This book is both a good introduction to Chinese philosophy and an invaluable reference tool for sinologists. Comments by important Chinese thinkers are arranged around sixty-four key concepts to illustrate their meaning and use through twenty-five centuries of Chinese philosophy. This unique guide was prepared by Zhang Dainian, one of China's most famous living philosophers. Zhang reaches back to include concepts in use before the oracle bones (c. 1350-1100 B.C.)-what could be called a philosophical "prehistory." But the focus of the (...) work is those concepts that gained currency in classical Chinese philosophy, especially those whose meanings are deeper and more difficult to grasp. Translated and edited by Edmund Ryden in consultation with the author, the book also includes helpful introductory commentary by Ryden for each section. (shrink)

Aristotle describes human happiness as a life of virtuous activity in Book One of the Nicomachean Ethics but as a life of contemplative activity and a life of ethically virtuous activity in Book Ten. In which kind of life does Aristotle ultimately believe that happiness consists? The answer lies in the role of philosophical wisdom within ethically virtuous activity. I argue that philosophical wisdom has a dual role: its exercise is the end of ethically virtuous activity and the virtue by (...) which that end is rationally apprehended. Just as ethically virtuous activity depends on the exercise of philosophical wisdom in this dual way, so human happiness can be understood as a single life of virtuous activity whose end is the exercise of philosophical wisdom in contemplative activity. The exercise of philosophical wisdom will include ethically virtuous activity as an end that includes what is desired for its sake. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is perhaps the most important development within late twentieth-century moral philosophy. Rosalind Hursthouse, who has made notable contributions to this development, here presents a full exposition and defense of her neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics. She shows how virtue ethics can provide guidance for action, illuminate moral dilemmas, and bring out the moral significance of the emotions.

Ancient ethical theories, based on the notions of virtue and happiness, have struck many as an attractive alternative to modern theories. But we cannot find out whether this is true until we understand ancient ethics--and to do this we need to examine the basic structure of ancient ethical theory, not just the details of one or two theories. In this book, Annas brings together the results of a wide-ranging study of ancient ethical philosophy and presents it in a way that (...) is easily accessible to anyone with an interest in ancient or modern ethics. She examines the fundamental notions of happiness and virtue, the role of nature in ethical justification and the relation between concern for self and concern for others. Her careful examination of the ancient debates and arguments shows that many widespread assumptions about ancient ethics are quite mistaken. Ancient ethical theories are not egoistic, and do not depend for their acceptance on metaphysical theories of a teleological kind. Most centrally, they are recognizably theories of morality, and the ancient disputes about the place of virtue in happiness can be seen as akin to modern disputes about the demands of morality. (shrink)

The author attempts to chart Aristotle's philosophical progress, using the techniques of both philology and philosophical analysis. His aim is to see where Aristotle came from philosophically and what impelled him to develop his ideas in particular directions. The first chapter is an overall account of Aristotle's philosophical activities as his life progressed; the remaining sections discuss in detail the development of such key themes as the possibility of metaphysics, activity and potentiality, categories, mind, substance, God, human nature and happiness, (...) and the nature of society, including the proper role for women and the phenomenon of slavery. (shrink)

Chapter One THE PROBLEM OF BEING IN THE METAPHYSICS TO determine whether the notion of Being in Alexander of Hales is Aristotelian or Platonic, a recent historian seeks his criterion in "the gradual separation of the Aristotelian ...

Leading scholars examine religious and philosophical dimensions of the Chinese classic known as the Daodejing or Laozi.

Twentieth century philosophy began with the rejection of naturalism. Many modern philosophers had assumed that their subject was continuous with the sciences, and that facts about human nature and other such information were relevant to the great questions of ethics, logic, and knowledge. Against this, Frege argued that “psychologism” in logic was a mistake. Logic, he said, is an autonomous subject with its own standards of truth and falsity, and those standards have nothing to do with how the mind works (...) or with any other natural facts. Then, in the first important book of twentieth century ethics, Principia Ethica, G. E. Moore also identified naturalism as the fundamental philosophical mistake. Moore argued that equating goodness with any of the natural properties of things is “inconsistent with the possibility of any Ethics whatsoever”. Frege, Moore, and other like-minded thinkers inaugurated a period in which logic and language were the dominant philosophical subjects and confusing conceptual with factual issues was the greatest philosophical sin. During this period, philosophy was thought to be independent of the sciences. This may seem a strange notion, especially where ethics is concerned. One might expect moral philosophers to work in the context of information provided by psychology, which describes the nature of human thinking and motivation; sociology and anthropology, which describe the forms of human social life; history, which traces the development of moral beliefs and practices; and evolutionary biology, which tells us something about the nature and origins of human beings. But all these subjects were counted as irrelevant to the philosophical understanding of morality. (shrink)

This article has a hermeneutical interpretation of 'heng', one key word in the Laozi. The term 'heng' was not known until 1973 when the two silk manuscripts of the Laozi were unearthed in China. On the base of a reintroduction of heng into the text and of my philosophical reading of the Laozi's concept of 'heng', I argue for an alternative interpretation of dao as heng dao. I suggest that heng dao is neither a metaphysical substance nor mystical nothingness. It (...) is rather the differentiated appropriation of nature and life itself as experienced in the everyday. (shrink)

In an attempt to bridge the vast divide between classical Asian thought and contemporary Western philosophy, Joel J. Kupperman finds that the two traditions do not, by and large, supply different answers to the same questions. Rather, each tradition is searching for answers to their own set of questions--mapping out distinct philosophical investigations. In this groundbreaking book, Kupperman argues that the foundational Indian and Chinese texts include lines of thought that can enrich current philosophical practice, and in some cases provide (...) uniquely sophisticated insights. Special attention is given to the ethical issues of formation and fluidity of self, the nature and possibilities of choice, the compartmentalization of life implicit in some ethical systems, the variations of ethical demands from person to person, and the nature of philosophy itself as a communicative activity. This study will provide a wealth of information for philosophers seeking a closer knowledge of Asian philosophy and general readers with an interest in Eastern thought. (shrink)