The Enjoyment of the Sage and the Common People: A New Perspective on the Cosmology of the Laozi

The Laozi laughs at the joy of those who violate the Dao and praises the suffering of those who attain it,yet this does not mean that the political philosophy of the Laozi does not encompass a notion of happiness,a notion that is grounded in the "enjoyment of something together" (gong le共樂) by the sag and the common people.The philosophical foundation of the Laozi's view of happiness is its cosmology,of which there are two sequences:one is generation and the other is growth.With the influences of Wei/Jin-era metaphysics and Western philosophy,Chinese scholars used to overemphasize generation,tracing only the origin.But in the cosmology of the Laozi,both generation and growth are indispensable,and this is part of the reason why the Dao and the De are equally important in the Laozi.The happiness of the common people does not come from a psychological dependence on or attachment to certain form of domination,but from the full development of each individual's initiative and action affected by Mysterious De.     

简帛《老子》思想研究之前缘问题报告--兼论楚简《太一生水》的思想

本文对简帛《老子》的文本存在状况作了简明的介绍,认为郭简《太一生水》无论从文本脉络,还是从思想的同一性来看,都不属于郭简《老子》的一部分,而《老子》在战国中期以前的文本分量,当远较郭简三组的总和为多,同时也认为《史记·老子传》有关老子其人其书的看法,应当还是较为可信的。此外,本文对《太一生水》的大量相关问题,作了结论性的观点陈述,集中表明了作者的最新研究成果。     

论高亨先生《老子正诂》的校勘成就

高亨先生《老子正诂》对《老子》文本的校勘,有近百处与出土文献相合。他运用的校勘方法灵活多样,细密严谨,至今仍有指导意义。《老子正诂》之所以成为上一世纪老学研究的经典之作,与全书对文本的精密校勘是密不可分的,揭示出高亨先生《老子正诂》的校勘成就,有助于推动《老子》研究的发展。     

Approaching Laozi.Comparing a Syncretic Reading to a Synthetic One

Is Laozi a syncretic text whose primary body of ideas were cobbled together from multiple and various sources,none of which can reasonably be identified as Daoist,or is it a synthetic text whose ideas emerged from a single source that for all intents embodies the core elements of a tradition that meets the standards of inclusion for a tradition of early Daoism? The present work examines the key points of Hongkyung Kim's sophisticated account of Laozi's origins as a syncretic text.It then goes on to present the key points of what would have to be involved in its original circulations as a synthetic text.It concludes by suggesting a middle ground that is able to explain why an originally synthetic Laozi is all too easily read by modern scholars as a syncretic text.     

The Laozi’s criticism of government and society and a daoist criticism of the modern state

The Laozi expounds a thoroughgoing and sustained criticism of government and society. In this paper, I will demonstrate that although this criticism is addressed to the ancient Chinese state, it can also have some validity for the modern state of today. I will first briefly discuss the metaphysical grounds of this criticism and stress that the ruler should use wuwei in governing. Then, I will examine the Laozi’s criticism of the oppressive governments that use unnatural governing through youwei which increases the state disorder, as well as how this criticism is supported by its metaphysical grounds. Third, I will show that the selfish desires may significantly contribute to the state disorder and that the only one to be blamed for the arousing of them is the ruler. At last, I will attempt to show that this criticism may also to a certain extent be directed toward today’s modern state.     

Yin and Yang,and the Hot and the Cold

Yin and Yang are important concepts in ancient Chinese philosophy.Western scholars have become more familiar with these two concepts recently,but for a long time almost no one considered comparing them with their own tradition such as the ancient Greek philosophy,and especially with the ideas of the Hot and the Cold in Presocratic philosophy.In this paper,I make an attempt to do exactly that,and especially make a detailed comparison between the thoughts of two ancient thinkers:Laozi and Anaximander.I discuss the thought of Yin and Yang in Laozi-who was the earliest philosopher making use of the concepts Yin and Yang-to express his cosmological thought in ancient Chinese philosophy.Comparatively,I discuss the ideas of the Hot and the Cold in Anaximander,the earlier among Presocratic philosophers referring to the Hot and the Cold as fundamental concepts used to establish his cosmological system.Through this comparison,I indicate that the similarity between ancient Chinese and Western traditions is far more significant than what people are used to imagining.     

