Joining the Transformation of Nature—The Post-Natural and Confucian Perspective on Earth Stewardship in the Anthropocene

The emergence of the Anthropocene creates a new set of conditions for understanding the relationship between human power and the natural world. These conditions include an increasingly humanized and de-natured natural world, and greater responsibilities of stewardship for human beings. In current literature, there are diverse views on the meaning of the Anthropocene and the role of modern technology in future earth stewardship. Post-natural thought regards the Anthropocene as representing the end of nature, and thus appeals to disenchantment with respect to the idea that nature is an external moral norm. Although this approach correctly addresses the significance of locality and the mutuality between humans and the environment, it fails to provide us with adequate normative boundaries for preventing the endless artificialization of nature. Alternatively, this article defends the position that Confucianism is a more plausible philosophical ground for earth stewardship in the context of the Anthropocene. The Confucian approach is an inclusive humanism which is established on the cosmological ideal of realising the virtue of shengsheng 生生 (life generation) in all beings. Moreover, Confucian ethics draw much attention to the self-regulation of human beings as virtuous persons. This is indeed what is needed in the age of the Anthropocene.     

Emotional Attachment and Its Limits: Mengzi,Gaozi and the Guodian Discussions

Mengzi maintained that both benevolence (ren 仁) and rightness (yi義) are naturally-given in human nature. This view has occupied a dominant place in Confucian intellectual history. In Mencius 6A, Mengzi’s interlocutor, Gaozi, contests this view, arguing that rightness is determined by (doing what is fitting, in line with) external circumstances. I discuss here some passages from the excavated Guodian texts, which lend weight to Gaozi’s view. The texts reveal nuanced considerations of relational proximity and its limits, setting up requirements for moral action in scenarios where relational ties do not play a motivational role. I set out yi’s complexity in these discussions, highlighting its implications for (i) the nei-wai debate; (ii) the notion of yi as “rightness,” or doing the right thing; and (iii) how we can understand the connection between virtue and right action in these early Confucian debates. This material from the excavated texts not only provides new perspectives on a longstanding investigation of human nature and morality, it also challenges prevailing views on Warring States Confucian intellectual history.     

The Problem of Confucian Moral Cultivation and Its Solution: Using Ritual Propriety to Support Rule by Law

Thinking about the decline of morality in post-reform China,the author analyzes the development of virtuous governance based on moral education,and concludes that the reason why ancient rulers were so infatuated with it was the inhibitive function of public evaluation on moral transgressions in familiar neighborhoods.However,as China transforms into a dynamic and commercial society,and its people move from familiar neighborhoods to alienated communities in the cities,public evaluation is losing its power over moral transgressors.To prevent the collapse of the moral system,it is necessary to use rule by law to foster people's sense of justice and rule-consciousness-not to simply hope for the appearance of more altruists.This is possible because law is the embodiment of moral principle,and because legal restraints and penalties can be internalized as habits.After a sense of justice and rule-consciousness has been established in people,we can again take up Confucian virtue education to nurture people's sense of shame and dignity,and their humane and righteous mind.However,to stop the current chaos and corruption,it is urgent that we adopt rule by law and supplement it with moral education.     

On the Philosophical Relevance of Marx＇s Views Today

This paper revisits some of Marx＇s central philosophical ideas with the attempt to understand the thinker＇s real place in the history of the Western philosophical tradition. It does not only show that the philosophical dimension is central to Marx＇s economic and political works, and therefore his contributions to philosophy merit special investigation, but it also argues that Marx is a descendant of classic German philosophy, and thus his views should be assessed in the context of the development of the philosophical ideas that emerged within that tradition.     

