Heng Xian is a previously unknown text reconstructed by Chinese scholars out of a group of more than 1,200 inscribed bamboo strips purchased by the Shanghai Museum on the Hong Kong antiquities market in 1994. The strips have all been assigned an approximate date of 300 B.C.E., and Heng Xian allegedly consists of thirteen of them, but each proposed arrangement of the strips is marred by unlikely textual transitions. The most plausible hypothesis is one that Chinese (...) scholars do not appear to take seriously: that we are missing one or more strips. The paper concludes with a discussion of the hazards of studying unprovenanced artifacts that have appeared during China’s recent looting spree. I believe the time has come for scholars to ask themselves whether their work indirectly abets this destruction of knowledge. (shrink)

“Huo” 或 in “Heng Xian” 恆先 of the Chu bamboo slips in the Shanghai Museum is a significant concept in cosmology and cosmogony. “Huo,” as a cosmogonic period, is after “heng” 恆, but prior to qi 氣, hence it is relatively important. This term in the manuscript is used as an indefinite pronoun, meaning “something”, rather than “exist”, “indefinitely/ maybe” or “a state between being and nothingness”. However, in the cosmogonic sequence, it is indeed intermediate between nothingness (...) and being. That “huo,” as an indefinite pronoun, can be used as a philosophical concept is testified by “Bai Xin” 白心 in the Book of Guanzi 管子 and “Ze yang” 則陽 in the Book of Zhuangzi, in which the term “huo” also means “something.” “Heng Xian” uses an indefinite pronoun “huo” to refer to a stage in the genesis of the cosmos. This shows, on the one hand, that its author has contemplated cosmology more profoundly; on the other hand, it shows that the author’s knowledge about the structure of cosmogony has not yet been fully developed. Moreover, the concepts “huo” and “heng xian” both develop the notion implicit in the concept of “heng.”. (shrink)

Laozi zhe xue -- Zhuangzi zhe xue za lun -- Xian Qin zhu zi yan jiu wen xian mu lu.

This article explores the connection between the Heng Xian and the Changes of Zhou tradition, especially the “Tuan” and “Attached Verbalizations” commentaries. Two important Heng Xian terms—heng 恆 and fu 復—are also Changes of Zhou hexagrams and possible connections are explored. Second, the Heng Xian account of the creation of names is compared with the “Attached Verbalizations” account of the creation of the Changes of Zhou system. Third, the roles played by knowing and (...) desire in both Heng Xian and the Changes of Zhou tradition are explored, with particular focus on potential points of similarity. Finally, insights gained through these comparisons are used to interpret the Heng Xian advice on initiating action. (shrink)

The Heng Xian is one of the recently discovered paleographic materials that disclose a heretofore unknown richness of the cosmogonic thought of early China and contribute to our understanding of the elaboration of a uniform cosmogonic discourse during the late Warring States period. Focusing on the structure and vocabulary of the Heng Xian account, the present paper attempts to explore the conceptual core of its cosmogonic vision. Based on the idea of the spontaneous self-generation of the (...) world out of some primary state of simplicity, or nothingness, the cosmogony of the Heng Xian is quite close to the approach of the Laozi and other related texts. Nevertheless, many of its conceptual terminological features disclose an original understanding of the world genesis. (shrink)

本书分为“后现代:历史、政治和伦理”、“书评”、“评论”、“书目索引”四部分,收录了15篇文章。.

This essay argues that the “Heng Xian” bridges between two distinct discourses that were both prevalent in the late fourth century. One discourse focused on the origination of the natural world through a spontaneous process of differentiation, a position familiar from the Daodejing and “Tai yi sheng shui.” The other focused on the specific ways in which different kinds of things live, a position known primarily from Ru discussions centering on the concept of xing 性, the nature or (...) spontaneous reactions of a particular kind of thing. The “Heng Xian” attempts to account for the specificity of human life—including language and social organization—while remaining within a naturalistic view grounded in spontaneity. The essay concludes by reflecting on what the “Heng Xian” tells us about the status of human institutions. (shrink)

