With a focus on Confucian descriptions, this book carefully examines feeling, value and virtue and reveals the order of the heart by a phenomenological clarification of our personal and interpersonal experience.

Dialogues with Dhanajībāpu, b. 1922, philosopher from Gujarat, India.

Following Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Wang Yangming, this paper investigates the phenomenology of values and moral emotions in Max Scheler and the Confucian learning of heart, especially Wang Yangming. Part I illustrates the meaning of moral emotions in Confucianism and introduces Wang Yangming’s idea of pure knowing . Part II introduces Max Scheler’s idea of a priori value and feeling in order to explain how pure knowing could be both immanent and transcendental, both subjective and objective. Part III explores the (...) phenomena of value and feeling in Confucianism and Wang Yangming, giving a Schelerian interpretation of Wang Yangming’s teaching of four verses. Similar to Max Scheler, Confucian learning of heart affirms the intentional structure between hierarchy of values on the one hand and loving, preferring, and feeling of values on the other hand. This paper intends to clarify the basic structure of Wang Yangming’s thought; therefore, analyses on detailed moral emotions will be left to .. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the relation between shame and a Confucian notion of yi (righteousness, rightness), especially through discussions from Confucius and Mencius. Section one clarifies Mencius’s position that righteousness is both external and internal. Although this idea includes rules, it is primarily something intended by our innate moral feelings. Section two illustrates the point that if one’s action is not right (yi), the feeling of shame spontaneously arises and motivates a self-correction. This section also clarifies the difference between the idea (...) of shame in Max Scheler and in Confucian thought. Section three compares absolute yi with general li (ritual propriety) as well as the roles that shame and duty play in relation to ren (primarily humane love). (shrink)

This paper analyzes the relation between shame and a Confucian notion of yi, especially through discussions from Confucius and Mencius. Section one clarifies Mencius’s position that righteousness is both external and internal. Although this idea includes rules, it is primarily something intended by our innate moral feelings. Section two illustrates the point that if one’s action is not right, the feeling of shame spontaneously arises and motivates a self-correction. This section also clarifies the difference between the idea of shame in (...) Max Scheler and in Confucian thought. Section three compares absolute yi with general li as well as the roles that shame and duty play in relation to ren. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on analyzing the manifestation and significance of respect. I first illustrate the two meanings of jing 敬 and their connection in Confucian classical texts, which is helpful to understand the Confucian phenomenology of respect. The two meanings are seriousness as a mind-state and respect as an intentional feeling. After clarifying this point, I undertake a phenomenological analysis of respect, in order to show that respect helps one to achieve moral pursuit. This analysis takes the Kantian (...) notion of respect as a starting point but further is accomplished by the phenomenology of value and feeling. The respect for duties and affairs, the respect for personhood and dignity, and the respect for the worthy with merit motivate one to take moral actions. For example, respect contributes in taking one’s duties seriously, appreciating human beings’ spiritual values and good tendencies even when they have not been actualized, supporting the worthy to play a role, and emulating the worthy to make a contribution and serve others. In Subsequently, I clarify how respect helps one to achieve religious pursuit in one form of Christianity, in light of Max Scheler’s discussion on humility and reverence. Through revering God one respects others; through serving God and participating in God’s humble spirit one serves others. I elucidate the Confucian classics’ discussions on religious experience, in order to show how respect helps one to achieve religious pursuit in one form of Confucianism, and how it is similar and different from Max Scheler’s clarification. The concrete relation between respect and li 禮 in the Confucian tradition will be treated in another work. (shrink)

This article is an extension of my previous article, which describes pure knowing as the ability and criteria for making moral judgment.1 Due to apparent contradictions among Wang Yangming's statements, there are controversies over the evaluation and interpretation of Wang's idea of the relation between moral knowledge 2 and moral action. Generally, on the one hand, Wang admits that there are people who commit wrong actions even though they recognize that these actions are wrong. He claims not only that sages (...) possess pure knowing, but also that robbers feel ashamed to be called "robbers" through the working of pure knowing.3 On the other hand, he explicitly states that "There have never... (shrink)

This paper will investigate the phenomenology of shame with referring to Max Scheler’s description of the phenomenon and to the tradition of Confucianism. Section I explores the conflict between spirit, life and pleasure in the experience of shame. Shame implies a hierarchy of value, and it is felt when there is a conflict among different values and when the agent intends to sacrifice a higher value for a lower one. Shame also takes place when one is treated by others as (...) a mere object or merely as a sensuous being rather than a spiritual being possessing personal dignity. Section II clarifies the problem of destructive shame and humiliation. While genuine shame is indispensable for a person as such, wrongly felt shame is destructive to the cultivation of virtue. Differences between shame and humiliation and how one should treat humiliation will also be reexamined. (shrink)

