The full extent of the anguish and death suffered by immature humans is scientifically and statistically documented for the first time. Probably hundreds of billions of human conceptions and at least fifty billion children have died, the great majority from nonhuman causes, before reaching the age of mature consent. Adults who have heard the word of Christ number in the lower billions. If immature deceased humans are allowed into heaven, then the latter is inhabited predominantly by automatons. Because the Holocaust (...) of the Children bars an enormous portion of humans from making a decision about their eternal fate while maximizing the suffering of children, the classic Christian “free will” and “best of all possible worlds” hypotheses are falsified. (shrink)

This book shows that classic Chinese philosophy is as rational as Western approaches dealing with the problems of logic, epistemology, language analysis, and linguistic topics from a philosophical point of view. It presents detailed analyses of rational and methodological features in Confucianism, Taoist philosophy, and the School of Names as well as Mohist approaches in classical Chinese philosophy, especially in regard to ideas of valid knowledge. The authors also provide new arguments against cultural relativism and antirational movements like religious fundamentalism (...) that do not pay due attention to what all human beings have in common-- to cultural universals. (shrink)

Up until the present day, Confucianism has been a major factor in the normative discourses of East Asia. At first glance, it has sided with the preservation of the old and against innovation, according to Confucius’s self-declaration that he “only transmits and creates nothing new.” This also describes the historical role that Confucianism in distinction to other philosophies has actually played over long stretches of time. Nevertheless, Confucian ethics contains structural features, figures of thought and ideas which point beyond mere (...) traditionalism. They reflect the deep crisis of tradition against the background of which Confucianism came into existence and which has left its mark on it. They could set free a dynamic that made it possible to distance oneself from the Confucian tradition within this tradition itself and open it up to something new, if not in terms of its creation then at least in terms of its acceptance and support. This potential also intrinsically relates to the possibility of a “modern” Confucianism. The following three short essays do not claim to give a comprehensive account of the outlined problematique. It is only intended to throw a light upon some of the corresponding thought formations that developed in ancient China and explore by a few examples the extent to which the said potential has actually been realized in later Confucian discourse in Korea and Japan, assuming that border crossing might be among the factors to unleash it. (shrink)

George A. Paul; Reports of Discussions at Cardiff (Joint Session of Mind Association and Aristotelian Society, July 1934)1, Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 1 Oct.

The highest goal of classic Confucianism was to contribute to the realization of a humane world. As means toward such a realization, it advocated rational methods, particularly logic, experience, and critically rational discourse. Thus, classic Confucianism reflected the view that rationality is more favorable to humanity than non-rationality. Today, classic Confucianism would belong to those schools which argue against the popular inclination toward mysticism and sectarianism, - an inclination widespread in the «West» and often defended by hinting at alleged evidence (...) from «Eastern» cultures. Above all else, it is with such points that Confucianism proves its relevance. In advancing and defending this thesis, Aspects of Confucianism suggests, contrary to a widespread opinion, that we can learn a great deal from such obvious cultural commonalities as the basic features of a universal rationality, that obvious commonalities are by no means uninteresting, and that their description and appreciation is not necessarily an expression of a cultural bias. (shrink)

The Mencius, attributed to the philosopher Mengzi (Lat. Mencius, ca. 370-290 BC), the second Sage of the Confucian school after its founder, is one of the most prominent of all Chinese classics, with a great impact on the historical development of Confucianism. Today, it serves as one of the determinants for positioning Confucianism in the modern world, and it is the most discussed Chinese philosophical text in the context of the search for universally valid ethical norms and democracy. The essays (...) collected in this volume by scholars from Taiwan, Japan and Germany focus on various aspect of the reception of the work in East Asia from the Song-Dynasty to the present day. They call into mind the signifance of a thinker who according to Albert Schweitzer is the most modern one of all thinkers of antiquity. (shrink)

Extreme rates of premature death prior to the advent of modern medicine, very low rates of premature death in First World nations with low rates of prayer, and the least flawed of a large series of clinical trials indicate that remote prayer is not efficacious in treating illness. Mass contamination of sample cohorts renders such clinical studies inherently ineffectual. The required supernatural and paranormal mechanisms render them implausible. The possibility that the latter are not benign, and the potentially adverse psychological (...) impact of certain protocols, renders these medical trials unethical. Resources should no longer be wasted on medical efforts to detect the supernatural and paranormal. (shrink)

Die Frage nach der universalen Gültigkeit der Menschenrechte ist nicht nur ein akademisches Problem. So steht sie auch immer wieder im Zentrum erbitterter internationaler politischer Auseinandersetzungen. Dabei kritisieren nicht nur Despoten die Ansprüche auf Allgemeingültigkeit als verdeckten Kulturimperialismus und kaschiertes Hegemonialstreben. Wie jedoch jeder weiß, kann ein Schutz der Menschenrechte zur Überlebensfrage werden. Zu aller Zeit und in allen Kulturen waren Menschen nur zu schnell zur Grausamkeit bereit. So wird ein Desiderat erfüllt, wenn eine Buchreihe den damit angesprochenen Fragen nachgeht (...) und begründete realistische argumentative Lösungsversuche bietet. (shrink)

