Shi å¼µæ » (1133–1180) and the other gentlemen of Hunan from about 1167 to 1169, which was resolved by an understanding of what we might call the interpenetration of the mind’s stillness and activity (dong-jing 動靜) or equilibrium and harmony (zhong-he 中和), (2) led directly to his realization that Zhou Dunyi’s thought provided a cosmological basis for that resolution, and (3) this in turn led Zhu Xi to understand (or construct) the meaning of taiji in terms of the polarity of (...) yin and yang; i.e. the Supreme Polarity as the most fundamental ordering principle (li 理). (shrink)

These essays represent an attempt to understand the Chinese mind through its philosophy. The first volume of its kind, the collection demonstrates how Chinese philosophy can be understood in light of techniques and categories taken from Western philosophy. Eight philosophers, each of whom is a recognized authority in Western philosophy as well as in some area of Chinese philosophy, contribute chapters from perspectives that indicate the uniqueness of the Chinese way of thinking in categories adapted from Western philosophy. The book (...) covers a wide range of topics including metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, the history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and western parallels and non-parallels of philosophical development. (shrink)

In Plato's Parmenides , Socrates proposes a 'Day' analogy to express one possible model of part/whole relations. His analogy is swiftly rejected and replaced with another analogy, that of the 'Sail'. In this paper, it is argued that there is a profound difference between these two analogies and that the 'Day' represents a distinct way to think about part/whole relations. This way of thinking, I argue, is the standard way of thinking in East Asian Buddhism. Plato's 'Day' analogy can then (...) be used to illuminate the meaning of an opaque but very important concept in East Asian Buddhism: li , which in this paper is developed as a modal concept of 'Wholeness'. (shrink)

This essay examines the ways that the terms "self and "no-self can illuminate the views of classical Chinese thinkers, particularly Confucians such as Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, and the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi. In particular, the use of the term "no-self" to describe Zhuangzi's position is defended. The concepts of self and no-self are analyzed in relation to other terms within the thinkers' "concept clusters" - specifically temporality, nature, and social roles - and suggestions are given for constructing typologies that sort (...) out the range of meanings of self and no-self based on the characteristics of the relations among terms within the concept clus- ters. The essay focuses on the way that the Confucians and Zhuangzi use concepts of self and no-self, respectively, as soteriological strategies that aim at making connections with larger systems or wholes, and it concludes that different connections are emphasized by the Confucians and Zhuangzi precisely because the various connections are made possible and sustained by different conceptions of self, temporality, nature, and social roles. (shrink)

This paper explores the extent to which the Confucian concept of ren (humaneness) has application in ways that are comparable tocontemporary versions of environmental virtue ethics. I argue that the accounts of self-cultivation that are developed in major texts of the Confucian tradition have important direct implications for environmental thinking that even the Neo-Confucians do not seriously entertain.

This Philosophy Compass article continues the comparison between Confucian and mainstream Western views of personhood and their connection with ethics begun in Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition I: Fundamental Concepts , by focusing on the Western self conceived as an independent agent with moral and political rights. More specifically, the present article briefly accounts for how the more strictly and explicitly individualistic notion of self dominating Western philosophy has developed, leading up to a recent debate in modern (...) Western rights theory between Herbert Fingarette and Henry Rosemont, Jr., two contemporary Western philosophers who are both steeped in Confucian thought as well as moral and political philosophy. This discussion elucidates how Confucianism can be compared to, and even contrasted with some basic principles of modern Western rights theory and the more individualistic view of self they entail. In the end, a new view of personhood and "free will"? is offered that synthesizes insights from the Confucian treatment of persons as being essentially interdependent with the Western treatment of persons as being essentially independent. (shrink)

This is a full length review in which I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Jane Geaney's On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought. Geaney's strengths lie in her refusal to import Western epistemological presuppositions into depictions of Early Chinese philosophy, her meticulous canvassing of key Warring States texts, and her insightful reconstruction of Early Chinese epistemology as based on perception rather than abstract concepts. Her weaknesses are the limited range of her representative texts and her occasional (...) overgeneralizations. In the first half of the review, I summarize Geaney's solid conclusions: knowledge in Warring States texts was stated in terms of, and even constituted by, seeing and hearing (as opposed to the primacy of sight in the West); seeing and hearing were referred to in paired tropes; the epistemology of seeing and hearing generally involved moral evaluation; and the heartmind had a triple role in this process as verifier, as ruler, and as a sense in its own right. In the second half of the review, I demonstrate the limitations of Geaney's methodology, using her example of the relationship of qi and wind. (shrink)

