A prominent way of justifying civil disobedience is to postulate a pro tanto duty to obey the law and to argue that the considerations that ground this duty sometimes justify forms of civil disobedience. However, this view entails that certain kinds of uncivil disobedience are also justified. Thus, either a) civil disobedience is never justified or b) uncivil disobedience is sometimes justified. Since a) is implausible, we should accept b). I respond to the objection that this ignores the fact that (...) civil disobedience enjoys a special normative status on account of instantiating certain special features: nonviolence, publicity, the acceptance of legal consequences, and conscientiousness. I then show that my view is superior to two rivals: the view that we should expand the notion of civility and that civil disobedience, expansively construed, is uniquely appropriate; and the view that uncivil disobedience is justifiable in but only in unfavorable conditions. (shrink)

This comprehensive introductory textbook to early Chinese philosophy covers a range of philosophical traditions which arose during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in China, including Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism. It considers concepts, themes and argumentative methods of early Chinese philosophy and follows the development of some ideas in subsequent periods, including the introduction of Buddhism into China. The book examines key issues and debates in early Chinese philosophy, cross-influences between its traditions and interpretations by scholars up (...) to the present day. The discussion draws upon both primary texts and secondary sources, and there are suggestions for further reading. This will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in the foundations of Chinese philosophy and its richness and continuing relevance. (shrink)

Does ‘remembering that p’ entail ‘knowing that p’? The widely-accepted epistemic theory of memory answers affirmatively. This paper purports to reveal the tension between ETM and the prevailing anti-luck epistemology. Central to my argument is the fact that we often ‘vaguely remember’ a fact, of which one plausible interpretation is that our true memory-based beliefs formed in this way could easily have been false. Drawing on prominent theories of misremembering in philosophy of psychology, I will construct cases where the subject (...) vaguely remembers that p while fails to meet the safety condition, which imply either that ETM is false or that safety is unnecessary for knowledge. The conclusion reached in this paper will be a conditional: if veritic epistemic luck is incompatible with knowledge, then ‘remembering that p’ does not entail ‘knowing that p’. (shrink)

Social movements often impose nontrivial costs on others against their wills. Civil disobedience is no exception. How can social movements in general, and civil disobedience in particular, be justifiable despite this apparent wrong-making feature? We examine an intuitively plausible account—it is fair that everyone should bear the burdens of tackling injustice. We extend this fairness-based argument for civil disobedience to defend some acts of uncivil disobedience. Focusing on uncivil environmental activism—such as ecotage (sabotage with the aim of protecting the environment)—we (...) argue that some acts of uncivil disobedience can be morally superior to their civil counterparts, when and because such acts target people who are responsible for environmental threats. Indeed, insofar as some acts of uncivil disobedience can more accurately target responsible people, they can better satisfy the demands of fairness compared to their civil counterparts. In some circumstances, our argument may require activists to engage in uncivil disobedienceeven whencivil disobedience is available. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the unity of several virtues in pre-Qin Confucians. Confucius maintains the proper application and coherence of such virtues as benevolence, wisdom, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, courage, and firmness. Further, Confucius takes benevolence and nobility as characteristic of human being. Particular attention is paid to the distinction and relationship between virtuous characters and virtuous actions.

In this article, we present an account of ming 明 in the Zhuangzi's Neipian in light of the disagreements among the thinkers of the time. We suggest that ming is associated with the Daoist sage's vision: he sees through the debaters' attempts to win the debates. We propose that ming is primarily a meta-epistemological stance, that is, the sage understands the nature of the debates and does not enter the fray; therefore he does not share the thinkers' anxieties. The sage (...) takes his stance at the pivot of dao and, from there, responds to the different views limitlessly. (shrink)

I argue against mnemic reliabilism, an influential view that successful remembering must be produced by a reliable memory process. Drawing on empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience, I refute mnemic reliabilism by demonstrating that: (1) patients with memory impairments (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) can also successfully remember the past despite the unreliability of their corresponding memory processes; (2) some reliability-affecting factors (e.g., stress, divided attention, and insufficient encoding time) can render the memory processes of healthy individuals unreliable without preventing them from (...) occasionally resulting in successful remembering. Potential responses available for mnemic reliabilism are also evaluated. I show that those responses are susceptible to a challenge akin to the generality problem for process reliabilism. (shrink)

