The study of Chinese philosophy in the English-speaking world has largely focused on ethical and political theories. In comparison, Chinese metaphysics—here understood primarily as theories regarding the nature, components, and operating principles of reality—has been far less researched and recognized. In this essay, we examine various meanings of “metaphysics” as it has been used in denoting a branch of philosophy and make the case that metaphysics is an important part of Chinese philosophy. We argue (...) for the need to study Chinese metaphysics as a serious field of scholarship. We also present some most recent studies of Chinese metaphysics by leading scholars of Chinese philosophy who publish in the English-speaking world. This essay aims to show that not only that Chinese metaphysics is an appropriate and legitimate subject of scholarly research but it can also be a fruitful subfield of in the study in Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This paper offers an original interpretation of the Daodejing 道德經 as containing a distinctive account of creation. In my reading, the Daodejing envisions the creation of the cosmos by Dao (1) as a movement from the absence of phenomenal forms to phenomenal forms and (2) as a movement from nothingness to existence. I interpret creation as a unique metaphysical operation that explains how (1) and (2) are possible. The paper is organized into two sections. First, I introduce the distinctions between (...) the lack and presence of phenomenal forms (§1.1) and between nothingness and existence (§1.2), using them to map the distinction between Dao and the created world. Then, I propose my account of the Daodejing’s metaphysics of creation (§2.1) and elaborate on its connection with the previously drawn distinctions while answering a potential objection (§2.2). I conclude with some considerations about the connections between the Daodejing’s view of creation and its soteriology. (shrink)

A number of analytical philosophers have recently endorsed the view that the world itself is indeterminate in some respect. Intriguingly, ideas similar to the view are expressed by thinkers from Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhism, which may shed light on the current discussion of worldly indeterminacy. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka thought, together with Jessica Wilson’s account of indeterminacy, I develop an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which centres on two complementary ideas—conclusive indeterminability and provisional determinability. I (...) show that OI is well-equipped to tackle several issues of worldly indeterminacy. My overarching aim is to present a viable and sustainable perspective on the subject of indeterminacy to enrich analytical philosophers’ insights into the intricate nature of reality. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss parthood status in mereologi- cally interpreted Daoist metaphysics, based on the Daodejing. I depart from the dao and you interrela- tion, which mereologically overlap by sharing parts. I consider the case of a complete overlap, which (a) challenges proper parthood, according to which a part cannot be identical with the whole that it com- poses, and (b) entails the question of identity that, while complying with classical mereology, cannot be consis- tent with Daoist (...) class='Hi'>metaphysics. The discussion leads to abandoning proper parthood and antisymmetry axiom from classical axiomatics. It also shows a plausible fur- ther direction for mereological reconstruction. (shrink)

This article compares the use of Romantic metaphor with the Chinese literary device xiang 象 (which I translate as “thing-metaphor”) in regard to how they embody different metaphysical relations between humans and things. Whereas Romantic metaphor transports a physical thing to the immaterial realm of imagination, xiang is a literary device in which the material qualities of the thing, while creatively interpreted to generate human meaning, retain ontologically a strong physical presence. Xiang therefore epitomizes a theory of creation that (...) challenges the Western dualistic paradigm: that the poet creates not virtual copies of the thing, but meanings of the thing, and therefore our relationships with things. The article concludes with Heidegger’s discourses on metaphor to suggest that my discussion of thing-metaphor has universal applicability. (shrink)

Ancient Chinese history holds a quality which has syncretized traditional thought with its cultural wealth unified of mystical and mythological figures in the background. Such that classical documents, which had begun to be written before Common Era, has directly influenced the political regime, education system and status of society in China. One of the most prominent features of these works is to propound collective knowledge about perception of cosmology, attitudes to earthiness, community standards, policy and morality. Among Five Classics (...) works of these masterpieces of Chinese philosophy, Book of Changes which stands closest to metaphysical narrative, mainly consists of the texts about prophecy. While this piece of work had been referred as a divination guide in Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), it turned into a cosmological text that included a range of philosophical commentary during Warring States Period (475-221 BC). The mainstay of this remarkable change is the direct correlation of all the concepts and terms that characterize the worldly beyond along with the relevant text, especially yin-yang dualism, which symbolizes an extraordinary harmony in early Chinese thought. Traditional idea suggests reciprocity in which heaven, earth and man are interconnected to maintain natural order. However, the superiority attributed to human beings also brings compulsive responsibilities to idealize a compatible society. This paper aims to discuss influences of cosmological and anthropological items on human behaviors explained in prescriptive perspective. (shrink)

This chapter explores how Guo Xiang’s views emerge from his approach to the metaphysics of dao 道 (way) and the place of human activity and agency in dao. Once we understand his views on these points, we can see that he holds a distinctive conception of the self and agency—and, accordingly, normatively appropriate action—on which self-fulfillment and easy, aimless freedom are consistent with his doctrine of non-mindedness, which in fact presents a precondition for attaining them. As I will show, (...) GUO Xiang uses key terms such as zi 自 (self), xin (heart-mind), zhi 知 (know), and xing (inherent character) in distinctive, specialized ways that diverge both from common uses of these words in Chinese and from familiar categories in contemporary philosophical psychology yet are coherent, intelligible, and defensible. The normative conception of agency and the well-lived life that emerges from his Zhuangzi commentary can at first sight seem puzzling and counterintuitive. But I will contend that it is plausible and presents a fascinating, profound, and potentially correct view of the nature of human agency and the sources of normativity. (shrink)

Chinese translation courtesy of Zhuanxu Xu. We want to know what gender is. But metaphysical approaches to this question solely have focused on the binary gender kinds men and women. By overlooking those who identify outside of the binary–the group I call ‘genderqueer’–we are left without tools for understanding these new and quickly growing gender identifications. This metaphysical gap in turn creates a conceptual lacuna that contributes to systematic misunderstanding of genderqueer persons. In this paper, I argue that to (...) better understand genderqueer identities, we must recognize a new type of gender kind: critical gender kinds, or kinds whose members collectively resist dominant gender ideology. After developing a model of critical gender kinds, I suggest that genderqueer is best modeled as a critical gender kind that stands in opposition to `the binary assumption', or the prevalent assumption that the only possible genders are the binary, discrete, exclusive, and exhaustive kinds men and women. (shrink)

Western philosophy has been defined through the exclusion of non-Western forms of thought as non-philo-sophical. In this paper, I place the notion of what is “properly” philosophy into question by contrasting the essence/appearance paradigm governing Western metaphysics and its deconstructive critics with the more fluid, dynamic, and participatory forms of encountering and performatively enacting the world that are articulated in Chinese thinking and made apparent in Chinese painting. In this hermeneutical contrast, Western and Chinese thinking themselves (...) are interpeted as co-relational rather than as discrete, mutually indifferent or ethnocentrically nativist traditions. (shrink)

This book is invaluable as a synopsis of some of the work of one the greatest philosophers of recent times. There is much value in analyzing his responses to the basic confusions of philosophy, and in the generally excellent attempts to connect classical Chinese thought to modern philosophy. I take a modern Wittgensteinian view to place it in perspective. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two (...) systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

