Online research in philosophy

: It is argued here that Mozi's critique of warfare in the chapter "Against Offensive War" ("Fei gong") cannot be fully understood without the arguments presented in the chapter "Explaining Ghosts" ("Ming gui"). For Mozi, the problem of war can only be resolved if the existence of providential ghosts can be proven. But he indicates in his arguments concerning the existence of ghosts that it is doubtful whether such a condition can be met. Consequently, despite the apparently optimistic tenor of (...) chapters such as "Imperial Love" ("Jian ai"), Mozi's political thought reveals an implicit understanding of the rational limits of resolving fundamental problems of injustice in the world. (shrink)

In the first chapter of Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, Herbert Fingarette argues that in the Analects Confucius holds the essence of human virtue to be a kind of magic power and this magic can be explained in terms of J. L. Austin’s analysis of the “performative utterance.” This paper attempts to explicate what Fingarette’s claims concerning magic and the “performative” amount to. I will argue that even though there is something to the underlying spirit of Fingarette’s project, he either (...) misused or simply misunderstood Austin and, because of this misuse or misunderstanding, he has possibly misunderstood Confucius as well. (shrink)