Neo‐Confucian epistemology and Chinese philosophy: Practical postulates for actioning psychology as a human science

The world is growing more interconnected, and Asian societies are increasingly able to play leading roles in global society. However, Asian psychologists and social scientists have yet to draw from their cultural roots to create social sciences able to make a difference in their home societies. This paper articulates an epistemology for the aspirational practice of Height Psychology as a human science informed by Kantian epistemology in dialogue with other philosophies, especially Confucianism and Taoism. The possibility of ‘intellectual intuition’ (direct knowledge of thing‐in‐itself, or noumenon) is allowed in Eastern philosophical traditions that open a more agentic and human‐centred philosophy of science for action that goes beyond natural science epistemologies originating in Cartesian dualism. Kant's practical postulates are invoked to develop a moral and ethical philosophy that through civilizational dialogue can lead to a philosophy of science robustly incorporating culture and human agency. A thought experiment is offered where practical postulates of Chinese culture are held to be yin‐yang cosmology, human‐heartedness, and relationalism. It is argued that these facilitate an holistic science of practice that complements the sophistication of Western methods. Principles and an approach to theory‐building for human science are proposed.     

What is General Philosophy of Science?

The very idea of a general philosophy of science relies on the assumption that there is this thing called science??as opposed to the various individual sciences. In this programmatic piece I make a case for the claim that general philosophy of science is the philosophy of science in general or science as such. Part of my narrative makes use of history, for two reasons. First, general philosophy of science is itself characterised by an intellectual tradition which aimed to develop a coherent philosophical view of science, qua a part of culture with distinctive epistemic features and a distinctive relation to reality. But, second, this tradition went through some important conceptual shifts which re-oriented it and made it more sensitive to the actual development of science itself. The historical narrative focuses on three such moments: the defining moment, associated with Aristotle, and two major conceptual turns, related to Kant and Duhem. The pressures on the very idea of a general philosophy of science that followed the collapse of the macro-models of science that became popular in the 1960s, the pressures that lay all of the emphasis on fragmentation and not on integration, can be dealt with by a new synthesis within general philosophy of science of the constitutive and the historical, in light of the intellectual tradition that has defined it.     

THE QUR'AN,SCIENCE, AND THE (RELATED) CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM DISCOURSE

We discuss the special place of the Qur'an in the Muslim discourse in general and on science in particular. The Qur'an has an unparalleled influence on the Muslim mind, and understanding the Islamic treatise on science and religion must start from this realization. We explore the concept of science in the Islamic culture and to what extent it can be related to the Qur'an. Reviewing various Islamic discourses on science, we show how a simplistic understanding of the plan to adopt modern science within an Islamic revival program has been corrupted in the form of the theory of “scientific miraculousness of the Qur'an.” We assess and dismiss this theory but use it to show how a serious misunderstanding of the nature of modern science and a narrow view of the Qur'an has led to that embarrassingly popular yet misguided theory. We conclude by promoting a multiplicity of readings of the Qur'an and show that this allows for an enlightenment of one's interpretation of Qur'anic verses, using various tools at one's disposal, including scientific knowledge. We uphold Averroes's principle of “no possible conflict,” which can be used to persuade the Muslim public of a given idea not by proving that it can be found in the Qur'an but rather by showing that at least some readings of it are fully consistent with the given scientific theory.     

The Progress of Society: An Inquiry into an ‘Old-Fashioned’ Thesis of Walter Bagehot

The nineteenth century saw the rise of Darwinism as a new paradigm for the study of nature and man mans an integral part thereof. Many scholars were intent on removing the abstract principles and universal truths of early modern philosophy in favour of understanding man's nature through more scientifically-based methods. Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) was one of the leading exponents of this view. Our focus is on one of Bagehot's famous books, Physics and Politics, or thoughts on the application of the principles of `natural selection' and `inheritance' to political society. Physics and Politics can be seen as one of the most remarkable attempts to think the intertwining of politics and Darwinism. In our paper, we want to examine Bagehot's efforts to apply natural sciences to politics and philosophy and his focus on progress and the idea that such progress is inherited over generations. We want to examine in what way a Darwinian framework of thinking is actually used in Physics and Politics. Our conclusion is that perhaps Physics and Politics established a framework for the application of biological principles to political society, but it definitely did not do so for the application of Darwin's principle of natural selection.     

