Augustine of Hippo is often regarded as the champion of the doctrine of weakness of the will. John M. Rist in his 1994 'Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized' draws an interesting analogy between Aristotle's 'akrasia' and Augustine's 'concupiscentia'. However, such an analogy without further qualification is defective and misleading because it implies that Augustine commits himself to the notion that since everyone is perpetually akratic and, thus, always morally blameworthy. I argue that, for Augustine, weakness of the will has equivocal meanings (...) and is manifested in four kinds of case--their scope goes far beyond Aristotle's discussion of 'akrasia' in Book Seven of the 'Nicomachean Ethics'. There are, therefore, considerable differences between Aristotle's and Augustine's account of weakness of the will. Consequently, for Augustine, moral responsibility for the moral agent also varies in each of the four cases. (shrink)

This article examines the rise and decline of the enthusiasm for intelligence testing in early twentieth-century China, focusing on the appeal, the challenges, and the critiques revolving around this psychological instrument. The introduction of intelligence testing reflected not only China’s urgent needs in modernizing its merit system, but also Chinese psychologists’ aspirations for pursuing exactitude and redefining the racial characteristics of their compatriots against foreign interpretations. But despite psychologists’ endeavors, the political and geographical fragmentation of Republican China troubled the epistemic (...) imperative of uniformity demanded by Euro-American psychometrics and therefore undermined the validity of measurement. Subsequently, the legitimacy of intelligence testing began to be questioned by several influential Chinese psychologists in the late 1920s and 30s. The difficulties in standardization and the hostility within the psychology community formed a vicious cycle, impeding the progress of nationwide testing. Through this history, the article demonstrates not only the elevation of measurement to epistemic authority in modern China, but also how its promise was challenged by a diverse and rapidly changing society. (shrink)

This article analyzes a popular meme that has spread rapidly among Chinese internet users in the last few years, ‘garlic chives’ ( jiucai), as a self-mockery of the bio-economic subject in contemporary China. This metaphor refers to those ordinary Chinese people who are constantly lured to participate in all kinds of economic activities, but whose investments are destined to be consumed by the establishment. Through a close study of this popular meme and the social conditions from which it arises, this (...) article demonstrates two main features of the Chinese economic subject that supports the state’s economic sovereignty: the thriving of self-sufficient and rule-abiding individuals, and the quality of these individuals as hard working and capable of producing wealth on their own. This article offers a critique of PRC’s post-socialist governmentality, and it provides insights about the relation between the biological and the political in our complicated world order. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:206 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Pang Laikwan Identity Politics and Democracy in Hong Kong’s Social Unrest Hong Kong’s anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (anti-ELAB) movement began with legislation proposed in February 2019 to allow the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions with which the city lacks formal extradition treaties. The law quickly attracted a tremendous amount of criticism and generated enormous anxiety because (...) mainland China was one of those jurisdictions.1 In fact, many believe that this bill was proposed to allow the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to transfer wanted persons of any nationality from Hong Kong to China, subject to a legal process that many view as highly dubious. A large-scale anti-government movement exploded in June 2019 when pro-establishment legislators in Hong Kong insisted on passing it, and millions of people took to the streets. The government waited three months to withdraw the bill, only doing so after some of the most violent confrontations between civilians and the police in Hong Kong’s history. With Beijing’s 1. The law was originally proposed after a Hong Kong man, who killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, could not be extradited back to Taiwan to stand trial for the murder due to the lack of formal extradition laws. The proposed law, which would be applied to Hong Kong citizens, foreign residents, and even people passing through on business or as tourists, is being opposed due to the fear that it would be used to extradite Hong Kong political/civil rights activists and dissidents to China, where they would be harshly punished. Pang Laikwan 207 support, the Hong Kong government has doggedly resisted negotiating with the protestors over other demands, such as setting up an independent inquiry into police misconduct. As people have become completely disillusioned with the government and their own futures, tensions have increased. Collapsing many of the city’s socioeconomic problems into one cause, the anti-ELAB movement is primarily an anti-authoritarian impulse motivated by the unifying power of the term “Hongkongers.” As the movement unfolds, one of the most popular slogans, “Add Oil, Hongkongers!” (meaning “Keep going, Hongkongers!”) gradually transformed into “Rebel, Hongkongers!” and “Revenge, Hongkongers!” showing the protestors ’ anger about unrestrained police violence and the Beijing regime behind it. The militarization associated with these protests is both worrisome and symptomatic. This short essay analyzes this movement and uses it as a vehicle to disentangle social and political identity. My concern is about how a large-scale political movement can realign identities to generate power from the bottom. I use an Arendtian approach to ground my theoretical orientation, asking: How can political actions be understood as the pursuit of freedom to transcend one’s biological and social identity? From an intersectional feminist angle, if we are aware that social discrimination operates within a complex network of simultaneous discriminations, real social change can only be envisioned using a broad political canvas. Hong Kong’s anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement provides such a setting. Division and Inclusion “The people” might be the emptiest, but also the most powerful, phrase in the modern political lexicon. It can be used by politicians to justify groundless proposals or criticisms, but it is also the foundation and source of legitimacy for all modern political institutions. Indeed, the most basic meaning of democracy is “rule of the people,” which is impossible to avoid in any democratic imagination. As has been widely seen throughout the world, however, “the people” is often attached to various degrees of xenophobia—hatred of outsiders in the name of in-group solidarity. While the Hong Kong protestors’ courageous demands for the PRC to honor its promise to grant the city a high degree of autonomy have gained widespread international sympathy, thorny social divisions persist within the movement. 208 Pang Laikwan While Hong Kong has never been a united society, the anti-ELAB protests—like most social movements—have been highly divisive, splitting Hong Kong people apart. Most obviously, “the people” are divided by their political identifications, forming a primary antagonism between those who support the protests and those who do not, usually described... (shrink)

