Through an example of the prohibition against dating in a technical school in southwest China in 1978, this article analyzes how three intersecting forces - the ideology of socialist collectivism, the structure of the work unit system and the socialist sovereign ownership of the body - account for sexual repression in the Maoist period in China. Rather than being an ahistorical, essential component of Maoist socialism, sexual repression (psychic and social) was a historically specific and complex phenomenon. The transformation of (...) sexual repression at a historical moment took the form of an assemblage of the return of love discourse and an emergent desire-centered subjectivity in the great transformation from Maoist socialism to the post-Mao reform period. (shrink)

Through an example of the prohibition against dating in a technical school in southwest China in 1978, this article analyzes how three intersecting forces - the ideology of socialist collectivism, the structure of the work unit system and the socialist sovereign ownership of the body - account for sexual repression in the Maoist period in China. Rather than being an ahistorical, essential component of Maoist socialism, sexual repression (psychic and social) was a historically specific and complex phenomenon. The transformation of (...) sexual repression at a historical moment took the form of an assemblage of the return of love discourse and an emergent desire-centered subjectivity in the great transformation from Maoist socialism to the post-Mao reform period. (shrink)

Confucian ethics play a pivotal role in guiding Chinese thinking and behaviour. Aesthetic leadership is emerging as a promising paradigm in leadership studies. This study investigates the practice of aesthetic leadership in Chinese organizations on the basis of Chinese philosophical foundations. We adopt a process perspective to access the aesthetic constellation of meanings present in the Chinese understanding of leadership, linking normative Confucian values to a pragmatic value rational world view, that rests on an ontology of vaguely defined norms that (...) are malleable to different cultural contexts. Value rational pragmatism is explored in order to develop a deeper understanding of normative aesthetic leadership in China and to contrast it to instrumental aesthetic leadership. We empirically demonstrate the contextual specificity of aesthetic leadership in eight Chinese private- and state-owned enterprises (POEs and SOEs) through qualitative case studies. The findings provide a deeper insight into Chinese aesthetic leadership by proposing a dynamic leadership approach, from both ethical and instrumental perspectives, in the Chinese context. (shrink)

This paper raises an underappreciated paradox for classical theism. Love seems to be an inherently biased and partial relation. Justice seems to require the opposite, detached impartiality (think of the attributes of the just judge). But if these are conceptual facts, then classical theism is guilty of ascribing inconsistent attributes to God: perfect love and perfect justice. I resolve this paradox in a manner that weighs in favor of the principle of divine simplicity.

This book is an exploration of interrelationships among culture, language, and the individual unconscious (the "dark matter of the mind”), how these feed into a sense of self, and implications for the notion of "human nature.” The first part of the book is concerned with perceptual and cultural bases of dark matter and the effect of dark matter on perception (especially vision) and the interpretation of discourse. The second part is concerned with the contribution of dark matter to language--with language (...) viewed as a combination of speech and gesture, and including issues related to translation. In the final part Everett addresses implications of his account, summarizing and extending arguments for replacing an instinct-based account of human nature with a culturally-based, dark matter view of the "constructed self.” Everett makes a powerful argument for the influence of culture on unconscious forces that underlie human behavior and the individual’s sense of self, with much of the power of the argument coming from the deep insights he gained from living and working with the Pirahãs of the Amazon. This is an important book that sits at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and it is enriched by a combination of the author’s knowledge of these fields and his cross-cultural perspective. The book will make an important contribution to newly emerging directions taken by cognitive science. After decades of a field derailed by ethnocentric, instinct-based views of language and the mind, the cognitive sciences need such informed analyses of the relationship between culture, cognition, and language, as embodied in speech and gesture. (shrink)

