This paper explores the concept of skill in Zhuangzi and Stoicism, and argues that the role of the Stoic techne in practicing the art of living can be better understood if we introduce some perspec...

The paper explores the role of body in Epictetus’s Discourse and Buddhist Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and underscores the importance of embodied practice in Epictetan askēsis (‘training or exercise’). It argues that the important but unrecognized role of the body in Epictetan askēsis can be better understood if we introduce in some perspectives of early Buddhism. From the angle of spiritual exercise, early Buddhism maintains that the meditator ought to experience the body directly and contemplate the body as an impermanent physical object, (...) and not identify oneself with it. And based on the insight into the reality of the body and the cultivation of bodily awareness, the meditator can detach himself from the transient phenomenon and remove the unwholesome states of mind. Similarly, for Epictetus, by training our impression on the body and regarding the body as an indifferent thing but not the true self, one may successfully attain the truth of the body conditioned in various social contexts and then realize detachment and freedom. Therefore, in both early Buddhist meditation and Epictetan askēsis, the embodied practice of contemplating the body as it actually is, is also a spiritual exercise to understand the phenomenal world and detach from external things and to examine and tranquilize the internal world. (shrink)

The Neo-Confucian notion of wan wu yi ti 万物一体 and Stoic oikeiôsis both come up with a motivational basis for the expansion of concern, but one of the toughest problems in them is how to elaborate on selfhood and self–other relation in moral development. This paper takes a comparative view of Hierocles’ fragments and a few other relevant Stoic texts and Wang Yang-ming’s Inquiry on the Great Learning, and argues that doing so helps eliminate some confusions concerning selfhood and self–other (...) relation. My claim is that the concept of the Stoic oikeiôsis and the concept of Wang’s ‘wan wu yi ti’ have different ideas on selfhood and the self–other relation while showing similarities in basing the ideal of self-development on the original unity between self and world. (shrink)

The biotech revolution profoundly changes and reconstructs the Foucaultian concept of biopolitics from different dimensions. It declares the coming of the Age of Biocapitalism, which opens a new pattern of modern power allocation of life governance and shows people two prospects simultaneously: utopian hopes and dystopian desperation. Biocapitalism has not only produced ethical degeneration and cultural shock, but more importantly, has opened new areas for political hegemony and economic aggression through the reconstruction of biopolitics, and the enhancement of capital’s comprehensive (...) dominance on nature and the human society. Therefore, it has become an area of serious, scholarly research in the biotech era to explore the implications of contemporary biopolitics, to take precautions against, and reduce the real risks of technocapitalism. This paper investigates the new biopolitics supported by the manipulation of modern biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, and unveils the possible hazards and deep contradictions inherent in this capital-controlled science, within the context of biocapitalism. It also seeks ways to prevent technological alienation and to reconstruct political rationality. It argues that entrepreneurs, scientists, companies and universities of developed countries must realize the limits of capital expansion and the self―regulatory capability of the market, and, then, assume ethical responsibilities as biocapital holders. (shrink)