Gregor Paul, Philosoph an der Universität Karlsruhe, will zeigen, “dass ein Krieg gegen den Terrorismus unmöglich wäre, wenn man gültiger Argumentation folgte”. Die Frage ist, ob es einen „gerechten Krieg“ überhaupt gibt – eine alte Frage, auf die nicht nur in der abendländischen Philosophie unterschiedliche Antworten gegeben worden sind. Paul lässt hier die alte chinesische Philosophie zu Wort kommen. An den Beispielen der Kriege in Afghanistan und Irak wie dem sogenannten Krieg gegen den Terrorismus zeigt Paul, wie für deren “Gerechtigkeit” (...) nicht nur nicht offen argumentiert, sondern eine notwendige allseitige Diskussion verhindert wurde. Erst eine solche offene Diskussion würde das Gewicht der Argumente zeigen und Paul ist überzeugt, dass die Argumente für Kriege jeglicher Art vor dem Forum der Vernunft als zu leicht befunden würden. (shrink)

The hypothesis that high levels of religiosity are partly caused by high disease loads is in accord with studies showing that societal dysfunction promotes mass supernaturalism. However, some cultures suffering from high rates of disease and other socioeconomic dysfunction exhibit low levels of popular religiosity. At this point, it appears that religion is hard pressed to thrive in healthy societies, but poor conditions do not always make religion popular, either.

Gibt es universal gultige Menschenrechte? Und wenn ja, wie lassen sie sich begrunden und verwirklichen? Welche Moglichkeiten und Grenzen sind kulturunabhangig und welche kulturspezifisch? Solchen und ahnlichen Fragen gehen die Beitrage nach. Dabei kommt ein weites Spektrum unterschiedlichster Informationen, Gesichtspunkte und Argumente ins Spiel.".

Historically, there has been widespread acceptance of the claim that religious belief – and, in particular, theistic belief – is essential to human flourishing, both for human individuals and for human societies. With the relatively recent rise of prosperous secular democracies, it is possible to put this claim to empirical test. When we do, we find no support for the claim that theistic belief is essential to human flourishing, and significant support for the claim that theistic belief impacts negatively on (...) human flourishing. (shrink)

Im vorliegenden Artikel geht Gregor Paul von einer Redeweise aus, die gerade im Zusammenhang mit interkulturellen Themen ziemlich häufig anzutreffen, in sehr vielen Fällen wohl wenig überlegt, in ihren Konsequenzen aber alles andere als harmlos ist – von der Rede über eine “andere Logik” in “anderen Kulturen” oder insbesondere über eine “östliche Logik”. Diese Rede hält Paul für unbegründet, für verhängnisvoll, und für falsch. Er identifiziert gängige Argumente und versucht, diese zu widerlegen. Im Folgenden bringt Paul einerseits Argumente für die (...) Universalität von logischen Gesetzten und detaillierte Belege für deren Annahme vor allem in Texten der chinesischen Tradition. (shrink)

Was ist Rationalitat? Und wie ist sie zu bewerten? Lasst sich ein nicht-relativistischer Rationalitatsbegriff formulieren, der gegen die bekannten Einwande, wie sie von relativistischer Seite immer wieder erhoben werden, verteidigt werden kann? Ist Rationalitat der Humanitat forderlicher als Irrationalitat? Ist die Philosophie rationaler als der Mythos? Und dies einmal vorausgesetzt, ist sie (auch) deshalb dem Mythos vorzuziehen?".

Der Band soll beides bieten: Eine möglichst genaue Beschreibung historisch und inhaltlich unbestritten wichtiger Beispiele von Philosophie, Poetik und Literatur in der Geschichte Japans sowie eine Bewertung aus komparativer und allgemein-systematischer Perspektive. Damit soll berechtigten Forderungen nach Kontextualisierung Rechnung getragen werden, aber auch die Frage nach der Qualität der Texte und Theorien Berücksichtigung finden. Thematisch sind u. a. Konfuzianismus, Buddhismus und deren Rolle in der Entwicklung der Menschenrechtsphilosophie in Japan; Religionsphilosophie, Logik, klassische Ästhetik und Literaturtheorie, tragische wie komische Literatur und (...) Haiku."-- Back cover. (shrink)

The German poet Barbara Köhler's 2007 poem-cycle Niemands Frau [Nobody's Wife] is more than a feminist response to Homer's Odyssey. In shifting the focus from the escapades of the hero Odysseus to the web of women characters that populates Homer's epic poem – Nausicaa, Circe, the Sirens, Helen, Ino Leucothea, the shades of the dead women whom Odysseus meets in Hades, and “Nobody’s wife” Penelope – Köhler also undertakes a grammatical shift: from the masculine singular pronoun “er” to the polyvalent (...) pronoun “sie” that denotes the feminine singular, the gender-unmarked plural and the formal “you.” “Sie” acts as the “quantum linguistic particle” that transports the reader from a world analogous to that conceived by Newtonian physics into a quantum universe of plural probabilities. Köhler's work explores the difference in power dynamics that results from this transformation, generating intriguing ways of reconceiving subjectivity, relationality, rationality, and authorship. Taken at their word, the poems open up a prospect of no longer insisting on the sovereign individual subject and his linear modes of narration, inheritance, calculation and grammatical proposition. (shrink)