In this chapter, we outline the interdisciplinary contributions that philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience have provided in the understanding of the self and identity, focusing on one specific line of burgeoning research: the importance of morality to perceptions of self and identity. Of course, this rather limited focus will exclude much of what psychologists and neuroscientists take to be important to the study of self and identity (that plethora of self-hyphenated terms seen in psychology and neuroscience: self-regulation, self-esteem, self-knowledge, self-concept, self-perception, (...) and more). We will likewise not engage with many canonical philosophical treatments of self and identity. But we will lay out a body of research that brings together classic themes in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to raise empirically tractable philosophical questions, and philosophically rigorous empirical questions about self and identity. More specifically, in section 4.2, we will review some recent research that has treated traditional philosophical questions about self and identity as empirical questions. Within this body of work, we will be primarily concerned with the finding that morality (more so than memory) is perceived to be at the core of self and identity. Then, in section 4.3, we raise and respond to a variety of questions and criticisms: first, about the operationalization of identity concepts in the empirical literature; second, about the generalizability of the moral self effect; third, about the direction of change; fourth, about connections with recent work in neuroscience; and fifth, about the target of evaluation. Finally, in section 4.4, we consider a variety of implications and applications of this work on the moral self. Throughout, we aim to highlight connections between classical themes in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, while also suggesting new directions for interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, “what makes a person the same over time?” as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, following Strohminger & Nichols (2014), has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of evidence supporting these findings, a critique by (...) Starmans & Bloom (2018) suggests that this research program conflates personal identity with mere similarity. To address this criticism, we explore how loss of someone’s morality or memories influence perceptions of identity change, and perceptions of moral duties towards the target of the change. We present participants with a classic ‘body switch’ thought experiment and after assessing perceptions of identity persistence, we present a moral dilemma, asking participants to imagine that one of the patients must die (Study 1) or be left alone in a care home for the rest of their life (Study 2). Our results highlight the importance of the continuity of moral character, suggesting lay intuitions are tracking (something like) personal identity, not just mere similarity. (shrink)

In two recent papers, Michael Della Rocca accuses Descartes of reasoning circularly in the Fourth Meditation. This alleged new circle is distinct from, and more vicious than, the traditional Cartesian Circle arising in the Third Meditation. We explain Della Rocca’s reasons for this accusation, showing that his argument is invalid.

This book reinterprets classical Chinese philosophical tradition along the conceptual line of human dignity. Through extensive textual evidence, it illustrates that classical Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism contained rich notions of dignity, which laid the foundation for human rights and political liberty in China, even though, historically, liberal democracy failed to grow out of the authoritarian soil in China. The book critically examines the causes that might have prevented the classical schools from developing a liberal tradition, while affirming their positive contributions (...) to the human dignity concept. Analysing the inadequacies of the western concept of human dignity, the text covers relevant teachings of Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi (in comparison with Rousseau). While the Confucian notions of humanity (Ren), righteousness (Yi), and gentleman (Junzi) bear most directly on the conception of dignity, Mohism and Daoism provide salutary corrections to the ossification of the orthodox Confucian practice (Li). (shrink)

Truth pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property. The strong version of it (i.e. strong pluralism) further contends that no truth property is shared by all true propositions. In this paper, I help strong pluralism solve two pressing problems concerning mixed discourse: the problem of mixed inferences (PI) and the problem of mixed compounds (PC). According to PI, strong pluralism is incompatible with the truth- preservation notion of validity; according to PC, strong pluralists cannot find (...) any appropriate truth property for mixed compound propositions, whose atomic constituents are from different domains of discourse (e.g., <sky is blue and chocolate is tasty>). I argue that the strong pluralist is motivated to take the truth predicate in truth-involving universal statements to be deflationary to avoid the two pressing problems. Such a move entails that the truth predicate in the platitude of validity (V) for any argument, it is valid if and only if necessarily its conclusion is true when its premises are all true does not denote any substantive truth property. Instead, it is merely an expressive device to help people generalize instances of (V) to (V). Analogous stories hold for the truth predicate in the platitudes of compound (e.g., conjunction). The upshot is that, the strong pluralist can solve PI and PC by further conceding that mixed compounds are true/false in a deflationary way. (shrink)

Tianyi Zhang offers in this study an innovative philosophical reconstruction of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī's (d. 1191) Illuminationism. Commonly portrayed as either a theosophist or an Avicennian in disguise, Suhrawardīappears here as an original and hardheaded philosopher who adopts mysticism only as a tool of philosophical inquiry. Zhang makes use of Plato's cave allegory to explain Suhrawardī's Illuminationist project. Focusing on three areas-the theory of presential knowledge, the ontological discussion of mental considerations, and Light Metaphysics-Zhang convincingly reveals the (...) Nominalist and Existential nature of Illuminationism, and thereby proposes a new way of understanding how Suhrawardī's central philosophical ideas cohere. (shrink)

中国儒学缄默维度是在语言关闭的缄默中，转向静的深度体证，具有渊与根两个特征，集约表达为“藏心于渊，美厥灵根”，诗意表达为“氤氲一气似初春”。本书从孔子观周见金人“三缄其口”开始，以方以智证成太极丸春结 束，选取颜回、言偃、扬雄、周敦颐、朱熹、杨简、文天祥、王阳明及其后学胡直与万廷言、刘宗周、王夫之等重要儒者，溯源至孟子、《易传》、庄子、屈原四个先秦流派的展开与互动，围绕罕言与雅言、深静与真动、冲然与 恬愉、主静与持敬、艺术大美与道德至善等重点问题，挖掘中国儒学缄默维度的深蕴及特质，并展望其在现代语境的展开，重写中国儒学史。.

