Drawing primarily on the Mòzǐ and Xúnzǐ, the article proposes an account of how knowledge and error are understood in classical Chinese epistemology and applies it to explain the absence of a skeptical argument from illusion in early Chinese thought. Arguments from illusion are associated with a representational conception of mind and knowledge, which allows the possibility of a comprehensive or persistent gap between appearance and reality. By contrast, early Chinese thinkers understand mind and knowledge primarily in terms of competence (...) or ability, not representation. Cognitive error amounts to a form of incompetence. Error is not explained as a failure to accurately represent the mind-independent reality due to misleading or illusory appearances. Instead, it can be explained metaphorically by appeal to part-whole relations: cognitive error typically occurs when agents incompetently respond to only part of their situation, rather than the whole. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel interpretation of the term xìng 性 as it occurs in Chinese texts of the late Warring States period (roughly 320–221 BCE). The term played an important role both in the famous controversy over the goodness or badness of people’s xìng and elsewhere in the intellectual discourse of the period. Extending especially the work of A.C. Graham, the essay stresses the importance for understanding xìng of early Chinese assumptions about spontaneity, continuity, health, and (in the human (...) case) motivation. These assumptions make xìng fundamentally different from the contemporary nature concepts with which it is often equated. In particular, people’s xìng is not a near-equivalent of human nature or (in modern Chinese) of rénxìng 人性. (shrink)

. The article attempts to show the way in which the notions of “natural law” and “cosmic harmony” have been applied by Western scholars in the interpretation of traditional Chinese thinking about the role of law in society, the extent to which the Western interpretations can be supported by the Chinese sources, and , more specifically, the degree to which official Chinese thought subscribed to a correlation between the occurrence of natural disasters and acts of maladministration or injustice on the (...) part of the emperor and state. Generally it is argued that the extent to which Chinese statesmen and administrators actually believed that errors in the infliction of legal punishment or the sentencing of offenders would produce aberrant natural phenomena has been exaggerated by Western scholars. (shrink)