This article analyzes the current political predicament of Hong Kong by examining Nightmare Wallpaper, an art project composed of a series of automatic drawings made by local artist Pak Sheung Cheun. He made them while attending the court cases of political activists on trial, and the article further explores his subsequent efforts to transform this work into wallpaper prints, a series of installations, and a book. This political work, which is also very private, vividly and honestly demonstrates the artist’s intense (...) struggles, along with the despair felt by many in the city. The earnest self-reflection shown in the art does not give his audience a way out of the blind alley of the present but invites us to express ourselves and to connect with others. It is both a work of abjection and intersubjectivity, with no naïve expectation to reconcile the tensions between them. It shows, rather, a determination to participate in an uncertain future, combining the artist’s and the city’s capacity of meaning production and imagination. The Nightmare Wallpaper project also reveals how this artist, as part of a protest community, struggles to overcome binary thinking through an affirmation of becoming. (shrink)

In October 1993, a cache of bamboo slips written in the Chu script was excavated from a Warring States period tomb in the village of Guodian in the city of Jingmen in the province of Hubei. After separation and arrangement by experts, the photo plates of the Chu slips and their annotations were published this May by Wenwu Press in the book called Guodian Chu mu zhujian.

Among the many silk manuscripts excavated from Changsha Mawangdui Tomb 3 in Hunan province in the winter of 1973, one text was named Wu xing [by contemporary scholars]. Twenty years later, in the winter of 1993, there was a text [of itself] titled Wu xing among the many bamboo slip texts excavated from Jingmen Guodian Tomb 1 in Hubei.

This article reveals the outcome of a study on the perceptions of elders, family members, and healthcare professionals and administration providing care in a range of different long-term care facilities in Hong Kong with primary focus on the concepts of autonomy and dignity of elders, quality and location of care, decision making, and financing of long term care. It was found that aging in place and family care were considered the best approaches to long term care insofar as procuring and (...) balancing the values of dignity, autonomy, family integrity and social sustainability were concerned. An elder having the final say was generally accepted. The results also initiated the importance of sharing of financial responsibility among elders, children and government albeit the emphasis was placed on individuals. Furthermore, dignity of elders was not considered purely a synonym of autonomy, but it had also to do with respect, family and social connections. (shrink)

Unfortunately, only after online first article publication, it was noticed that the first four sentences in footnote two were incorrect.

