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...

Both Confucius and Xúnzǐ take for granted that contempt, in certain situations, is an appropriate and justified response for a person of virtuous character. But Xúnzǐ departs from his predecessor in his insistence on drawing clear boundaries around contempt so as to diminish its destructive and destabilizing potential. This article argues that Xúnzǐ's efforts to circumscribe contempt reflect a shift in the vision of the ritual community from one based on affective ties to one based on an impersonal, universalist state. (...) It also traces the implications of this connection for how we might confront the problem of toxic contempt that has pervaded our political landscape today. (shrink)

Reading a passage in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata—the attempted disrobing of Princess Draupadī after her senior husband has gambled her away (after losing all his wealth, his brothers and himself)—I suggest that we see in her attitude and angry words an expression of contempt. I explore how contempt is a concept that is not thematized within Sanskrit aesthetics of emotions, but nonetheless is clearly articulated in the literature. Focusing on the significance of her gendered expression of anger and contempt, and the (...) positive acceptance of it in the text, I suggest that contempt can be understood as a transformative attitude in a woman (even a high-born one) towards iniquities in a patriarchal culture. (shrink)

The tendency to idealise artificial intelligence as independent from human manipulators, combined with the growing ontological entanglement of humans and digital machines, has created an “anthrobotic” horizon, in which data analytics, statistics and probabilities throw our agential power into question. How can we avoid the consequences of a reified definition of intelligence as universal operation becoming imposed upon our destinies? It is here argued that the fantasised autonomy of automated intelligence presents a contradistinctive opportunity for philosophical consciousness to understand itself (...) anew as holistic and co-creative, beyond the recent “analytic” moment of the history of philosophy. Here we introduce the concept of “crealectic intelligence”, a meta-analytic and meta-dialectic aspect of consciousness. Intelligent behaviour may consist in distinguishing discrete familiar parts or reproducible functions in the midst of noise via an analytic process of segmentation; intelligence may also manifest itself in the constitution of larger wholes and dynamic unities through a dialectic process of association or assemblage. But, by contrast, crealectic intelligence co-creates realities in the image of an ideal or truth, taking into account the desiring agent imbued with a sense of possibility, in a relationship not only with the Real but also with the creative sublime or “Creal”. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉCet article examine les idées de Confucius sur la paix morale (an安) et le plaisir moral (le樂) dans lesAnalectes. Je soutiens queanetlesont deux aspects corrélés d'un état d’être autocultivé (jing-jie境界) fondé sur la pratique de la bienveillance ou de l'humanité du cœur (ren仁) et sur le fait de suivre la Voie (dao道). L’état d’an-leimplique non seulement la raison (à savoir la connaissance durenet dudao) et la volonté (c'est-à-dire la volonté de pratiquer lerenet de suivre ledao), mais aussi l'amour ou le (...) « goût émotionnel » (hào好) par rapport à la pratique durenet audao. C'est un état qui ressemble à l'idée kantienne de contentement intellectuel mais,pacel'interprétation récente de Confucius par Philip Ivanhoe, différent du concept aristotélicien de plaisir et d’eudaimonia. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text, is sceptical about the political culture of its time. Those who debated conceptions of a good life were hostile to the views of others. They were intolerant and at times contemptuous of others who did not embody their values. In contrast to such negativity, the Zhuangzi promotes equanimity. The equanimity of the sagely person is grounded in a balance she maintains between engagement and withdrawal. Engaging critically, she problematises the lack of diversity (...) in their options for a good life. By withdrawing, she refuses to be party to the squabbles that perpetuate intolerance. The paper aims to show how equanimity is possible, thereby articulating a new angle on emotions in the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

As a 4th century BCE Confucian text, Mencius provides a rich reflection on moral emotions, such as empathy and compassion, and moral cultivation, which has drawn attention from scholars around the world. This two-part discussion dwells on the idea of natural moral motivation expressed through the analogy of the four sprouts—particularly the sprout of ceyin zhixin (the heart of feelings others' distress)—as the starting point, the focus, and the drive of moral cultivation. In Part 1, I presented an integrated view (...) of the sprouts as including cognitive, affective, and motivational aspects. In Part 2, I discuss the cultivation and application of natural moral motivation. I illustrate how the sprouts inform moral deliberation and drive moral cultivation, while also being its subject. I also demonstrate how emotional responses are managed and regulated according to the sprouts and discuss why moral cultivation is sometimes unsuccessful. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe early Chinese idea of non-action refers not to spontaneity, as has been argued, but to a relation between agency and spontaneity. Non-action needs to be seen in connection with the idea...