SUMMARY1 The rational soul becomes the constant and dimensionless Euclidean point in all experience - defining the situations in which it finds itself, but itself undefined and undefinable in any situation. It is in nature but not of nature. Just as the dimensionless Euclidean point can occupy infinite positions on a line and yet remain unaltered, so the immortal, active intellect remains unaffected by the world in which it finds itself. It is not influenced by age, sense data, sickness or (...) death. It is the knower whose nature is pure knowing or reason. This is in great part the basic assumption that runs through the history of Aristotelean and modern symbolic logics24.The rational soul grasps identity, reasons consistently, and knows objectively for though it is in the world it is not of the world. Thus it is unnecessary and impossible to relate its truth to time or place or condition. As the source of understanding it need not be understood. It understands in that it knows. It is this which places the objective knower and observer outside of all systems of knowledge that it creates in philosophy, science and theology, and frees it from subjective interpretation. It is the absolute observer beyond self-observation.252 Language, values, and meanings reflect the absolute viewpoint of the dimensionless observer beyond the necessity of observation. The task of this observer is to know trie world just as the task of the animal and plant soul is motion and reproduction. The rational soul performs its task beyond nature as surely as animals and plants perform their tasks in nature. This is why it is possible to discuss the necessary evolution of living organisms in nature, but unnecessary to discuss the necessary or unnecessary nature of the evolution of this discussion. This is one of the reasons why determinism or predestination which seem so clearly applicable to nature, need not be applied to theories of determinism and predestination. These are principles grasped in reality beyond nature and totally inapplicable to the non-natural spirit that comprehends their essences. Thus self-reflexive questions about the questioner are as irrelevant as would be questions historically of “in what sense might the definition of dimensionless point itself be dimensioned or dimension-less?”26 Questions, on the other hand, that relate to the observed world are important for they can be truly answered (where questions as to the nature of the questioner cannot). In this view reality is not nature, but rather it is from reality that the objective observer, philosopher, scientist, and theologian understands and controls nature.3 Logic, the science of reason, is the science of all sciences. It reflects the pure and innate rational nature of the knowing intellect or soul. It is pure form beyond nature. Its realm is that of first principles or axioms. These too are in the world but not of it, as with Plato's eidos and Aristotle's universals. They are clear, true and self-evident. This explains the on going use of axiomatized revelations in studies in the natural and social sciences, the arts and the humanities. In symbolic logics, natural languages are in and of the world, but meta-languages are the constructs of pure intellectual activity and thus not natural. The abstract tends to become the more real, the less it can be found in nature. Rational souls, however, share a common reality that is as universal for Frege as it was for Aristotle.274 The occidental object tradition in general breaks out of the nature continuum by withdrawing into reality where the intellect knows and manipulates the world in philosophy, science, and theology from its position in and understanding of reality. Nature is a sub-set of reality and not vice versa. Axioms are the laws and determinants of nature and logic, but they are not nature.28 This means that at the basis of the occidental continuum of nature there is a qualitative and irreducible dichotomy of reality vs. nature. This has been most useful in the history of occidental science, but it produces a world view in which nature may lose the race with reality. SUMMARY IIIn the first portion of my paper, I discussed the implications of the Euclidean egg for philosophy and science as nature is understood and manipulated from reality. I shall now turn to what I see as the implications of the three-legged chicken view that the human intellect is in and of nature and that reality is a perspective in nature and is not simply the other of an irreducible qualitative dichotomy. Although there are an endless number of such implications that I could explore, the following, it seems to me are the most important:1 In the natural continuum there is no “dimensionless real” which can serve either as the locus of an external observer or a fixed position in nature. There is no perspective which is not an aspect of that upon which it is a perspective. The Chinese sage, for example, is one who sees himself/herself as one with or within natural process. This is expressed in a number of ways. Fung Yu-lan speaks of the difference between having no knowledge and having no-knowledge.34 Within such a continuum there can be no abstracting out of the absolute and unchanging. The nameless is the source of the named. First principles are the process itself and these principles are the alternation of opposites:“The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;The Named is the mother of all things.Therefore let there always be non-being so we may see their subtlety, And let there always be being so we may see their outcome. The two are the same.“352 An empty mind is not a blank mind. Where Aristotle viewed the mind as a blank tablet at birth to be filled by sense experience, Hsun Tzu speaks of its emptiness. It is the emptiness of the Tao itself:“The mind is constantly storing up things, and yet it is said to be empty. The mind is constantly marked by diversity, and yet it is said to be unified. The mind is constantly moving, and yet it is said to be still. Inevitably it will see things for itself. And although the objects it perceives may be many and diverse, if its acuity is of the highest level, it cannot become divided within itself.”36The nature in which and of which the mind is both perspective and aspect remains a totality. Being a totality, it is empty of itself just as any part of a whole, while a part of the whole, is empty of the whole. My ideas of myself are both of myself and empty of myself. This point can be illustrated with the simple example of knowing and speaking about two hands – one of which is mine, and the second of which belongs to someone else. 1 can objectify the second hand and fill my blank mind with information and observations about it, but I continue to remain