Learning from Chinese Philosophies engages Confucian and Daoist philosophies in creative interplay, developing a theory of interdependent selfhood in the two philosophical traditions. Karyn Lai draws on the unique insights of the two philosophies to address contemporary debates on ethics, community and government. Issues discussed include questions on selfhood, attachment, moral development, government, culture and tradition, and feminist queries regarding biases and dualism in ethics. Throughout the book, Lai demonstrates that Chinese philosophies embody novel and insightful ideas for addressing contemporary (...) issues and problems. (shrink)

The cicada catcher focuses as much on technique as he does on outcomes. In response to Confucius’ question, he articulates in detail the learning he has undertaken to develop techniques at each level of competence. This chapter explains the connection between the cicada catcher’s development of technique and his orientation toward outcomes. It uses details in this story to contribute to recent discussions in epistemology on the cultivation of technique.

In this paper, I give an answer to the central epistemic question regarding the normative requirements for beliefs based on testimony. My suggestion here is that our best strategy for coming up with the conditions for justification is to look at cases where the adoption of the belief matters to the person considering it. This leads me to develop, in Part One of the paper, an interest-relative theory of justification, according to which our justification for a proposition p depends on (...) our evidence in favour of p in proportion to our interest in p, as signalled by the epistemic risk we take in believing that p is true. In Part Two, I argue that this theory shows that the reductivist view offers a better normative account for the epistemic status of beliefs based on testimony than the credulist one, but it is inaptly named; the view I develop here is better conceived of as The Dependence Account. (shrink)

Prologue -- Paris, August 1, 1990 -- What happened next -- Live in it -- Africa, 2008 -- Paris, revisited.

Motivated ignorance is an incentivized absence of knowledge that arises in circumstances of unequal power relations, a self-protective non-knowing which frees individuals from having to reflect on the privileges they have in virtue of membership in a dominant social group. In philosophical discussions, the term “motivated ignorance” gets used interchangeably with “willful ignorance.” In the first half of this paper, using Charles Mills’ (2007) white ignorance as the defining case, I argue that this is a mistake. A significant swath of (...) cases of motivated ignorance are non-willful, or deep, following Rik Peels (2010). But in all cases, benefits accrued to some in virtue of their social position are gained and maintained at the expense of harms to others. In the second half of this paper, I argue that these harms are what ground attributions of culpability in cases of motivated ignorance and drive the normative requirement that the subject know better, so long as the facts in question are ordinarily and easily knowable (in a sense to be specified). Willfulness is not a necessary condition for culpability, even if it is a sufficient one. (shrink)

Objectives—While clinical practice is complicated by many ethical dilemmas, clinicians do not often request ethics consultations. We therefore investigated what triggers clinicians' requests for ethics consultation. Design—Cross-sectional telephone survey.Setting—Internal medicine practices throughout the United States.Participants—Randomly selected physicians practising in internal medicine, oncology and critical care.Main measurements—Socio-demographic characteristics, training in medicine and ethics, and practice characteristics; types of ethical problems that prompt requests for consultation, and factors triggering consultation requests. Results—One hundred and ninety of 344 responding physicians (55%) reported requesting ethics (...) consultations. Physicians most commonly reported requesting ethics consultations for ethical dilemmas related to end-of-life decision making, patient autonomy issues, and conflict. The most common triggers that led to consultation requests were: 1) wanting help resolving a conflict; 2) wanting assistance interacting with a difficult family, patient, or surrogate; 3) wanting help making a decision or planning care, and 4) emotional triggers. Physicians who were ethnically in the minority, practised in communities under 500,000 population, or who were trained in the US were more likely to request consultations prompted by conflict. Conclusions—Conflicts and other emotionally charged concerns trigger consultation requests more commonly than other cognitively based concerns. Ethicists need to be prepared to mediate conflicts and handle sometimes difficult emotional situations when consulting. The data suggest that ethics consultants might serve clinicians well by consulting on a more proactive basis to avoid conflicts and by educating clinicians to develop mediation skills. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Chinese text, is optimistic about life unrestrained by entrenched values. This paper contributes to existing debates on Zhuangzian freedom in three ways. First, it reflects on how it is possible to enjoy the freedom envisaged in the Zhuangzi. Many discussions welcome the Zhuangzi’s picture of release from life shaped by canonical visions, without also giving thought to life without these driving visions. Consider this scenario: in a world with limitless possibilities, would it not be (...) fraught, not knowing how to interpret situations? I suggest that freedom in the Zhuangzi is possible only if one succeeds in reorienting herself to the new ‘normal’. Second, I introduce and develop the idea of working with constraints. This focuses on an agent's maximizing the fit between relevant conditions, on the one hand, and their capabilities, on the other. Finally, I propose that self-directed practice, an important expression of agency, is required for building capabilities that enable such freedom. I examine the idea of risk involved in these firsthand experiences, articulating an account of agency that sits at the heart of hard-won Zhuangzian freedom. (shrink)

