The quantity and quality of Japanese political studies in China are influenced by political developments in China and Japan, Sino-Japanese relations, and academic development of political science. After the collapse of Japan's bubble economy and the end of the LDP's long rule in the early 1990s, many Chinese scholars diverted their attention from economic issues and took more interest in Japanese political studies. Political issues such as the resurgence of nationalism, the rise of right-wing forces, the end of the , (...) the political origin of long and heavy recessions, the , national strategy, and foreign policies have been discussed and debated. New approaches and perspectives such as the political pluralist approach, the new institutional approach, the ecological approach and the political process approach have been used. It is imperative to overcome the institutional, political, and financial problems in order to improve the state and raise the quality of Japanese political studies in China. (shrink)

Qingping åŠ‰æ¸ å¹³ has published a series of articles criticizing Confucian ethics in its modern context (see various articles by Liu), which has drawn the attention of many scholars. My friends and I have debated with him and his allies on this issue (See Guo 2002, Yang Haiwen 2002, Yang Zebo 2003, 2004a, 2004b, Ding 2003, 2005a, 2005b, Gong 2004, Guo and Gong 2004, and Wen 2005). Most of the important articles in the debate are now collected in a volume (...) I edited, A Collection of Contentions about Confucian Ethics: Focusing on the Mutual Concealment among Family Members (Guo 2005 [ed.]). In the following, I attempt to respond to some of Liu’s criticisms of Confucian ethics. (shrink)

An experiment explored the acquisition of conscious and unconscious knowledge of semantic prosody in a second language under incidental and intentional learning conditions. Semantic prosody is the conotational coloring of the semantics of a word, largely uncaptured by dictionary definitions. Contrary to some claims in the literature, we revealed that both conscious and unconscious knowledge were involved in the acquisition of semantic prosody. Intentional learning resulted in similar unconscious but more conscious knowledge than incidental learning. The results are discussed in (...) terms of second language learning and the nature of unconscious knowledge. (shrink)

The Confucian culture, rich in its contents and great in its significance, exerted on the thinking, culture and political life of ancient China immense influences, unparalleled by any other school of thought or culture. Confucian theories on morality and ethics, with 'goodness' as the core and 'rites' as the norm, served as the 'key notes' of the traditional medical ethics of China. The viewpoints of Confucianism on benevolence and material interests, on good and evil, on kindheartedness, and on character cultivation (...) were all inherited by the medical workers and thus became prominent in Chinese traditional medical ethics. Hence, it is clear that the medical profession and Confucianism have long shared common goals in terms of ethics. Influenced by the excellent Confucian thinking and culture, a rather highly-developed system of Chinese traditional medical ethics emerged with a well-defined basic content, and the system has been followed and amended by medical professionals of all generations throughout Chinese history. This system, just to mention briefly, contains concepts such as the need: to attach great importance to the value of life; to do one's best to rescue the dying and to heal the wounded; to show concern to those who suffer from diseases; to practise medicine with honesty; to study medical skills painstakingly; to oppose a careless style of work; to comfort oneself in a dignified manner; to respect local customs and to be polite; to treat patients, noble or humble, equally, and to respect the academic achievements of others, etc. Of course, at the same time, Confucian culture has its own historical and class limitations, which exerted negative influences on traditional medical ethics. Now, if we are to keep up with the development of modern medicine, a serious topic must be addressed. That is how to retain the essence of our traditional medical ethics so as to maintain historic continuity and yet, at the same time, add on the new contents of medical ethics so as to incorporate modern features into our system. Therefore, when trying to reform medical practice in China, we are faced with the urgent need to inherit and promulgate the essence of Confucian ethics--discarding its obsolete concepts--while at the same time building up the new medical ethics that can meet the requirements of the outside world and the future. (shrink)

For many energy companies in China, green brand strategy is becoming an important approach to enhance competitive advantage. However, greenwashing behaviors result in a crisis of trust. Existing research focuses on green marketing, but is silent on the institutional view of the trust crisis resulting from greenwashing by energy brands. Thus, this study takes a decoupling perspective from institutional theory and considers legitimacy, energy policy management, and green brand theories to shed light on the path from the decoupling of an (...) energy brand from green promise to green energy brand trust and the role of brand legitimacy and brand loyalty. It then analyzes survey data to conclude that DEBG not only has a direct negative effect on GEBT but also has an indirect influence through the vital mediating role of green energy brand legitimacy. Moreover, brand loyalty is a moderating factor and can alleviate the energy brand trust crisis. These findings not only can enrich the theories of energy brand management and green marketing but also offer important implications for energy policy management. (shrink)

