)

In all three versions of the “Jian’ai” 兼愛 Chapter in the Mozi 墨子, variations of a central argument may be found. This argument proceeds by advancing a diagnosis for what causes the various evils that beset the world, and it is on this basis that the Mohists propose jian’ai as the solution. The study examines this main argument in some detail, with the aim of improving both our understanding of the Mohist ethical doctrine and also our appreciation of their argumentative (...) practices. The study shows that distinct ethical injunctions of varying degrees of stringency can be derived from the argument, though they all embody an underlying notion of impartiality. This impartiality—while in many ways recognizably attractive to us—puts Mohist jian’ai in tension with certain notions regarding the ethical significance of special relations. In addition, the paper argues that the Mohists main argument for jian’ai contains a critical flaw. (shrink)

In Chinese pre-Qin period, Mohism was the first school that challenged Confucianism. A common view is that Mohists attacked Confucianism by proposing jian ai, often translated as “universal love,” that opposes Confucian “graded love”. The Confucian-Mohist debate on ethics is often regarded as a debate between Mohist “universal love,” on the one hand; and Confucian emphasis on family and kinship, on the other. However, it is misleading to translate jian ai as “universal love,” as it distorts our understanding of the (...) debate. The word jian in classical Chinese means “inclusive,” not “impartial”. The Jian Ai chapters in the Mozi do not object to the idea that our moral practices ought to vary according to our relationship with others and their social positions. Furthermore, Mohist jian ai was not proposed in the first instance to refute Confucian ideas. The Confucian-Mohist debate should not be understood as a battle between nepotism and excessive insistence on impartiality, because both of them advocate that we should care for people in general and that we should maintain close relational ties. (shrink)

The Mohists develop the concept of yi 義 to denote what is morally right in a normative sense. We argue that this concept has, as one of its necessary conditions, a requirement to not harm others. Additionally, we will show that the motivation of developing this concept is that it can be both universalized and publicly agreed upon, thus serving the Mohists’ endeavor to overcome human conflicts that make the world chaotic and unlivable. We argue therefore that the Mohist notion (...) of gongyi 公義 is best captured by the requirement of “not harming.” Moreover, we shall show that the Mohists themselves committed to this requirement as the first principle of all their core doctrines. Finally, we argue that due to the justifiability and universalizability of the requirement of “not harming,” the Mohists’ commitment to it as a prerequisite normatively justifies their other values in a way that was unprecedented at the time. (shrink)

Adaptationists explain the evolution of religion from the cooperative effects of religious commitments, but which cooperation problem does religion evolve to solve? I focus on a class of symmetrical coordination problems for which there are two pure Nash equilibriums: (1) ALL COOPERATE, which is efficient but relies on full cooperation; (2) ALL DEFECT, which is inefficient but pays regardless of what others choose. Formal and experimental studies reveal that for such risky coordination problems, only the defection equilibrium is evolutionarily stable. (...) The following makes sense of otherwise puzzling properties of religious cognition and cultures as features of cooperative designs that evolve to stabilise such risky exchange. The model is interesting because it explains lingering puzzles in the data on religion, and better integrates evolutionary theories of religion with recent, well-motivated models of cooperative niche construction. (shrink)

Based on the observation that ancient Chinese thinkers formulated their conception of logic and agency mainly around the concept of biàn 辯 (discrimination), Chris Fraser argues that (1) ancient Chinese thinkers had no concept of sentence or proposition, (2) they did not engage in logical argumentation in its proper sense, and (3) reason or rationality was not highly valued in ancient China for normative evaluation of actions. However, the text of the Mòzǐ 墨子 contains strong pieces of evidence against these (...) claims, and I argue that the opposite is clearly the case in Mòzǐ. Then, I move on to apply the metaethical idea of judgment internalism—the idea that there is an “internal” or conceptual connection between moral judgment and motivation—to some passages from the Mòzǐ and argue that Mòzǐ is best interpreted as a flexible internalist who is willing to incorporate an externalist idea into his system of thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn contrast to his contemporaries who take the heart–mind as the ruler of a person, Zhuangzi suggests that one’s action is guided by the spirit. Questions arise as one articulates the function of spirit and its relationship with the heart–mind. In this article, I articulate the relationship between heart–mind and spirit to show three points: first, spirit is a kind of qi 氣 that can be tied or run smoothly, or rather the mechanism triggered by the functioning of smooth qi. (...) This reading brings the skill passages together with the fasting of heart–mind passage. Second, the proceeding of spirit admits no fixed ways and is not confined to any particular organ or faculty, so it avoids the problem of self-assertion mentioned in Qiwulun. Third, the proceeding of spirit implies that one’s practice takes as many particularities of the context as possible into account, so the person has a higher chance to reduce conflict in interacting with things and other people and bring out their p.. (shrink)