In the history of Chinese philosophy, Mozi calls music a “waste of resources,” considering it an aristocratic extravagance that does not benefit the everyday people. In its defense, Confucians highlight music’s moral and metaphysical qualities, arguing that music aids in moral cultivation and that music’s form mimics the structure of reality. The aim of this paper is to show that Korean philosophers provide yet another reason to think music is important. Music, and art in general, was used to express (...) a national identity at a time Korean philosophers were beginning to develop their own aesthetic consciousness in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A cultural movement called Joseonpoong (조선풍), “Joseon wind”, marked a shift away from Sinocentrism and towards Korea’s own unique value and practices. The new attempt to justify art’s value apart from its relationship to morality or metaphysics set Joseon thinkers apart from their Chinese predecessors. Using art for identity expression allowed the Koreans to reconceive art’s value while Sinocentric cosmological and cultural views were being challenged with the introduction of western knowledge. Art also became a tool for reversing hermeneutic injustice as new artistic practices and standards allowed the Koreans to meaningfully engage with previously neglected aspects of their lived lives. (shrink)

He (和), or harmony, has traditionally been a central concept in Chinese thought, and to this day continues to shape the way in which people in China and East Asia think about ethics and politics. Yet, there is no systematic and comprehensive introduction of harmony as has been variously articulated in different Chinese schools. This edited volume aims to fill this gap. The individual contributions elaborate the conceptions of harmony as these were exemplified in central Chinese schools (...) of thought, including Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Buddhism, and trace their impact on contemporary Chinese philosophy. The volume explores the various meanings and implications of harmony so as to consider its relevance as a value and virtue in the modern world. It provides an accessible but substantial introductory work for readers interested in learning about pertinent core concepts and theories in Chinese thought, as well as engages specialists in Chinese philosophy by explicating its implications for ethical, political, epistemological, and metaphysical reflection as the basic point of reference. (shrink)

It has long been theorized that Heidegger’s idea for Dasein was highly influenced by the Chinese notion of the Dao. This is due to a misinterpretation on behalf of Heideggerian scholars and others of what the Dao represents. In fact, Heidegger, in explicating what he thought to be “the most extreme inversion of φύσης-ουσία [phusis-ousia],” made this equal to “Chinese-like ‘constancy,’” which is the basis of the Dao. Taking what Heidegger interpreted phusis to be (derived from Aristotelian (...) class='Hi'>metaphysics and an assumption of pre-Socratic thought) as a process of unconcealment from continuing re-concealment which signals a kind of “truth” of being [phusis], that which calls for constant presence is inauthentic Dasein, rather than authentic Dasein. In other words, Heidegger’s idea of what inauthentic Dasein calls for could be explained within Aristotle’s system as equal to aiming to replace phusis with the know-how of τέχνη [techne]. The Dao, as rightfully understood and utilized by the master craftsman and the Sage, is accessible, constant, and knowable. This could not be in more opposition to Heidegger’s notion of phusis. (shrink)

We have all been told of the death of grand narratives. We have been told that the days of asking eternal metaphysical questions in philosophy are long since over. When Wittgenstein’s (1953/2009, p. 174) famous spade hit bedrock it reminded us that we had better stop wasting our time on lofty questions without answers. Foucault (1970) prompted us to recall Borges’story of a certain Chinese encyclopedia showing us that there are many ways of ordering the world and that each (...) way changes the rules of the game a little bit. We found that history was contingent and that hierarchies, however firmly built, would all crumble in the end. In its place were the slightly disorienting feeling following the postmodernist’s proclamation of ‘the elusiveness of meaning and knowledge’ (Kirby, 2017, p. 5). (shrink)

In this article, I first introduce an Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist critique of causality and discuss critically a contemporary Humean interpretation of the critique. After presenting a Chinese Madhyamaka interpretation, I resort to an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which draws on Chinese Madhyamaka thought together with Jessica Wilson’s account of metaphysical indeterminacy, to show that the conception is well equipped to unravel two puzzling issues that arise from the critique. I suggest that a world that consists (...) of things that are indeterminate with respect to certain ways they are is sufficient for it to embody causal phenomena. (shrink)

Theorists who advocate worldly (metaphysical or ontological) indeterminacy—the idea that the world itself is indeterminate in one or more respects—should address how we understand the signifying nature and function of language in light of worldly indeterminacy. I first attend to Sengzhao and Jizang, two leading thinkers in Chinese Sanlun Buddhism, to reconstruct a Chinese Madhyamaka notion of ontic indeterminacy. Then, I draw on the thinkers’ views to propose a provisional (non-definitive) understanding of the nature and use of language. (...) Under this understanding, an expression signifying a thing is provisional in that the expression connotes no determinate feature of the thing. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two different perspectives on aesthetic experience. On the one hand, there is the tradition of Plato that proposes a metaphysical representation of the world in which sensible and over-sensible are rigidly separated. On the other hand, the early Chinese tradition of Daoism suggests an undivided experience of the world in which the aesthetic engagement with the myriad things (wanwu 萬物) makes actions effective. In particular, I consider how the Zhuangzi, one of the main books (...) of philosophical Daoism, offers an excellent opportunity to rethink the aesthetic experience of the world not as subordinated to epistemology or to the supersensible but as a possibility to adapt oneself to changing circumstances. (shrink)

Chinese environmentalists have called for an ecological civilization. To promote this, ecology is defended as the core science embodying process metaphysics, and it is argued that as such ecology can serve as the foundation of such a civilization. Integrating hierarchy theory and Peircian semiotics into this science, it is shown how “community” and “communities of communities,” in which communities are defined by their organization to promote the common good of their components, have to be recognized as central concepts (...) not only of ecology, but of life itself. This perspective is used to defend Lovelock’s “Gaia” hypothesis and the call of Prugh, Costanza, and Daly for strong democracy. An ethics and political philosophy is sketched based on “eco-poiesis” or “home-making,” which is equated with augmenting the life of communities, both human and non-human. (shrink)

Especially over the past twenty years, a number of analytic philosophers have embraced the idea that the world itself is vague or indeterminate in one or more respects. The issue then arises as to whether it can be the case that the world itself is indeterminate in all respects. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhist thought, I offer two reasons for the coherence and intelligibility of the thesis that all concrete things are themselves indeterminate with respect to the (...) ways they are. The first reason draws on a notion reminiscent of the picture of reality as an amorphous lump, while the second reason makes use of the relativity of conceptual perspectives and determinations. Assuming that the world is the mere totality of all concrete things, I show that there is a genuine metaphysical possibility of the world’s being indeterminate in all respects. (shrink)

The discovery of a letter in the Niels Bohr archives written by Bohr to a Danish schoolteacher in which he reveals his early knowledge of the Daodejing led the present author on a search to unveil the influence of the philosophy of Yin-Yang on Bohr's famed complementarity principle in Western physics. This paper recounts interviews with his son, Hans, who recalls Bohr reading a translated copy of Laozi, as well as Hanna Rosental, close friend and associate who also confirms the (...) influence of ancient Chinese philosophy on this major figure in Western physics. As with Bohr’s dual perspective approach to the wave-particle, in which describing matter as either wave or particle is not considered inherently contradictory, this article likewise argues that Eastern and Western perspectives about philosophy, reality and life in general need not antagonize one another as is the case in Hegelian dialecticism. Through developing a globally accessible, harmonized system of Eastern and Western thought, this article suggests that individuals can more easily overcome limitations arising from cultural singularity in conventional philosophical approaches and, in turn, achieve a greater degree of social harmony and depth of philosophical understanding, all in the same stroke. (shrink)

A summary of my book on Western metaphor theories in the work of a prominent Chinese intellectual Qian Zhongshu. Qian's scepticism of metaphysics is discussed against the background of a global "post-modern" metaphor discourse in which metaphor is increasingly divested of its once important metaphysical qualities.