It is proposed here that the Confucian li, norms of appropriate behavior, be understood as part of the dynamic process of moral self-cultivation. Within this framework li are multidimensional, as they have different functions at different stages in the cultivation process. This novel interpretation refocuses the issue regarding the flexibility of li, a topic that is still being debated by scholars. The significance of this proposal is not restricted to a new understanding of li. Key features of the various stages (...) of moral development in Confucian thought are also articulated. This account presents the picture of a Confucian paradigmatic person as critically self-aware and ethically sensitive. (shrink)

Learning from Chinese Philosophies engages Confucian and Daoist philosophies in creative interplay, developing a theory of interdependent selfhood in the two philosophical traditions. Karyn Lai draws on the unique insights of the two philosophies to address contemporary debates on ethics, community and government. Issues discussed include questions on selfhood, attachment, moral development, government, culture and tradition, and feminist queries regarding biases and dualism in ethics. Throughout the book, Lai demonstrates that Chinese philosophies embody novel and insightful ideas for addressing contemporary (...) issues and problems. (shrink)

Drawing on the core values of western civilization, the author refines the counterparts in Chinese civilization, summarized as four core principles: duty before freedom, obedience before rights, community before individual, and harmony before conflict. Focusing on guoxue or Sinology as the basis of his approach, the author provides detailed explanations of traditional Chinese values. Recent scholars have addressed the concept of guoxue since the modern age, sorting through it and piecing it together, which has produced an extremely abundant range of (...) information. However, given that the concepts and theories involved have been left largely unanalyzed, this book develops a theoretical treatment of them in several important respects. First, it analyzes the mindset of guoxue, examining the dominant ideas and values of the era from which the term "guoxue" arose, focusing on its connection to early changes and trends in society and culture, and distinguishing three key phases of development. Past scholars mainly had in mind the range of objects studied in guoxue when defining it, and what this book underscores is the meaning of guoxue as a modern body of research. Secondly, it assesses several phases in the modern evolution of the body of guoxue research from the beginning to the end of the 20th century, id est, ending with the later phase of the National Heritage movement. Third and lastly, the book explores the various main modes of modern guoxue, which correspond step by step with the evolutionary phases of guoxue research. (shrink)

Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism—the unauthorized defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols—may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses to let them (...) speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior. (shrink)

The core thesis of anti-luck epistemology is the incompatibility thesis, that is, knowledge is incompatible with veritic epistemic luck. Traditionally, anti-luck epistemologists hold that there are two distinct types of veritic epistemic luck, viz, intervening luck and environmental luck. The former occurs when something luckily intervenes between the subject’s belief and the target fact, which renders the subject’s belief luckily true. The latter can be found in cases where the subject’s belief is luckily true when she is in an unfriendly (...) epistemic environment. This paper purports to show that there is another long-neglected type of veritic epistemic luck—I name it ‘interpretative luck’. It refers to the type of luck occurring when the subject accidentally chooses the correct interpretation of evidence and thus her belief is luckily true. I will demonstrate that no proper reasons can support the incompatibility between interpretative luck and knowledge. Instead, the price for insisting this incompatibility would be unacceptably high. Therefore, the existence of interpretative luck falsifies the incompatibility thesis of anti-luck epistemology. (shrink)

The concepts dao and de in the Daodejing may be evoked to support a distinctive and plausible account of environmental holism. Dao refers to the totality of particulars, including the relations that hold between them, and the respective roles and functions of each within the whole. De refers to the distinctiveness of each particular, realized meaningfully only within the context of its interdependence with others, and its situatedness within the whole. Together, dao and de provide support for an ethical holism (...) that avoids sacrificing individuals for the sake of the whole. The integrity and stability of the whole are important not because the whole is an end-in-itself but because those conditions assist in preserving the well-being of the constituent parts. In other words, the ethical holism supported in the Daodejing does not present individuals and wholes in mutually exclusive terms, but sees them in symbiotic relation, allowing for events to be mutually beneficial, or mutually obstructive, to both. In addition, two other Daoist concepts, wuwei and ziran, provide further support for this construction of holism. If the distinctiveness of particular individuals is valued, then unilateral or reductive norms which obliterate such individuality are inappropriate. In this regard, the methodology of wuwei allows for the idea of individuals developing spontaneously in relation to others. According to this view of holism,individuals manifest and realize their integrity in relation to others in the environmental context, achieving an outcome that is maximally co-possible within those limits, rather than one that is maximally beneficial only for particular individuals. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text, is sceptical about the political culture of its time. Those who debated conceptions of a good life were hostile to the views of others. They were intolerant and at times contemptuous of others who did not embody their values. In contrast to such negativity, the Zhuangzi promotes equanimity. The equanimity of the sagely person is grounded in a balance she maintains between engagement and withdrawal. Engaging critically, she problematises the lack of diversity (...) in their options for a good life. By withdrawing, she refuses to be party to the squabbles that perpetuate intolerance. The paper aims to show how equanimity is possible, thereby articulating a new angle on emotions in the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