Among the most influential and well-known experiments of the 19th century was the generation and detection of electromagnetic radiation by Heinrich Hertz in 1887–1888, work that bears favorable comparison for experimental ingenuity and influence with that by Michael Faraday in the 1830s and 1840s. In what follows, we pursue issues raised by what Hertz did in his experimental space to produce and to detect what proved to be an extraordinarily subtle effect. Though he did provide evidence for the existence of (...) such radiation that other investigators found compelling, nevertheless Hertz’s data and the conclusions he drew from it ran counter to the claim of Maxwell’s electrodynamics that electric waves in air and wires travel at the same speed. Since subsequent experiments eventually suggested otherwise, the question arises of just what took place in Hertz’s. The difficulties attendant on designing, deploying, and interpreting novel apparatus go far in explaining his results, which were nevertheless sufficiently convincing that other investigators, and Hertz himself, soon took up the challenge of further investigation based on his initial designs. (shrink)

Intergenerational storytelling (IGS) has recently emerged as an arts- and humanities-focused approach to aging research. Despite growing appeal and applications, however, IGS methods, practices, and foundational concepts remain indistinct. In response to such heterogeneity, our objective was to comprehensively describe the state of IGS in aging research and assess the critical (e.g., conceptual, ethical, and social justice) issues raised by its current practice. Six databases (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, AgeLine, and Sociological Abstracts) were searched using search terms relating to _age_, (...) _intergenerational_, _story_, and _storytelling_. Peer-reviewed, English-language studies conducted with participants residing in non-clinical settings were included. One thousand one hundred six (1106) studies were initially retrieved; 70 underwent full review, and 26 fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Most studies characterized IGS as a practice involving older adults (> 50 years old) and conventionally-aged postsecondary/college students (17–19 years old). Typical methodologies included oral and, in more recent literature, digital storytelling. Critical issues included inconsistently reported participant data, vast variations in study design and methods, undefined key concepts, including _younger_ vs. _older_ cohorts, _generation_, _storytelling_, and whether IGS comprised an intentional _research method_ or a retrospective _outcome_. While IGS holds promise as an emerging field of arts- and humanities-based aging research, current limitations include a lack of shared data profiles and comparable study designs, limited cross-cultural representation, and insufficiently intersectional analysis of widespread IGS practices. To encourage more robust standards for future study design, data collection, and researcher reflexivity, we propose seven evidence-based recommendations for evolving IGS as a humanities-based approach to research in aging and intergenerational relations. (shrink)

In this paper, according to the perspective of customers and products, by using clustering analysis and association rule technology, this paper proposes a cross-marketing model based on an improved sequential pattern mining algorithm, where an improved algorithm AP is applied. The algorithm can reduce the time cost of constructing a projection database and the influence of the increase of support on the algorithm efficiency. The improved idea is that when the first partition is used to generate the projection database, the (...) number of itemsets in the projection database is sorted from small to large, and when the second partition is used, the sequence patterns are generated directly from the mined sequence patterns, so as to reduce the construction of the database. The experimental results show that this method can quickly mine the effective information in complex data sets, improve the accuracy and efficiency of data mining, and occupy less memory consumption, which has good theoretical value and application value. (shrink)