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi presents an illuminating analysis of skill stories from the Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text. In this intriguing text that subverts conventional norms and pursuits, ordinary activities such as swimming, cicada-catching and wheelmaking are executed with such remarkable efficacy and spontaneity that they seem like magical feats. An international team of scholars explores these stories in their philosophical, historical and political contexts. Their analyses’ highlight the stories’underlying conceptions of agency, character and (...) cultivation; and relevance to contemporary debates on human action and experience. The result is a valuable collection, opening up new lines of inquiry in comparative East-West philosophical debates on skill, cultivation and mastery, as well as cross-disciplinary debates in psychology, cognitive science and philosophy. (shrink)

It is proposed here that the Confucian li, norms of appropriate behavior, be understood as part of the dynamic process of moral self-cultivation. Within this framework li are multidimensional, as they have different functions at different stages in the cultivation process. This novel interpretation refocuses the issue regarding the flexibility of li, a topic that is still being debated by scholars. The significance of this proposal is not restricted to a new understanding of li. Key features of the various stages (...) of moral development in Confucian thought are also articulated. This account presents the picture of a Confucian paradigmatic person as critically self-aware and ethically sensitive. (shrink)

In the Confucian tradition, sages are moral reference points. They may serve as models against which we measure our own behaviours, and help us imagine how we can improve the quality of our moral lives. This defining feature of Confucian philosophy has persisted though the subsequent development of the tradition to the present. Yet, little has been said about the important epistemological issues that underlie the Confucian modelling process. In order to uphold sages as moral reference points, people need to (...) recognize sages as sages and to deem the ways in which their lives embody virtue as desirable. This paper draws on a form of knowing, namely, knowing-as, to illuminate the process of learning from sages in the Confucian tradition. It will also help us better understand the process of modelling more generally. (shrink)

Current debates surrounding Aristotle's Politics involve attempts to explain the role of political participation in the pursuit of Aristotle's human telos, eudaimonia. Many argue that political participation is crucial to eudaimonia, equating the good man with the good citizen. Often this argument is based on Aristotle's labelling of humans as zoon politikon, or ‘political animal’, and the misleading translation of eudaimonia as ‘happiness’. We provide supported explanations of eudaimonia and zoon politikon which do not force us to equate the good (...) man and the good citizen. We illustrate Aristotle's analogy between the eudaimon man and the eudaimon polis and emphasize the role political participation sometimes plays in the pursuit of eudaimonia. On the basis of this evidence, we argue that Aristotle did not equate the good man with the good citizen necessarily, nor did he find political participation essential to eudaimonia. We then demonstrate that even without political participation, the polis plays a unique role in the pursuit of eudaimonia. (shrink)

Akrasia is a classical Greek term that is typically translated as “incontinence,” although it is sometimes translated as “weakness of the will”. Someone who displays practical akrasia exhibits a failure of control, but not an absence of control. In the practical case, the akratic individual intentionally and voluntarily acts in a way that is contrary to what she judges she ought to do. I tuck into a large piece of cheesecake even though I know I ought not to, or I (...) light up a cigarette although I have avowed to quit. In cases of akrasia, practical judgments go in different directions; the agent acts against her best... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the Strong Programme’s aim to provide robust explanations of belief acquisition is limited by its commitment to the symmetry principle. For Bloor and Barnes, the symmetry principle is intended to drive home the fact that epistemic norms are socially constituted. My argument here is that even if our epistemic standards are fully naturalized—even relativized—they nevertheless can play a pivotal role in why individuals adopt the beliefs that they do. Indeed, sometimes the fact that a (...) belief is locally endorsed as rational is the only reason why an individual holds it. In this way, norms of rationality have a powerful and unique role in belief formation. But if this is true then the symmetry principle’s emphasis on ‘sameness of type’ is misguided. It has the undesirable effect of not just naturalizing our cognitive commitments, but trivializing them. Indeed, if the notion of ‘similarity’ is to have any content, then we are not going to classify as ‘the same’ beliefs that are formed in accordance with deeply entrenched epistemic norms as ones formed without reflection on these norms, or ones formed in spite of these norms. My suggestion here is that we give up the symmetry principle in favor of a more sophisticated principle, one that allows for a taxonomy of causes rich enough to allow us to delineate the unique impact epistemic norms have on those individuals who subscribe to them.Keywords: Strong Programme; Naturalism; Epistemology; David Bloor; Barry Barnes. (shrink)