This research topic (RT) focused on the impact of fitness on cognitive function and development in adolescents and elderly adults from the standpoint of lifespan neuroscience. Adolescent brain development is characterized by multimodal integration of brain anatomical features and function, according to accumulating evidence. The elderly, on the other hand, suffer from age-related cognitive deterioration. Fitness may be a major factor influencing brain growth and cognitive performance throughout these two critical times for neurological development. It is a multidimensional notion that (...) includes cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition, as well as motor fitness (balance, agility, speed, power, and coordination). Adolescents and older people may be responsive to intervention trials aimed at improving fitness levels, such as outdoor activities, cardiovascular exercise, and mind-body practice since brain network integration and neural efficiency are rapidly altered during this period. This RT investigates how fitness influences structural and functional brain development, particularly cognitive functions, and emotional health in adolescents and elderly people, as well as training strategies that may assist cognitive progress throughout this time. It includes a clinical trial (1) and original research papers (4) on the influence of fitness on cognitive function and development in adolescents and elderly adults from a lifespan neu... (shrink)

Editor’s AbstractGuo Qiyong is one of China's leading scholars of Confucianism, and in this essay proposes a distinctive way of thinking about Mainland New Confucianism that is notable for excluding Jiang Qing, Chen Ming, and some other self-identified Mainland New Confucians. Guo says that the fundamental political goal of all New Confucians has been “liberalism”; he argues that values like democracy and human rights can be both universally shared and yet retain distinctive, local differentiations.

The Zhuangzi is perhaps the one and only work in classical Chinese philosophy that never fails to blow one's mind with its exquisite intertwining of high frivolousness, literary power, ambiguity, ambivalence, profundity and provocativeness all at once. There is urgent need of a translation able to transmit this paradoxical reading experiences as it is. Happily, all of these qualities, with the possible exception of ambiguity, are revealed in Brook Ziporyn's Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, with both poetry and precision. Through a (...) hermeneutical approach that inter-contextualizes each line and each word of the thirty-three chapters, especially many controversial places, he makes the chaotic and unsystematic text... (shrink)

The essential significance of scientific metaphor lies in applying the general metaphorical theory to specific interpretations and elaborations of scientific theories to form a methodology of scientific explanation. It is a contextual grasp of objective reality. A given metaphorical context and its grasp of the essence of reality can only be valid when the context is continually restructured. Taking the context as a whole, the methodological characteristic of scientific metaphor lies in the unity of understanding and choice, experience and concepts, (...) semantic structures and metaphorical domains, rationality and irrationality. As a form of thinking based on reasons, scientific metaphor plays an important role in invention, representation, explanation, evaluation, and communication. (shrink)

The article is of the opinion that simultaneous with the study of practice as an aggregate that conditions the movement of knowledge an in-depth inquiry should be made into the structure and function of practice and its law of development from different angles. The article lays emphasis on probing into the following: the process in which the capacity for practice is converted from potential into reality and the specific social and historical conditions for the conversion; the dialectic relations between the (...) purpose and effect, the effect and efficiency, and the general and the partial effect of practice and the objective criterion to judge the effect; and the feedback mechanism of the movement of practice and its function. On the basis of the above, the article analyzes the intricate interactions between practice and its various links of efficacy, effect, and feedback and arrives at the conclusion that the dialectical cycle of "practice-efficacy-effect-feedback-practice" is objective, universal, dynamic, and open and thus constitutes one of the basic laws of the movement of practice. (shrink)

We demonstrated unconscious learning of task-irrelevant perceptual regularities in a Serial Reaction Time task in both visual and auditory domains. Participants were required to respond to different letters or syllables which occurred in random order. Unbeknownst to participants, the color of the two letters or the tone of the syllables varied according to certain rules. Reaction times indicated that people indeed learnt both the color and tonal regularities indicating that task-irrelevant sequence structure can be learned perceptually. In a subsequent prediction (...) test of knowledge of the color or tonal cues using subjective measures, we showed that people could acquire task irrelevant knowledge unconsciously. (shrink)

The classic thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans with one of the most accessible commentaries to date, from a Chinese Zen teacher. For more than eight centuries the Gateless Barrier has been studied by Zen (or Chan) practitioners in order to bring about meditative realizations about the nature of ultimate reality. Compiled by Chan Master Wumen Huikai in the thirteenth century, the Gateless Barrier (Chinese: Wumen guan; Japanese: Mumonkan) is a collection of forty-eight koans--stories of the sayings and actions of Chan (...) Masters in which they freely and directly express their enlightened experience. This fresh English translation by Guo Gu--the first from a Chinese Chan teacher--is one of the most accessible to date, and his commentary brings new life to these classic teachings. (shrink)