outside of it –the arbiter in my statements of its nature and reality. However, in knowing my own hand, the hand known is also the knower and what I know represents a perspective upon an aspective of a totality of which “I–my–hand” are aspects. Being an aspect of the whole is being empty of the whole. If mind is in and of nature, any perspective on nature is an aspect of the whole. A blank mind is an unnatural mind outside of nature, filling up with impressions of nature. An empty mind is nature viewing nature as aspect and perspective. The occidental would be ashamed to reach old age and still have a blank mind. The Chinese sage would be ashamed to reach old age and still not recognize that the mind is empty.3 If mind is in nature and like nature, then language too reflects natural flow and change and process. It is one thing for me to talk about myself and another for me to talk about someone else. In the case of the latter, I may insist that objectively this other subject fits into this or that category and even administer tests to determine that it does do indeed so. But when I talk about myself, the speaker and the object of speech are one and the same. The terms I select do represent a dichotomy of sorts, but it is one of aspect and perspective and not subject and object. When I say “this is my hand” for example, the words create distinctions which are aspects of awareness but do not create an / that is or is not my hand. Language does not model or even represent reality as opposed to nature. It makes reality possible as something that nature says or thinks. Reality through language is an aspect of nature and thus a perspective upon itself as aspect. This is an important distinction that translators often miss.4 Logic in this natural continuum is concerned with distinctions in a very different sense. As a consequence of the unity of nature and mind, three kinds of distinction in experience are manifested: (a) Those distinctions which come into being as aspects of the changing world.The 10,000 things are in this sense aspects and not separate “identities” as some philosophers and scientists presuppose.37 (b) Those distinctions which come into being as aspects of the human mind. These are impressions of and thoughts about the infinite distinctions of which the restless mind is capable, (c) Those distinctions which come into being by way of the mind's use of symbols. These are the distinctions which permit us to stabilize and store our experiences, preserve the answers to our questions, and name the world into compartments and relationships.Implicit in these three assumptions which connect the distinguishing mind to the unity of a nature of'10,000‘ aspects, is an inferential process of aspect to perspective to knowledge to understanding to attitude to action/response. The reasoning mind synthesizes some aspect of experience in nature with a perspective upon this aspect. This synthesis, in turn, is an aspect of mind and the reasoning process proceeds from it to a perspective upon it which is knowledge and understanding. Knowledge and understanding in turn are aspects of thinking and the reasoning process proceeds from them to a perspective upon them which is an attitude. Attitude in turn is an aspect of thinking and the reasoning process proceeds from it to a perspective upon it which is reflected in the reasoning individual's actions and responses. This inferential process is a continuum which proceeds from aspects of experience to perspectives in thought to action and response. In this sequence an aspect is always connected by a perspective which becomes an aspect, until action/non-action, response occurs. This is as applicable to the details of life as it is to mastering life as a whole. When this inference process is incomplete many problems may result, ranging from action without understanding to the confusion of aspect and perspective with one another or to “obsession with distinctions.”38In practice this is a logic of paradox. The human being is aware that he or she is a living-dying aspect of nature, but an aspect which is also a perspective upon nature's aspects of living and dying. This paradox is the process around which a profound logic of aspect/perspective is developed by the sage. This view of logic within a continuum does not mean that there is no principle of identity, contradiction or excluded middle present – as some Chinese and European philosophers assume.These principles are also implicit in the knowing of my hand versus the knowing of the hand of another. However, the content, meaning, and application of these principles may vary just as when I say propriety, I mean propriety, and when the Chinese says li he means li but the context, meaning and application of the term may differ in each case.5 Aspect logic as it relates mind to nature in a cosmological totality is a series of syntheses in a cyclic continuum organizing thinking in phases. Each phase is an aspect/perspective synthesis which becomes an aspect of a further aspect/perspective synthesis. This progression might be described thusly: The synthesis of nature/human which is Tao (non-being) translates into the aspects of being (the 10,000 things), and as such is a synthesis of aspect and perspective. This synthesis of aspect and perspective translates into an aspect of ideas and as such is a synthesis of perception and conception. This synthesis of perception and conception translates into an aspect of knowledge, and as such is a synthesis of knowledge and understanding (understanding is a perspective upon knowledge) i.e., no-knowledge. This synthesis of knowledge and understanding translates into an aspect of purpose, and as such is a synthesis of purpose and action. The perspective here on action is aesthetic and/or moral. This synthesis of purpose and actions translates again into an aspect of nature and as such is a synthesis beyond individual aspects and perspective, i.e. Tao. Thus there is a cyclic dynamic in the system which remains open to further development.Tai Chen in his Inquiry Into Goodness connects this cycle of syntheses with wisdom and benevolence:Because there are mind and intelligence, the superior man knows that the perfection of the Way of Man depends completely upon nature. When he looks at the signs of the natural (Cheng), he knows the beginning of things; when he cherishes the virtue of supreme illumination, (Shen-ming), he knows the end of things. Proceeding from mind and intelligence to the attainment of the virtue of supreme intelligence, [the superior man] in his treatment of things in the world will cause the world to return to [the principles of] benevolence; and in his treatment of the capability inherent in things, he will cause the world to follow wisdom (Chih).39. (shrink)