Cheryl Misak argues that since disquotationalism cannot distinguish between different kinds of declarative sentences it cannot make sense of the disciplined nature of moral discourse. This apparent weakness is overcome by her pragmatist theory of truth, which reinflates truth by linking it to our everyday practices of justification and verification. In this paper I argue that the criticism that a deflated notion of truth cannot capture our justificatory practices has no purchase with someone who has no such aspirations for the (...) truth predicate, and I go on to argue that this points to a more serious problem with Misak’s pragmatist theory of truth, namely her desire to explicate justification in terms of truth. The burden of making sense of debates in the moral realm lies not with the truth theorist, but elsewhere. Misak is right that moral claims demand greater justification than certain other sorts of declarative sentences, but the best explanation for this is the nature of the subject matter introduced by a claim to which the predicate ‘true’ is then applied. (shrink)

In part I of this paper, I argue that #MeToo testimony increases epistemic value for the survivor qua hearer when experiences like hers are represented by others; for society at large when false but dominant narratives about sexual violence and sexual harassment against women are challenged and replaced with true stories; and for the survivor qua teller when her true story is believed. In part II, I argue that the epistemic significance of #MeToo testimony compels us to consider the tremendous (...) and often unappreciated costs to the individual tellers, and the increased credibility they are owed in virtue thereof. (shrink)

The standard criticisms of Confucian ethics appear contradictory. On the one hand, Confucian ethics is deemed overly rule-bound: it is obsolete because it advocates adherence to ancient Chinese norms of proper conduct. On the other hand, Confucian ethics is perceived as situational ethics—done on the run—and not properly grounded in fundamental principles or norms. I give reasons for these disparate views of Confucian ethics. I also sketch an account of Confucian morality that focuses on moral development; in this account the (...) place of normative ethics is nominal. (shrink)

This essay undertakes a critique of recent trends in affect theory from the standpoint of the “human motor”: a trope that presupposes a thermodynamic psychophysiology distended between energy conservation and entropy. In the course of reanimating thermodynamic motifs in Marx's labor power metabolics and Freud's trauma energetics, the essay broaches entropics as a poetics of depletion that offsets affect theories promoting open-system metaphors. Open-system affect theory sometimes amalgamates emancipatory post-humanist gestures inherited from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with neuroscientific terms. (...) In the course of “liberating” affect from subject-oriented topoi, this “liberation-scientistic” admixture expropriates organic matter's degeneration over time. An “entropical” perspective also challenges Antonio Negri's Spinozaist affect conceived as a capacitating power that encounters obstacles but never limits. Both “liberation scientism” and “capacitation rhetoric” mimic capital's abstraction in infinitely expanding its potential to extract surplus value from finitely embodied labor. With enervation and deterioration at its crux, entropics illuminates how people might feel individuated by their respective struggles to safeguard scarce energy and forestall “heat death” while navigating simultaneous demands. The question is whether or not open-system motifs in affect theory can effectively register the political force of this struggle with depletion and present or imminent debilitation as its common ground. (shrink)