This paper is a preliminary study of Bhāviveka’s Svātantrika-Mādhyamika justifications for taking non-existent things as the subject of an inference, based on his Dacheng Zhangzhen Lun. Bhāviveka’s treatment of inference is similar to that of Dignāga in that the subject is required to be existent. Bhāviveka also holds that, in a conventional sense, words refer to universals and to the existent entities that possess them, while the two are cognised together. However, in his inference for the unreality of unconditioned things, (...) he likens these things to a sky-flower that never arises and is unreal even conventionally. This paper first demonstrates how taking unconditioned things as the subject of an inference can be problematic for Bhāviveka. Then, it discusses Bhāviveka’s attempts to address the problems by subsuming the unconditioned things under the domain of conventional reality. The paper concludes that these attempts show his flexibility in terms of what is taken as conventionally real. (shrink)

Confucianism, since the time of Confucius, emphasizes the significance of “practical wisdom” as the realization of philosophy. This approach accentuates the practical aspects of wisdom rather than the analytical rationale of the intellect. Emphasis on practical wisdom persistently reinforces a moral foundation that is not differentiated from personal virtue. At the same time, practical wisdom in Confucianism stresses self-cultivation, or the complete transformation of the self, derived from the internal state of the heart/mind.

Courage is a basic virtue to any heroic society. It is the defining virtue of the aristocratic warrior in the Iliad. It came with a set of other related virtues, all functioning in a social setting unique to that heroic era. However, as society evolved beyond the heroics of war to the civility of settled city–states, courage would be reviewed and redefined. In fact the whole virtue complex would undergo fundamental changes. Still later, when from out of the cities philosophers (...) rose, they would, in their commitment to a higher justice or righteousness than what the city had to offer to date, submit courage to a third critique and transformation. We see this in Greece; we may also see it in China. (shrink)

本书从孔子在当代中国的重新登场开始，以面对世界文化而提出新的哲学观念“多元普遍性”为结束，对儒家思想和儒学传统与现代世界与文化的各种关系进行了深入的分析和讨论。.

本书主要内容包括:史料困境的突破与儒家系谱的重建;郭店竹简《性自命出》篇初探;竹帛《五行》为子思、孟子所作论;竹简《五行》分经解论:《五行》章句简注;竹简《五行》与子思思想研究等.

Demonstrating the limitations of the one-at-a-time approach, crowd initiatives reveal the surprisingly powerful role of analytic and design choices in shaping scientific results. At the same time, cross-cultural variability in effects is far below the levels initially expected. This highlights the value of “medium” science, leveraging diverse stimulus sets and extensive robustness checks to achieve integrative tests of competing theories.

Epistemic absolutism is an orthodox view that propositional knowledge is an ungradable concept. Absolutism is primarily grounded in our ungradable uses of “knows” in ordinary language. This paper advances a thorough objection to the linguistic argument for absolutism. My objection consists of two parts. Firstly, arguments for absolutism provided by Jason Stanley and Julien Dutant will be refuted respectively. After that, two more general refutation-strategies will be proposed: counterevidence against absolutism can be found in both English and non-English languages; the (...) linguistic argument for absolutism is subject to a methodological mistake as the linguistic usages of “knows” cannot accurately reflect its conceptual nature. Therefore, we should give epistemic gradualism, as opposed to absolutism, a more serious consideration. (shrink)

The standard criticisms of Confucian ethics appear contradictory. On the one hand, Confucian ethics is deemed overly rule-bound: it is obsolete because it advocates adherence to ancient Chinese norms of proper conduct. On the other hand, Confucian ethics is perceived as situational ethics—done on the run—and not properly grounded in fundamental principles or norms. I give reasons for these disparate views of Confucian ethics. I also sketch an account of Confucian morality that focuses on moral development; in this account the (...) place of normative ethics is nominal. (shrink)

Many scholars note that the Analects, and Confucian philosophy more generally, hold a conception of knowing that more closely approximates ‘knowing-how’ than ‘knowing-that’. However, I argue that this description is not sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of the early Confucians and their focus on self-cultivation. I propose that a particular conception of knowing—knowing to act in the moment—is better suited to capturing the Analects’ emphasis on exemplary lives in actual contexts. These investigations might also contribute to discussions on know-how in (...) epistemology in western philosophy. (shrink)

