This article argues that strong versions of the situationist critique of virtue ethics are empirically and conceptually unfounded, as well as that, even if one accepts that the predictive power of character may be limited, this is not a fatal problem for early Confucian virtue ethics. Early Confucianism has explicit strategies for strengthening and expanding character traits over time, as well as for managing a variety of situational forces. The article concludes by suggesting that Confucian virtue ethics represents a more (...) empirically responsible model of ethics than those currently dominant in Western philosophy. (shrink)

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 highlights the influential role played by epistemological nativism in the disciplining of tradition in modern China. Chinese epistemological nativism is the view that the articulation and development of China’s intellectual heritage must draw exclusively on the paradigms and norms of so-called indigenous/local or China-based perspectives. Two case studies are presented to reveal some of the conundrums that confront the disciplining of tradition in modern China: Chinese philosophy and guoxue or National Studies. These case studies also provide an opportunity (...) to reflect on the implications this has for tradition’s place in Chinese modernity.In the case of the discipline of Chinese philosophy the role of epistemological nativism is evident in widespread calls to return Chinese philosophy to some pristine form, predating its encounter with “Western” philosophy; and in the continued refusal to acknowledge and engage the intellectual diversity of the traditions that contribute to Chinese philosophy’s composite identity. To illustrate this latter claim, I focus on the prominent example of Buddhist philosophy and its Indian roots.As for the second case study, National Studies has been revived as a discipline, marked as distinct from all other disciplines, because of claims that it represents a holistic body of learning. National Studies’ connection with various traditions of premodern learning is premised on the romantic conceit that these traditions of premodern learning somehow constituted a holistic, even organic, body of learning. The conundrum for contemporary guoxue protagonists, who present guoxue as a holistic body of learning, is that the stronger the claim made that guoxue warrants disciplinary status—and hence to be subjected to disciplinary subdivision—the weaker the case that guoxue is a holistic body of learning. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that guoxue is an invented tradition. (shrink)