Increasingly, taxonomies are being developed and used by industry practitioners to facilitate information interoperability and retrieval. Within a single industrial domain, there exist many taxonomies that are intended for different applications. Industry specific taxonomies often represent the vocabularies that are commonly used by the practitioners. Their jobs are multi-faceted, which include checking for code and regulatory compliance. As such, it will be very desirable if industry practitioners are able to easily locate and browse regulations of interest. In practice, multiple sources (...) of government regulations exist and they are often organized and classified by the needs of the issuing agencies that enforce them rather than the needs of the communities that use them. One way to bridge these two distinct needs is to develop methods and tools that enable practitioners to browse and retrieve government regulations using their own terms and vocabularies, for example, via existing industry taxonomies. The mapping from a single taxonomy to a single regulation is a trivial keyword matching task. We examine a relatedness analysis approach for mapping a single taxonomy to multiple regulations. We then present an approach for mapping multiple taxonomies to a single regulation by measuring the relatedness of concepts. Cosine similarity, Jaccard coefficient and market basket analysis are used to measure the semantic relatedness between concepts from two different taxonomies. Preliminary evaluations of the three relatedness analysis measures are performed using examples from the civil engineering and building industry. These examples illustrate the potential benefits of regulatory usage from the mapping between various taxonomies and regulations. (shrink)

ObjectiveWe wished to explore Parkinson's disease subtypes by clustering analysis based on the multimodal magnetic resonance imaging indices amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and gray matter volume. Then, we analyzed the differences between PD subtypes.MethodsEighty-six PD patients and 44 healthy controls were recruited. We extracted ALFF and GMV according to the Anatomical Automatic Labeling partition using Data Processing and Analysis for Brain Imaging software. The Ward linkage method was used for hierarchical clustering analysis. DPABI was employed to compare differences in ALFF (...) and GMV between groups.ResultsTwo subtypes of PD were identified. The “diffuse malignant subtype” was characterized by reduced ALFF in the visual-related cortex and extensive reduction of GMV with severe impairment in motor function and cognitive function. The “mild subtype” was characterized by increased ALFF in the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and sensorimotor cortex, and a slight decrease in GMV with mild impairment of motor function and cognitive function.ConclusionHierarchical clustering analysis based on multimodal MRI indices could be employed to identify two PD subtypes. These two PD subtypes showed different neurodegenerative patterns upon imaging. (shrink)

In this study, the levels of knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of research misconduct were investigated among the Pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia. A cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire was carried out. A total of 393 pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia were involved. Perceived research misconduct, as defined in this study as the perception of any research misconduct performed or observed by the respondents at their institution, was captured and further analyzed. The data was analysed using PLS-SEM to (...) assess the hypotheses which were formulated prior to the survey. The findings show that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between the awareness of terminologies regarding research misconduct and perceived research misconduct in the workplace of respondents. However, the acceptance of unethical practices in research demonstrates a negative correlation with perceived research misconduct. Knowledge and awareness regarding research misconduct have no statistically significant relationship with perceived research misconduct in this study. Both awareness of terminologies and acceptance of unethical practices explained a 10.8% variance in perceived research misconduct. Therefore, our study indicates that the awareness, knowledge, and acceptance of research misconduct might not be the main predictors of questionable conduct of research among pharmacy academics and students. Future study on the relationship between other factors which might contribute to research misconduct is highly recommended to investigate the significant contributing factors of irresponsible conduct of research among the Pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia. (shrink)

This article examines the intersections of Confucian philosophy and feminist ethics of care. It explains the origins and contribution of care ethics to modern ethical discourse and the controversy that surrounds this ethical theory. The article discusses the emergence of comparative research on the compatibility (or incompatibility) of Confucian ren and feminist care. It first explores the question whether it is philosophically feasible to disassociate Confucian ren from its historical context by deploying it for contemporary feminist debates, especially considering that, (...) strictly speaking, no direct counterpart in the original Confucian texts is an exact match to the words “care” or “caring.” Following this exploration, the article investigates what ren is and whether Confucian ren is feminist care, what the “No Exit” Objection and the “Domesticity” Objection are, and how ren or caring in Confucian philosophy can answer these objections. The article concludes with an affirmation of the social transformative power of ren and its feminist potential. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is to examine the determinants of CEO compensation in the UK public listed companies. Our analysis, based on the sample drawn from the FTSE100 constituent firms, suggest that firm financial performance measured by return of assets (ROA), influence CEO compensation with the impact being most pronounced for the CEO total compensation. Results further suggest that corporate governance characteristics such as board size and CEO role duality have direct implications for CEO compensation. These attributes, however, (...) differentially determine the various components of CEO compensation. Although the results of this research help to elucidate the importance of corporate outcomes, board attributes and CEO traits in explaining the determinants of CEO compensation in the UK public listed companies, these findings have important economic implications for the corporate sector, regulators, investors, market analysts, academics and the public, which extend beyond the UK market. (shrink)

