_The Essential Mengzi_ offers a representative selection from Bryan Van Norden's acclaimed translation of the full work, including the most frequently studied passages and covering all of the work's major themes. An appendix of selections from the classic commentary of Zhu Xi--one of the most influential and insightful interpreters of Confucianism--keyed to relevant passages, provides access to the text and to its reception and interpretation. Also included are a general Introduction, timeline, glossary, and selected bibliography.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article is essentially a commentary on a little-known text by `Alain' (whose real name was Emile-Auguste Chartier), successively entitled Les marchands de sommeil and Vigiles de l'esprit. This piece of work, initially a prize-giving speech to students in a Parisian lycée, was rewritten by Alain many years later during the Second World War. It describes with acute intelligence and in a splendid metaphoric language the enduring and compelling proposition that the formation of critical judgement should be the ultimate purpose (...) of all teaching. (shrink)

Today’s students are accustomed to a world where information is available on-demand, anywhere and anytime. They bring this expectation to their academic world where they want to work cooperatively and flexibly, using the modern information processing tools and access with which they are familiar. New hardware platforms such as e-Readers and tablet computers have made substantial inroads in the consumer market. E-Readers are becoming more prevalent in universities – replacing the need for physical textbooks, lecturing notes and other academic documents. (...) Many universities are now running pilot programs, while some are already using e-Readers. Tablet computers, apart from their ability to read, edit or create various types of information documents, also offer additional features such as collaborative and social networking services. This empirical research project investigated student perspectives on the educational use of e-Readers and tablets within the University of Cape Town. A questionnaire was distributed to a significant portion of the student population and stratified according to seniority and faculty. Quantitative data was gathered and analysed on themes ranging from awareness to preferences to facilitating conditions around e-Readers within the academic environment. The students sent a clear signal: that they are keen to embrace these new technologies and the advantages they offer. E-Books can be updated automatically and downloaded to e-Readers instantly from almost anywhere in the world. Students feel they would benefit greatly through the use of e-Readers and many believe they are set to replace books completely. Having access to a portable library of information in their backpacks would benefit both students and the environment. However, there are a number of barriers to the comprehensive introduction of these technologies, including the cost of the devices; cost, rights and file format of e-books; the need for a critical mass of textbooks available in digital format and device characteristics such as battery life, and ubiquitous Wi-Fi access. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTaking its cue from Hannah Arendt’s comment that ‘truth gets lost in the Enlightenment’ and Lessing’s parable of God’s ‘left hand’, this paper traces a historical shift in moral and religious thought: roughly from truth to sincerity. From traditional conceptions of conscience as conditional on the objective truth of its content, the paper moves on, via the Reformation and seventeenth-century Augustinian turn, to early modern debates on toleration and the ‘erring conscience’. It is argued that Pierre Bayle’s Commentaire Philosophique of (...) 1686 can be read as a crucial catalogue for understanding the substitution of truth with sincerity : so that not truth but truthfulness is considered to be essential for moral and religious justification. Moving from Bayle to Immanuel Kant, the paper then shows how many of the same questions rise in Kant’s late essay on theodicy, which is also an essay on sincerity or integrity, via the Book of Job. Through these two thinkers, various themes are connected: from conscience and sincerity to the problem of the conscientious persecutor. Finally, these themes of truth, error and integrity are linked to the modern debate on authenticity, and a framework is proposed for conceptualising these various shifts. (shrink)

Projet En développant son « empirisme constructif », Bas Van Fraassen est devenu une référence incontournable pour la philosophie des sciences contemporaine. Après la vague de critiques qui, vers les années 1960, avait fait perdre à l'empirisme logique sa prédominance dans le champ des idées, le réalisme scientifique semblait s'être imposé comme le seul compte rendu acceptable du travail et des orientations de la recherche. Quine avait beau énoncer ce que pourrait être un empirisme affranchi de ses deux « dogmes (...) » (l'intangibilité de la distinction vérités analytiques / vérités synthétiques, et la réduction des constructions aux « faits »), le programme d'une philosophie des sciences empiriste renouvelée restait à l'état d'esquisse. Mais par trois ouvrages successifs, Scientific Image (1980), Laws and symmetry (1989), et Quantum mechanics an empiricist view (1991), Van Fraassen a posé les bases d'un empirisme viable, parce que capable de prendre en charge la plupart des spécificités dont se prévaut le réalisme contre l'empirisme classique ou logique, et de rendre raison des développements les plus actuels de la physique. Contre l'empirisme classique ou logique, les réalistes font d'abord valoir que la réduction de toute réalité et de tout acte de référence aux phénomènes, ne rend justice ni à la pratique du langage courant ni à celle des sciences. Lorsque quelqu'un procède à une dénomination, il ne cherche pas à désigner par là une tranche d'apparaître, ou quelque ensemble fini et répertorié d'apparitions; il pointe vers "quelque chose" dont les modalités de manifestation sans fin assignable sont pour partie anticipées et pour partie ouvertes. De même, quand un chercheur scientifique parle de l'objet de ses investigations, il ne limite pas son discours à un ensemble fini de résultats d'expérience obtenus sous des conditions instrumentales actuellement disponibles; il renvoie à une entité dont la variété des manifestations futures est prévue aussi complètement que possible (et avec un succès croissant) par des cadres conceptuels et théoriques révisables. Face à cette objection, Van Fraassen fait jouer un rôle capital aux modèles dans sa version de l'empirisme.. (shrink)