This paper seeks to show that Charles Sanders Peirce's interest in an evolutionary account of the laws of nature is motivated both by his desire to extend the scope of the application of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and by his attempt to explain the success of our deployment of the PSR, which presupposes the existence of determinate causal structures. One can situate Peirce's concern with the explanation of the laws of nature in relation to the influences of Naturphilosophie (...) on Peirce. I then show that some strands of contemporary physics can be understood as resurrections of Peirce's evolutionary cosmology. I show that we can understand Lee Smolin's theory of "cosmological natural selection" as a version of Peirce's evolutionary cosmology that is characterized by greater refinement and determinacy. However I argue that, contrary to Smolin's claim, an evolutionary account of the laws of nature need not require the abandonment of the relativity of simultaneity as established by the special theory of relativity. I also argue that Lee Smolin and Roberto Unger's characterization of the "original state" in their account of evolutionary cosmology raises philosophical problems of individuation that are best approached from the perspective of Chinese process metaphysics. Finally I turn to the wider consequences of evolutionary cosmology in relation to how we traditionally "rank" fields of knowledge that deal with atemporal structures as "more rigorous" than fields that deal with historical phenomena. (shrink)

The normative moral teaching that unifies sageness into virtuousness was organized by Confucius’ 孔子(551-479 BC) to restore order in the chaotic environment of ancient China. Compelling individuals and society to fulfill their duties according to the mandate of heaven and the course of cosmos, this teaching evolved into different methodologies due to the subjective commentaries of later philosophers. With the beginning of the Neo-Confucianism movement in the 8th century AD, which integrated metaphysical forces with ethical acts and deeds, the meanings (...) attributed to heaven, earth and nature expanded. During the Song dynasty 宋朝 (960-1279), considered the greatest epoch of this movement, a dissent arose between two philosopher brothers regarding the origin of knowledge and virtue. Cheng Hao 程颢 (1032-1085) focused on intuitive learning through the goodness of human nature, while Cheng Yi 程颐 (1033-1107) emphasized experiential learning through reason and practice. Thus, the idealist-rationalist opposition, explained by the psychological components of personal growth emerged. This paper aims to determine the main cause for the opposing views of the two brothers on knowledge and virtue of human nature, referencing modern psychology postulates in terms of differences in learning methods. (shrink)

The role of truth in pre-Han thought has been a focus of interest and controversy since Munro first suggested that early Chinese thinkers were concerned primarily with the consequences of a belief or proposition for action, not its truth (Munro 1969: 55). Scholars have defended a range of interpretations of the place of truth in early Chinese thought, from the view that pre-Han philosophy has no concept of semantic truth, for example, to the view that it has several (...) concepts with roles overlapping those of truth, to the view that early Chinese thinkers actually offer theories of truth.1 One reason for intense interest in the topic is signaled by Graham’s well-known remark that for pre-Han philosophers “the crucial question...is not the Western philosopher’s ‘What is the truth?’ but ‘Where is the way?, the way to order the state and conduct personal life” (Graham 1989: 3). How issues related to truth are framed may reflect central features of the theoretical orientation of early Chinese philosophical discourse. For example, if pre-Han inquiries into logic, language, knowledge, and metaphysics focused on accurate description of the structure of reality, they might accordingly devote much attention to explaining the nature of truth and evaluating which descriptions are indeed true. On the other hand, if such inquiries centered on questions concerning the proper dao 道 (way) of conduct and how it relates to the course of the natural world, they might instead be concerned primarily with questions regarding the appropriate use of language and the basis for norms of correct use— whether they are purely products of human convention, for example, or are grounded in natural patterns. A clearer grasp of how pre-Han philosophers thought about truth may help us better understand the overall framework and orientation of early Chinese philosophy. This article first reviews the long-standing debate in the scholarly literature concerning the role of truth in pre-Han philosophy. Next, it considers how we might effectively and informatively frame inquiry into the topic of truth in Chinese thought. It then offers concise interpretations of several concepts in pre-Han texts with conceptual roles overlapping that of truth. (shrink)

In the Western philosophical tradition, the earliest recognized paradoxes are attributed to Zeno of Elea (ca. 490–430 B.C.E.) and to Eubulides of Miletus (fl. 4th century B.C.E.). In the Chinese tradition, the earliest and most well-known paradoxes are ascribed to figures associated with the “School of Names” (ming jia 名家), a diverse group of Warring States (479–221 B.C.E.) thinkers who shared an interest in language, logic, and metaphysics. Their investigations led some of these thinkers to propound puzzling, paradoxical (...) statements such as “Today go to Yue but arrive yesterday,” “White horses are not horses,” and “Mountains and gorges are level.” Such paradoxes seem to have been intended to highlight fundamental features of reality or subtleties in semantic relations between words and things. Why were thinkers who advanced paradoxes categorized as a school of “names”? In ancient China, philosophical inquiry concerning language and logic focused on the use of “names” (ming 名, also terms, labels, or reputation) and their semantic relations to “stuff” (shi 實, also objects, features, events, or situations). Hence for classificatory purposes, second-century B.C.E. Han-dynasty archivists grouped together assorted pre-Han figures whose most prominent ideas seemed to concern the relation between names and stuff—or at least strange, unorthodox uses of names—and dubbed them a school or lineage (jia 家) devoted to the study of names. Unfortunately, both the label and the grouping are misleading. Historically, the school was a retrospective, taxonomical fiction. The figures classified under the “School of Names” never formed a distinct circle, movement, tradition, or line of influence devoted to any particular doctrine, theme, method, or way of life. Their intellectual interests overlapped at most only partly, while also overlapping extensively with those of texts associated with other schools or traditions, such as the Mohist “Dialectics” 墨辯, the Zhuangzi 莊子, the Xunzi 荀子, and the Annals of Lü Buwei 呂氏春秋. What perhaps does set the School of Names apart is that some (though not all) of the figures associated with it apparently delighted in propounding paradoxical or preposterous sayings, while the other texts just mentioned generally (though not exclusively) seek to explain and debunk such utterances. (shrink)

Retributive theories of punishment hold that moral desert is a necessary and sufficient condition for punishment. This principle has been justified in light of rectifying a 'balance of justice' upset by wrongdoing. Many opposed to retributivism, such as Nussbaum, have argued such a ‘balance’ is nothing more than ‘magical’ thinking and retributivism is, in fact, positively harmful. On the contrary, I will argue that there is a compelling way to make sense of that intuition. The Chinese Neo-Confucian tradition and (...) medieval Latin theologian Thomas Aquinas hold that moral wrongs upset a normative order of relationships and, in this respect, disrupt the order that ought to exist in the human community. Despite criticisms that retributivism about punishment requires outlandish metaphysical assumptions, I therefore propose the theory remains plausible without any such appeal. (shrink)

Few would deny that something ontologically depends on something else. Given that something depends on something, what depends on what? Huayan Buddhism 華嚴宗, a prominent Chinese Buddhist school, is known for its extensive thesis of interdependence, according to which everything depends on everything else. This intriguing thesis is entangled with seemingly paradoxical claims that everything is not only identified with everything else but also contained within it. Moreover, the radical thesis of interdependence entails that dependence is pervasive and symmetric. (...) In this paper, I first develop a contemporary interpretation of Huayan interdependence by employing the definitional account of essence and the essence-based account of dependence. Through these contemporary resources, I elucidate and unify the theses of interdependence, mutual identity, and mutual containment within Huayan Buddhism. I then propose a unique framework of ontological dependence that suggests varying degrees of ontological dependence, aimed at accommodating and explaining away our intuitions against pervasive and symmetric dependence. By contemporizing Huayan Buddhism, I explore its potential and facilitate engagement between contemporary metaphysics and Huayan Buddhism. (shrink)

