Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy explores new forms of philosophizing in the age of globalization by challenging the conventional border between the East and the West, as well as the traditional boundaries among different academic disciplines. This rich investigation demonstrates the importance of cross-cultural thinking in our reading of philosophical texts and explores how cross-cultural thinking transforms our understanding of the traditional philosophical paradigm.

With the rapid proliferation of New Confucian studies since the mid 1980s, it has become an unquestioned dogma that one particular event at the beginning of 1958 marks a watershed in the movement’s development. This event is the publication of the Manifesto that Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Tang Junyi 唐君毅, Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, and Zhang Junmai 张君劢 co-signed and published almost simultaneously in the two journals Minzhu pinglun 民評論 (Democratic Tribune) and Zaisheng 再生(National Renaissance) with the title 为中国文化敬告世界人士宣言─我们对中国学术研究及中国文化与世界文前途之共同认识 (Wei Zhongguo (...) wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan –women dui Zhongguo xueshu yanjiu ji Zhongguo wenhua yu shijiewen qiantu zhi gongtong renshi; translated in English as A Manifesto on the Reappraisal of Chinese Culture – our Joint Understanding of the Sinological Study relating to World Cultural Outlook). Scholars have interpreted the document as an emblematic expression of cultural conservatism, in reaction to the intellectual trend of 1920s best represented by the so-called Scienticist School (kexuejia 科学家). Concepts such as cultural identity and cultural conservatism, however, do not account for the philosophical richness articulated in the Manifesto, whose main purpose is to benefit Western intellectuals in ‘aiding them to appreciate Chinese culture’. In order to do so, the authors employ a strategic terminology, which allows them to build a consistent cross-cultural dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophy by means of an unprecedented discourse on Chinese Rationalism (Zhongguo xinxing zhi xue 中国心性之学). Interestingly, the latter is described by the authors as «the essence of Chinese Culture» and, beside its comparative value, it represents the most comprehensive configuration of Confucianism in the context of 20th century. Academic interest in Chinese Studies and Chinese Philosophy should take into account the articulation of Chinese Rationalism in the Manifesto of 1958 as representing a paradigm of post-comparative dialogue that exemplifies the underlying philosophical continuity beyond consistently different traditions of thought. (shrink)

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how to make (...) a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

Typically, the imagination in thought experiments has been taken to consist in mental images; we visualize the state of affairs described. A recent alternative from Fiora Salis and Roman Frigg main...

In pre-Qin China, during the wrangling of the hundred schools, there was one current of thought that regarded Laozi as its founder and which, as we all know, enjoyed great influence in those days, as well as in all subsequent generations. Throughout history, this school of thought founded by Laozi has been referred to as Daoism, in the same way that the school headed by Confucius has been called Confucianism.

Heidegger maintains that the root of modern technology, like that of all other technologies, lies in technē. However, because the art dimension of technē is suppressed in modern technology, the essence of this technology becomes a Gestell that enforces product-making, and thus drives technology beyond the control of human beings. The more fundamental reason underlying this “frame-becoming” nature is “the mathematical” that emerges in ancient Greece, which, through the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy, turns the world into the images represented by the (...) subject, and things into definite objects. To escape the dictatorship of the Gestell, it is necessary to re-realize the art-dimension of technē in modern technology, i. e. to let the gentle granting nature of the enowning re-master technology. In this respect, both Heidegger and Heisenberg were inspired by or at least resonated with Lao Zi or Zhuang Zi’s Dao. Confucians will greatly appreciate the critique of modern technology by Heidegger, and especially his view of returning “home” to overcome the possible dangers brought about by technology. However, from the perspective of Confucianism, Heidegger’s critique contains some shortcomings: for example, his ignorance of the individualistic impact in the Gestell and his unidirectional “ontological difference,” which leads him to a view of “home” that lacks “family” and therefore renders his solution loose and rootless. Only an organic community originated in the family, be it Confucian or Amish, can effectively reduce the control of modern technology over the human being. (shrink)

The artworks in 'Synthetic Times' explore a trajectory of uncanny visions ranging from the desire to transcend the corporal to the construction of synthetic worlds.