Il s’agira ici de faire apparaître la régressivité — possibilité perpétuelle d’adjoindre un degré supplémentaire à l’énoncé — comme le principe même de l’ironie, ce qui conduit à la concevoir non comme une grille sémiotique et axiologique, mais comme une dynamique.La réflexion part de la cellule de base qu’est le signe ironique en tant que structure hiérarchisée à deux degrés, selon la conception traditionnelle. Cette dualité est d’abord analysée du point de vue sémantique, dans le cadre tropologique, puis sur les (...) plans axiologique, actantiel et énonciatif, ce qui aboutit à l’hypothèse de l’ironie comme trope métadiscursif, cumulant l’usage et la mention . Dans ce cadre, l’ironie se conçoit comme une représentation de représentation, comme un processus d’auto-duplication agissant par réflexivité critique et comique, et donc capable de se perpétuer virtuellement à l’infini puisque, s’appliquant à lui-même, il peut toujours ajouter un degré au précédent, sans pour autant l’annuler : le signe à deux niveaux ne constitue que la réalisation minimale de l’ironie, dont le second degré peut lui-même être réfléchi par un troisième, etc. Le « pouvoir réfléchissant » de l’ironie fait ainsi sa « force ascensionnelle » régressive, selon deux expressions empruntées à Proust.Interne au signe, ce dynamisme permet aussi, à l’échelle d’une oeuvre, de greffer différentes sortes d’ironie les unes sur les autres : la puissance créatrice du processus régressif conduit à envisager son rôle dans l’oeuvre d’art, en l’occurrence À la recherche du temps perdu, dont le texte multiplie de façon exemplaire et retorse les strates d’ironie. La Recherche, qui aura préalablement servi de support à toutes les analyses, permettra, par l’intermédiaire de Bergotte — écrivain ironiste dont le génie consiste dans le « pouvoir réfléchissant » et l’énergie créatrice dans la « force ascensionnelle » —, de poser la question de l’actualisation de la régressivité ironique dans l’oeuvre littéraire.Regressivity, as the perpetual possibility of adding a further degree to an utterance is the very principle of irony, which is thus conceived not under a semiotic and axiological grid, but as a dynamics.Reflection starts from the ironic sign as the basic cell and as a two tiered hierarchical structure, according to the traditional conception. This duality is first analysed from a semantical point of view, within the tropological framework, then on the axiological, actancial and utterance theoretic levels. This leads us to the hypothesis that irony is a metadiscursive trope, bringing together use and mention . Within this framework, irony is a representation of representation, an auto-duplicative process which acts through critical and comical reflectivity, and which is liable to perpetuate itself indefinitely, since, being auto-applicative, a new degree can always be added to the previous one, without cancelling itself : the two tiered sign being only the minimal realisation of irony, whose second degree can itself be reflected through a third, and so on. The “reflective power” of irony thus produces its “ascending force”.This mechanism internal to the sign allows also, at the level of the work, to plug different kinds of ironies onto each other : the creative power of the regressive process allows us to envisage its role in the work of art, in the case at hand in Remembrance of Things Past, whose text multiplies the various layers of irony. Proust’s work, which is here the basis of all our analyses, allows Bergotte — the ironist writer whose genius consists in the “reflective power” and in the “ascending force” — to raise the question of the actualisation of the ironical regressivity of the literary work. (shrink)

Robert Brandom grants that an individual can know even if she cannot provide a reasoned defense of her non-accidentally true beliefs about the world. Brandom is wrong, I argue, to suggest that this phenomenon of super blindsightedness is rare or fringe. This oversight becomes clear when we turn from the eccentric example of the industrial chicken-sexer to the case of the survivor of sexual violence. What we have in this instance is a subject who, qua survivor, has certain reliably formed, (...) that is, non-accidentally true, beliefs about which she has deep conviction, but which she cannot defend because she has blocked from memory the details of her traumatic experience. She is super blindsighted. In light of the universality and everydayness of sexual violence this phenomenon is, I conclude, run of the mill. Thus, even if Brandom is right that reliabilism cannot replace reason-giving from its central role in a cognitive practice, it takes up a vital role alongside it. (shrink)

Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos. Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece engages in comparative, cross-tradition scholarship and investigates the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live such lives. -/- By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way (...) of life. They look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Using the thought of those thinkers central to both traditions, including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, and highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions. They also discuss the action of doing as an indispensable method of learning. As a result, Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics and demonstrating the importance of drawing on philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions. (shrink)

This anthology presents the distinctive insights of Chinese philosophy and their relevance to contemporary issues in a range of areas: moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, environmental ethics, medicine and psychological health. New, especially interdisciplinary research Applies insights in Chinese philosophy from eminent scholars in the field of Chinese philosophy.