The main reasons for the difficulty in understanding and translatingcheng may be summarized as follows. First, its prehistory is not always clear. This makes it troublesome to identify its original meaning. Second, the multiple sources from the three schools, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, often causecheng to be entangled with various concepts specifically affiliated to certain schools. The particular meanings of these concepts and their connections withcheng possibly mislead our effort to explore the core content ofcheng as such. Finally,cheng has been (...) described as a force causing either transformation or change. In the former case, its influence is often exaggerated, while in the latter, it appears, more or less, mystical. However, despite all the complexity, the core content ofcheng is still identifiable. It consists of what two English terms- sincerity and reality -convey. In general, the termcheng can be properly applied to a person or thing so long as either one of them or the unity of them is present. (shrink)

Xunzi was chronologically the third of the three great Confucian thinkers of China’s classical period, after Confucius and Mencius. Having produced the most comprehensive philosophical system of that period, he occupies a place in the development of Chinese philosophy comparable to that of Aristotle in the Western philosophical tradition. This essay reveals how Xunzi’s understanding of virtue and moral development dovetailed with his positions on ritual propriety, the attunement of names, the relation betweenli (patterns) andlei (categories), and his view ofdao (...) (the way) in general. I have argued for a constructivist understanding of each of these aspects of Xunzi’s philosophy in some detail elsewhere (see Hagen 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), and so here I will just briefly review a few key points before addressing their relation to moral development. (shrink)

Using both Confucian texts and the work of American pragmatist John Dewey, this book offers a distinctly Confucian model of democracy.

The article explores the inner logic and defining features of Daoist freedom. It argues that Daoist freedom can be meaningfully understood as psychological hygiene, and it suggests that Daoist xuan-jie (懸解) can be rendered possible only if one can rid oneself of intensional suffering—an idea ultimately inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche. This comparative approach enables the article to contribute to the received way of understanding Daoist freedom by stressing its dialectics: by being at ease with one’s social and political environment, Daoist (...) freedom demands social criticism, calling for room for people to be able to act spontaneously so that all can nurture their distinctive natures and have a full and free exercise of their natural abilities. The article aims to achieve two objectives at once: it aims to argue for the understanding of Daoist freedom as psychological hygiene, and it defends this reading by bringing two dimensions of Daoist freedom into a consistent whole. In a constantly changing and increasingly pluralistic world, psychological hygiene and social criticism are both necessary for leading a robust and healthy human life. (shrink)

This essay argues that the third-century BC Ruist “masters” text Xúnzǐ presents a sophisticated approach to semantics and epistemology in which a concern with truth is at best secondary, not central. Xúnzǐ’s primary concern is with identifying and applying the apt dào (way), which for him is a more fundamental concept that underwrites and explains truth claims. Dào refers to a way or path of personal and social conduct, covering prudential, esthetic, ethical, and political concerns. Xúnzǐ is primarily concerned with (...) whether utterances, along with actions, policies, and social practices, are correct in conforming to dào—specifically, the dào of “good order” (zhì)—rather than whether they are correct in being true. Insofar as he is concerned with truth, he regards the status of assertions as true or not as derivative from their status as following dào or not. A consequence is that for Xúnzǐ questions of value and culture are more basic than questions of truth. (shrink)

The “social-political-hierarchical” qualifications have long been identified as the essential features of the Confucian golden rule. This essay challenges this prevailing characterization by revealing the relation and differences between Confucius’ original shu 恕 and a series of post-Confucius reformulations in ancient Confucianism. Specifically, the premise of equality, which underlies Confucius’ formulation of shu in correlation with ren 仁, rendered shu incompatible with asymmetrical relationships. Besides the advantage of overcoming this limitation by adapting the golden rule structure of shu to specified (...) asymmetrical relationships, the post-Confucius formula, especially “the measuring square” in the Great Learning, was devised to guide one to infer universalizable rules of conduct for various roles in diverse relationships. On this basis, I demonstrate a pivotal shift in the golden rule practice of ancient Confucianism—a shift of focus from its correlation with ren to its conformity with li 禮 as the system of rules of conduct and the principle of “discriminations.”. (shrink)

This essay explores the correlation between shu 恕 and ren 仁 in Confucius’ teachings and its broader implications concerning the role of the golden rule. It first shows that whereas the golden rule is premised on equality between agent and recipient, Confucius’ correlation of shu with ren aims mainly at establishing a more solid foundation for the hierarchy-specific duty of the ruler to care for the ruled. It thus reveals that this conflict arises from the golden rule’s incompatibility with asymmetrical (...) relationships, a long-standing issue concerning its validity as a moral axiom. It then addresses this conflict by demonstrating that the golden rule can effectively function in conformity with humanity even in asymmetrical relationships by way of inducing an agent’s viewpoint to shift from existing sociopolitical asymmetry to one-to-one human equality. On this basis, lastly, it examines the concurrence of the ideas of shu, human nature, and ren in ancient China. (shrink)