Platitudes against Paradox

We present a strategy to dissolve semantic paradoxes which proceeds from an explanation of why paradoxical sentences or their definitions are semantically defective. This explanation is compatible with the acceptability of impredicative definitions, self-referential sentences and semantically closed languages and leaves the status of the so-called truth-teller sentence unaffected. It is based on platitudes which encode innocuous constraints on successful definition and successful expression of propositional content. We show that the construction of liar paradoxes and of certain versions of Curry’s paradox rests on presuppositions that violate these innocuous constraints. Other versions of Curry’s paradox are shown not to be paradoxical at all once their presuppositions are made explicit. Part of what we say rehearses a proposal originally made by Laurence Goldstein in 1985. Like Goldstein we dispose of certain paradoxes by rejecting some of the premises from which they must be taken to proceed. However, we disagree with his more recent view that the premises to be rejected are neither true nor false.     

Replies to Deng,Lee, and Skow

This paper is a contribution to a book symposium on my book Experiencing Time. I reply to comments on the book by Natalja Deng, Geoffrey Lee and Bradford Skow. Although several chapters of the book are discussed, the main focus of my reply is on Chapters 2 and 6. In Chapter 2 I argue that the putative mind-independent passage of time could not be experienced, and from this I develop an argument against the A-theory of time. In Chapter 6 I offer one part of an explanation of why we are disposed to think that time passes, relating to the supposedly ‘dynamic’ quality of experienced change. Deng, Lee, and Skow’s comments help me to clarify several issues, add some new thoughts, and make a new distinction that was needed, and I acknowledge, as I did in the book, that certain arguments in Chapter 6 are not conclusive; but I otherwise concede very little regarding the main claims and arguments defended in the book.     

Proverbs with Solomon: A critical revision of the pre-critical commentary tradition in the light of a biblical intertextual study

The historical criticism of the Book of Proverbs has substituted the pre-Enlightenment view that Solomon was the real author with the finding that Israel's post-exilic sages added the name and prestige of the wisest of kings to their work. However the pre-Enlightenment commentators of Proverbs recognised that the name Solomon is integral to the text of Proverbs. This article recognises this textual datum and reads Prov 1–9 from an unusual angle today, namely as if Solomon were the author and principal speaker. In such a reading of Prov 1–9 the portrait of Solomon emerging from within the text is sharpened by a comparison with the depiction of Solomon in 1 Kgs 1–11.
The article seeks to make the point that the character of Solomon so construed in a textual comparison of Prov 1–9 and 1 Kgs 1–11 is but one of a number of diverse portraits made of Solomon in Proverbs throughout the centuries of commentary. In the first part of the article we study three early commentaries, those of Bede, of Hugo Grotius, and of Augustin Calmet. We show that the portrait of Solomon discovered in our own reading of Prov 1–9 in the second part of the article takes its place alongside numerous others. However we today are able to be more faithful to the biblical text than the early commentators because we need not harmonise Proverbs with 1 Kings, as the early commentators felt obliged to do. A contemporary intertextual study of Prov 1–9 can recoup a valid aspect of the ancient literary tradition, that of making Solomon integral to Proverbs. The Solomon we have discovered in Prov 1–9 is the one that spoke through Proverbs at its first publication. In Prov 1–9 the royal attribute is set aside. Solomon is represented as an Israelite teaching parent.     