儒家思想对于现代心理咨询的启示

儒家思想曾居中国传统文化主导地位。鉴于文化的传承性和对心理健康作用的必然性,儒家思想的心理咨询价值应当充分关注。文章强调,不宜刻板化否定儒家思想的心理咨询价值。基于心理咨询的常见问题,文章初步讨论了儒家思想对心理咨询可能有贡献的9个领域：人生意义、应对、生死教育、哀伤辅导、心理调节、人际认知、社会生活技能、人格发展、心理咨询技术等。进而,讨论了以儒家思想为资源,以心理学为目的,通过整理和发现、发展、操作化和验证等环节,构建儒家心理咨询学说的方法论问题     

Change,Contradiction, and Overconfidence: Chinese Philosophy and Cognitive Peculiarities of Asians

This article discusses philosophical influence, especially the influence made by Confucianism and Daoism, on the way Asian people see and understand the world. Recently, Richard Nisbett drew a connection between Chinese philosophy (Confucianism and Daoism) and the cognitive profiles of the people who live in Asian countries where Confucianism and Daoism are strong social and cultural traditions. He argues that there is a peculiar way that Asians think and perceive things and this cognitive pattern is influenced by a group of principles derived from Chinese philosophy. This article critically analyzes Nisbett’s explanation, his emphasis on the principle of change in particular, and provides an alternative explanation of the connection between Chinese philosophy and cognitive peculiarities of Asians. Asians combine and integrate opposite viewpoints not because they believe that things change in all unexpected directions, but because they see the world as a big system with interrelated and mutually influencing components.     

儒、释、道文化对幽默的态度

儒释道这三种中华传统文化中的主流文化,对于幽默有着各自独特的看法.儒家文化对幽默持模棱两可态度,一方面贬低幽默,认为幽默使人随意而不重视人伦,另一方面又认为幽默能够使人变得仁爱.佛家文化对幽默持积极态度,认为幽默是一种智慧的参悟.而道家是一个非常强调幽默的哲学流派,无论是其核心思想还是表达方式都无不体现着幽默的光芒.从学术角度梳理这三种文化对幽默的态度,可以促进幽默,使得幽默在当今中国人的生活中发挥着更加积极的作用.     

F. H. Bradley and the philosophy of science

It is sometimes thought that Absolute Idealism was undermined by its inability to deal with science. Through a critical discussion of F. H. Bradley's philosophy of science, this idea is challenged. His views on science are divided into a positive and a negative part, and it is argued that, although he found the scientific world view to be essentially false, he was nonetheless able to develop a sympathetic and intelligent philosophy of science. This was basically pragmatic and instrumental in tone, and gave to science a large measure of autonomy from philosophy. His doctrine is connected with certain contemporary ideas in the philosophy of science.     

Was Wittgenstein an Analytic Philosopher?

Abstract: This article first surveys the established views on Wittgenstein's relation to analytic philosophy. Next it distinguishes among different ways of defining analytic philosophy—topical, doctrinal, methodological, stylistic, historical, and the idea that it is a family‐resemblance concept. It argues that while certain stylistic features are important, the historical and the family‐resemblance conceptions are the most auspicious, especially in combination. The answer to the title question is given in section 3. Contrary to currently popular “irrationalist” interpretations, Wittgenstein was an analytic philosopher in all phases of his career, albeit an exceedingly exotic one whose style transcends the limits of academic philosophy in general. On the historical understanding he qualifies because he was influenced by and in turn influenced mainly analytic philosophers. On the family‐resemblance conception he qualifies both because he developed and employed logico‐linguistic analysis and because he initiated the linguistic turn and the distinction between philosophy and science that characterizes one important strand in analytic philosophy.     