The Deaths of One Conceptual Metaphor in Two Languages

This title refers to what I see as the state of synonymy between the word “husbandry” in English and the word se 嗇 in Chinese. There are points of striking similarity, not only in the meaning and usage of these two words, but also in the changes in their usage over time, and I have found a comparative study of the etymology of these two words to be mutually illuminating. The similarity and potential for mutual analysis between these two case studies speaks to the universality of metaphor in thought and its expression, as well as the influence of shared experiences, such as agricultural practices, on how we talk about ideas that are more abstract. In English, the idea of a general practice of husbandry derived from the idea of the husbandman or farmer in Late Medieval English (C13th onwards). A more abstracted sense of husbandry, understood as an attitude that may be applied to abstract and intangible objects is witnessed in Shakespeare’s sonnets in the C16th. This sense of husbandry, the husbandry of intangible resources, is also precisely the sense that is developed by a small and specialised group of writers in China represented by texts dating from the pre-Qin period to the Eastern Jin dynasty, following a similar progression from agricultural to ever more metaphorical senses of the practice of husbandry. The similarity of the process through which these abstracted meanings developed from concrete usage in both cases makes the pair mutually illustrative as I hope to show in this paper.     

Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis in the Analysis of Chinese Classifiers： Remarks on Philosophical Method

Philosophical analysis is commonly assumed to involve decomposing the meaning of a sentence or an expression into a set of conceptually basic constituent parts. This essay challenges this traditional view by examining the potential semantic roles that classifier phrases play in Chinese. It is suggested that the conceptual resources necessary for justifying claims about the semantical status of natural language classifier phrases should be informed in part by methods that accommodate ontogenic and evolutionary contexts. Evidence is provided for the view that many Chinese classifiers （but not all） are features regimented in the grammar of Chinese that have no functional role in normal adult communication, but which play an ontogenetic role in the child＇s development of linguistic competency. Furthermore, it is suggested that this ontogenetic role has features in common with the phylogenetic processes by which Chinese or its classical variants came about, as a later product of mechanisms that evolved in the species in accordance with varying demands for successful communication.     

He Lin and German Philosophy in the Zhanguoce School: An Idealist Philosopher on History and Cultural Reform

The Zhanguoce School emerged in 1940 and actively responded to the crisis caused by the Sino-Japanese War. The cultural morphology of Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) inspired most of the leading Zhanguoce scholars to reflect on the culture, history, and status quo of China. They believed that China was suffering from a total war with world superpowers and that it was in a new Warring States epoch; they thus advocated radical cultural reform as a necessary condition for victory and invoked Nietzschean philosophy to champion heroism and power. However, He Lin 賀麟 (1902–92), a philosopher in this school, looked to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) for different theories of cultural reform and history. This article examines He’s integration of the philosophies of Hegel and Fichte into his cultural and historical thought. Based on the Hegelian notion of Spirit, He rethought the nature of culture and the relationship between Chinese and Western cultures; he also interpreted history by comparing the historical theories of Hegel and Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–92). Furthermore, He investigated individual realization with reference to Fichte and repudiated radical heroism.     

Love and Identity： Unconditional Concern and Particularity

Love for a person involves an idea of the other＇s particularity, or ＂irreplaceability＂： an idea that is linked with a fine grained attention to, and affection for, very specific features of the other. This attention is largely a consequence of--or manifestation of--my love, rather than its ground. What I see in the other is partly conditioned by an ＂unconditional＂ concern for her as an individual. A consideration of the importance of the face and of personal names in my interactions with another may bring into focus crucial aspects of the particularity and unconditionality that are characteristic of love.     

CHEN Yun The Spirit of the Doctrine of Mean

The Spirit of the Doctrine of Mean,which comes after The Predicament of the Consciousness of Modernity in China,is a masterpiece from Professor Chen Yun 陳贇.No doubt,this book displays Chen's concern for the predicament of Chinese thought.Indeed,one of the biggest questions in the book comes down to the following:what actually makes China depart from its own tradition? To some extent,it is this departure that brings about the predicament of Chinese thought.The work,in this sense,is not only a profound reflection on that predicament,but also an attempt to find a proper way out of it.     