ObjectiveTo present (1) the ethical concepts related to the debate on resuscitation of extremely premature infants (EPIs) as they are described in the ethical literature; and (2) the ethical arguments based on these concepts.DesignWe conducted a systematic review of the ethical literature. We selected articles based on the following predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria: (1) English language articles (2) presenting fully elaborated ethical arguments (3) on resuscitation (4) of EPIs, that is, infants born before 28 weeks of gestation.AnalysisAfter repeated reading of articles, (...) we developed individual summaries, conceptual schemes and an overall conceptual scheme. Ethical arguments and concepts were identified and analysed.ResultsForty articles were included out of 4709 screened. Personhood, best interest, autonomy and justice were concepts grounding the various arguments. Regarding these concepts, included authors agreed that the best interest principle should guide resuscitation decisions, whereas justice seemed the least important concept. The arguments addressed two questions: Should we resuscitate EPIs? Who should decide? Included authors agreed that not all EPIs should be resuscitated but disagreed on what criteria should ground this decision. Overall, included authors agreed that both parents and physicians should contribute to the decision.ConclusionsThe included publications suggest that while the best interest is the main concept guiding resuscitation decisions, justice is the least important. The included authors also agree that both parents and physicians should be actively involved in resuscitation decisions for EPIs. However, our results suggest that parents’ decision should be over-ridden when in contrast with the EPI’s best interest. (shrink)

This paper argues that neurolinguistics has the potential to yield insights that can feed back into corpus-based Cognitive Linguistics. It starts by discussing how far the cognitive realism of probabilistic statements derived from corpus data currently goes. Against this background, it argues that the cognitive realism of usage-based models could be further enhanced through deeper engagement with neurolinguistics, but also highlights a number of common misconceptions about what neurolinguistics can and cannot do for linguistic theorizing.

Non‐coding centromeres, which dictate kinetochore formation for proper chromosome segregation, are extremely divergent in DNA sequences across species but are under active transcription carried out by RNA polymerase (RNAP) II. The RNAP II‐mediated centromeric transcription has been shown to facilitate the deposition of the centromere protein A (CENP‐A) to centromeres, establishing a conserved and critical role of centromeric transcription in centromere maintenance. Our recent work revealed another role of centromeric transcription in chromosome segregation: maintaining centromeric cohesion during mitosis. Interestingly, this (...) role appears to be fulfilled through ongoing centromeric transcription rather than centromeric transcripts. In addition, we found that centromeric transcription may not require some of the traditional transcription initiation factors, suggestive of “uniqueness” in its regulation. In this review, we discuss the novel role and regulation of centromeric transcription as well as the potential underlying mechanisms. (shrink)

Previous studies only considered the impact of personal or environmental factors on intensive smartphone use separately, while largely ignoring the impact of person-environment fit on it. Drawing on the P-E fit theory, we proposed that perceived overqualification, an indicator of person-job misfit, positively affects intensive smartphone use via job boredom, and affective commitment moderates this indirect effect. We examined our hypotheses using four-wave time-lag data of 450 workers from 62 teams. The results revealed that POQ raised job boredom of an (...) individual and thus increased their intensive smartphone use. In addition, when the affective commitment was high, the indirect effect from POQ to intensive smartphone use via job boredom was weaker. The implications, limitations, and future directions of this research were discussed. (shrink)

At the crux of Descartes's general metaphysics and epistemology are his accounts of substances, attributes and ideas of substances and attributes. In spite of the centrality of these theories, there is wide disagreement among scholars about how to interpret them. I approach these debates by focusing on Descartes's theory of the infinite substance ? God. I argue that God's attributes are neither individual, inseparable properties that inhere in God (contra Kenny, Wilson, Curley, Hoffman) nor deductions from God (contra Lennon), but (...) attributions that can consistently be made to God. On this account, the diversity of God's attributes is due to how meditators refer to the various cognitive routes they take to clear and distinct perceptions of God; what makes a meditator's clear and distinct perception of God more distinct is that it becomes more stable ? the meditator can more easily retain and regain the perception. Other virtues of this interpretation include accounts of the following: the puzzling remarks about essences that Descartes makes to Gassendi; what founds conceptual distinctions in reality; and why the Cartesian meditator ?proves? the existence of God several times in the Meditations. (shrink)