One of the key concepts in the Heng Xian is the concept of creation, as expressed through a process of spontaneous arising and spontaneous generation. This article analyzes the mechanics of spontaneous creation in terms of the cosmogony that is prominent in the text. I also show how psychomorphic descriptions of the cosmos—associated with the process of cosmogenesis—provide an explanation for change and movement in the cosmos as well as a template for idealized human action in the world. (...) Lastly, I suggest a possible cultural context in which such descriptions of creation became prominent in the late Warring States period. (shrink)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

本书饱蘸着我军军魂所赋予我们的激情,与战友们一起追忆我军以往的辉煌历程,讴歌我军当今的伟大壮举,憧憬我军未来的丰功伟绩,漫议军人的理想、信仰、道德、信念、气节、情操、奉献、价值。.

Ten years after the publication of “Heng Xian and the Problem of Studying Looted Artifacts” in Dao, this rejoinder to critics begins by recapitulating my original argument, then considers the leading objections that have appeared in the interim. After dispensing with two trivial and ad hominem responses (that I am a hypocrite and an imperialist), the discussion focuses on the one serious objection, namely, that the benefits of studying looted artifacts outweigh the costs. I conclude with my reasons (...) for disagreeing with this judgment. (shrink)

This essay examines the language of the Heng Xian and suggests that the text purposefully plays with Ru-style rhetoric, particularly that associated with the “Heart Method” for self-cultivation. The playful rhetoric is reminiscent of writings collected in the Zhuangzi and the use of parables associated with fourth century BCE philosopher Hu Shi.

Ben shu tong guo yin ru xi fang xian dai yu yan zhe xue, mei xue de fang fa yu Zhongguo chuan tong wen hua zhi si zhan dui hua yu jiao liu, shi jie, wen xue de ben zhi guan lian ru shou, jie shi chu xing cheng yan yu yi zhi jian mao dun yu zhang li de ben yuan: cun zai ben shen zi xing xian xian (cheng ming) bing zi xing yin ni (zhe (...) bi) de te xing, shi ta zai xian xiang shang yong yuan cheng xian chu you (zai chang) yu wu (bu zai chang) de dong tai yun dong, er zhe zhong yun dong ben shen qia qia you gou cheng le yan yu yi de yong heng dong neng he zhang li. (shrink)

This paper examines the semantics and the narrative function of Calypso’s island, which can be understood as a locus amoenus. The description moves from the inner cave of a lovely nymph outward to the surroundings of the seductive landscape. Hermes’ pleasure at the scene stands in contrast to the disinterested attitude of Odysseus weeping on the shore, which anticipates his rejection of the nymph. The connections between this scene and the weeping Achilles looking out over the sea in a similar (...) setting further define this contrast as a central theme of the Calypso episode. The semantics of the locus amoenus in Od. 5 is paralleled by the Sirens’ meadow, which stands in juxtaposition with their seductive voice. (shrink)

This article assumes that a profession is a number of individuals in the same occupation voluntarily organized to earn a living by openly serving a moral ideal in a morally-permissible way beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would otherwise require. Our question is whether the concept of profession may have a far wider range than the term, so that, for example, pointing out that a certain language lacks a word for “profession” in our sense, is not enough to (...) show that those who speak the language also lack the concept. We believe the survey of 71 Chinese reported here begins to answer that question. This article has four parts. The first describes who was interviewed, how, when, and so on. The second describes some important features of the survey’s questions, explaining how the questions track the concept of profession. The third part reports and interprets the results relevant to our question. The forth defends a tentative answer to the question with which we began—arguing the survey supports the claim that China has a profession of engineering. This article should serve as a “proof of concept”, that is, a model for similar studies around the world both of engineering and of other occupations thought to be professions. (shrink)

Across many languages and cultures, people tend to explicitly and implicitly associate brightness with God and darkness with the Devil. In the current research, we used an explicit Brightness-Godas...