This book researches the thought of Jin Yuelin’s epistemology with some notions and methods of contemporary epistemology as the frame of reference. There are two kinds of academical significance in this book, one is that author has accurately comprehended the specific content, inadequacies and contradictions in Jin’ s epistemology, recognized the methods by which Jin Yuelin built his theory of knowledge. The other is that author has known about the differences in research objects and methods between Jin’s theory and contemporary (...) epistemology, and showed the position of Jin’s epistemology in the whole theory of knowledge through the comparative study. On the one hand, the book focuses on the core problem of Jin Yuelin’ epistemology that is how objective knowledge is produced. On the other hand, it is made up of seven chapters in accordance with the structure of Jin’s Theory of Knowledge. The first chapter introduces and comparatively analyzes the comprehensions about the concepts of “knowledge” and “epistemology” between Jin Yuelin and contemporary epistemologists. This chapter supplies the means and methods for following chapters. The second chapter describes Jin’s standpoint and criticism to idealism starting mode, analyzes the objective starting mode that belongs to Jin’s theory and reveals his negative attitude to skepticism. This chapter shows the essential characteristics of the Jin Yuelin’s epistemology. The given is the content of sensation, which is the most basic part of cognitive activity. Moreover Jin Yuelin regards sensation as foundation of knowledge, so the research on theory of the given is separated from the whole study of cognitive activity and treated as the third chapter, which presents Jin’s theory of the given and analyzes the problems of Jin’s theory, then introduces some kinds of theory of the given and theory of perception in the contemporary epistemology, finally comparatively investigates theories of the given between Jin Yuelin and contemporary epistemologists. From the perspective of cognitive activity, the fourth chapter describes the perceptual activity, the activity of knowing, the activity of thinking, means and outlines of reception in Jin’s epistemology, then exposes its contradictions and inadequacies; Induction is the important research object of the Western epistemologists, similarly Jin Yuelin paid more attention to induction and regards the principle of induction as outline of reception. In fact, his standpoint about the principle of induction is vital and creative, so the study of induction separately belongs to the fifth chapter. This chapter presents the Jin’s comprehension about the principle of induction and some answers to the problem of induction in contemporary epistemology, then comparatively analyzes two kinds of the thought about induction. The sixth chapter successively introduces being, nature and fact which all are objects of cognitive activity, then analyzes the problems within them. From the perspective of cognitive results, the last chapter presents the Jin’s standpoint about verification and demonstration of proposition, definition and criteria of truth, then simply describes the point views of contemporary epistemologists about verification and truth of proposition, finally comparatively investigates two kinds of thought. From the vertical, the thesis analyzes the fundamental sections of objective knowledge one by one, such as the given, experience, idea, proposition and truth. From the horizontal, the book focuses on the three main parts of knowledge event, for example, cognitive activity, objects of knowledge and the true proposition treated as knowledge. In a word, the whole book is coherent and organic unity. Through the comparative study, it can be concluded that it is reasonable for Jin Yuelin to enjoy a high academic status, because he is the first philosopher who specializes in the study of epistemology. At the same times, he improves transmission of logic, metaphysics and epistemology from the Western to China. So, his hard work enriches and expands the realm of Chinese philosophy. With the development of the study of epistemology, descriptive content of it, such as, perceptual activity and rational activity, will be regarded as the objects of psychology and cognitive science. Meanwhile, normative content will be retained. For example, analysis of conditions of knowledge, justification for belief claims, comprehension about the proofs of justification, as well as reactions to challenges of skepticism. The latter will continue to be objects of epistemology, of course, they must establish close relationships with psychology and cognitive science. According to this prospect, we should split Jin Yuelin’s theory of knowledge, of which the descriptive content would be allocated to psychology and cognitive science. On the contrary, the normative content would be kept as important resource for deeply studying epistemology. -/- Key words: Knowledge; Contemporary epistemology; Compare; The given; Idea; The principle of induction; Fact. (shrink)