The peper like tone flowed through thoughts of Taoist, Confucian, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Rousseau, Sun Yat‐Sen, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Kant, etc.. Not for pursuing a philosophy to combine cultures between Chinese and Western, but for return to the shared Spring of the Truetone. What is the Truetone? says: “God is Spirit.” The spirit of Hebraic is ruagh that means the Truetone of Tao, so it can be also translated as “God is the Truetone.” All things are (...) controlled by both the invisible Truetone and conceittone with different purpose. The Truetone is for the Grace of life, but the conceittone is for destruction. The Truetone made the Spring, the Spring made the Word. The Trinity of the Truetone, Spring, and Word, makes all things. The characteristic of Chinese is invisible tone, the characteristic of Western philosophy is visible word. The paper trys to allow all beings to be released from the conceittone and return to the Grace of Jesus because He is the Spring of the Truetone, and then all persons can get the full graces in different cultures given by the Truetone. (shrink)

This paper explores the internal logic and theoretical basis of the two concepts of "common prosperity" and "community of human destiny" from a philosophical perspective. Common prosperity is one of the core goals of China's social development, reflecting the Marxist philosophical thought on social fairness and justice, while the community of human destiny transcends the boundaries of countries and nations and embodies the collectivist ethics and future vision in the era of globalization. By analyzing the roots of the two in (...) historical materialism, global ethics, Kant's "world citizen" thought and the Confucian ideal of "great harmony", this paper attempts to reveal the philosophical inner connection between common prosperity and the community of human destiny and proposes the necessity of building a social model that combines fairness and global responsibility. This paper believes that the pursuit of common prosperity is not only a national issue, but also a global issue faced by mankind, and the realization of the community of human destiny depends on the philosophical reflection and practical efforts made by countries in the process of achieving common prosperity. Through philosophical discussion, this paper further illustrates the practical significance of these two concepts in today's world and their potential impact on the future global order. (shrink)

Neurons encode and transmit signals through chemical synaptic or electrical synaptic connections in the actual nervous system. Exploring the biophysical properties of coupling channels is of great significance for further understanding the rhythm transitions of neural network electrical activity patterns and preventing neurological diseases. From the perspective of biophysics, the activation of magnetic field coupling is the result of the continuous release and propagation of intracellular and extracellular ions, which is very similar to the activation of chemical synaptic coupling through (...) the continuous release of neurotransmitters. In this article, an induction coil is used to connect two HR neurons to stimulate the effect of magnetic field coupling. It is inevitable that time delays can affect the coupling process in the transmission of information, and it should be considered in the coupled model. Firstly, the firing characteristics and bifurcation modes of two coupled HR neurons are studied by using one parameter and two parameters bifurcation. With the increase of propagation delay and coupling gain, the chaotic state of neurons disappears and the high-period window decreases due to the influence of energy transfer between neurons. Then, the synchronization patterns of two HR neurons with different stimulation are analyzed by error diagrams and time series diagrams. It is confirmed that the synchronous pattern has certain regularity and is related not only to the neurons with large stimulation current but also to the time delay and coupling gain. The research conclusions of this article will provide the corresponding theoretical basis for medical experiments. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroscience indicate that analysis of bio-signals such as rest state electroencephalogram and eye-tracking data can provide more reliable evaluation of children autism spectrum disorder than traditional methods of behavior measurement relying on scales do. However, the effectiveness of the new approaches still lags behind the increasing requirement in clinical or educational practices as the “bio-marker” information carried by the bio-signal of a single-modality is likely insufficient or distorted. This study proposes an approach to joint analysis of EEG (...) and eye-tracking for children ASD evaluation. The approach focuses on deep fusion of the features in two modalities as no explicit correlations between the original bio-signals are available, which also limits the performance of existing methods along this direction. First, the synchronization measures, information entropy, and time-frequency features of the multi-channel EEG are derived. Then a random forest applies to the eye-tracking recordings of the same subjects to single out the most significant features. A graph convolutional network model then naturally fuses the two group of features to differentiate the children with ASD from the typically developed subjects. Experiments have been carried out on the two types of the bio-signals collected from 42 children. The results indicate that the proposed approach can achieve an accuracy of 95% in ASD detection, and strong correlations exist between the two bio-signals collected even asynchronously, in particular the EEG synchronization against the face related/joint attentions in terms of covariance. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Cartesian Motion Classical Problems Realist and Idealist Resolutions Conclusion.