The main goals of this paper are two. First, it articulates what kinds of knowing pure knowing is in its narrow sense pure knowing as the capacity of moral judgment; pure knowing as moral knowledge and standard. Besides, it analyses pure knowing’s different features through a phenomenological description. All these aspects of pure knowing are tied by moral feeling. Second, this paper addresses two sets of theoretical problems that have been raised in Confucian discourse with respect to pure knowing and (...) Heavenly principle, primarily those that render Wang’s notion of pure knowing to be static recognition toward particular moral issues, or immediate response, which reading cannot really admit the possibilities of extension, reflection, moral cultivation, and reform of institution; and those that understand pure knowing to be merely abstract without concrete content, such as merely being a metaphysical substance. When properly understood, that is, from the perspective of moral emotions, Wang Yangming’s account of pure knowing provides for the possibilities of enhancement and cultivation, while insisting that the content of pure knowing is always accessible to us. (shrink)

Based on the text Zhong Yong 中庸, this article clarifies the phenomenological experience of genuineness. The Introduction presents the discussion of genuineness-substance from Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, pointing out their omission of the concrete activity of genuineness. Section 2 explains concepts such as ti 體, the endowment of Heaven, the original nature, right, norm, with an indication that genuineness denotes keeping and developing an original status. Section 3 then shows that the original status of human nature is (...) the endowment of emotion, reason, will, and so on, and the original status of the Heavenly way is the tendency of [ceaseless] growing. Under a holistic view, Section 4 expounds in detail the meaning of the statements “from genuineness to illumination” and “from illumination to genuineness” by making use of the distinction between nascent genuineness and refined genuineness. Section 5 reveals the creativity of genuineness in terms of the activating effect, which is caused by human beings’ exertion of their potentials. From the perspective of Zhong Yong, this section also demonstrates the inner logic by which Neo-Confucianism is developed and differentiated into the learning of the heart-mind and the learning of pattern. This section also examines whether or not Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 doctrine is unorthodox, as Mou Zongsan proposes. (shrink)

This paper specifically deals with the relation between respect and li禮in the Confucian context. Li has both negative and positive sources. On the positive level, ritual propriety enables one to ex...

This article investigates and compares Max Scheler’s and Wang Yangming’s analyses of the disorder of the heart as the inversion of values. Both Scheler and Wang affirm an objective hierarchy of val...

Semantics (philosophy) knowledge theory of truth.

A growing group of Chinese students is returning to China following graduation, especially young returnees. This group is seen as one of the most innovative sectors of Chinese society. Based on the theory of planned behavior and three kinds of capital theories, this study explores entrepreneurial intention and its influencing factors among Newly Returned Chinese International Students. A survey of 211 NRCIS showed a low level of EI and little knowledge of supporting policies about entrepreneurship. Influencing factors included culture harmony (...) as culture capital, overseas social networks as social capital, and foreign entrepreneurship education and foreign language proficiency as human capital. Attitude mediated the effects of foreign language proficiency, culture harmony, and foreign entrepreneurship education on EI. Perceived behavior control mediated the effect of foreign language proficiency, Chinese language proficiency, culture harmony, foreign entrepreneurship education, domestic entrepreneurship education, and overseas social networks on EI, and subjective norms have no significant mediating effect in any mediation path. Based on these findings, policymakers could pay attention to examining whether the current policies are working and accessible for NRCIS, and domestic entrepreneurship education could keep cultivating students' cross-cultural communication and understanding abilities, and society and education sectors could encourage positive cognition of entrepreneurship and guide students to form a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship and enhance their confidence. (shrink)

Biography of ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ʻAyn al-Quḍāh al-Hamadhānī, d. 1131, a Muslim saint from Iran.

Euthanasia in China is gaining increasing acceptance among physicians, intellectuals, and even the people. This paper surveys current attitudes towards euthanasia and suggests why it should be legalized.

In this article, we offer a critical realist conception of curriculum that aims to cultivate critical thinking (CT) and liberate students from egocentric rationality. We first examine egocentric rationality as a problem emerging from the technicist paradigm of cultivating CT in higher education, exemplified by issues arising from the pedagogical activity of debate. We then examine existing approaches to cultivating CT, focusing on the extent to which their goals and conceptions of CT could liberate students from egocentric rationality. Drawing on (...) Roy Bhaskar’s stratified conception of being and principle of immanent critique, we offer a critical realist conception of curriculum, explaining its definition of CT as the capacity for self-critique. We shall illustrate, in the context of an undergraduate debate course, how such capacity can be developed in order to liberate students from egocentric rationality. Curriculum is thus a critical praxis, a created space where student’s CT develops in a way that is intrinsically entwined with their being and becoming. This article extends the philosophical basis for integrating CT with curriculum and offers pedagogical implications. (shrink)

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.

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.

Scientific investigation of Jain philosophical thought.