1 Introduction1 In the 1980s, hermeneutics was often incorporated into deconstructionism and literary theory. Rather than focus on authorial intentions, the nature of writing itself including codes used to construct meaning, socio-economic contexts and inequalities of power,2 Gadamer introduced a different perspective; the interplay between effects of history on a reader’s understanding and the tradition(s) handed down in writing. This interplay in which a reader’s prejudices are called into question and modified by the text in a fusion of understanding and (...) topic revitalized the study of the printed word. Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being also appealed to the post-modern antipathy toward modernity and metaphysics.3 If the truth and validity of interpretations are limited to communities of language, then our mode of being in history cannot but be historical. This point of view rendered Gadamer’s phenomenological hermeneutics vulnerable to the critique of moral and epistemological relativism. However, Gadamer’s theory of interpretation also stems from re-examination of the beginning of knowledge in the Pre-Socratics and Plato, and on this basis, is receptive to another dimension of inquiry than that which was trending in North America. -/- At the East-West Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1982, Chung-ying Cheng for the first time introduced onto-hermeneutics to an audience of esteemed philosophers including Li Zehou, Ren Jiyu, Feng Youlan, and Zhang Liwen.4 In contrast to schools of deconstruction and literary theory that had disengaged the interpreter from trans-historical sources of meaning and truth, Cheng explained that interpreters exist within a cosmological order inextricable from responsibility to harmonize Heaven and Earth in creative acts of interpretation. By integrating Chinese cosmology into hermeneutics through ontology, he tacitly challenged philosophers in the West to re-examine assumptions about humanity’s place in nature and by implication, Gadamer’s recovery of the beginnings of knowledge in Western philosophy. -/- Cheng’s Neo-Confucianism is inspired by the method and goals of Thomé H. Fang. The following words by Fang seem to prefigure, although in an indistinct and bundled way, aspects of Cheng’s philosophy including a Mencian theory of human nature, comprehensive observation, and creativity: “In the very process of living in concord with creative Nature, Man is charged with an ideal to be fully realized in the light of the principle of comprehensive harmony.”5 Like Fang, Cheng reinvigorates Chinese culture and language, but not solely in order to vindicate the insights of Neo-Confucianism. He has studied Western thought, from pragmatism and the analytic school to German idealism and phenomenology, to unlock and clarify philosophical concepts within the Yijing tradition and thereby render them intelligible to Anglophones. The result has been an awakening of Western scholars to the moral and cultural consequences of decoupling their thought from metaphysical foundations that are neither dogmatic nor doctrinal. -/- Not unlike the dialectic of Gadamer’s dialogue form, onto-generative hermeneutics integrates contrary positions on the same topic in order to blend both sides into a world philosophy, or as Cheng says, a “totalizing or integrative theory,”6 not to be confused with a theoretical rewording of a theory. On the contrary, the universal scope and relevance of hermeneutics stems from personal experience. Just as Gadamer, in response to faction and strife, immersed himself in Plato during the war years, and developed a method with which to harmonize opposites, so too, according to On-cho Ng, was Cheng moved by faction, strife and political persecution to develop a path toward unity.7 Gadamer taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and Cheng at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa among other institutions in North America. They facilitated trans-continental educational and cultural ties. Similar experiences yield similar insights irrespective of differences of time and place. Hence, authors in this issue who reside in Europe, China and North America, delineate the differences between Gadamer and Cheng, yet also, in light of Cheng’s onto-generative method and cosmology, develop integrative theories. Due to the page-budget restriction of the publisher, certain articles of this special theme will be subsequently published in the next issue. -/- 2 Integrative Theory This special issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy confirms a dimension of hermeneutics that Cheng has both motivated and inspired. The contributors do not abide by the conviction that since thought is mediated by language, interpretations cannot transcend culture. On the contrary, their research exemplifies the fruits of trans-historical onto-dialogical hermeneutics within limits defined by their field inquiry, organized into Parts I and II, around three themes: language, the philosophy of history and ethics. -/- Andrew Fuyarchuk introduces the theme of ontology in relation to Gadamer’s turn to language. Fuyarchuk argues that Chung-ying Cheng’s criticism of Gadamer’s hermeneutics is informed by Heidegger’s concept of Dasein and thereby overlooks how Gadamer’s Platonic-Pythagorean problem of the division between the One and Many is harmonized in the event of language, which in turn positions Gadamer in proximity to the presupposed grounds of receptivity in Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics. Lauren Pfister’s contributing article addresses the year 2000 meeting between Cheng and Gadamer in Heidelberg and expands the transhistorical grounds of meaning in Gadamer to matters of theology. Pfister’s summary of the written Chinese record of their conversation indicates that Cheng does not address the role of Christian philosophy and hence, the role of the inner word in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This is important not only for detecting changes in Cheng’s philosophical development, but also for modifying his hermeneutics along the lines of a living conversation, possibilities explored by Pfister in a sequel to the article submitted to this issue. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of how Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being extends possibilities in Cheng’s thought, Pfister anticipates the article by Katarina Gajdosova. She returns to the roots of Chinese thought during the Warring States period and broadens the meaning of names in recently excavated texts. Contrary to the conventions about how to understand terms, she appeals to both Heidegger’s ontology and Cheng’s notion of receptivity and creativity to reinterpret naming in relation to cosmology. Along the same lines, insofar as the event of Being is lingual, Jay Goulding captures its emergent structure in an evolving community of scholars and scholarship. He recalls his philosophical journey toward Cheng’s philosophy that begins in conversations with Gadamer at McMaster University in Hamilton, leads to Heidegger and Asian thought, expands into turning points with teachers and colleagues from various backgrounds that by increments contributed to Goulding’s formulation of “Daoist phenomenology.” -/- Although differing traditions guide their inquiries and research, Cheng and Gadamer recall the wisdom of the past to ameliorate the fragmentation in contemporary life. This leads them to re-examine the origins of philosophy; historical roots and thus sources of creative re-interpretations East and West whose affinities are developed in contributions by Hyun Höchsmann and Friederike Assandri. Höchsmann assesses convergences and divergences in the origins of Chinese and Western philosophy (Confucius and Socrates, the Yijing and Pre-Socratics) that culminates in pairing Gadamer’s understanding of paideia in the context of Plato’s political cosmology in the Timaeus with moral and social cultivation in The Western Inscription. She delineates the limits of this comparison which in turn justifies introducing Vattimo’s notion of locality. Assandri’s comparative analysis moves between India and China, Buddhism and Tang Daoism. Based on Gadamer’s argument that writing detaches concepts from their cultural moorings, she defines and applies three levels of understanding in onto-generative hermeneutics to Buddhist terms that were assimilated into the Benji Jing and in so doing clarifies essential dimensions of Daoism. -/- Contributions by Stephen Palmquist and Nicholas Brasovan position Cheng in relation to Kant and Gadamer by way of Aristotle’s ethics respectively. On the one hand, Palmquist plots Cheng’s evolving criticism of Kant’s moral philosophy and draws on crucial dimensions of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to reposition that criticism in a constructive relation to Kant’s emphasis on the philosophical conditions of morality while also indicating how religious dimensions of his thought answer Cheng’s concerns for lived moral action. For Palmquist, Gadamer enables a constructive criticism of Cheng. On the other hand, Brasovan compares Cheng’s Yijing-based account of moral deliberation with Gadamer’s Aristotelian-based ethics and reasons that in contrast to Cheng, Gadamer’s hermeneutical consciousness is disengaged from practical knowledge. For Brasovan, Cheng is a constructive critic of Gadamer. Palmquist and Brasovan’s divergent angles on Gadamer and Cheng map onto a dialectic of contrast and complementarity that constitutes the inner logic of Cheng’s philosophy. In other words, Gadamer and Cheng ought to be read alongside one another for the sake of removing discrepancies and contradictions, which constitutes the organic structure of their thinking. -/- 3 Our Mode of Being in History Is Not Historical The conversations between Cheng and Gadamer in this issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy pivot on language, philosophy of history and ethics within a comparative framework of analysis, but also explore the grounds that make the comparisons possible. Those grounds are informed by Chinese cosmology, and function to wrest Gadamer from the shadow of Heideggerian facticity and reposition him within the range of Cheng’s ideas about our place in nature that is embedded in his question about how mind emerges from inorganic matter.8 -/- For Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, human finitude, our ownmost individuating death ensures that hermeneutics is always open to the other as other, always on the way toward understanding the meaning of Being. To arrest the process in a concept of “the Absolute” cannot but represent someone’s point of view, and thereby render hermeneutics indistinguishable from ideology. However, insofar as finitude is defined by them in terms of an onto-theological concept of immorality, finitude is a metaphysical concept consistent with epistemologies and confuse beings with the meaning of Being. As a result, the celebrated political value of hermeneutics to always be on the way toward an understanding of the meaning of Being admits subtle variations on the same worldview that are insufficiently self-critical. -/- Gadamer scholars of Heidegger are right. A transformation in ethos and opening to the meaning of Being depends on awareness of finitude. Yet this awareness does not yield openness to more of the same, i.e., discourse structurally incapable of coming to unity but instead, for both Gadamer and Cheng, openness to a distinctly different ontological dimension of reality. As Sandra Wawrytko and So-Seong Park indicate,9 this ontological dimension is prefigured in the experience of being-as-a-whole or the totality of all possible relations in both Chinese totemic shamanistic rituals,10 and Greek Dionysian festivals.11 Through these religious experiences human ethos and therefore consciousness is expanded and elevated from being centered on one’s ownmost concerns toward an affinity with all sentient beings from insects and plants to animals. The channel for this affinity is an auditory disposition and hence, the emotions, compassion, and feeling response. -/- The capacity for an auditory disposition, or as Gadamer calls it, listening consciousness to respond to the inter-relationality and therefore inherent balance of nature is developed through music, song and dance of the religious rituals and festivals. They facilitate the unity of mind with nature. This use of music, that transforms ordinary consciousness, explains Cheng’s emphasis on the receptivity of feeling response in comprehensive observation, and Gadamer’s emphasis on openness to the other in attunement. However, an auditory disposition characteristic of pre-literate oral cultures that reveals the “All” need not rely on religion. As theorists about the evolution of language have explained,12 modern languages preserve their pre-historical past in music or prosody. That is to say, the song and dance that revealed the totality of inter-related beings to an ethos of comprehensive observation and attunement toward beings in classical civilizations is retained in the back-and-forth movement or rhythm of the dialogue form. Our mode of being in history is a mode of being in nature – through the music of language. -/- While alerting the reader to the limits of a nominalist interpretation, Gadamer expresses the inner law of the nature as follows: “in perishing there is always becoming, and in becoming there is always perishing.”13 Considered in process, opposites generate and blend into each other. This law of nature applies to everything.14 Hence, in a manner comparable to Pfister’s concluding insights, onto-dialogical hermeneutics is not only open to discrete events of otherness but moreover, to the moving structure of reality expressed, as Gajdosova suggests, in the existential moment of naming. Considered as interplay of tension and resolution with a life of its own, the dialectic of a dialogue is self-similar to the way in which an organism grows (by instinct). There is, therefore, a sense in which the art of interpretation extends the human mind into the eternal cycles of nature such that we participate in the articulation of the inner telos/homeostasis toward which all beings strive and importantly for Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, within the material limits of energy to which our embodied minds are self-evidently subject. In mortality there is always immortality. (shrink)