ObjectiveTo explore the effect of independently developed transcranial pulsed current stimulation on alleviating athlete’s mental fatigue.MethodsA total of 60 college athletes were randomly divided into the active stimulation group and the sham stimulation group. Subjective questionnaires, behavior test, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy test were conducted before and after the experiment. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the differences in mental fatigue indexes before and after the two experimental conditions.ResultsAfter 7 days of exercise training, there was a significant (...) difference in the main effect of the time factor in all indexes of the two groups. The scores of rated perceived exertion scale, positive and negative affect schedule, critical flicker frequency, and reaction time, in the tPCS treatment group, were better than those in the sham stimulation group. After 7 days of exercise training, all the subjects had different degrees of athlete’s mental fatigue; the subjects in the active stimulation group have a good evaluation of the tPCS developed by the research group without adverse actions.ConclusiontPCS intervention can improve emotional state, reduce the subjective evaluation of fatigue, improve behavioral levels such as attention and reaction time and increase cerebral prefrontal blood flow and oxygen supply. (shrink)

Electroencephalogram has been widely utilized in emotion recognition. Psychologists have found that emotions can be divided into conscious emotion and unconscious emotion. In this article, we explore to classify subliminal emotions with EEG signals elicited by subliminal face stimulation, that is to select appropriate features to classify subliminal emotions. First, multi-scale sample entropy, wavelet packet energy, and wavelet packet entropy of EEG signals are extracted. Then, these features are fed into the decision tree and improved random forest, respectively. The classification (...) accuracy with Ei and WpEn is higher than MSpEn, which shows that Ei and WpEn can be used as effective features to classify subliminal emotions. We compared the classification results of different features combined with the decision tree algorithm and the improved random forest algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the improved random forest algorithm attains the best classification accuracy for subliminal emotions. Finally, subliminal emotions and physiological proof of subliminal affective priming effect are discussed. (shrink)

Although some cognitive studies provided reasons that children with low socioeconomic status (SES) showed poor mathematical achievements, there was no explicit evidence to directly explain the root of lagged performance in children with low SES. Therefore, the present study explored the differences in neural correlates in the process of symbolic magnitude comparison between children with different SES by the event-related potentials (ERP). A total of 16 second graders from low SES families and 16 from middle/high SES families participated in this (...) study. According to the results of anterior N1 (early attention) and P2 (extraction of numerical meaning) over frontal region, the differences among children with different SES were manifested as differences in general neural activities in terms of attention and top-down cognitive control. In the late stage of cognitive processing, there was no significant difference in the average amplitude of the LPC between the children with different SES, indicating that low SES did not influence the information encoding and memory updating of numerical representation responsible by the parietal lobe. The educational implications of this study were mentioned in the discussion. (shrink)

Idioms are the unity of figurative and formulaic expressions, driving a variety of creative variants used in everyday life. This study explored how Chinese readers made sense of Chinese idioms and their variants, with possible constraints from their strength in overall inhibitory control (OIC). Our new attempt at a comprehensive measure of inhibitory control managed to predict the readers’ self-paced reading behavior in the context of the idioms written in the Chinese ideographic script. Those with poorer OIC were assumed to (...) show more difficulties in inhibiting the literal meaning of a Chinese idiom as the supportive context unfolded. Such constraints from OIC also resurfaced during the comprehension of the Chinese variants employed in this study that were likely treated as novel idioms. We thereby assumed a hybrid route for the comprehension of Chinese idiomatic expressions. Nonetheless, idiom familiarity or decomposability exerted limited influence during these processes. The current study enriches the individual-difference approach to idiom comprehension by further expounding how its account varies with an ideographic writing system characterized by symbolic glyphs. (shrink)

