v. 1. Insa p'yŏn -- v. 2. Ch'ŏnmun p'yŏn.

Tasan Chong Yagyong (1762-1836) is one of the most creative thinkers Korea has ever produced, one of the country's first Christians, and a leading scholar in Confucian philosophy. Born in a staunchly Neo-Confucian society, in his early twenties he encountered writings by Catholic missionaries in China and was fascinated. However, when he later learned that the Catholic Church condemned the Confucian practice of placing a spirit tablet on a family altar to honor past generations, he left the small Catholic community (...) he had helped found and ostensibly returned to the Neo-Confucian fold. Nevertheless, the Christian ideas he studied in his youth influenced his thinking for the rest of his life, stimulating him to look at Neo-Confucianism with a critical eye and suggest new solutions to problems Confucian scholars had been addressing for centuries. A Korean Confucian's Advice on How to Be Moral is an annotated translation of Tasan's commentaries on the Confucian classic Zhongyong (usually translated as The Doctrine of the Mean) in which he applies both Confucianism and Christianity to the question of how to best develop a moral character. Written as a dialogue with King Chongjo, (r. 1776-1800) these texts reveal how Tasan interpreted his Confucian tradition, particularly its understanding of how human beings could cultivate morality, while the king's questions illustrate the mainstream Neo-Confucianism Tasan was reacting against. Tasan challenged the non-theistic standard, insisting that living a moral life is not easy and that we need to be motivated to exert the effort necessary to overcome our selfish tendencies. He had abandoned his faith by the time he wrote these commentaries but, influenced by Catholic works and determined to find a more effective way to live a moral life than non-theistic Neo-Confucianism provided, Tasan constructed a Confucian philosophy of moral improvement centered on belief in God. This translation, helpfully annotated for context and analysis, is an exploration of early Korean engagement with the West and a powerful guide to all those interested in Confucianism, Christianity, and morality. (shrink)

The use of racial categories in biomedicine has had a long history in the United States. However, social hierarchy and discrimination, justified by purported scientific differences, has also plagued the history of racial categories. Because “race” has some correlation with biological and genetic characteristics, there has been a call not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” by eliminating race as a research or clinical category. I argue that race is too undefined and fluid to be useful as a (...) proxy for biology or genetics. (shrink)

This study investigated the effects of music therapy and pictorial illustration on the attention span of children with mild intellectual difficulties. A pre-test, post-test and control group quasi-experimental research design was used with a sample of children diagnosed with mild intellectual disability from three special schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. Fifty children were randomly selected and assigned to one of three groups: music therapy, pictorial illustration, or control. Twenty-four sessions of music therapy and pictorial illustration classes were held with the experimental (...) group only. The Moss Attention Rating Scale was used before and after the intervention to collect data on participants’ attention span. Analysis of Covariance indicated that there was a significant statistical difference between pre-test and post-test results of the two groups. The estimated marginal means of post-attention span by treatment indicated that pictorial illustration had the highest post-attention span score, followed by music therapy, while post-attention span score for the control group was the least. Based on the findings, it is recommended that teachers, caregivers, and parents of children with mild intellectual disability adopt pictorial illustration and music therapy as teaching strategies to enhance their attention span. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra has presented an objection to the co-intension problem. According to this objection, the examples of properties often cited to motivate the co-intension problem are actually relational properties, and so turn out not to be co-intensional. In this essay, I want to revisit Rodriguez-Pereyra’s objection and explain why I find it defective.

A collection of Chogyam Trungpa's early teachings in North America--on buddha nature, emptiness, the feminine principle, and the three bodies of enlightenment. At the beginning of a North American teaching career that would span seventeen years, the meditation master Chogyam Trungpa conducted five pivotal seminars covering various dharmic topics. The transcripts from these seminars are collected here so that readers can experience them right at home. Comprising twenty-six talks in total, each one followed by a Q&A, Glimpses of the Profound (...) is sure to provoke glimpses of all kinds: glimpses that inspire you to look further, glimpses that give you confidence, glimpses that upset the apple cart, glimpses that open your heart, glimpses that undermine falsity, glimpses that awaken you to your boundless potential. This book was originally published as four separate volumes by Vajradhatu Publications. Judith L. Lief has written a new introduction. (shrink)

This fortieth anniversary edition features a new afterword by Samuel Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Publications.

The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea, a pioneering study of Chŏng Chedu (Hagok, 1649-1736) and Korean Yangming Neo-Confucianism, includes an annotated translation of the Chonŏn, Hagok's most important work on self-cultivation, and a comprehensive introduction to his life, scholarship, and thought.

朝鮮社会に流れ続けた儒教的民本主義思想の地下水が生み出した独自の近代思想とは?日本的・近代主義的な政治思想史では理解されえ...