The question of whether or not early Chinese philosophers had a concept of truth has been the topic of some scholarly debate over the past few decades. The present essay offers a novel assessment of the debate, and suggests that no answer is fully satisfactory, as the plausibility of each turns in no small part on difficult and unsettled philosophical issues prior to the interpretation of any ancient Chinese philosophical texts—particularly the issues of what it means to “have a concept” (...) and how we understand the concept of truth itself. This essay summarizes prominent views within the debate over truth and Chinese philosophy and offers conditional assessments of each answer with respect to contemporary theories of concepts and theories of truth. The essay concludes with an appeal to methodological and interpretive pluralism, within reasonable constraints, in discussions of this topic. (shrink)

While researchers have offered remonstration-oriented, reciprocal, voluntary, and gratitude-based accounts of political obligation in classical Confucianism, I argue that these interpretations are either in conflict with the textual evidence or merely scratch the surface of Confucius’ theory of political obligation without fully elaborating its essence. Instead, I demonstrate that the theory of political obligation in Confucianism is a specific argument from paternalistic gratitude in which the people’s political obligation is analogically compared to children’s grateful duty to their parents. Moreover, I (...) use the Confucian theory of paternalistic gratitude to critically examine China’s recent politics of political obligation in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan 四川 earthquake. Although the Confucian-sounding references, such as kindness and the parent-state analogy, figure into the CPC’s Gratitude Education campaign, the Party’s politics of political obligation does not meet the Confucian normative standard. Specifically, in the Confucian theory of paternalistic gratitude, the people will be grateful to a benevolent ruler without this feeling being demanded by the state. However, in the Gratitude Education campaign, the Party self-righteously exacted the earthquake survivors’ gratitude. Local dissidents were subject to the stigmatization of “ungratefulness” and faced political violence as a consequence. The case of the Gratitude Education campaign serves as another example of the CPC’s political use of Confucianism for its non-Confucian goals. (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)

The question of possible moral conflict between commitment to family and to impartiality is particularly relevant to traditional Confucian thought, given the importance of familial bonds in that tradition. Classical Confucian ethics also appears to lack any developed theoretical commitment to impartiality as a regulative ideal and a standpoint for ethical judgment, or to universal equality. The Confucian prioritizing of family has prompted criticism of Confucian ethics, and doubts about its continuing relevance in China and beyond. This chapter assesses how (...) those sympathetic to the Confucian vision of the good life might respond. It first explores Confucian conceptions of love and the importance of familial love. Next, problems arising from this commitment to partiality are discussed, and how a modern Confucian ethics might respond. I explore what notions of impartiality—understood largely pragmatically, as a value that functions in everyday social life rather than as an explicit moral principle that guides deliberation or judgment—can be derived from an ethics that focuses on family commitments. (shrink)

This experimental essay intends to analyze interpretational cases related to the understanding of the Mencian theory of human nature. The first part introduces straightforward reading by a representative sinologist, historian, and philosopher. The second part discusses two examples that reinterpret the Mencian theory in an injective way with the Kantian theory and processing philosophy, respectively. The third part reexamines our understanding and evaluation of human nature in the Mencian theory using new discoveries of experimental psychology. The claim that there exists (...) a foundation of goodness in human nature has been revealed by both Mencius and modern psychologists from their own perspectives. It should be meaningful to further examine the rationale of acceptance of these theories. Such study also contributes to establishing a right attitude towards people and human societies, which in turn will influence the quality of our life in the long term. (shrink)

An invited commentary on Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, focusing on whether early China constitutes an exception to his general theory.