Modern biology has been heavily influenced by the gene‐centric concept. Paradoxically, this very concept – on which bioresearch is based – is challenged by the success of gene‐based research in terms of explaining evolutionary theory. To overcome this major roadblock, it is essential to establish new theories, to not only solve the key puzzles presented by the gene‐centric concept, but also to provide a conceptual framework that allows the field to grow. This paper discusses a number of paradoxes and illustrates (...) how they can be addressed by the genome‐centric concept in order to further resynthesize evolutionary theory. In particular, methodological breakthroughs that analyze genome evolution are discussed. The multiple interactions among different levels of a complex system provide the key to understanding the relationship between self‐organization and natural selection. Darwinian natural selection applies to the biological level due to its unique genetic and heterogeneous features, but does not simply or directly apply to either the lower non‐living level or higher intellectual society level. At the complex bio‐system level, the genome context (the entire package of genes and their genomic physical relationship or genomic topology), not the individual genes, defines the system and serves as the principle selection platform for evolution. (shrink)

Riassunto: L’antico teatro della Casa Ufficiale è un antico teatro esistente nell’area Montuosa del Taihang nella Provincia dell’Henan Settentrionale, il quale nacque nel periodo centrale della Dinastia Qing. L’aspetto dell’antico teatro della Casa Ufficiale è legato all’ambiente naturale locale, alla cultura popolare e alla produttività agricola. Ci sono otto antiche fasi della casa ufficiale nell’area Montuosa del Taihang nella Provincia dell’Henan Settentrionale, che forniscono prove fisiche per lo studio del dramma teatrale popolare nell’area Montuosa del Taihang durante la dinastia Qing. (...) Le iscrizioni sulle stele e sul palcoscenico dell’opera tradizionale cinese riflettono alcune caratteristiche del dramma teatrale rappresentato dai funzionari fin dalla dinastia Qing in Cina. I tipi di opere eseguite sono opere locali, le quali rappresentano dei preziosi materiali per lo studio storico. In una certa misura, è possibile ricostruire il percorso lo sviluppo regionale della società, della cultura e della vita quotidiana locale. (shrink)

This article describes China’s century-long concern with the professional ethics of engineers, especially a succession of codes of engineering ethics going back at least to 1933. This description is the result both of our own archival research and of “philosophical history”, the application of concepts from the philosophy of professions to the facts historians (or we) have discovered. Engineers, historians, social scientists, and philosophers of technology, as well as students of professional ethics, should find this description interesting. It certainly provides (...) a reason to wonder whether those who write about codes of professional ethics as if they were an Anglo-American export unlikely to put down roots elsewhere might have overlooked many early codes outside English-speaking countries. While code writers in China plainly learned from Western codes, the Chinese codes were not mere copies of their Western counterparts. Indeed, the Chinese codes sometimes differed inventively from Western codes in form (for example, being wholly positive) or content (for example, protecting local culture). (shrink)

In many countries where human embryo commercialization is banned, and no profit is allowed to be made directly from the transaction of frozen embryos between donor and recipient, there is still considerable opportunity for profiteering in medical fees arising from laboratory and clinical services rendered to the recipient. It is easy to disguise the 'sale' of altruistically donated human embryos through substantially increased medical fees, particularly in a private practice setting. The pertinent question that arises is what would constitute a (...) fair and honest profit margin for the medical professional and health institution in question? A suitable benchmark would obviously be the level of medical fees normally charged to patients for a self-freeze/thaw embryo transfer cycle, after initial failure at their first attempt in ART. This is because the level of medical expertise, clinical and laboratory services required for a donor- and self-freeze/thaw embryo transfer cycle should, in theory, be about the same, although slight variation in treatment can be expected owing to patients' respective medical histories, which results in varying predisposition to medical complications. In any case, the health authority should ensure that there is no gross disparity in the medical fees for both donor- and self-freeze/thaw embryo transfer cycle, as this could mask opportunistic profiteering by medical professionals and, in fact, be a covert form of embryo commercialization. (shrink)