The introduction sets out how the chapters in the volume draw on Eastern and Western philosophical traditions to enrich and diversify our present conceptions of knowledge. Three meanings of extension are employed across the volume’s chapters. First, the chapters challenge prevailing conceptions of knowledge in Western epistemology. Second, they propose that to have knowledge is not only to have ideas cogitating in the mind, but also to perceive, feel, act and respond by engaging mind and body in specific environments. Third, (...) the chapters evoke scenarios to challenge Western epistemology’s predominantly theoretically bound conceptions of knowledge. (shrink)

The effects of aging on the cognitive and affective dimensions of theory of mind , and on the latter’s links with other cognitive processes, such as information processing speed, executive functions and episodic memory, are still unclear. We therefore investigated these effects in young , middle-aged and older adults , using separate subjective and objective assessment tasks. Furthermore, a novel composite task probed participants’ abilities to infer both cognitive and affective mental states in an interpersonal context. Although age affected the (...) objective ToM tests, results revealed a direct aging effect on the second-order ToM, but an indirect one on the first-order cognitive ToM, mediated mainly by age-related declines in executive functions. This study supports the notion of an age-related distinction between subjective and objective assessments of ToM, and confirms that ToM is a complex mental ability with several characteristics reliant to some extent on executive processes. (shrink)

Helen Longino argues that the way to ensure scientific knowledge is objective is to have a diversity of scientific investigators. This is the best example of recent feminist arguments which hold that the real value of diversity is epistemic, and not political, but it only partly succeeds. In the end, Longino's objectivity amounts to intersubjective agreement about contextually based standards, and while her account gives us a good reason for wanting diversity in our scientific communities, this reason turns out to (...) be political. (shrink)

There are two main approaches within classical cognitive science to explaining how humans can entertain mental states that integrate contents across domains. The language-based framework states that this ability arises from higher cognitive domain-specific systems that combine their outputs through the language faculty, whereas the language-independent framework holds that it comes from non-language-involving connections between such systems. This article turns on its head the most influential empirical argument for the language-based framework, an argument that originates from research on spatial reorientation. (...) I make the case that neuroscientific findings about spatial reorientation in rodents and humans bolster the language-independent framework instead. (shrink)

Many philosophers have adopted epistemic expressivism in recent years. The core commitment of epistemic expressivism is that epistemic claims express conative states. This paper assesses the plausibility of this commitment. First, we raise a new type of problem for epistemic expressivism, the epistemic motivation problem. The problem arises because epistemic expressivists must provide an account of the motivational force of epistemic judgment (the mental state expressed by an epistemic claim), yet various features of our mental economy seem to show that (...) they can’t do so. Second, we develop what we take to be the most promising response to that problem for expressivists. We end by noting that this response faces an important challenge pertaining to the psychology of epistemic criticism and praise. (shrink)

In their well-known paper, John Gardner and Stephen Shute (2000) propose a pure case of rape, in which a woman is raped while unconscious and the rape, for a variety of stipulated reasons, never comes to light. This makes the pure case a harmless case of rape, or so they argue. In this paper I show that their argument hinges on an outdated conception of trauma, one which conflates evaluative responses that arise in the aftermath of rape with the non-deliberative (...) somatic responses of a central nervous system to a threatening event. In the first part of this paper, I elaborate this objection by drawing on the neurobiological model of trauma. This gives me an opportunity to illustrate the different ways that rape harms its victims, including the central way, what I call ‘threat-circuitry harm.’ This discussion of trauma invites us to rethink the wrong of rape, and sets the groundwork for my argument, in the second part of the paper, that the wrong of rape consists in its central harm. (shrink)

The practice of nonphysician ethicist-consultants giving ethics advice concerning the appropriate medical treatment of patients in hospitals is a relatively recent development. Although only a minority of hospitals make substantial use of any formal ethics consulting service, the number is growing and apparently will continue to do so. Indeed, at least among urban teaching hospitals, some sort of ethics consulting service is increasingly commonplace.

The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text, is sceptical about the political culture of its time. Those who debated conceptions of a good life were hostile to the views of others. They were intolerant and at times contemptuous of others who did not embody their values. In contrast to such negativity, the Zhuangzi promotes equanimity. The equanimity of the sagely person is grounded in a balance she maintains between engagement and withdrawal. Engaging critically, she problematises the lack of diversity (...) in their options for a good life. By withdrawing, she refuses to be party to the squabbles that perpetuate intolerance. The paper aims to show how equanimity is possible, thereby articulating a new angle on emotions in the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

Spelke convincingly argues that we should posit six innate modular systems beyond the periphery (i.e., beyond low-level perception and motor control). I focus on the case of spatial navigation (Ch. 3) to claim that there remain powerful considerations in favor of positing additional innate, nonperipheral modules. This opens the door to stronger forms of nativism and nonperipheral modularism than Spelke's.