How would feminist concerns fare in the debate between Confucian role ethics and virtue ethics? Ann Pang-White sketches the contours of a non-dichotomous, role-based virtue ethics that is illuminated by a Confucian feminist account as one possible answer to this query. By reimagining the virtues of chastity and filiality that are indispensable to Confucian contexts, Pang-White seeks to develop a reading that can be useful in defending feminist values and replacing outdated understandings of gender roles in societies informed (...) by Confucian thought today. In continuing the conversation with her, Stephen Angle asks whether a modernized, relational, role-based virtue ethics can really suffice to respond to feminist concerns. Sarah Mattice proposes that Pang-White center intersectional perspectives on feminism for the latter’s project, while Lily Zhang invites her to analyze how certain ethical conflicts that arise within the framework of Confucian ethics between roles and virtues can be resolved from Pang-White’s perspective. Pang-White’s reply to the panel reiterates different aspects of her relational role-based virtue ethical reading of Confucian feminism to argue that a better appreciation of the situatedness and imperfections of morality is needed to understand the imperfections that come in with it. _ _. (shrink)

In Chinese philosophy’s encounter with modernity and feminist discourse, Neo-Confucianism often suffered the most brutal attacks and criticisms. In “Neo-Confucians and Zhu Xi on Family and Woman: Challenges and Potentials,” Ann A. Pang-White investigates Song Neo-Confucians’ views (in particular, that of Zhu Xi) on women by examining the Classifi ed Conversations of Zhu Xi (Zhuzi Yulei), the Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsi Lu), Further Reflections on Things at Hand (Xu Jinsi Lu), and other texts. Pang-White also takes (...) a close look at the Song law regarding women’s property rights and the Song educational system. Surprisingly,Zhu exhibited a level of flexibility, though still limited, on these subjects. He was particularly adamant about the importance of women’s education. In addition, even though he opposed the social practice and women’s ownership of dowry (seeing it as a form of commercializing marriage), he did not absolutely oppose women’s property rights. However, his normative and philosophical view on the male/yang and female/yin relationship was less satisfactory. At one place, he used it to illustrate gender equity; at another place, he defended female subordination. Zhu’s social-political teaching on women’s role could benefit from a more consistent development of his metaphysics of li-qi and yin-yang, which can bring new insight to the contemporary feminist “essentialist versus non-essentialist” debate on sex and gender. (shrink)

“I want my leadership to be judged by the impact of our work on the health of two populations: women and the people of Africa.” This is how Dr. Margaret Chan, the current Director-General of the World Health Organization , described her leadership mission. The reason behind this mission is evident. Women and girls constitute 70% of the world’s poor and 80% of the world’s refugees. Gender violence against women aged 15–44 is responsible for more deaths and disability than cancer, (...) malaria, traffic accidents, and war. An estimated 350,000 to 500,000 women still die in childbirth every year. The negative health implications of absolute poverty are worst in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Hence, Chan aims to have the biggest impact on the world’s poorest people. (shrink)