Li (禮) and yi (義) are two central moral concepts in the Analects. Li has a broad semantic range, referring to formal ceremonial rituals on the one hand, and basic rules of personal decorum on the other. What is similar across the range of referents is that the li comprise strictures of correct behavior. The li are a distinguishing characteristic of Confucian approaches to ethics and socio-political thought, a set of rules and protocols that were thought to constitute the wise (...) practices of ancient moral exemplars filtered down through dynasties of the past. However, even while the li were extensive and meant to be followed diligently, they were also understood as incapable of exhausting the whole range of activity that constitutes human life. There were bound to be situations in life where there would be no obvious recourse to the li for guidance. As part of their reflections on the good life, the Confucians maintained another moral concept that seemed to cover morally upright exemplary behavior in these types of situations. This concept is that of yi or rightness. In this chapter, I begin with a brief historical sketch to provide some context, and will then turn to li and yi in turn. In the end, I will suggest how li and yi were both meant to facilitate the supreme value of social harmony that pervades much of the Analects and serves as its ultimate orientation. (shrink)

Ethical leadership skills are crucial for professionally competent engineers working in a global context. This article explores the possibility of integrating a non-Western ethical tradition of Confucian ethics into the teaching of ethical leadership in engineering ethics. First comes a brief discussion of the historical origins of Confucianism and its persistence in contemporary Chinese culture. Second is a conceptualization of the major aspects of Confucian ethical leadership including moral power, role modeling, and meritocratic ethical leadership, introducing a prevalent approach to (...) developing ethical leadership in the Confucian tradition: self-cultivation. The practice of self-cultivation often includes three interrelated processes: observation, reflection, and practice. The Confucian development of ethical leadership goes through four different moral psychological stages: beginner, developing learner, junzi, and sage. Finally, I discuss potential implications of the Confucian understanding of ethical leadership for teaching engineering ethics. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is regarded as the key in search of moral excellence among corporations. Yet, there are limited works to empirically investigate what virtuous character morally good corporations is expected to exhibit in the course of business from the perspective of customers. To fill this gap, we argue that customers are to evaluate firm’s virtuous character using Confucian cardinal virtues (ren, yi, and li) and perceived virtuousness determines customer loyalty. We test this argument using a sample of 276 Hong Kong (...) Chinese. The result suggests that a corporation not only has to offer a good value and high quality to customers but also needs to develop and acquire virtuous character in retaining customer loyalty. Firm has to embrace ren, yi, and li as the primary business goal. In fact, they are not the means but the end in themselves. The continuous pursuit of these cardinal virtues at the firm level not only establishes proper corporate values but also enables a firm to act morally in the course of business. Such kind of firm is known as junzi corporation. (shrink)

Nowadays, there is still a widely held view that the Chinese and Western modes of thought are quite distinct from each other. In particular, the Chinese mode of thought derived from Confucianism is considered as comparatively less rational than the Western one. In this article, I first argue that although the analogical mode of argumentation, which is often claimed to be in sharp contrast with the Western mode of rationalism, has played a prominent role in Confucianism, it does not make (...) Confucianism any less rational. Then, I examine the normative and communicative features of Confucian rationalism, exploring the implications of these features for critical thinking in education. (shrink)

Previous findings in cultural psychology indicated that East Asians are more likely than North Americans to be attentive to contextual information (e.g., Nisbett & Masuda, ). However, to what extent and in which conditions culture influences patterns of attention has not been fully examined. As a result, universal patterns of attention may be obscured, and culturally unique patterns may be wrongly assumed to be constant across situations. By carrying out two cross-cultural studies, we demonstrated that (a) both European Canadians and (...) Japanese attended to moving objects similarly when the task was to simply observe the visual information; however, (b) there were cultural variations in patterns of attention when participants actively engaged in the task by constructing narratives of their observation (narrative construction). These findings suggest that cultural effects are most pronounced in narrative construction conditions, where the need to act in accordance with a culturally shared meaning system is elicited. (shrink)

This essay studies equality and inequality in Confucianism. By studying Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and other classic thinkers, I argue that Confucian equality is manifested in two forms. Numerical equality is founded in the Mencian belief that every person is born with the same moral potential and the Xunzian notion that all people have the same xing and the same potential for moral cultivation. It is also manifested in the form of role-based equality. Proportional equality, however, is the main notion of (...) equality in Confucian philosophy. Proportional equality is realized in moral, economic, and political realms. On the basis of these notions of Confucian equality, I propose two Confucian political principles for contemporary society. The first is the inclusive principle of general election by citizenry, and the second is the exclusive principle of qualification for public offices. (shrink)