The examination of "Taiwanese Philosophy" is intricately influenced by the complex meanings of its terms4, fostering a range of interpretations and understandings that play a crucial role in the methodological discussions on how Taiwanese philosophical ideas are analyzed and developed. I highlight that the conventional approaches to interpreting "Taiwanese Philosophy" are mainly divided into two models: the PIT framework, signifying "Philosophical activities in Taiwan," and the TP framework, indicating "Taiwanese Philosophy noted for its unique subjectivity" (see Hung & Gao 2018)5. (...) In the early twentieth century, Mou Zongsan's emergence of New Confucianism shaped the academic reception towards the PIT model and elicited critiques of the TP perspective. This trend guided scholars in Chinese philosophy towards the CPIT (Chinese Philosophy in Taiwan) approach for deciphering "Taiwanese Philosophy," typically viewing it as a form of "Chinese philosophical endeavors in Taiwan." The prevailing contemporary academic opinion posits that initial supporters of New Confucianism failed to recognize Taiwanese philosophy’s unique characteristics and position following colonialism, reducing it to the CPIT model. This stance places "Taiwanese Philosophy" within the broader realm of Chinese Philosophy, highlighting the hierarchical differences between Chinese and Taiwanese philosophical traditions, which later drew substantial critique from supporters of Western liberalism and decolonization efforts. Recently, the importance of "Taiwanese Philosophy" and "Taiwanese Theory" has been increasingly acknowledged, with a growing agreement that "Taiwanese Philosophy," ideally interpreted through the TP model6, mirrors Taiwan's collective ethos and academic value rather than the more exhaustive PIT classification, which encompasses diverse philosophical lineages. Proponents of TP recognize the historical importance of the PIT model in documenting the evolution of Taiwanese Philosophy but strongly dispute its completeness for grasping the essence of "Taiwanese Philosophy." I intend to argue that, notwithstanding the recent criticisms against the PIT approach, revisiting PIT with the aid of extensive textual collections, cultural archives, and the study of intellectual history might offer a solid basis for a deeper appreciation of TP. It will explore how the PIT model can lead to significant misunderstandings by introducing two main biases: the belief that PIT sufficiently encapsulates "Taiwanese Philosophy," and the limitation of PIT to a mere geographical context. In addressing these biases, I offer a potential amicable reinterpretation and reassess the critical elements for a metaphysical description of the subjectivity emphasized in TP. -/- Keywords: Optimal interpretation of Taiwanese Philosophy, Subjectivity and Agency, Genealogy of Knowledge, Methodology of Constructing Theories, Characteristics of Regional Philosophy. (shrink)

The parceling of land into real estate is more than a simple geometrical affair. Real estate is a historical product of interaction between human beings, political, legal and economic institutions, and the physical environment. And while many authors, from Jeremy Bentham to Hernando de Soto, have drawn attention to the ontological (metaphysical) aspect of property in general, no comprehensive analysis of landed property has been attempted. The paper presents such an analysis and shows how landed property differs from other types (...) of property in a way which implies a special role for political and economic philosophy of property rights in land. This is the Chinese translation of "The Metaphysics of Real Estate", Topoi, 20: 2 (September 2001), 161–172. (shrink)

Through a comparative study of the meanings and origins of justice symbolized in the Greek word dikē and the Chinese word yi 毅, this essay explores an alternative understanding of justice exemplified in Mencius' teaching and illuminates a possibility of social and political justice that originates in the human heart instead of reason. On the basis of a genealogical study of yi that identifies its root meanings as "the dignity of the self" and "amity and affinity," this study recovers (...) and revives a way of justice that may preserve and promote the dignity of the individual and the solidarity of political community at once without succumbing to the violence and rigidity of traditional Western metaphysics. In so doing, it highlights a long overlooked dimension of early Confucian moral practice and establishes its unique relevancy for the contemporary debates on justice. (shrink)

Machery et al. presented data suggesting the existence of cross-cultural variation in judgments about the reference of proper names. In this paper, we examine a previously overlooked confound in the subsequent studies that attempt to replicate the results of Machery et al. using East Asian languages. Machery et al. and Sytsma et al. claim that they have successfully replicated the original finding with probes written in Chinese and Japanese, respectively. These studies, however, crucially rely on uses of articleless, ‘bare (...) noun phrases’ in Chinese and Japanese, which according to the linguistic literature are known to be multiply ambiguous. We argue that it becomes questionable whether the extant studies using East Asian languages revealed genuine cross-cultural variation when the probes are reevaluated based on a proper linguistic understanding of Chinese and Japanese bare noun phrases and English definite descriptions. We also present two experiments on native Japanese speakers that controlled the use of ambiguous bare noun phrases, the results of which suggest that the judgments of Japanese speakers concerning the reference of proper names may not diverge from those of English speakers. (shrink)

By rethinking the meaning of a central idiom in the Great Learning, this essay intends to open up a new horizon for the hermeneutics of early Confucian thinking, which has little to do with metaphysics. Through a careful etymological study of ge wu and a dialogue between the Great Learning and Heidegger's phenomenology of human affection, I demonstrate the critical position of the human heart in early Chinese thinking. This new interpretation of early Confucian moral teachings also recovers (...) an invigorating possibility for contemporary discourse on the question of ethics. (shrink)

Tscha Hung was a member of the Vienna Circle who achieved high international academic recognition. He dedicated his entire life to spreading the philosophy of the Circle to China and developed deep insights in his criticisms to that philosophy. Hung was a witness to the encounter of Western and Chinese philosophy in the twentieth century. His debate with Fung You-lan on metaphysics reflects different understandings of the nature of philosophy and metaphysics as well as different perspectives. Hung (...) defended the position of metaphysics in Chinese philosophy in his own way and engaged in a contemporary reconstruction of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

In his book review of Graham Priest's The Fifth Corner of Four, Mark Siderits, while criticising Priest's philology, suggests that Priest's work is 'of considerable interest' for two reasons. First, 'when two independent traditions use similar methods to work on similar issues, it is always possible that one may have hit on approaches that the other missed'. Second, 'the decentering that can be induced by looking at another tradition may trigger fresh insights, even if those insights are not ones that (...) were actually developed by the tradition marked 'other''. The main task of this paper is to unpack Siderits' thought. By analysing some of Priest's work, I will suggest a decentering that must have taken place in China when Buddhism was 'exported to China in Buddhist shipping containers'. For anyone familiar with the forms of Buddhist philosophy developed in India, various forms of Chinese Buddhism can often look strange. Some ideas that were debated and defended by Indian Buddhists do not appear anywhere in Chinese Buddhism and some assumptions have been quietly added to Buddhism by Chinese Buddhists. By showing that Priest's work brings out the 'innovation' that Chinese Buddhists gave to Buddhism, I will suggest that it is this decentering that Siderits suggests Priest makes use of. (shrink)