The Bilingualism of the Language of the Victim and the Language of the Victimizer

Inspired by a panel which took place at the 2018 IARPP conference in New York – this paper, which deals with the bilingualism of the language of the victim and the language of the perpetrator, offers a close reading of the panel’s three papers, trying to characterize their unique poetics of testimony through a differentiation between four modes of traumatic testimony which are distinguished from one another by the degree of the psychic motility they succeed to form in relation to traumatic memories: the “metaphoric”, the “metonymic”, the “excessive” and the “Muselmann” testimonial modes. The last part of the paper suggests a link between the testimonial language of the victim and the testimonial language of the victimizer, trying to understand these polarized languages as two variations of the refusal to mourn.     

From the fixity of the past to the fixity of the independent

There is an old but powerful argument for the claim that exhaustive divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. A crucial ingredient in this argument is the principle of the “Fixity of the Past” (FP). A seemingly new response to this argument has emerged, the so-called “dependence response,” which involves, among other things, abandoning FP for an alternative principle, the principle of the “Fixity of the Independent” (FI). This paper presents three arguments for the claim that FI ought to be preferred to FP.

     

论经济哲学的部门学科性质

1　　经济哲学究竟属于什么学科 ,是经济哲学研究必须首先弄清的前提性问题。也只有合理地解决了这一前提性问题 ,才能够进一步确定经济哲学的对象和需要研究的问题。本文将通过对经济哲学的概念界定、特别是通过对哲学史所做工作的分析 ,对这一问题进行探讨。经济哲学的概念意     

论科学哲学研究的方向

在中国科学哲学研究上 ,一直有人强调所谓纯而又纯的科学哲学研究 ,并且强调各种转向 ,认为只有对科学哲学的理论问题研究 ,如理论解释、说明、评价以及发展模式的研究才是科学哲学的正宗 ,而自然科学哲学问题研究已经是科学哲学研究的外围了 ,至于科学与社会关系研究则根本不是科学哲学。最近我们比较了国内和国外科学哲学研究刊物中的一些文献发现 ,自然科学哲学问题研究一直是国外科学哲学的主流。一　国外研究状况我们以国外三个著名科学哲学刊物 (PhilosophyofTheSeience ,BritishJournalforthePhilos ophyofScience ,JournalforGe…     

论汉代易学文化解释功能的扩张

《周易》尊崇的经典地位是在西汉时期确立的,汉《易》之特色在于象数学大昌。汉代易学既以其哲理观念的宏观层面的影响,更以其卦爻符号、象数模式的具体形态的影响,介入政治、经济、军事、伦理等核心领域,也介入天文历法、物候气象、灾异、医药等自然科学领域,还介入音乐、文学、建筑等艺术领域,表现出易学文化解释功能的扩张。汉代易学文化解释功能之扩张,对当时及后世均产生极大的影响,具有独特的文化意义。     

Understanding the social costs of narcissism: the case of the tragedy of the commons

Two studies examined narcissism and behavior in a commons dilemma. Study 1 used a four-person, laboratory-based task and Study 2 used a dyadic task. Participants were told that they represented one of four (Study 1) or two (Study 2) forestry companies and then were asked to harvest timber from a renewable forest. Narcissism was found to be positively related to acquisitive goals and harvesting more timber in the initial round. The more narcissists harvesting in the competitive group of four (Study 1) or dyad (Study 2), the less timber was harvested overall and the more rapidly the forest was depleted. Within competitive groups and dyads, however, narcissists harvested more than the nonnarcissists competing with them. In all, narcissism provided a benefit to the self, but at a long-term cost to other individuals and to the commons.     

《宋刻〈唐柳本尊传碑〉校补》文中"天福"纪年的考察与辨正--兼大足、安岳石刻柳本尊"十炼图"题记"天福"年号的由来探疑

本文对重庆大足、安岳等地的石刻中有关《柳本尊传碑》中所记载的“天福”年号作了考证,认为柳本尊作传的作者是释祖觉禅师,“天复”应为“天福”,“十炼图”题记中的年号应为蜀王王建所称。安岳“十炼图”添刻的柳本尊生卒年失实,《汉州志》所载与史实贴近。