Fichte,Hegel, and the Life and Death Struggle

Several commentators have argued that Hegel's account of ‘self-consciousness’ in Chapter IV of the Phenomenology of Spirit can be read as an ‘immanent critique’ of Fichte's idealism. If this is correct, it raises the question of whether Hegel's account of ‘recognition’ in Chapter IV can be interpreted as a critique of Fichte's conception of recognition as expounded in the Foundations of Natural Right. A satisfactory answer to this question will have to provide a plausible interpretation of the ‘life and death struggle’ as an immanent critique of Fichte's account of recognition. This paper aims to provide such an interpretation. The first part of the paper provides a discussion of Fichte's account of recognition that emphasizes its ‘epistemic’ concerns. The second part argues that Hegel's account of the ‘life and death struggle’ can be read plausibly as an immanent critique of Fichte's account of recognition.     

老子的水性人格理论及其现实意义

老子认为,人性是源于道的朴,具有主动性、柔弱性、复归倾向和自我意识。水性兼具人性和道性。圣人的人格是水性人格,其结构包括“食母”需要、质朴的自我意识和柔弱处世三个组成部分。在环境无条件的积极关注之下,个体通过致虚守静和以“重静”规约“轻躁”的努力,就可以形成水性人格。老子的水性人格理论,对于人格理论的构建和健全人格的培养都具有一定的启示价值。     

The Origin and Differentiation of the Theories of Human Nature in Pre-Qin China

In early China, views concerning human nature underwent significant development, with philosophers moving from seeing it as desire or instinct to seeing it as virtue or essence. Before Confucius’s time, human beings’ xing, or nature, was construed as desire and instinct, i.e., as a physical nature. The key problem faced by theorists of human nature at that time was how to manage nature with virtue, i.e., how to use virtue to both control and enrich nature. A later, wide-reaching development was the use of qi to explain human nature. Laozi began, taking de or virtue to be the internal essence of the human being; Confucius took de or virtue to be xing or nature. Following this development, the main current of the theory of human nature in the pre-Qin period divided into two branches. One, created by the later Confucius, inherited in part by Zisi, and developed by Mencius, took virtue as nature and insisted on the a priority of internal morality. The other branch, inherited in part by Zisi and developed by the author of Xing Zi Ming Chu and Xunzi, featured the development of the old tradition which took yu, or desire, as nature.     

Freud's Little Oedipus: Hans as exception to the oedipal rule

Freud's "The Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy" is regarded by Freud and by analytic readers and commentators as a prototype of his conception of the oedipus complex. A literary methodology is used to show that the interpretation of the oedipus complex at work in Freud's text in fact differs from Freud's standard view of it. While studying the paper as text, not as case report, may obscure or distort some clinical matters, it is valuable in that it makes legible a sort of theoretical unconscious in the text. In contrast to Freud's typically tragic view of the oedipus complex (in the tradition of ancient Greek tragedy), the Hans study evokes a comic vision (in the tradition of Greek New Comedy). This comic vision allows Hans a happy imaginative ending to the oedipal dilemma, challenges certain epistemic pretensions, and emphasizes the oedipus complex as a set of abiding existential questions. Given the deep link between Freud"s oedipus concept and a tragic view of human life, this departure in the Hans paper is a fascinating anomaly.     

The Philosophy of "Naturalness" in the Laozi and Its Value For Contemporary Society

This article aims to show that the concept of "naturalness" in the Laozi is able to provide cultural guidance concerning values for contemporary social development.Specifically,the Laozi's concept of "naturalness"—manifested in the text's exhortation to "honor the dao and exalt the de" and its statement that "the dao models itself on naturalness"—has profound ontological,political and social implications concerning "naturalness" that are strongly expressed through a variety of propositions including "achieving all through non-action" and "downsizing the state and simplifying the people." With respect to the question about individuals living a life of appropriateness and establishing their destiny,the Laozi emphasizes such cultivation methods as "sticking to simplicity and authenticity" and "watching in quietude and observing in depth,"which are also infused with the conception of "naturalness," which stresses the notion that understanding the harmony between man and nature can provide useful lessons for the development of contemporary human society.     