From a hermeneutic point of view, understanding is always conditioned by one's own horizon and perspective. as the great poet Su Shi remarks, we do not know the “true face of Mount Lu” because what we see constantly changes as we move high or low, far off or up close. But the point of the “hermeneutic circle” is not to legitimize the circularity or subjectivity of one's understanding, but to make us conscious of the challenge. How do we understand China, (...) its history and culture? What should be the appropriate paradigm or perspective for China studies? More than twenty years ago, Paul Cohen argued for a “China-centered” approach to understanding Chinese history, but to assume an insider's perspective does not guarantee adequate understanding any more than does an outsider's position guarantee emancipation from an insider's myopia or blindness. By discussing several exemplary cases in China studies, this essay argues that neither insiders nor outsiders have monopolistic or privileged access to knowledge, and that integration of different perspectives and their dynamic interaction beyond the isolation of native Chinese scholarship and Western Sinology may lead us to a better understanding of China and its history. (shrink)

Recent proposals for a “critical character epistemology” attend to the ways in which environments, institutions, social practices, and relationships promote the development of epistemic vice whilst acknowledging that the contexts of differently situated agents demand different epistemic character traits. I argue that a tension arises between two features of critical character epistemology: the classification as “epistemically corrupting” of environments, institutions, or structures which promote the development of epistemic vice; and commitment to normative contextualism—the doctrine that the normative status (the status (...) of a trait as a virtue or as a vice) of some or all epistemic character traits is context-dependent. I show how these two features lead to the claim that certain traits both are epistemic virtues and hinder the development of epistemic virtues. To make such an evaluation consistent, I propose a modified form of normative contextualism: dual-level normative contextualism. (shrink)

In “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) initiate needed discourse on environmental justice and the...

This article presents a systemic functional perspective for understanding the social and philosophical meanings conveyed by Beauvoir’s iconic sentence “on ne naît pas femme: on le devient,” with a view to addressing the controversy surrounding its English translations and complementing current philosophical debates. It analyzes Beauvoir’s linguistic resources in the sentence in question and describes how its meanings are symbolically articulated through her lexicogrammatical selections. This analysis serves as a point of departure for discussing the 1953 and 2009 translators’ choices.

If we inspect closely the works that ascend to world literature from the peripheral, David Damrosch’s well-recognized argument that “world literature is writing that gains in translation” may need some revision, because apparently translation is not the sole factor that decides the formation of world literature. Translated works do not necessarily represent the best part in one national literature. Damrosch’s overemphasis on translation differences and untranslatability in world literature tends to overlook the syncretism of heterogeneous literatures: The influence of Roman (...) Empire on Indian Buddhism, the influx of elements from Indian, Arabic, and Persian stories into European writers’ creation, the genres of China’s ancient literature influenced by Buddhism, etc. Furthermore, a great deal of Chinese idioms and allusions appearing in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese literatures provide us a general view of how world literature forms through exchange and syncretism. On this account, Damrosh’s argument may be reformulated as “world literature is writing that gains in variation.” Variation reflects the ability to absorb otherness and then to create something new. Meanwhile, the perspective of literary syncretism will help us reasonably distinguish world literature and national canons. (shrink)

Although the efficacy of teacher written feedback has been widely investigated, relatively few studies have been conducted from feedback practitioners' perspectives to investigate teachers' beliefs regarding it, particularly compare beliefs held by teachers with different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds. Consequently, much remains to be known about teachers' conceptions about written feedback, who has different first languages. To bridge such a gap, we conducted this qualitative study to examine the similarities and differences between native English-speaking and non-native English-speaking teachers' beliefs in (...) Chinese University EFL settings. We analyzed the in-depth interviews with eight teachers through thematic analysis. The findings showed that NES and NNES teachers espoused a range of beliefs in relation to the five themes of written feedback: Purpose, scope, focus, strategy, and orientation. While they shared similar beliefs with regard to feedback focus, their beliefs differed in terms of feedback scope. Important implications are discussed for educational practices. (shrink)

本书紧扣《论语》的文本,分析了《论语》中孔子的思想观念,力图呈现孔子的思想特质。.