In a 1967 article, A. C. Graham made the claim that 情 qing should never be translated as "emotions" in rendering early Chinese texts into English. Over time, sophisticated translators and interpreters have taken this advice to heart, and qing has come to be interpreted as "the facts" or "what is genuine in one." In these English terms all sense of interrelationality is gone, leaving us with a wooden, objective stasis. But we also know, again partly through the work of (...) Graham, that interrelationality was of fundamental importance in the early Chinese cosmology and that qing, by later carrying the meaning of "emotions," expressed that interrelationality. I take as my project in this article the recovery of an emotional adumbration in the qing of early Chinese texts, notably the Mencius, from which Graham begins his discussion. With an eye to explicating qing in the Mencius, and with a sensitivity to an implied notion of interrelationality in early texts, I survey early literature from the Shu Jing to late commentaries on the Yi Jing. I find that usages of qing and contexts in which qing is used inevitably illuminate it as key term in the evocation of interrelationality, shading it with emotional overtones. Emotions, of course, are inherently interrelational, and even more so in a Chinese world in which the internal and the external are in constant communication by way of a cosmic interchange of arousal and response among all things. That qing, as a term which later comes to explicitly mean "emotions," should have a centuries old convention of emotional connotation prior to its explicit definition should come as no surprise. The corroboration of this supposition entails a complex investigation and analysis, however, and it is a preliminary step in this investigation and analysis that I undertake here. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discover an important contribution of classical Chinese ontological conceptions for the future world philosophy and the modern human Weltanschauung in the process of its globalization. Through a brief mosaic of a development of mutual Euro-Chinese encounters, from the Middle Ages to the present, the paper presents the view that both Chinese and European philosophical complexes were quite indispensable parts of the history of world philosophy; and in the future, perhaps, they will be the (...) leading factors that decide (in their serious confrontation) the basic determination of the roots of the global world metaphilosophy. At the same time the author, long having carried out scholarly research and published translations of Laozi 's Dao De Jing, Confucius' Lunyu, the Books of Xunii, Huang Lao, Huang di si jing, etc., wants to demonstrate, on the basis of specific examples of original Chinese dialectical metaphysics, their unique philosophical value for the future world philosophy and the modern human Weltanschauung. (shrink)

Abstract This is a new attempt at an analysis of classical Chinese (Confucian) ethics which is still inappropriately explained by Western philosophy as a traditional normative ethical system. Special conditions of ancient Chinese anthropogeny and social and economic development gave rise in this cultural region to an original theory of being, which in modern terminology can be referred to as an ontological model of a fundamental Yin?Yang dialectic of a bipolar and non?homogeneous synergy of being. This theory of being became (...) a cornerstone for the whole complex of ancient Chinese philosophy, socio?anthropology and ethics. Its most leading representatives?several ancient Taoist philosophers as well as the whole ancient Confucian ethical philosophy?proposed an original approach to issues which could be, for the modem world of philosophical research, a very suggestive source of inspiration. (shrink)

This article reflects on important terms and concepts that constitute the cosmology of the Yijing: ji, tian, yin-yang , and the correlative aspects of temporality. These are familiar terms from the Yijing as well as other philosophical texts from ancient China. It begins with a comparative inquiry into Chinese and Greek attitudes toward time and then explores the related philosophical consequences. Although the ancient Chinese view of the world as temporal, processual, and relational may be found to be in contrast (...) with Greek substance-oriented philosophy, it is argued here that we should revise some commonly accepted interpretations of Chinese terms. Without adequate reflection on temporality and process, many important terms may be misconstrued as atemporal and substance-oriented, which would be alien to the sensibilities of East Asian traditions. Thus, it is attempted here to gauge the adequacy of the prominent existing interpretations of these terms and ideas while giving an account of how such interpretations may be revised to better recognize the role of temporality and process. Specifically, it is proposed that the interpretations given here accord best with a conception of time as a spiral trajectory, as opposed to either the cyclic or linear conceptions of time usually considered dominant in the Yijing and ancient Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The notions of Di (Emperor), Shangdi (God in heaven), and Tian (Heaven) were endowed with a variety of meanings and were used to refer to different objects of worship in ancient Chinese religion. In different eras, Di referred to the earthly emperor as well as to the heavenly emperor; Tian referred to the physical sky as well as to a supreme personal god in different contexts. Hegel oversimplified these three notions when he characterized ancient Chinese religion as a kind of (...) natural religion. This article aims to clarify Hegel’s misunderstanding of ancient Chinese religion by clarifying the meanings and references of these three notions as they appeared in the Yin-Shang and the Zhou Dynasties. (shrink)

The epistemic stances of both Whitehead and the Book of Changes are founded on the assumption that process is reality; there are important resonances with respect to perception, meaning and significance. Such a process-oriented approach is productive for developing non-representational and non-dualistic theories in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. An exploration of these resonances will further provide an appropriate foundation for dialogue between the philosophy of the Book of Changes and that of contemporary Euro-American (...) philosophy. The important differences between the Book of Changes and Whiteheadian philosophy will also become apparent. (shrink)