《老子》首章新释

《老子》首章在《老子》思想研究中有着举足轻重的地位,历代讨论的论作不胜枚举。但对《老子》首章的本义究竟如何解读,仍然是一个有待探讨的问题。下面,本文试对《老子》首章的各句逐一讨论,并对其主旨作一辨析。不妥之处,敬请批评。     

Cosmic Justice and Sanctioned Violence: The Huangdi Yinfujing and the Legitimacy of War in Religious Daoism

《黄帝阴符经》或《阴符经》是道教传统中一部极为主要的文本。虽然文本作者不详,而且篇幅短小、语义晦涩,但自唐代以来一直被当作奇书,引发多种注释与解读:内丹修炼抑或兵家谋略。本文以(唐)李荃注释本为主,阐述《阴符经》有关阴阳、生杀、机时、五贼、三盗等所涵盖的道家/道教的本体-宇宙观,并以此论述就有关暴力与战争议题所展示的道教伦理观。笔者认为,《阴符经》在重玄思辨中,强调道教"治身治国"的理念,其暗含的"义战"思想亦带有一定的黄老印记。     

National Culture and Leadership Profiles in Europe: Some Results From the GLOBE Study

Different cultural groups may have different conceptions of what leadership should entail, i.e. different leadership prototypes. Several earlier studies revealed that within Europe various cultural clusters can be distinguished (Hofstede, 1991; Ronen & Shenkar, 1985). Using recent data from the GLOBE project, this article discusses similarities and differences on culture and leadership dimensions among 21 European countries. The results show that two broad clusters or patterns of cultural values can be distinguished, contrasting the North-Western and South-Eastern part of Europe. Within these clusters, differences in leadership prototypes to a certain extent mirror differences in culture. On the basis of these results it is hardly possible to speak of a single typically European culture or one distinct European management style. However, on some dimensions European scores are different from at least some other regions in the world.     

When a Man Thinks He Has Female Traits Constructing Femininity and Masculinity: Methodological Potentials and Limitations

In everyday life, people are confronted with common beliefs about how women and men differ from each other. These beliefs make them wonder about their personal femininity and masculinity. But what hides behind these constructs? In this article, we will discuss the potential and limitations of different definitions. We will focus on methodological issues which can trigger new discussions about the social implications of gender differences—which are not part of this paper. One of the major questions here is whether it is methodologically justifiable (legitimate) to make individual predictions based on group differences. An issue that is not only relevant in regards to femininity and masculinity. In general, all definitions of masculinity and femininity show more limitations than potentials. They are either neglecting certain sub-groups or are based on stereotypes (either displaying common beliefs or exaggerated group differences). Individual predictions derived from these constructs are questionable due to oversimplification/reductionism (e.g., when forming groups). By pointing out that constructs like femininity and masculinity can in fact limit an individual’s development, it is suggested to clearly differentiate between different types of differences and to clearly state what can and cannot be said when “measuring” an individual’s masculinity and femininity. Since femininity and masculinity can be seen as example constructs, and generalizations are part of many research processes, general implications beyond these concepts are being discussed.     

The Laozi and Anarchism

In this article I will discuss the anarchist and non-anarchist interpretations of the Laozi and argue that the political philosophy of the Laozi does not completely conform to Western anarchism. Thus, firstly I will give a brief introduction to Western anarchism. Then I will present the strongest arguments of the anarchist interpretation and try to find their mistakes and refute them. Finally I will try to give an acceptable non-anarchist interpretation of the political philosophy of the Laozi. In doing steps 2 and 3, I will base my arguments in a way that is consistent with the text of the Laozi itself. Thus, I hope that this article will bring a deeper understanding of the political philosophy of the Laozi and break with the widely spread opinion that the Laozi propounds an anarchist theory.