This paper leads us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by two main sources: the Zhuangzi--a multifarious compilation from Warring States China (ca. 4th c. BCE)--and José Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955) Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in Metaphysics)--the transcripts of a course on metaphysics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20th century. Much as other ontologically subjective entities and events, situations do not preexist the intentional subject: instead, they are created alongside our (...) act of noticing. In Classical Chinese, shi , commonly rendered "propensity" and the closest the language comes to our concept of situation, denotes a dynamic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situations--as in the creation of worlds--hence the importance of understanding what the agent notices and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world's plural affordances. The relational affordances that we actualize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-create one another over time. This acknowledgement is crucial to retrain our agency in order to illuminate our blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move beyond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world. (shrink)

This collection of new essays focuses on metaethical views from outside the mainstream European tradition. The guiding motivation is that important discussions about the ultimate nature of morality can be found far beyond ancient Greece and modern Europe. The volume’s aim is to show how rich the possibilities are for comparative metaethics, and how much these comparisons can add to contemporary discussions of the foundations of morality. Representing five continents, the thinkers discussed range from ancient Egyptian, ancient Chinese, and (...) the Mexica (Aztec) cultures to more recent thinkers like Augusto Salazar Bondy, Bimal Krishna Matilal, Nishida Kitarō, and Susan Sontag. The philosophical topics discussed include religious language, moral discovery, moral disagreement, essences’ relation to evaluative facts, metaphysical harmony, naturalism, moral perception, and the nature of moral realism. This volume will be of interest to anyone interested in metaethics or comparative philosophy. (shrink)

How has multiplicity superseded impossibility in philosophical challenges to artificial consciousness? I assess a trajectory in recent debates on artificial consciousness, in which metaphysical and explanatory challenges to the possibility of building conscious machines lead to epistemological concerns about the multiplicity underlying ‘what it is like’ to be a conscious creature or be in a conscious state. First, I analyse earlier challenges which claim that phenomenal consciousness cannot arise, or cannot be built, in machines. These are based on Block’s (...) class='Hi'>Chinese Nation and Chalmers’ Hard Problem. To defuse such challenges, theorists of artificial consciousness can appeal to empirical methods and models of explanation. Second, I explain why this naturalistic approach produces an epistemological puzzle on the role of biological properties in phenomenal consciousness. Neither behavioural tests nor theoretical inferences seem to settle whether our machines are conscious. Third, I evaluate whether the new challenge can be managed through a more fine-grained taxonomy of conscious states. This strategy is supported by the development of similar taxonomies for biological species and animal consciousness. Although it makes sense of some current models of artificial consciousness, it raises questions about their subjective and moral significance. (shrink)

For Jizang (549−623), a prominent philosophical exponent of Chinese Madhyamaka, all things are empty of determinate form or nature. Given anything X, no linguistic item can truly and conclusively be applied to X in the sense of positing a determinate form or nature therein. This philosophy of ontic indeterminacy is connected closely with his notion of the Way (dao), which seems to indicate a kind of ineffable principle of reality. However, Jizang also equates the Way with nonacquisition as a (...) conscious state of freedom from any attachment and definite understanding whatsoever. The issue then becomes pressing as to how we are to understand Jizang's notion of the Way. Does it indicate some metaphysical principle or reality? Is it actually a skilful expedient to lead one to the consummate state of complete spiritual freedom? How is this issue related to Jizang's conception of ontic indeterminacy? In this book chapter, I examine Jizang's key writings in an attempt to clarify his ontological position. (shrink)

This paper examines 18th-century Annamese Neo-Confucian discourse on conceptual issues related to zhongguo and the hua-yi dichotomy as expressed across a diversity of 18th-century writings. I engage with Huang Chun-chieh’s theory of “contextual turn” and localized subjectivity in 18th-century East Asian Confucianisms by arguing that 18th-century Annamese Neo-Confucianism operated along a dissimilar ideological trajectory which affirmed “geographic China, political China, and cultural China” as a transdynastic and singular zhongguo from which Annam received its politico-cultural legitimation and prestige. This discourse of (...) dependence on institutional recognition and geographical connection to the Chinese zhongguo distinguished 18th-century Annamese literati not only from contemporaneous modes of Confucian intellectuality in Japan and Joseon, but also from foundational conceptions of Vietic statehood characteristic of the early Le dynasty. My analysis of metaphysical theories invoked by 18th-century Annamese literati in their discussions of zhongguo and the rise of human civilization engages with both Huang Chun-chieh’s theory of a philological turn away from the metaphysical commitments in 18th-century East Asian Confucianisms and Alexander Woodside’s theory of pre-modern Vietnamese Confucianism being characterized by a non-metaphysical “classical primordialism.”. (shrink)

This paper begins the last instalment of a six-part project correlating the key aspects of Kant’s architectonic conception of philosophy with a special version of the Chinese Book of Changes that I call the “Compound Yijing”, which arranges the 64 hexagrams (gua) into both fourfold and threefold sets. I begin by briefly summarizing the foregoing articles: although Kant and the Yijing employ different types of architectonic reasoning, the two systems can both be described in terms of three “levels” of (...) elements. Starting at an unnumbered level devoid of any element (the tao or thing in itself), the system proceeds by elaborating a key fourfold distinction (or “quaternity”) on the first level, a twelvefold distinction on the second level, and twelve quaternities (grouped in four quadrants, each with a set of three quaternities) on the third level. Each set of three quaternities (i.e., each quadrant) on the third level corresponds to one of the four “faculties” of the university, as elaborated in Kant’s book, The Conflict of the Faculties. Previous papers have examined the correlations between three key quaternities that Kant defends in relation to each of three faculties (philosophy, theology, and law) and the 12 gua that correspond to that faculty in the Compound Yijing. The final step is to explore the fourth quaternity on the third level, the 12 gua corresponding to the medical faculty. The “idea of reason” in Kant’s metaphysics that guides this wing of the comparative analysis is freedom, and the ultimate purpose of this faculty of the university is to train doctors to care for people’s physical well-being, as free agents imbedded in nature. But this paper will focus only on the four gua that correspond to four basic concepts in Kant’s theory of medicine. The two quaternities in the “yin-yang” (medical) quadrant of the Compound Yijing that will be skipped here are as follows. First, Kant’s account of the idea of freedom itself, which gives rise to the area of traditional metaphysics known as rational cosmology, comes in the first Critique’s Dialectic, in the section on the Antinomy of Reason (CPR A405-567/B432- 595). There he examines four irresolvable issues: whether the world has a beginning in time; whether composite substances consist of simple parts; whether a causality of freedom operates in the natural world; and whether an absolutely necessary being exists. Later I will argue that these correspond to the quaternity consisting of gua 15, 22, 36, and 52. (shrink)