Mou Zongsan uses the highest moral principle “autonomy” to interpret Confucius’ benevolence and Mencius’ “inherent benevolence and righteousness”, focuses on the self-rule of the will. It does not do any harm to Mencius’ learning, on the contrary, it is conducive to the communication between Chinese and Western philosophies. If we stick to Kant’s moral self autonomy and apply it to interpreting Zhu Xi’s moral theory, similarly we will discover the implications of Zhu Xi’s “autonomy” in his moral learning. Therefore, it (...) is inappropriate for Mou Zongsan to say that Zhu Xi’s ethics belongs to the autonomous one. (shrink)

The aim of our research is to demonstrate that intentionality as a major property of consciousness and as a basic state of mind plays an important role in all the activities in which the subject is related to the objective world. This paper is based on John Searle’s theory of intentionality. Both ideological cognition and practical activity are object oriented activities. However, the objects targeted by them and the ways they are associated with their subjects are different. The function of (...) intentionality of ideological cognition is mainly reflected on its directedness, whereas in practical activities—on its motivating and regulating capacities. (shrink)

In "Literary Variation of Indian Buddhist Stories in Chinese 志怪 Novels," Wei Guo discusses Buddhist Sutra scriptures which have been a reservoir of inspiration for Zhiguai novels since their first introduction in Chinese literature. Buddhist texts were less relevant for the "documentary" tradition of Chinese literature owing to their rough structure, vague context, and lack of a sense of history and reality, since they were originally intended as texts of didacticism. Hence, in order to integrate these exotic literary materials with (...) local aesthetic concepts, Chinese writers explored creative adaptations including the addition of adding detail, linguistic embellishments, and the endowment of each story with specific narrative scenes in terms of character, place, and time. Guo argues that Indian Buddhist stories have been remolded in Zhiguai novels and transformed from imaginary religious literature into figurative and documentary literature whereby the convergence of the source texts with the target texts shows the processes of formation of world literature. (shrink)

In the history of Chinese and European philosophy, metaphysics has played an outstanding role: it is a theoretical framework which provides the basis for a philosophical understanding of the world and the self. A theory of the self is well integrated in a metaphysical understanding of the totality of nature as a dynamic process of continuous changes. According to this view, the purpose of existence can be conceived of as the development and realization of the full potential given to the (...) individual by its nature. In regard to human nature specifically, this idea of self-realization includes the development of all cognitive faculties as well as of the moral character. Metaphysics has, however, suffered a loss of importance in current debates, especially in ethics. As a result, we observe the emergence of such philosophical views as moral skepticism and even nihilism. The consequence of this tendency has been the renunciation of a claim to understanding and to providing a solid ground for ethics. Yet an intercultural dialogue can provide us with some hope as the consolidation of debates on crucial topics of our traditions might indeed serve as the basis for a more powerful philosophy in the future. (shrink)

This book offers an annotated translation of two of preeminent Chinese Tang dynasty monk Chengguan’s most revered masterpieces. With this book, Chengguan’s Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra and The Meanings Proclaimed in the Subcommentaries Accompanying the Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra are finally brought to Western audiences.

When there is no immediate response after a proposal and normally the silence is longer than 0.2 s, the proposer would take subsequent actions to pursue a preferred response or mobilize at least an articulated one from the recipient. These actions modulate the prior deontic stance embedded in the original proposal into four trends as follows: maintaining the prior deontic stance with a self-repair or by seeking confirmation; making the prior deontic stance more tentative by making a revised other-attentiveness proposal, (...) providing an account, pursuing with a tag question, or requesting with an intimate address term; making the prior deontic stance more decisive by making a further arrangement, closing the local sequence, or providing a candidate unwillingness account ; and canceling the prior deontic stance by doing a counter-like action. Additionally, these trends inherently embody a decisive-to-tentative gradient. This study would penetrate into the phenomena occurring in Mandarin mundane talk with the methodology of Conversation Analysis to uncover the underflow of deontic stance. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. Social distancing measures coupled with national lockdowns have reduced work opportunities and the overall household incomes. Moreover, the disruption in agricultural production and supply routes is expected to continue into 2021, which may leave millions without access to food. Coincidentally, those who suffer the most are poor people. As such, food security and tourism poverty alleviation are interlinked when discussing social problems and development. While the corporate interest (...) in tourism poverty alleviation is as old as the industrial revolution, little research has been conducted to show how social innovation can be leveraged to reinforce food security and alleviate poverty. Thus, this case study examines the food industry in rural China to establish how it conducts social innovation in food production and distribution to facilitate social development and mitigate poverty. (shrink)