Modern mainstream ethical theories with its overemphasis on autonomy and non-interference have failed to adequately respond to contemporary social problems. A new ethical perspective is very much needed. Thanks to Carol Gilligan's 1982 groundbreaking work, 'In a Different Voice' , we now not only have virtue and communitarian ethicists, but also a group of feminist philosophers, charting a new direction for ethics that tempers modern ethics' obsession with autonomy, contractual rights, and abstract rules. Nel Noddings, in her 'Caring: A Feminine (...) Approach to Ethics and Moral Education', further contributed to this important discussion. In this work, Noddings proposes a new kind of moral ideal. She calls it "caring." Noddings defines "caring," as a direct, felt concern and action from the one-caring toward the well-being of the cared-for. In other words, care is a state of mental engrossment and motivational displacement that impels caring actions for the happiness of the cared-for and it transcends any rule-bound moral judgment. A caring attitude is best manifest in the spontaneous emotive bond of love between a mother and a child. This human relation of unscrutinized maternal love and care should be the model of ethics. Noddings's theory evokes a vigorous debate concerning whether or not the model can withstand rigorous philosophical scrutiny as a stand-alone ethical theory. This paper first discusses the strengths and weaknesses of a pure care ethics. Secondly, it demonstrates why both the Kantian and the Aristotelian attempts are unsatisfactory, and it offers a Confucian solution to the problems of care ethics. It argues that notwithstanding gender-oppressive practices that are at times associated with Confucianism, Confucian ethics of 'ren' (humaneness) is both more compatible with care ethics and is better equipped with conceptual resources than Kantian liberalism or Aristotelian virtue ethics to handle the moral predicament of the postmodern world. The paper demonstrates that care is an inherent element of Confucian 'ren' but that 'ren' is more than Noddings's care. It examines three essential principles that can be extracted from philosophical classical Confucianism: (1) an affectionate and particularistic approach to persons, (2) the mutual conditioning of the two prominent Confucian virtues -- humaneness (ren) and ritual propriety (li), and (3) the inseparability of the familial and the political self. The last section of the paper applies Confucian care ethics to concrete cases such as the geriatric care crisis and the problem of poverty. (shrink)

This paper begins with a question: can concepts generated in the Chinese context in the sociocultural relations of the periphery contribute to the development of the social sciences in the field of Health and Physical Education (HPE) that have their roots in the metropole? Setting the scene in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), a postcolonial city reverted to the rule of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, this paper aims to develop a critical sociology of HPE (...) by having a dialogue among Continental philosophies (e.g., Bourdieu) and Chinese philosophies around embodiment concepts. Although HKSAR is a complex meeting point of Eastern and Western ideologies, the current HPE field tends to focus on Western and ‘scientific’ ways of knowing, such as the measurement of health and physical fitness, and often at the expense of sociocultural perspectives, social justice and diversity and inclusion in HPE. In other words, the (post) positivistic research paradigm underpins the HPE field. This paper argues that in order to reap the benefits of a more holistic health education for academics and students in HPE, it is vital to de-imperialise the positivistic ways of teaching and being in HPE. In doing so, this paper creates a space for Bourdieu’s habitus to meet Chinese perspectives on embodiment to engage in a dialogue for knowledge production that extends the current knowledge base in HPE. (shrink)

The first part of this paper examines the practice of informed treatment decisions in the protective medical system in China today. The second part examines how health care professionals in China perceive and carry out their responsibilities when relaying information to vulnerable patients, based on the findings of an empirical study that I had undertaken to examine the moral experience of nurses in practice situations. In the Chinese medical ethics tradition, refinement [jing] in skills and sincerity [cheng] in relating to (...) patients are two cardinal virtues that health care professionals are required to possess. This notion of absolute sincerity carries a strong sense of parental protectiveness. The empirical findings reveal that most nurses are ambivalent about telling the truth to patients. Truth-telling would become an insincere act if a patient were to lose hope and confidence in life after learning of his or her disease. In this system of protective medical care, it is arguable as to whose interests are being protected: the patient, the family or the hospital. I would suggest that the interests of the hospital and the family members who legitimately represent the patient's interests are being honoured, but at the expense of the patient's right to know. (shrink)