Early Confucian Principles: the Potential Theoretic Foundation of Democracy in Modern China

The subtle and complex relation between Confucianism and modern democracy has long been a controversial issue, and it is now again becoming a topical issue in the process of political modernization in contemporary China. This paper argues that there are some quite basic early Confucian values and principles that are not only compatible with democracy, but also may become the theoretic foundation of modern democracy in China. Early Confucianism considers ‘the people's will’ as the direct representative of ‘Heaven's will’, with which it legitimizes political power. Confucian theory of ‘human nature is good’ endorses equal potential good for every man. These principles can be used in reasoning towards a system of democracy. In terms of decision-making, the Confucian ‘Doctrine of the Mean’ accords with certain democratic principles. The independent personality and committed individualism advocated by early Confucianism is a required civic merit in a democratic society. These fundamental Confucian principles, through contemporary hermeneutics, may provide a philosophic grounding for democracy and support the construction of a democratic system with a Chinese dimension. To get democracy rooted in the spirit of traditional Chinese culture will benefit the healthy and smooth development of democracy in China.     

Teleological principles in science

In the search for elementary particles, such principles are used as Gell‐mann's that ‘anything which is possible is compulsory’. This is an example of a teleological principle according to which the scientist tries to realize in science the kind of world that he desires on prior emotional grounds. Mendeleev's classical discovery of the Periodic Law and Table of Elements was thus guided by his mystical values. A mechanistic anti‐teleologist such as Jacques Loeb was indeed a crypto‐teleologist who wished science to fulfil his radical, socialistic aims. Hoyle's ‘perfect cosmological principle’ projected conservative values, while such conceptions as Oppenheimer's ‘catastrophic collapse’, and Mach's Principle likewise had their teleological bases. Anti‐mystical and individualistic values inspired Bridgman's operationism. A ‘perfect operational principle’ would stipulate that every imaginable state of affairs would be operationally differentiable from others. Teleological principles are essential to the functioning of sciences; in the Theory of Theories, the principle of plenitude may hold: that for every mode of theory, there is some segment of reality for which it provides the best explanation. Naturalistic accounts of basic teleological principles seem inadequate.     

Buddhist Impact on Chinese Culture

The Chinese traditional culture includes three systems of thought: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. The first two are Chinese culture, and Buddhism is a foreign religion introduced from India. Although there had been conflicts among the three systems of thoughts, but integration is the mainstream in the development of Chinese cultural thought. Thus, Chinese culture has developed into a system by uniting the three religions into one with Confucianism at the centre supported by Daoism and Buddhism. For over 2,000 years, Buddhism has interacted with all levels of Chinese culture such as literature, philosophy, morality, arts, architecture and religions. As a result, Buddhism has successfully integrated into the traditional Chinese culture and has become one of the three pillars. In this paper, I will discuss the Buddhist impact on Chinese culture from the following four points: (1) philosophy and moral teaching; (2) religions and popular beliefs; (3) language and literature; and (4) art and architecture.     

The Archimedean point and eccentricity: Hannah Arendt's philosophy of Science and technology

In this contribution I discuss Hannah Arendt's philosophy of culture in three rounds. First I give an account of my view on Hannah Arendt's main work The Human Condition. In this frame of reference I distance myself from the importance attached to Hannah Arendt as a political philosopher and hold a warm plea for her as a philosopher of culture (I and II). Second I pay attention to her view on science and technology in their cultural meaning, expressed in the last chapter of The Human Condition. This part consists in a summary of her thoughts as I read them (III, IV, and V). After these two rounds I make some critical remarks on Hannah Arendt's interpretation of science and technology. The viewpoint of ‘eccentricity’ will be discussed as a frame of reference for her philosophy of culture (VI).     

Argumentation,Adversariality, and Social Norms

Janice Moulton's “The Adversary Method: A Philosophical Paradigm” articulated several criticisms of the popular idea of philosophy as adversarial debate. Moulton criticizes it on epistemic grounds, arguing that philosophy's overreliance on adversarial debate is to the detriment of its goals. Some, notably Trudy Govier, have argued in favor of at least a minimal adversariality, governed by norms of respectful argumentation. This paper suggests that Govier's faith in these norms is misplaced, because it neglects the social circumstances of the arguers. While some authors have argued that politeness and aggression apply differently to those of different genders, this paper extends that analysis to social identities other than gender. In fact, given certain assumptions about the philosophy of language, engagement in polite adversarial debate may not even be possible for people occupying certain social locations.     