Fluorescent in situ hybridization technology is one of the most exciting and versatile research tools to be developed in recent years. It has enabled research to progress at a phenomenal rate in diverse areas of basic research as well as in clinical medicine. Fluorescent in situ hybridization has applications in physical mapping, the study of nuclear architecture and chromatin packaging, and the investigation of fundamental principles of biology such as DNA replication, RNA processing, gene amplification, gene integration and chromatin elimination. (...) This review highlights some of these areas and provides source material for the reader who seeks more information on a specific field. (shrink)

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis (TFH), people’s implicit spatial conceptions are shaped by their temporal focus. Whereas previous studies have demonstrated that people’s cultural or individual differences related to certain temporal focus may influence their spatializations of time, we focus on temporal landmarks as potential additional influences on people’s space-time mappings. In Experiment 1, we investigated how personally-related events influence students’ conceptions of time. The results showed that student examinees were more likely to think about time according to the (...) past-in-front mapping, and student registrants, future-in-front mapping. Experiment 2 explored the influence of calendar markers and found that participants tested on the Chinese Spring Festival, a symbol of a fresh start, tended to conceptualize the future as in front of them, while those tested on the Tomb Sweeping Day, an opportunity to remember the ancestors, showed the reversed pattern. In Experiment 3, two scenarios representing past or future landmarks correspondingly were presented to participants. We found that past-focused/future -focused scenarios caused an increase in the rate of past-in-front/future-in-front responses respectively. Taken together, the results from these three studies suggest that people’s conceptions of time may vary according to temporal landmarks, which can be explained by the TFH. (shrink)

Some pragmatists hold that there are both practical and epistemic reasons to believe. A crucial issue for this view is how epistemic and practical reasons should be weighed against each other to deliver all-things-considered verdicts regarding what one ought to believe. According to threshold models, when the strength of practical reasons for belief exceeds a certain threshold, practical reasons become prior to epistemic reasons. These models are affected by a threshold problem: they fail to specify the threshold at which practical (...) reasons take priority. This prevents them from being sufficiently informative and well-motivated. This paper proposes a response to the threshold problem. I argue that in most situations there are higher-order practical reasons for conforming to epistemic reasons. These higher-order practical reasons in turn determine the threshold. This threshold view yields intuitive verdicts across various cases and provides a clear guide for determining when we should believe for practical rather than epistemic reasons. Moreover, the view can explain why exceeding the threshold triggers the priority of practical reasons over epistemic reasons, and why the threshold is context dependent. (shrink)

The “Chu shuo” 儲說 chapters of the Hanfeizi 韓非 子, attributed to Han Fei 韓非, encompass an extensive collection of anecdotes. The jing 經 sections of these chapters are traditionally understood to be a set of “canonical” teachings, to be explicated by the anecdotes in the shuo 說 sections. Eschewing this assumption, my analysis substantiates an alternative hypothesis that sees many of the jing texts as later superimpositions intended to serve as paratexts to existing anecdotal collections. By interpreting the jing (...) and shuo sections as paratexts and main texts, respectively, this study reveals how early compilers sought to organize and inventory information, as well as to guide future users’ understanding and memorization of the anecdotal materials. This approach not only facilitates the reconstruction of early frameworks of information management and knowledge acquisition, but also places the “Chu shuo” chapters in a comparative context. It also proffers new answers to several long-standing philological debates, such as the meaning and function of the label yi yue 一曰. In its conclusion, this study draws attention to potential continuities between the pre-imperial and imperial periods’ textual and bibliographical practices. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s sagittal mental space-time mappings are conditioned by their temporal-focus attention. Based on this, it can be predicted that, by virtue of their future-oriented thinking, individuals with high anxiety should be more likely to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping than those with low anxiety. Utilizing a combined correlational and experimental approach, we found converging evidence for this prediction. Studies 1 and 2 found that individuals higher in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety, (...) who characteristically worry about the future, were more likely to conceptualize the future as in front of them and the past as behind than individuals lower in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety. Study 3 showed that participants who were induced with anxiety mood tended to map the future on a frontal position, compared to those in the baseline condition. These findings shed further light on the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, thus providing the first experimental evidence that emotional experience can influence people’s temporal-focus attention in determining their metaphorical sagittal orientation of time. (shrink)