The “happy fish” passage concluding the “Autumn Floods” chapter of the Classical Chinese text known as the Zhuangzi has traditionally been seen to advance a form of relativism which precludes objectivity. My aim in this paper is to question this view with close reference to the passage itself. I further argue that the central concern of the two philosophical personae in the passage – Zhuangzi and Huizi – is not with the epistemic standards of human judgements (the established view since (...) Hansen, “The Relatively Happy Fish”), but with the more basic problem of species-specific perspectives. On my reading, Zhuangzi’s emphatic positionality in the passage – on the dam, accompanied by his friend Huizi – plausibly suggests a circumspect reflection on the limitedness of human knowledge. It is significant that Zhuangzi’s knowledge of fish happiness is avowedly from a certain place, and not absolute. But there is still a sense in which this view is objective: namely, insofar as it adequately accounts for an inherently human perspective on the world. I call this modest form of relativism ‘Species Relativism’, which, crucially, leaves room for objectivity, even though a fully objective (i.e. absolute) view of the world is not accessible to humans. (shrink)

As this study elucidates, Daoist philosophy provides an account of how and why desires are morally and epistemologically suspect. The Daoist critique of desire is itself informed by a processual un...

Mozi’s 墨子 doctrine of impartial care has been interpreted predominantly through the lens of Mengzi 孟子, that is, as “love without distinctions” versus “love with distinctions.” However, I think Mengzi saw only half of the picture, as his focus was exclusively on the difference between Confucianism and Mohism in regard to the scope, intensity, and sequence of love. In this essay, I argue that Mozi’s impartial care is also characteristically different in kind from the Confucian notion of humaneness. My analysis (...) and comparison of their usage of the word ai 愛 shows that Mozi’s ai is material-oriented care, while the Confucian ai is emotion-oriented care. I further argue that Mozi had this particular understanding of care largely because he held a quite negative view of human emotions. For him, human emotions are unreliable and harmful for the practice of care. (shrink)

Mozi’s 墨子 doctrine of impartial care has been interpreted predominantly through the lens of Mengzi 孟子, that is, as “love without distinctions” versus “love with distinctions.” However, I think Mengzi saw only half of the picture, as his focus was exclusively on the difference between Confucianism and Mohism in regard to the scope, intensity, and sequence of love. In this essay, I argue that Mozi’s impartial care is also characteristically different in kind from the Confucian notion of humaneness. My analysis (...) and comparison of their usage of the word ai 愛 shows that Mozi’s ai is material-oriented care, while the Confucian ai is emotion-oriented care. I further argue that Mozi had this particular understanding of care largely because he held a quite negative view of human emotions. For him, human emotions are unreliable and harmful for the practice of care. (shrink)

Mengzi states that our human nature consists of our ability to feel compassion, disdain, respect, and (dis-)approval: all human beings have them. But he also states that we lose these four emotional capacities if we don’t reflect on or attend to them. There is an apparent contradiction in saying that all humans have them, but some have lost them. This essay offers a close reading of Mengzi’s phrase “to lose it” that helps explain away this appearance of contradiction. In doing (...) so, Mengzi is interpreted to be offering an ethics of attention about how we should attend to ourselves and others selectively to have a functional social life. (shrink)

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)

Desire is an important philosophical topic that deeply impacts everyday life. Philosophical practice is an emerging trend that uses philosophical theories and methods as a guide to living a eu‐ daimonic life. In this paper, we define desire philosophically and compare different theories of desire in specific Eastern and Western traditions. Based on the Lacanian conceptual–terminological triad of “Need‐Demand‐Desire”, the research of desire is further divided into three dimensions, namely, the subject of desire, the object of desire, and the desire (...) itself. The concept of desire is then an‐ alyzed from this triad and these three dimensions through different philosophical theories. This paper selects Buddhism as the representative of Eastern tradition, and Stoicism as the representative of the West, paying special attention to Stoicism’s “spiritual exercises” following Pierre Hadot. By exploring and comparing the Buddhist paths to liberation from suffering (i.e., the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path) and the two theoretical pillars in Stoicism (i.e., the notions of “living according to nature” and “the dichotomy of control”), practical guidance is then provided for un‐ derstanding and regulating desire in times of crisis. This understanding and regulation of desire constitutes a philosophical therapy for today’s troubles, particularly those caused by excessive or irrational desires. (shrink)

Negative emotions like anger, spite, contempt, and envy are widely seen as obstacles to a good life. They are like the weeds in a garden that need to be pulled up before they choke out the nice plants. This book argues that bad feelings aren't the weeds; they are the worms. Many people are squeamish about them and would prefer to pretend they aren't there, but the presence of worms mean the garden it thriving. I draw on insights from the (...) history of philosophy to show what we've gotten wrong about bad feelings and to see how we can live better with them. The first half of the book argues that there is nothing wrong with negative emotions and that their bad reputation is undeserved. Philosophers have long argued that our emotions are part of how we value things and bad feelings are not different. Negative emotions are expressions of self-love-not egoism or selfishness, but the felt attachment to ourselves and our lives. We feel negative emotions because our lives matter to us. The second half of the book takes a detailed look at individual bad feelings: anger, envy and jealousy, spite and Schadenfreude, and contempt. I show how all our negative emotions are valuable parts of our attachment to our lives. We don't have to battle negative emotions or "channel" them into something productive. Bad feelings aren't obstacles to a good life; they are part of what makes life meaningful. (shrink)