Many scholars argue that there is no epistemology in Chinese philosophy, or that an epistemological sensibility was not fully developed in Chinese thinking. This leads western audiences to mistakenly think that Chinese philosophy is not properly ?philosophical?. This paper argues that there is a great deal of discourse about understanding the world as a whole in ancient Chinese philosophy. Taking Song-ming Neo-Confucianism as an example, the author shows that most researchers do not uncover its philosophical advancement as it developed throughout (...) history. The author reconstructs a real philosophical breakthrough in Neo-Confucianism and argues that Chinese philosophy should be recognized as fully ?philosophical??not just ethical, but also epistemological. Through the clarification about epistemological progress in Song-ming Neo-Confucianism, the author argues that there is a coherent development of epistemology in Chinese philosophical history. In short, this article formalizes a systematic view of Chinese Neo-Confucian epistemology by demonstrating that epistemological theory developed step by step in Song-ming Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

(2006). The Normative Justification of Traditional Chinese Authoritarianism. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 379-397.

In Part I, I offer a "constructivist" interpretation of Xunzi's philosophy. On the constructivist view, there is no privileged description of the world. Concepts, categories, and norms as social constructs help us effectively manage our way through the world, rather than reveal or express univocal knowledge of it. ;In the opening chapter, I argue that dao should be understood as open ended and that Xunzi's worldview allows for a plurality of legitimate daos---at least at the theoretical level. Chapter Two discusses (...) the concepts of li and lei and rejects the idea that true categories follow from a "god-like" understanding of rational patterns. Rather, patterns and categories are mutually entailing. That is, categories are not simply based on patterns, but are at the same time a precondition for patterning. Chapter Three addresses the related concept of ming , and the idea of zhengming . Attuning names is not matching them to any transcendent standard, but making them fitting given our nature and circumstances. It is constructing and maintaining a socially responsible language. I also discuss here the complex manner in which early Confucians understood names to be developed and sanctioned. In Chapter Four I discuss ritual theory and argue that Xunzi offers a this-world centered religious sensibility. Far from a matter of slavishly following a code of behaviors set down perfectly by ancient sages, the performance of li requires interpretation in every application. Further, norms associated with li may evolve in response to changing needs and conditions. In the final chapter of Part I, I turn to the issue of virtue and moral development, arguing that there is no fixed set of virtues. ;Part II shifts focus to the contemporary relevance of a constructivist way of thinking by using it to understand the cross-cultural dynamics taking place in international discourse on human rights. In short, interpreting the arguments of contemporary representatives of East-Asian countries through a constructivist lens reveals them to be more compelling than they might otherwise have seemed. (shrink)

We argue that the common attribution to Zhuangzi of both perspectivalism or relativism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other is fundamentally mistaken. While granting that it is reasonable to construe Zhuangzi as offering a perspectiva! position on judgement, we argue that Zhuangzi's perspectivalism does not commit him to a relativist position on truth or to scepticism about human knowledge. Rather, we maintain that Zhuangzi's attacks on the concepts of truth and knowledge are better seen as his articulation (...) of a species of epistemological nihilism which rejects, as ultimately meaningless, the concepts of truth, reality, and knowledge. (shrink)

Xunzi’s 荀子 advocacy for moral education is well-documented; precisely how his program bolsters moral development, and why a program touting study of ritual could be effective, remain subjects of debate. I argue that these matters can be clarified by appealing to the theory of learning and development offered by Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky posited that development depends primarily on social interactions mediated by sociocultural tools that modify learners’ cognitive architecture, enabling increasingly sophisticated thought. Vygotsky’s theory is remarkably similar to Xunzi’s account (...) of how studying and practicing ritual restructures learners’ moral psychology. Specifically, both Vygotsky and Xunzi offer nonnativist accounts of psychosocial development that emphasize the centrality of sociocultural tools for learning. This comparison yields a more nuanced and empirically supported interpretation of Xunzi’s account of moral education, as well as an account that has applications in contemporary work in moral education and development. (shrink)

