After a busy day cooking meals, washing clothes, and feeding the pigs, chickens, and ducks, my mother would call to me, "Hey, Little Spring [Hsiao-ch'un, go and get ma's book and bring it here.".

The sources of "knowledge," for Hsün-tzu, came from the realities in objective existence. He took the impressions of these objectively existent realities as his basis of knowledge.

The thirty-three sections of the Chuang Tzu annotated by Kuo Hsiang of the Chin dynasty were published during the period of the Northern Sung dynasty. Meanwhile, a preface allegedly by Kuo Hsiang was also printed in the book. The preface is as follows:Chuang Tzu was a man who had good knowledge of the origins of things in the universe and avoided no fantastic ideas. His remarks are hard to understand yet pertinent to phenomena. Any remark which is hard to understand (...) yet pertinent to phenomena may be true but useless; any remark which touches no actual things may be lofty but impracticable. This is surely different from a reluctant rise after inability. If the mind is free from preoccupations, it will respond to events at any time, and as a result, remarks will be cautious. Adapting himself to changes in the universe, Chuang Tzu was not merely turning out writings in the form of dialogues on things beyond human experience. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

The book entitled the Huang Ti nei ching [Canonical Works of Huang Ti] has two sections - the "Su Wen" section and the "Ling Shu" section - and each section contains eighty-one articles. It was written by several authors in different historical periods. According to historical records and scholars' studies of the content and context of the book, we can roughly say that it was written in the period between the late years of the Warring States era and the early (...) years of the Eastern Han dynasty. Seven articles in the "Su Wen" section were materials from an "older version" and were merged into the book by Wang Fing in the Tang dynasty. They were probably written by scholars in the Eastern Han period or a little later. The two articles on acupuncture and pathology have been proved forgeries made in the Tang-Sung period. They should not have been included in the book because they contain more idealist dregs than do the other articles. (shrink)

Objectives: The N2b is an event-related potential component thought to index higher-order executive function. While the impact of concussion on executive functioning is frequently discussed in the literature, limited research has been done on the role of N2b in evaluating executive functioning in patients with concussion. The aims of this review are to consolidate an understanding of the cognitive functions reflected by the N2b and to account for discrepancies in literature findings regarding the N2b and concussion.Methods: A scoping review was (...) conducted on studies that used the N2b to measure cognitive functioning in healthy control populations, as well as in people with concussions.Results: Sixty-six articles that met inclusion criteria demonstrated that the N2b effectively represents stimulus-response conflict management, response selection, and response inhibition. However, the 19 included articles investigating head injury found widely varied results: some studies found the amplitude of the N2b to be increased in the concussion group, while others found it to be decreased or unchanged.Conclusion: Based on the available evidence, differences in the amplitude of the N2b have been linked to response selection, conflict, and inhibition deficits in concussion. However, due to large variations in methodology across studies, findings about the directionality of this effect remain inconclusive. The results of this review suggest that future research should be conducted with greater standardization and consistency. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed an increase and amplification of anti-Asian racism and violence across the globe. Stop AAPI Hate1 in the United States and the COVID-19 Racism Incident Report2 i...

"An imposing edifice of thought. Every one of its twenty chapters will richly repay careful reading. Those passages dealing with ethics, love, the significance of knowledge, and the meaning of life are hard to surpass." - New York Evening Post The title of this book, Tertium Organum, boldly refers no less to a reorganization of all knowledge, but it is primarily a study of psychology, more specifically the psychology of our higher mind. For Ouspensky what we can call the higher (...) mind represents, within a single person, the development of an entirely new way of understanding. In short, psychology is the art of self-study. With remarkable scope and sophistication, Ouspensky shows us in this book, which has been hailed as "a work of genius," just how vast and strange our universe really is. P. D. [PETYR DEMIANOVICH] OUSPENSKY (1878-1947) was a Russian mathematician and philosopher turned mystic, who combined geometry and psychology in his discussion of higher dimensions of existence. After traveling through Europe and the East, seeking unsuccessfully the world's centers where ancient esoteric knowledge and wisdom are not only preserved, but taught to initiates, he returned to Russia where he met and studied under G.I. Gurdjieff. Ouspensky is today best known for his expositions of the early work of this famous Russian mystic. (shrink)

This article explores intersections between critical theory, Buddhism, and film studies in what Jürgen Habermas characterizes as the current ‘post-secular society’. I use A...

The term 'Asian values' became popular in the political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s. The most vocal proponents of Asian values are Singapore s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia's Mahathir and their deputies and government officials, as well as post-Tiananmen Chinese leaders. Most notable of all these three strands of the Asian values debate is the 'Singapore School', which 'comprises leaders who have articulated a defence of the Singapore regime, either in their personal or official capacities'. This article discusses (...) the origins and philosophical underpinnings of 'Asian values' in the Singapore context and its relationship to civics education. First, it provides the historical context for the interest in Confucianism and Asian Values. It then looks at the role and use of Confucianism and Asian Values in Asia, before discussing the case of Singapore and Asian values. I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of the 'Asian Values' discourse in Singapore which underpins these curricula. At the heart of the issue was the states attempt to forge and articulate a Singaporean identity, and the role of citizenship/moral education in attaining this elusive nation building goal. (shrink)

This article explores the significance of sustainability and several ways in which education for sustainable development can be considered. It presents several issues related to the theories of sustainability and ESD, which are generated based on a firm concept of anthropocentrism. ESD has been used for developing a scientific understanding of the world and is expected to effectively address the environmental damage facing humans. However, this is a narrow view of sustainability, through which learners do not gain an authentic understanding (...) of nature. If the phenomenon of ecological interdependence is true, a non-anthropocentric stance of sustainability is the actual representation required for ESD teaching. Ecological wisdom in Buddhist philosophy indicates that natural sustainability corresponds to human living in harmony with the natural environment, an insight derived particularly from the Buddhist concept of the no-self. Instead of denying the existence of ‘I’, the no-self is the loss of self-preoccupation. This notion highlights the non-dual relation between the self and this world. If I am I and nature is nature, then human sustainability differs from natural sustainability. Only when I am nature and nature is I can natural sustainability translate into human sustainability. This state presents actual sustainability for humans. Regarding ESD, it can be achieved by coming to nature, and learning to see nature in ourselves. As nature does, it comes to all beings, manifesting itself in all beings. (shrink)

Violence has been linked to the co-occurrence of cognitive dysfunction and altered activations in several brain regions. Empirical evidence demonstrated the benefits of acute exercise on motor inhibition and error detection and their neuronal processing. However, whether such effects also hold for the population with violent behaviors remains unknown. This study examined the effects of acute aerobic exercise on inhibitory control and error monitoring among violent offenders. Fifteen male violent offenders were counterbalanced into experimental protocols, which comprised a 30-min moderately (...) aerobic exercise [60% heart rate reserve] and a 30-min reading control session. After each session, participants performed an emotional stop signal task while event-related potentials were recorded simultaneously. Results showed insignificant changes in ERPs components [i.e., N2, P3, error-related negativity, and error-positivity amplitudes] and the behavioral performance in go condition, stop accuracy, and post-error adjustments by exercise. However, the current study demonstrated that the acute exercise facilitated stop signal reaction time when compared to the control session regardless of emotional conditions. This is the first research to exhibit the improvements in inhibitory performance by acute exercise for violent offenders. Most importantly, this effect was independent of affective settings, expanding the existing knowledge of the influences of acute exercise on cognition. Our findings implicate the perspective of acute exercise for clinical and correctional practices. (shrink)