In the Lunyu, Confucius remarks on the implausibility—or impossibility—of a life lacking in xin 信, reliability (2.22). In existing discussions of Confucian philosophy, this aspect of life is often eclipsed by greater emphasis on Confucian values such as ren 仁 (benevolence), li 禮 (propriety) and yi 義 (rightness). My discussion addresses this imbalance by focusing on reliability, extending current debates in two ways. First, it proposes that the common translation of xin as denoting coherence between a person’s words and deeds (...) is inadequate. The translation fails to capture the longer-term consistency in a person’s actions and behaviours in different circumstances across time. Second, it explores how the Lunyu passages discuss the processes of learning that prepare a person for reliable action. (shrink)

Clinical Study Agreements can have profound effects both on the protection of human subjects and on the independence of investigators to conduct research with scientific integrity. Sponsors, institutions, and even investigators may fail to give adequate attention to these issues in the negotiation of CSAs. Despite the key role of CSAs in structuring ethically important aspects of research, they remain largely unregulated and unreviewed for adherence to ethical norms. Academic institutions routinely enter into research contracts that fail to meet adequate (...) ethical standards. This is a failing that can have serious consequences.Accordingly, it is necessary that some independent body have the authority both to review research contracts for compliance with norms of subject protection and ethical integrity, and to reject studies that fail to meet ethical standards. Such review should take place prior to the start of research, not later. Because of its expertise and authority, the institutional ethics review board is the appropriate body to undertake such review. Much recent commentary has focused on contractual restrictions on the investigator’s freedom to publish research findings. The Olivieri experience, and that of other investigators, has brought freedom of publication issues into sharp focus. Clinical study agreements also raise a number of other ethical issues relating to human subjects and research integrity, however, including disclosures relating to patient safety, data analysis and reporting, budget, confidentiality, and premature termination of the study. This paper describes the ethical issues at stake in structuring such agreements and suggests ethical standards to guide institutional ethics review. (shrink)

Since the 1940s, Western epistemology has discussed Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how. Ryle argued that intelligent actions – manifestations of knowledge-how – are not constituted as intelligent by the guiding intervention of knowledge-that: knowledge-how is not a kind of knowledge-that; we must understand knowledge-how in independent terms. Yet which independent terms are needed? In this chapter, we consider whether an understanding of intelligent action must include talk of knowledge-to. This is the knowledge to do this or that now, (...) not then or in general. Our argument is refined and buttressed by consideration of a text in Chinese philosophy, the Lüshi Chunqiu. This 3rd century BCE text, a compendium on good government, focuses on different types of knowledge that an effective ruler or a capable official should possess. A significant number of those discussions concern examples of knowing-how being manifested in particular situations. The text is explicitly aware of the importance of timeliness and awareness of context in manifesting know-how. Some might say that these are merely manifestations of knowing-how. But we see these examples as revealing characteristics of know-how that Ryle did not anticipate. Might knowing-to be an essential and irreducible aspect of intelligent action? (shrink)

Mengzi maintained that both benevolence (ren 仁) and rightness (yi 義) are naturally-given in human nature. This view has occupied a dominant place in Confucian intellectual history. In Mencius 6A, Mengzi's interlocutor, Gaozi, contests this view, arguing that rightness is determined by (doing what is fitting, in line with) external circumstances. I discuss here some passages from the excavated Guodian texts, which lend weight to Gaozi's view. The texts reveal nuanced considerations of relational proximity and its limits, setting up requirements (...) for moral action in scenarios where relational ties do not play a motivational role. I set out yi's complexity in these discussions, highlighting its implications for (i) the nei-wai debate; (ii) the notion of yi as "rightness," or doing the right thing; and (iii) how we can understand the connection between virtue and right action in these early Confucian debates. This material from the excavated texts not only provides new perspectives on a longstanding investigation of human nature and morality, it also challenges prevailing views on Warring States Confucian intellectual history. In the well-known debate between Mengzi and Gaozi in Mencius 6A, Mengzi maintained that both ren and yi are naturally-given 1 in human nature. The figure 1 To say that ren and yi are naturally-given is not to say that they are fully-developed from the start. I use the phrase "naturally-given" throughout the paper to indicate where a particular capacity or resource (ren or yi) may be found, rather than its final polished state. (shrink)

A distinguishing characteristic of Confucianism is its emphasis on learning (xue), is a key element in moral self cultivation. This paper discusses why learning from the experiences of those in the past is important in Confucian learning.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The background: correlative thinking Tian Wuxing (five elements) and yin‐yang (yin and yang) Dao Qi (stuff) Chinese Buddhism and the Buddhist view of nature.