The Theoretical Reformer: on Husserl’s Plato (Husserl and the Figures of the History of Philosophy)

ABSTRACT

The present research contributes to the elucidation of an important aspect of Husserl’s interpretation of the history of philosophy, that is, his reading of the beginning of Western thought. In particular, it aims to clarify the sense in which Husserl deems Plato the father of the idea itself of philosophy as a science. As will be maintained, Husserl thinks of Socrates and Plato together as providing the first reform of philosophy, whose overall goal is to give reason (Vernunft) a universal method of self-justification against the general skepticism of the sophists. The analysis will be both systematically and historically oriented, for, it will try to both reconstruct Husserl’s interpretation of the background against which Plato first introduces the idea of philosophy as a science, and to show that what is truly at stake for Husserl is the nature of philosophy itself.     

SCIENCE AND CONFUCIANISM IN RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

In contrast to Western science and religion, a topic which has been studied very much since the twentieth century, less research has been done on science and Confucianism. By way of a comparative viewpoint within the history of science, this article will deal with some aspects of science and Confucianism in retrospect, for instance, the Confucian origin of the idea of tian yuan di fang 天圓地方, the natural philosophy of qi, and the wu xing li tian zhi qi 五行沴天之氣 bringing abnormal astrological phenomena and reflecting a negative Confucian relation between politics, ethics, and nature. In the late Ming, Xiong Mingyu found that abnormal astrological phenomena, as atmospheric events, happened in the sublunar region rather than in the stars, and in the present time we can reinterpret the crisis of air pollution or global climate change as reflecting a negative Confucian relation between politics, ethics, and nature and as a warning of collective misbehavior in our use of modern scientific technologies.     

Mencius's Vertical Faculties and Moral Nativism

This paper compares and contrasts Mencius's moral philosophy with recent development in cognitive science regarding mental capacity to understand moral rules and principles. Several cognitive scientists argue that the human mind has innate cognitive and emotive foundations of morality. In this paper, Mencius's moral theory is interpreted from the perspective of faculty psychology and cognitive modularity, a theoretical hypothesis in cognitive science in which the mind is understood as a system of specialized mental components. Specifically, Mencius's Four Beginnings (the basic human emotions that serve as the foundations of morality) are interpreted as vertical faculties, comparable to Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's moral faculties.     

Exploring the Interactions between Asian Culture (Confucianism) and Creativity

According to Csikszentmihalyi (1988), creativity is a very complex interaction among a person, a field, and a culture. In keeping with this approach, a look at Asian culture in relation to its impact on creativity is in order. While people may vary in their native capacity for creativity, it is in the individual's interaction with the macrocosm where creative expression can be found. Therefore, this paper will explore the four principles of Confucianism, and how they compare to creativity research in order to discover how Asian culture influences creativity; and what we can do to enhance our students' creative capacity.     

Are cultural differences overrated? Examining the influence of national culture on international buyer‐seller relationships

The notion that differences in national culture influence international buyer‐seller relationships (and, indeed, all aspects of international management) is not only held as true but also axiomatic. This study questions the degree to which cultural differences impact upon buyer‐seller relations for seven key dimensions using Hofstede's indices of culture. Via two stages of data collection using two methodological approaches (seven interviews and 322 useable responses from a mail survey), the impact of culture on international buyer‐seller relationships was examined. The study's findings identified little evidence to support the popular idea that culture exerts a significant influence on international business relationships. Instead, the findings suggest that some managers perceived factors such as communication/language barriers, political barriers, geographic distance, economic factors, industry barriers, time differences, technology barriers, legal differences and infrastructure barriers as being more likely to have a greater impact on cross‐national relationships. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.     

RALPH WENDELL BURHOE AND THE TWO CULTURES

Abstract. Ralph Burhoe developed his proposals for a social reformation at a time when the “two cultures” debate was still active. It is suggested here that Burhoe, sharing with his contemporaries an understanding of culture that was Western and normative in character, overlooked the distinction between the culture of the elites and popular culture, and consequently between religion as presented by theologians and church officials and popular religion. Therefore, his proposals for the revitalization of traditional religions, even if implemented, would not work. Some contradictions within his own program are pointed out, and the social role of the sciences after World War II, as well as the ambiguities of their presence in the so-called underdeveloped nations, is analyzed. As a positive conclusion, it is suggested that Burhoe's main contribution should be sought, not in his outline for a social reformation, but in his role as an organizer of the dialogue between religion and science.