Every man, says Mencius, has within him this mind of commiseration, this pu-jen chih hsin that cannot bear to see another person suffer. To support his argument, Mencius cites the parable of the child about to fall into a well. A man with an innate mind of compassion unable to bear to see the child suffer would naturally feel the urge to run ahead to save the child . Yet elsewhere in Mencius 4A.17, it appears that had the potential victim (...) been a drowning sister-in-law, the man would also be momentarily checked by a fear of impropriety. Since the sense of propriety has its beginning in the mind as much as the sense of compassion, is not the mind of goodness somehow divided against itself? The present essay will examine this possible dilemma. (shrink)

In this essay, Christoph Menke’s “aesthetics of force” converses with contemporary Chinese philosophy, especially with the field of Transcultural Research in the Zhuāngzǐ conducted in Taiwan. The starting point of the following reflections is that “the artist is able to be unable”. How can we philosophically describe a way of doing that retains self-awareness in the midst of self-forgetfulness? What Zhuāngzǐ discusses is an aesthetic cultivation of “contemplative perception” in the midst of doing. His language is able to describe and (...) interpret from within a way of doing that refrains from purposeful action. Menke’s approach corresponds with my reflections on Daoism and the book Zhuāngzǐ developed in recent years. Particularly important in this context is the exploration of relating aesthetics to ethical and political questions through an aesthetic transformation of subjectivity. Following the linguistic dynamics associated with the transcultural interweaving of texts, this essay connects Menke’s interpretation of Nietzsche and my interpretation of the Zhuāngzǐ. In so doing, I hope to set in motion a change in thinking on both sides. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi is noted for its advocacy of many different perspectives—chickens, cicadas, fish and the like. There is much debate in the literature about the implications of Zhuangzi’s pluralist inclinations. I suggest that Zhuangzi highlights the limitations of individual, perspectivally-constrained, knowledge claims. He also spurns the ‘view from nowhere’ and is sceptical about the possibility of an ideal observer. For him, wisdom consists in understanding the epistemological inadequacies of each perspective. I propose that Zhuangzi’s philosophy offers significant insights to an (...) increasingly globalized world characterized by a plurality of ethical and value commitments. It does not assume there will necessarily be universal agreement or a standardized answer. Most importantly, it is a position that seeks to augment self-understanding and enrich the self in dialogue with and response to others. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism argues that one can have perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of factive and reflectively accessible rational support, e.g., one’s ‘seeing that p’. A well-known challenge to this view is the so-called basis problem of epistemological disjunctivism, which argues that one’s ‘seeing that p’ cannot constitute the rational support for one’s knowledge that p, as ‘seeing that p’ is just a way of ‘knowing that p’. The basis problem is taken to be based on (...) the entailment thesis, viz, ‘seeing that p’ entails ‘knowing that p’. Mainstream solutions to the basis problem take an approach rejecting the entailment thesis. This paper purports to reveal a common defect of those extant solutions. That is, they all fail to address the basis problem in the central domain of discussion of epistemological disjunctivism, i.e., what Pritchard refers to as ‘paradigmatic cases’. Moreover, even if they succeed in rejecting the entailment thesis in paradigmatic cases, they would also backfire on epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

A distinguishing characteristic of Confucianism is its emphasis on learning (xue), is a key element in moral self cultivation. This paper discusses why learning from the experiences of those in the past is important in Confucian learning.

Abstract Kung?sun Lung's thesis on ?White Horse [is] not Horse? has been solved by A. C. Graham on the basis of a part/whole logic and by Chad Hansen on that and a ?mass?noun? hypothesis. We present it as a case of reducing White Horse to its two most telling marks and then, on the basis of the good Sense (instead of Reference) in a Negative Logic?the pragmatics of locating X as the remainder left over when all non?X's have been removed?show (...) how a stable hand, receiving an order for White Horse would scan first for Horse by removing all non?horse shapes and then for White by removing all colours except White. This way we can prove how indeed ?A request for White Horse cannot be satisfied by Black and Brown that fills an order for Horse... (because) to exclude some colour [in the second scan] is not the same as to exclude yet no colour [in the first scan].? No part/whole or mass?sum is presumed. The whole discussion is set in the context of shifting criteria for judging name from Confucius to Hsun?tzu. (shrink)