Modern logic is an active agent all across the university today, connecting disciplines, and transcending traditional boundaries. This book demonstrates this general role in the special setting of a conference at Tsinghua University, where modern logic was already taught in the 1930s by pioneers like Jin Yeulin. This boon contains an unusual dialogue between Chinese logicians and international colleagues representing a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, mathematics, linguistics computer science, cognitive science, and the social sciences. The focus of this (...) encounter is not only to advance logic in its university-wide role but also to look for its application in modern society. (shrink)

This 2nd edition Handbook of Spinoza retains a unique focus on the biographical details of Spinoza's life, as well as essential scholarship on his influences and early critics. A glossary of key Latin Spinozan terms with English translations remains a key feature alongside short synopses of Spinoza's writings. Adding to the updated contemporary scholarship on Spinoza from across Europe and the US is the recognition of Spinoza's influence more globally. Distinct from other reference works on Spinoza, this book offers the (...) tools and methodology necessary for students and scholars who are completing their own research. Accompanying each main section is an updated and detailed bibliography that situates both the summative and original scholarship therein. This 2nd edition includes a revised biography from Jeroen van de Ven who has systematically revisited the archive; influences will now include reference to Machiavelli and Hobbes primarily, as well as remarks on the De La Court brothers, La Perèyre, and Delmedigo. A new entry on the critic, Willem van Blijenbergh, alongside a reconstruction of dozens of letters now lost from Spinoza consolidates new directions of study which are supported by additional glossary terms on Axioma (cf. Ordo geometricus), Definitio (ibid.), Excommunicare, Lumen, Methodus, Negatio, Pax, Ratio, (Cf. Cognitio), Scientia intuitiva, and Tempus amongst others. Maintaining an approach that is refreshingly independent of the historicist/analytic/continental divide, this work features scholars from across these traditions, and remains an essential point of reference for students and scholars alike. (shrink)

Dit artikel behandelt de vraag van wat filosofie is vanuit de gelijknamige tekst van Heidegger. Het bespreekt het mogelijk onderscheid tussen continentale en analytische manieren om aan filosofie te doen, evenals het effect van de universitaire institutie op de filosofische bedrijvigheid.

A lire attentivement Descartes, on se surprend à constater que l'inventeur de la philosophie du sujet pensant emploie rarement le mot de " sujet ", si ce n'est au sens traditionnel et scolastique de sujet des accidents ou des qualités, ou encore de substance. Le but de ce volume est donc d'aborder à nouveaux frais la question à partir de l'inventaire du vocabulaire cartésien de la " subjectivité ". Devons-nous dire ainsi que l'ego du cogito est sujet? Ou bien la (...) res cogitans? Ou encore la mens? Y a-t-il un sujet corporel chez Descartes, ou alors l'union est-elle le sujet? Y a-t-il, de la même manière, un sujet des passions? Un ipse, une ipséité serait-elle enfin le sujet chez Descartes? Multiples formes de la question de savoir s'il y a bien une philosophie du sujet chez Descartes. (shrink)

It was in the days when European society was in the throes of expanding industrial capitalism that Abraham Kuyper formulated his basic ideas about the pitfalls of the free enterprise system and the need for a structural make-over of society. Already two decades before his mature address of 1891 on the social question, he urged the church to concern herself seriously with the plight of the working classes. In 1874 he railed against “fictitious trade” and mere “paper assets.” In an (...) extensive commentary on his political party’s program he repeated his fundamental objection to the “fictitious expansion of capital”, calling for legislation to curb such excesses and to create a better balance in incomes between the different classes making up society. He argued for equity and justice rather than charity and philanthropy, and for wages and salaries proportional to effort, skill and education. Yet while the gap between rich and poor cried out to heaven, the first step toward solving the social question, according to the youthful Kuyper, was not to focus on the poor but to provide employment opportunities so that the able and willing working man could earn a living wage. He proposed raising import duties and protective tariffs, replacing taxes on necessaries with taxes on luxuries, abolishing government-run lotteries, and lifting the ban on organizing trade-unions. To achieve these reforms, it was essential that the lower classes be given greater representation in parliament and that selfish greed make way for neighbourly love and mutual solidarity. (shrink)