SynopsisThe response to physics and chemistry which characterized mid-nineteenth century physiology took two major directions. One, found most prominently among the German physiologists, developed explanatory models which had as their fundamental assumption the ultimate reducibility of all biological phenomena to the laws of physics and chemistry. The other, characteristic of the French school of physiology, recognized that physics and chemistry provided potent analytical tools for the exploration of physiological activities, but assumed in the construction of explanatory models that the organism (...) involved special levels of organization and that there must, in consequence, be special biological laws.The roots of this argument about concept formation in physiology are explored in the works of Theodor Schwann, Johannes Müller, François Magendie and Claude Bernard among others. (shrink)

In his paper, “A Causal Argument for Physicalism” (Zhong, 2023), Zhong presents a novel argument for non-reductive physicalism (which he calls “A2”), based on the causal argument for reductive physicalism (which he calls “A1”), and claims that A2 is better than A1 since the premises in A2 are more plausible than those in A1. In this paper, I will argue that A2 fails to be a sound argument for non-reductive physicalism, or even physicalism per se, because the premises in A2 (...) can be fulfilled by the kind of dualism which claims that the physical event (P), the mental event (M), and their effect (E) form a causal chain and that P and M are simultaneous causes. Also, I will argue that we do have ways to strengthen A2 to block the aforementioned problem. But the only plausible way to strengthen the argument is to appeal to the conservation of energy and momentum. And this favors A1 more than A2. So, I conclude that A2 is not better than A1, and a causal argument for physicalism still naturally favors reductive physicalism. (shrink)

With the development of teachers’ psychological cognition, the moral education curriculum develops as per the changes in times. Currently, a resurgence of interest on studying teachers’ perceptions of the moral education curriculum has observed. This is because moral education curriculum of each country plays a unique role in the overall design of the country’s education curriculum. However, studies on teachers’ perceptions of the moral education curriculum are scarce, and no framework has been developed to guide the teaching and learning of (...) teachers for the moral education curriculum for schools. The moral education curriculum serves as one of the main vehicles for value education, with teachers as direct executors. It can influence the overall development of the school system and long-term development of a country. Thus, in this paper, we reviewed current literature related to teachers’ perceptions of the moral education curriculum and developed future trends considering teachers’ perceptions of the moral education curriculum in improving existing moral education programs in a country. We identified a list of keywords related to moral education curriculum and teacher perceptions and relevant to the scope of this study. These keywords were used to search the articles from the Scopus and WoS studies. Overall, 32 papers meeting the search criteria were retrieved. Further, we conducted thematic studies, and four themes were successfully identified: the model of teacher perceptions of moral and national education, the dimensions of the teacher ethics model, teaching strategies, and the role of teachers. The results of this study suggested a new framework for research trends in teachers’ perception models, particularly toward the moral education curriculum. This study contributed to the knowledge regarding teaching and learning approaches of moral education considering teachers’ perceptions of the moral education curriculum. The findings of study would benefit future studies and would improve the implementation of a country’s moral education program. (shrink)

In “Sidgwick on Bentham: the ‘Double Aspect’ of Utilitarianism”, Schofield argued that Bentham did not regard his psychological theory as part of his utilitarianism and that natural benevolence is at his disposal to mitigate the problem of the “double aspect” of utilitarianism. This paper argues that Bentham regarded his psychological theory as part of his utilitarianism and that, in a manner quite distinct from an internal, benevolence approach, he took advantage of self‐preference and thus adopted a self‐preference and artificial means‐based (...) approach, thereby still maintaining an internal approach supported by external, institutional contrivance. In so doing, he argued first that self‐preference could add to the greatest happiness; second, that benevolence would tend to facilitate the achievement of the greatest happiness, with the consequence that he endorsed the artificial cultivation of benevolence; and third, that the artificial means of the junction‐of‐interests‐prescribing principle should be adopted to bridge the gap between self‐preference and the greatest happiness. Sidgwick failed to appreciate the depth and sophistication of Bentham's logic. (shrink)

To understand the qualities of Western civilization and its modernity, to think about the future of humanity, and to understand how modern science was gestated in Western civilization: in the author’s view, these are the most important reasons to do history of science research in China. Study of the history of Western science in China is in its infancy, and there are great deficiencies leading to its lagging behind the international world of scholarship. In this situation, the most urgent task (...) is to translate as soon as possible a batch of high quality and classic books in the field, to establish a basic academic platform for research in the history of science, and, once that foundation has been laid, to deepen our researches further. Given these considerations, this essay discusses why the author translates works on the history of science, how he chooses books for translation, and his experiences as a translator. (shrink)