Are there deep differences between these cultures in their ways of thinking? How can they be described? There is no neutral language for doing so. One can doubt all claims to deep essence as being metaphysical illusions and figments. However, the differences are certainly experienced. They can be characterized negatively. This is where Chinese and Western viewpoints meet. Whereas Jullien finds the cultural Other enabling him to think otherwise and effectively to keep the recursive self-negating aspect of discourse active (...) and alive in his own discourse, I attempt to do this by reference to the apophatic current underlying Western philosophical reflection in all its most radically critical and especially self-critical manifestations. Especially from consideration of Eastern approaches to universality, the apophatic wisdom that can be gathered here can serve to put us on guard against any universality that can be thought. Universality is not what it is thought to be by the universals that we can think. The naïve faith in thought and education as per se emancipatory is belied by history. The universal remains an ideal rather than a manifest fact in the course of history. It cannot be approached except always by way of the negative. (shrink)

The quest for a unified “Theory of Everything” that explains the fundamental nature of the universe has long been a holy grail for scientists and philosophers. -/- “A theory of everything (TOE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory, or master theory is a singular, all- encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all aspects of the universe, finding a theory of everything is one of the major unsolved problems in physics". - Theory of Everything, (...) Wikipedia Dating back to ancient times, when the Greeks sought the Arche - the fundamental principle underlying existence - the pursuit of a single unifying theory to explain the multifaceted world began. Thales of Miletus (born c. 624-620 BCE – died c. 548-545 BCE) held that everything had come out of water. [2] -/- Since then, the attempt to unify physics theories has never ceased. Yet, after decades of effort, this research still faces significant challenges. The current status is: “at present, there is no candidate theory of everything that includes the standard model of particle physics and general relativity and that, at the same time, is able to calculate the fine-structure constant or the mass of the electron.”[4] -/- For this reason, rethinking the direction of this research is necessary and has revealed some fundamental issues. If the term, A Theory of Everything, is truly “all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all aspects of the universe,” then candidates for a ToE should encompass life phenomena, including biology, sociology and medical sciences. However, the mainstream of this research completely neglects biological systems or simply ignores them. None of the current candidates can explain life phenomena. This difficulty stems from the traditional physics-centric culture. -/- Therefore, the approach to this research should accordingly expand to encompass other perspectives, including biology, sociology, medical sciences, and scientific philosophy, rather than physics only. -/- In fact, such an endeavor with a fundamentally different direction of approach began its journey in the late 1990s, presenting a viable alternative to address the challenge of a Theory of Everything. This approach does not seek the ultimate “building block” but rather aims to uncover the intangible rules that fundamentally govern everything in the universe, seeking their universality across the vast spectrum, from the minute subatomic world to the mega mass cosmic world and the magical biological world. -/- As the result, a set of the fundamental interrelationships is introduced and represented by a model, the Fundamental Interrelationships Model. -/- The Fundamental Interrelationships Model, abbreviated as the Interrelationships Model (IRM) is a conceptual framework presented in the form of a diagram. This model encompass a wide range of relationships, including serial-parallel relationships, transition of state, critical point, continuation-discontinuation, convergence-divergence, contraction-expansion, singularity-plurality, commonality-difference, similarity, symmetry-asymmetry, dynamics-stability, order-disorder, limitation, without limitation, hierarchical structure, and interconnectedness. -/- Crucially, unlike current theories for a Theory of Everything (ToE) that predominantly focus on lifeless phenomena, the Interrelationships Model asserts that everything, whether lifeless events or living phenomena, are specific expressions of the fundamental interrelationships. This viewpoint can be demonstrated through the following well-established laws of physics and biological phenomena. -/- Built on the foundation of the Fundamental Interrelationships Model, a collection of well-established laws and theories of physics are represented and unified, demonstrating that they are specific expression of the fundamental interrelationships, including Newton’s three laws of motion, the four laws of thermodynamics, Einstein’s space-time relationship, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Noether’s theorem, Schrodinger’s wave function collapse, chaos theory and complexity theory. The list continues to grow… Not only are those lifeless laws of physics specific expressions of the fundamental interrelationships but those biological phenomena as well, including adaptation, natural selection, driving force of evolution, transition from unicellularity to multicellularity, increase of complexity, division of labor, coordination, cooperation and negligible conflict. -/- Based on this model, a groundbreaking research outcome has been, for the first time, put forward: a new hypothesis unifying the Big Bang theory with the evolutionary theory. The research result unequivocally demonstrates that the evolution of life also follows the fundamental laws of physics, marking a significant stride toward addressing the longstanding challenge of a comprehensive Theory of Everything. (shrink)

I first explain the scholastic (Scotist) thesis on the independence of essences Bayle alludes to in the passage of the Continuation des Pensée Diverses where he presents the Stratonicians' and the Chinese philosophers' retorsion. Then, I show that this retorsion applies to the argument of the existence of God based on "aseity", but not to the occasionalist argument based on the "quod nescis" principle. I conclude that materialism (the "Stratonician hypothesis") cannot be, for Bayle, a satisfying system.

Wang Yangming’s discussions concerning evil mainly appear in two sets of texts, i.e., Chuanxilu 传习录 (Instructions for Practical Living) and gongyi 公移 (documents transferred to vertically unrelated departments). The former addresses evil in metaphysical terms, and the latter in social terms. These subtly different approaches show the nuance between self-cultivation and governance of others.

The authors included in this anthology of historical texts on aesthetics and philosophy of art, address the big questions. They attempt to place art within experience generally or within the life of a community; or they attempt to understand the nature of the aesthetic and its role within experience. Topics include mimesis, the relation between art and truth, the metaphysics of beauty, the function of art, and the ontology of art. All of the extracts included were written prior to (...) the middle of this century. The only aspect of this anthology which suggests that it was published recently is the inclusion of three Chinese pieces and one Indian piece. (shrink)

One critique of the early Daoist texts associated with Laozi and Zhuangzi is that they neglect the human and lack a proper sense of ethical personhood in maintaining the primacy of an impersonal dehumanizing “way.” This article offers a reconsideration of the appropriateness of such negative evaluations by exploring whether and to what extent the ethical sensibility unfolded in the Zhuangzi is aporetic, naturalistic, and/or religious. As an ethos of cultivating life and free and easy wandering by performatively enacting openness (...) and responsiveness to things in an immanent this-worldly context, the Zhuangzi is oriented toward the relational attunement of disposition and practice rather than toward metaphysics or religion in a transcendent sense. It consequently suggests an immanent anarchic ethics without principles while neither forgetting nor reifying the sacred and the mundane in its playful illumination of the biospiritual dynamics of cultivating life. (shrink)

This article takes one of the richest historical debates, that of Hsun-Tzu and Mencius, as the contextual starting-point for the elaboration of human goodness. In support of Mencius, this article develops additional metaphysical and bio-social-evolutionary grounds, both of which parallel each other. The metaphysical analysis suggests that, in the spirit of Spinoza, an entity’s nature must necessarily include the drive toward its preservation. Likewise, the multi-faceted bio-social-evolutionary argument locates the fundamental telos of humanity in the preservation of social ties and (...) species preservation, leading to a life-affirming philosophy and bio-psychological deduction of human emotions based on the primary emotion of love. (shrink)

This note falls into two main parts. In the first part, I shall consider the question of whether or not Aristotle believed that there can be true statements about what will happen in the future. I will first clarify this question, which will involve consideration of some logical and metaphysical notions in Aristotle. I will then argue that the answer to the question is ‘No’ (with a qualification). In the second part, I shall argue that his view is correct. I (...) will do this ‘indirectly’, by way of presenting and refuting three prominent objections to the view. (shrink)