This essay argues that a person's fate is defined by the interaction of necessity and contingency, indicating that a person's existential competence consists of his or her ability to dance well with both necessity and contingency, not merely with either of them. As a result, it rejects the traditional association of fate with fatalism and fatality on the one hand and resists the present current to define individual fate and identity merely in terms of contingency and as contingency on the (...) other hand. Meanwhile, it defines necessity that shapes a person's fate in terms of laws of nature and human existence, not as some predetermined scheme or design. (shrink)

The question of xing has received much attention in the revival of Neo-Confucian philosophy (called Contemporary Neo-Confucianism) in present-day Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China and among scholars of Chinese philosophy in the United States. It also has much to do with a critical consciousness of both the difference and the affinity between the Chinese philosophy of man and morality and the contemporary Western philosophy of human existence and moral virtues. The study of this has great meaning for the development of (...) a global onto-ethics and an onto-ethics of the future of humankind. (shrink)

: The Confucian relational concept of the person has been proposed as an epistemically more cogent and ethically more attractive alternative to that of liberal individualism. Two arguments are raised against this proposal without defending liberal individualism. Ethically, Confucianism is vitiated by certain unattractive features that cannot be removed without reducing the Confucian relational concept of the person to an abstract and not very helpful notion of human relatedness. Epistemically, Confucianism commits the essentialist fallacy of treating its own concept of (...) human relations as reflecting the nature of things. In view of these limitations, the Confucian relational concept of the person does not provide a viable framework for dealing with social issues including bioethics. (shrink)

What was the nature and degree of Eastern influence on Carl Jung's complex concept of "the Self"? It is argued that Chinese Taoism rather than Hinduism provided the fundamental formative influence on this central idea, especially as it is expressed through the I Ching. This influence came indirectly through the development of Jung's notion of "synchronicity," correlative parallels between the inner and the outer realms of experience.

In order respectfully and adequately to compare Confucian and Christian conceptions of creativity, it is necessary to have proper comparative categories. Put roughly, we need to know what creativity is in order to see how Confucianism and Christianity have various versions of it. In respect of what do they agree or differ? So the first order of business is to put forward, however briefly, a theory of creativity in light of which comparisons can be made. Creativity, of course, is a (...) very complicated notion in the West and in East Asia. Two philosophical topics can reveal something of its complication: the problem of the one and the many, and the nature of change. (shrink)

As a pair of important categories in traditional Chinese culture, “ ming 命 (destiny or decrees)” and “ tian ming 天命 (heavenly ordinances)” mainly refer to the constraints placed on human beings. Both originated from “ ling 令 (decrees),” which evolved from “ wang ling 王令 (royal decrees)” into “ tian ling 天令 (heavenly decrees),” and then became “ ming ” from a throne because of the decisive role of “heavenly decrees” over a throne. “ Ming ” and “ tian (...) ming ” have different definitions: “ Ming ” represented the limits Heaven placed on the natural lives of human beings and was an objective force that men could not direct, but was embodied in human beings as their “destiny”; “ Tian ming ” reflected the moral ideals of human beings in their self-identification; It originated in man but had to be verified by Heaven, and it was therefore the true ordinance that Heaven placed on human beings. “ Ming ” and “ tian ming ” are two perspectives on the traditional relationship between Heaven and human beings, and at the same time Confucians and Daoists placed different emphasis on them. (shrink)

If Z hu Xi had been a western philosopher, we would say he synthesized the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus: that he took from Plato the theory of forms, from Aristotle the connection between form and empirical investigation, and from Plotinus self-differentiating holism. But because a synthesis abstracts from the incompatible elements of its members, it involves rejection as well as inclusion. Thus, Z hu Xi does not accept the dualism by which Plato opposed to the rational forms an (...) irrational material principle, and does not share Aristotle’s irreducible dualism between form and prime matter, or his teleology. Neither does he share Plotinus’ indifference to the empirical world. Understanding how these similarities and differences play out against one another will help us discover what is at stake in their various commitments. (shrink)

Huayan Buddhist philosophers and John Dewey share a perspective on emptiness or dependent origination. This article compares Dewey's local, contextual, and relational metaphysics with Huayan thinkers’ use of the metaphor of Indra's jewel net to extend their relational metaphysics to an infinite extent. Huayan thinkers base their ethics of compassion on the recognition of the infinite relatedness of all things. Dewey prefers constructing social institutions that foster experiences that are reliably aesthetically unified. This dispute is significant because pragmatism and Buddhism (...) both provide promising ethical positions based on the understanding of persons as temporally limited and relational. (shrink)