This paper explores the meaning of Confucian de 德 in the Book of Rites 《禮記》. Using intertextual discussions with texts supplemented by the Analects《論語》, the Mengzi 《孟子》, and the Xunzi《荀子》, I argue that ritual and virtue are closely interrelated. Without ritual, virtue is raw. Without virtue, ritual is barren. De’s interrelationship with ritual is central to Confucian ethics. Ritual is constitutive for all Confucian virtues. This central thesis coupled with subsequent features such as de’s aesthetic dimension and thick interpersonal relationships (...) demonstrate that the Confucian de has multilayered meanings that cannot be fully captured by either the contemporary concept of virtue or the Aristotelian idea of arête. (shrink)

In Chinese philosophy’s encounter with modernity and feminist discourse, Neo-Confucianism often suffered the most brutal attacks and criticisms. In “Neo-Confucians and Zhu Xi on Family and Woman: Challenges and Potentials,” Ann A. Pang-White investigates Song Neo-Confucians’ views (in particular, that of Zhu Xi) on women by examining the Classified Conversations of Zhu Xi (Zhuzi Yulei),the Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsi Lu), Further Reflections on Things at Hand (Xu Jinsi Lu), and other texts. Pang-White also takes a close (...) look at the Song law regarding women’s property rights and the Song educational system. Surprisingly, Zhu exhibited a level of flexibility, though still limited, on these subjects. He was particularly adamant about the importance of women’s education. In addition,even though he opposed the social practice and women’s ownership of dowry (seeing it as a form of commercializing marriage), he did not absolutely oppose women’s property rights. However, his normative and philosophical view on the male/yang and female/yin relationship was less satisfactory. At one place, he used it to illustrate gender equity; at another place, he defended female subordination. Zhu’s social-political teaching on women’s role could benefit from a more consistent development of his metaphysics of li-qi and yin-yang , which can bring new insight to the contemporary feminist “essentialist versus non-essentialist” debate on sex and gender. (shrink)

Covering the historical, social, political, and cultural contexts, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender presents a comprehensive overview of the complexity of gender disparity in Chinese thought and culture. -/- Divided into four main sections, an international group of experts in Chinese Studies write on Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist approaches to gender relations. Each section includes a general introduction, a set of authoritative articles written by leading scholars and comprehensive bibliographies, designed to provide the non-specialist with a (...) practical and broad overview. Beginning with the Ancient and Medieval period before moving on to Modern and Contemporary approaches, specially commissioned chapters include Pre-Qin canonical texts, women in early Chinese ethics, the yin-yang gender dynamic and the Buddhist understanding of the conception of gender. Considering why the philosophy of women and gender dynamics in Chinese thought is rarely confronted, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender is a pioneering cross-disciplinary introduction to Chinese philosophy's intersection with gender studies. -/- By bridging the fields of Chinese philosophy, religion, intellectual history, feminism, and gender studies, this cutting-edge volume fills a great need in the current literature on Chinese philosophy and provides student and scholars with an invaluable research resource to a growing field. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-bloomsbury-research-handbook-of-chinese-philosophy-and-gender-97814 72569851/#sthash.vFg3oUPk.dpuf. (shrink)

This paper reports part of a longitudinal research project, which sought to capture students’ conceptualization of caring practice as they progressed to different levels of study in a nursing diploma programme in Hong Kong. Model emulation was found to be an effective means of focusing students’ learning processes on the moral aspects of nursing practice. The theory of model emulation from a Chinese perspective and how it is applied to create a learning context to allow students to acquire a moral (...) sense of nursing are discussed. The participating students are invited to be sincere enquirers in the pursuit of the good embedded in practice through introspective self-examination and dialogue. They are asked to describe and share their experience of positive and negative examples of nursing in written accounts. Van Kaam’s phenomenological method was adopted to explicate the good and bad constituents of nursing from these examples, with the students assuming an active role in the explication process. The explication reveals that the students were able to articulate the good and bad practices in a variety of patient care situations. (shrink)