This paper analyses the connection between knowing Dao and ethical transformation in Xunzi’s thought. While there have been many discussions concerning what Dao is and how one may come to Dao, there has not been sufficient attention on how knowing Dao leads to ethical transformation. In Section 2, I explicate Xunzi’s concept of bi 蔽 and suggests that one’s not knowing Dao has to do with a certain problematic state of the heart/mind. In Section 3, I analyse xu虛, yi 一, (...) and jing 靜, which are remedial practices for knowing Dao, and bring out the importance of discerning li 理 for Xunzi. In Sections 4 and 5, I propose an interpretation of the relation between li 理 and qing 情 in the process of ethical transformation. In Section 6, I highlight some remaining ambiguities that can be further investigated to deepen our understanding of Xunzi’s thought. (shrink)

After a brief introduction, “cultures: multi-culture, cross-culture, interculture”, this essay proceeds in two major sections, “China and the West in Contrast” on how China and the West inter-differ, and “China and the West in Interculture” on how China and the West interculture. First, three ac- tual examples are cited to show how the West is digital, analytical, in either-or, while China is concrete, subtle, in both-and. Next, logic, time, music, kids, etc., are cited to tell of how China and the (...) West inter-differ to inter-critique to inter-correct, to compose the hope of the world. The vast, exciting, and crucial theme of world interculture, concrete and general, is thus compressed in less than twenty pages. Global interculture is so vast that any essay on it risks playing with vague generality. This essay concretely details two extremely contrasting cultures, the West and China, even on general time, logic, and grammar, starkly how the centralities of eternity and time are reversed, how logic is all bare in the West but turned invisible as bone-structure in China, and how the West strictly enforces explicit grammar while China subtly slides from one word-category to another. Typically, elusive “no do” unintelligible in the West but constantly concrete is story-ex- plained to highlight the West-China contrast. Concrete elucidation of general “global interculture” makes this short essay significant. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of a widely accepted method of human rights justification. The method defends the universality of human rights by appeal to diverse worldviews that converge on human rights norms. By showing that the norms can be justified from the perspective of diverse worldviews, human rights theorists suggest that there is reason to believe that human rights are universal norms that should govern the institutions of all societies. This paper argues that the evidence of plural foundations (...) of human rights fails to increase our confidence in the universality of human rights. The paper defends the following claims: (1) the convergence on human rights is better explained as an accidental outcome than as an indicator of the universality of human rights, (2) the plurality of human rights justification is superfluous to the explanation of why human rights apply to all societies, (3) the aggregation of justifications decreases rather than increases the reliability of the universality belief, and (4) the reasonable disagreement among conflicting justifications generates an epistemic dilemma. (shrink)

This essay aims to explore Xunzi’s 荀子 problem, which was originally proposed by David S. Nivison. The problem revolves around a tension in Xunzi’s writings about human nature. In his chapter “Human Nature is Bad (Xing’e 性惡),” Xunzi states that humans have inborn selfish desires and natural feelings, and if they do not control or regulate these desires and feelings, there will certainly be chaos. However, in the chapter “The Regulations of a Sage King (Wangzhi 王制),” Xunzi argues that human (...) beings possess yi 義, which is an important feature distinguishing them from other creatures. I try to analyze how yi should be understood in the Xunzi by focusing on the relationship of yi with fen 分 (division) and li 禮 (ritual). In the process, I also consider Hall and Ames’s understanding of yi as “meaning-bestowing,” and pay attention to Xunzi’s mention that yi is something that enables human beings to jump from natural to social divisions. (shrink)

“Confucianism” can refer to two topics, namely “Philosophical Confucianism” and “State Confucianism.” Regarding contemporary China and the global world, the one that has a positive content is not the latter but is the former. Philosophical Confucianism takes Mencius’ thesis as its key. It emphasizes knowledge, emotions, and intentions to act as an interrelated mental cluster. It encourages people to focus on family love and its societal expansion. At the same time, through the investigation of such universal topics as humane love, (...) mental tranquility, care, suffering, and empathy, it provides a rich scholarly content and raises positive questions for reflection. Thus, that very old concept of Philosophical Confucianism doubtless has a new destiny, because currently a number of American ethicists and scientists work in closely related topics. Chinese and American scholars not only can develop cooperative work, but also that cooperation will definitely bear abundant fruit. (shrink)