Readings in Chinese Women's Philosophical and Feminist Thought gathers 40 original writings on women by 32 authors (many of whom are women) from the Yuan dynasty to the Republics, an important 700-year historical period during which women's learning in China blossomed as a result of economic prosperity, the development of commercial printing, and the interaction between East and West. -/- Selections are made not only from canonical texts on women's virtues, but also from less orthodox literary works such as plays, (...) poetry, novels, essays, and revolutionary writings that illuminate the lived experience of women and the perception of gender. With many texts translated into English for the first time, this reader provides the context needed to understand them. It features: -/- - Chronologically organized readings in the sequence of the Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties, and the Republics to demonstrate historical progression of thought (or the lack of) - Introductions to each section and chapter covering essential information about the authors and the cultural, historical, and philosophical background to their work - A chronology of dynasties, Republics, key events, and a map -/- Recovering discourse so often neglected in discussion of Chinese thought, this is the first collection to pay special attention to women-authored works from the late 13th to the early 21st century. By bringing these readings together in a single volume, it juxtaposes and compares female and male perspectives from the same time and creates a new narrative of Chinese philosophical thought. (shrink)

Confucian scholars often reference the Yijing 《易經》 (the Classic of Changes), the Liji 《禮記》 (Records of Rituals), and other classics in their advocacy for female chastity. Perplexingly, vocabulary that suggests extremism, which often results in self-imposed – or public sanctioned – suicide, starvation, or physical disfigurement of women during the pre-modern China and the early republic, either does not appear or rarely appears in the Yijing or other early Confucian canons. In these early texts, both zhen 貞 and jie 節 (...) have multiple meanings. Neither term is confined to a specific gender. This fact suggests that the original meanings of zhen and jie in the Yijing, composed around 1046 BCE–771 BCE, had likely been altered and radicalized in later times. I use word frequency analysis, examination of hexagrams, and the method of intertextuality to expose and deconstruct interpretive contradictions and attempt to restore these concepts to their original meaning without distortion. (shrink)

This paper presents a refreshing new reading of Augustine's view on matter. It argues that Augustine's evolving view on matter from the negative to the positive, from the overly simplistic understanding of matter as something purely physical to a nuanced view of spiritual matter, played an essential role in the Confessions. Matter, in this new understanding, accounts for both space and time. As Augustine matured as a thinker, he saw matter's potentiality also positively as possibility for grace for the embodied (...) self and that which creates the depth of our being. Augustine owed this nuanced view of matter partly to its Plotinian origin but he modified it with his lived experience of faith. (shrink)

BackgroundProfessional ethics is the regulation and discipline of nurses’ daily nursing work. Nurses often encounter various ethical challenges and problems in their clinical work, but there are fe...

James Wetzel in his recent book argues that Augustine's statements in 'Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum' (hereafter, 'C2EP'), especially that "(t)he apostles...were free from consent to evil desire," directly contradict his long-held anti-Pelagian thesis. For in 'C2EP' and his other anti-Pelagian works, Augustine apparently defends the thesis that in this earthly life every human being consents to concupiscence daily. Thus, all need God's forgiveness daily. This is, Augustine argues, the true meaning of the Lord's Prayer. But this seems to contradict Augustine's (...) statement that the apostles "were free from consent to evil desire." By distinguishing different ways that an agent consents to concupiscence, the author argues that this seeming contradiction can be removed. Consequently, Augustine is consistent in his polemic against the Pelagians. (shrink)

One INTRODUCTION: IN SEARCH OF THE VOICES OF NURSES IN CHINA Two motives launched this study to search for the voices of nurses in China. ...

What is the role of pleasure in Chinese intellectual traditions? Do Chinese thinkers shun all desire for pleasure? Contrary to received opinion, The Chinese Pleasure Book illustrates and argues that early Chinese thinkers across traditions, from the fourth century BCE to the eleventh century CE, all assume that pleasure-seeking and pleasure-taking are part of the human condition and that it is right to engage in such actions. The volume is an ambitious project and Nylan has done a superb job.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 149-165.