Han Fei was a famous Legalist in the late Warring States period. During the struggle to criticize the Confucian school, he developed the theory of the "rule of law," which laid a theoretical groundwork on which the newly emerging landlord class could build a centralized feudal state. His works had been appreciated by Ch'in Shih-huang. When Ch'in Shih-huang read the book Han Fei Tzu, he sighed and said, "I would feel no regret about dying if I could meet (...) this person and become his friend." Later Ch'in Shih-huang applied this progressive theory of Han Fei in practice and developed it through practice. (shrink)

The philosophical thought of the Ch'un-ch'iu period was derived and developed from the thought of the Yin dynasty and the Western Chou , there being an inseparable relationship of succession and transformation between them. Thus, in studying the philosophical thought of the Ch'un-ch'iu period, it is necessary to refer back to Yin-Chou thought. The courage and resolve evidenced by an attitude of so-called "cutting off the miscellaneous streams" in order to start with Lao Tzu or Confucius is really a very (...) awkward way of dissecting history. (shrink)

The preceding chapter listed the measures Ch'in Shih-huang took to consolidate the unification. Before all this, the state of Ch'in, through Shang Yang's reforms, had eliminated the hereditary privileges of the aristocracy, dealt a severe blow to the power of the slave-owning aristocracy, instituted the system of landownership by the landlords, established the system of commanderies, unified weights and measures, and carried out the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and restricting commerce," so as to enable the landlord economy to achieve (...) greater expansion in the state of Ch'in. Now Ch'in Shih-huang went a step further to propagate Shang Yang's Legalist policies, liquidated the aristocracy in the six states to the east, abolished the system of installing hereditary nobles to rule their domains throughout the country, and universally implemented the system of commanderies and prefectures. He also abolished the old aristocratic political structures maintained by the six states, established a centralized feudal system of dictatorship, and thus dealt a blow to the landownership system of the remnant slave-owning aristocracy. By means of laws and regulations, he established throughout the country the system of landownership by landlords and continued to adhere to the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and restricting commerce," promoted the development of the landlord economy, abolished the divergent laws and regulations of the six states, and put into effect throughout the country new laws and regulations representing the interests of the newly rising landlord class. He also standardized weights and measures, unified the written language, and fixed the length of axles of all carts. Generally speaking, during the first stage of the establishment of a unified, centralized feudal state, Ch'in Shih-huang, as the general representative of the newly rising landlord class, carried out a series of measures that "emphasized the present while slighting the past" and initiated a series of important political, economic, and cultural reforms. The "present" he "emphasized" was the newly rising landlord class, and the "past" he "slighted" was the declining old aristocracy. As a result, the Ch'in dynasty was able to exert a definite stimulating influence in the process of monumental historical transformation, to put an end to the prolonged period of division and rivalry among the feudal states, to unify our great multinational country, and to set up the largest centralized feudal state up to that time. To be sure, the Ch'in dynasty was after all a political regime of the landlord class. It was a machine of the landlord class to exploit and oppress the peasant masses. This is something we must recognize. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Mahāyāna Reading of Chalcedon Christology:A Chinese Response to John KeenanPan-chiu LaiIntroductionThe Christological formula of Chalcedon, especially its use of the substantialist concepts such as ousia, hypostatsis, and so on, has long been a target of criticism in the history of Western Christian theology.1 Recently, Kwok Pui-lan, an Asian feminist theologian, has queried not only the language or way of thinking of traditional Western Christology, but also its (...) anthropocentric tendency. According to Kwok, "the majority of Asian people find it difficult to accept a savior in human form because of their cosmological sensibility."2 Kwok also thinks that the Chalcedonian expressions such as "fully God and fully man" or "two natures in one substance" are quite beyondthe understanding of the majority of the Asian people. The lengthy debate on the difference between homoousia and homoiousia is also irrelevant to the average Chinese, because there are no immediate Chinese equivalents to the terms such as "being" or "essence." According to Kwok, Buddhism, in contrast, characterizes the world as transient and impermanent without using the philosophical language such as "being" and "nonbeing."3 Kwok further notes that "The Buddhist tradition asserts that there is not one Buddha, but many Buddhas, and that everyone has the potential to attain Buddhahood. If we get away from the framework defined by a language of substance, we will not be fixated on a one-time incarnation."4 Kwok concludes that the anthropocentric perspective and the substantialist language of the Chalcedonian Creed represent a burden or obstacle that needs to be put aside. She even laments that "the church worldwide is still much under the yoke of the Chalcedonian captivity and Eurocentric theological formulations based on Western heritages."5 Kwok's comment seems to imply that the Buddhist way of thinking may offer a better alternative or a remedy to Chalcedonian Christology.In the contemporary Buddhist-Christian dialogue, John P. Keenan, when proposing a Mahāyāna theology, also offers a critique of Chalcedonian Christology.6 [End Page 209] Through a response to Keenan's discussion, this paper will examine these critiques and will attempt to reinterpret the Chalcedonian Christology from a Mahāyāna perspective.The Mahāyāna Theology of John KeenanIn proposing a Mahāyāna theology, Keenan assumes a Christian standpoint and tries to make use of Mahāyāna Buddhism for the service of Christianity. As Keenan himself frankly admits, his basic approach is to adopt "Mahāyāna Thought as Theologiae Ancilla, " which is the heading for the second part of his The Meaning of Christ. Keenan's strategy of arguing for a Mahāyāna theology is to identify the need of Christianity first, and then to argue in what way Mahāyāna Buddhism can help Christian theology to solve its own problems. According to Keenan's diagnosis, a fundamental problem of the Western Christian tradition is the detrimental separation of mysticism from doctrine. In his own words,It is argued here that, to date, the Christian West has been unable organically to relate its own mystic thinkers to its doctrinal, theoretical thinking. The reason for this inability was not simply, as Adolf von Harnack thought, the adoption and superimposition of Greek patterns of ontology upon the gospel. Rather it is an inability to differentiate that realm of Greek, logos-centered theory from the more primal realm of mystic awareness, an ability to understand the mind of faith in its polyvalent realms of meaning.7In the first part of the book (ch. 1-5), based on his review of the historical development of the Christian understanding of Christ, Keenan highlights the tremendous tension between the primal experience of "being in Christ" and the theoretical understanding of Christ.8 Keenan believes that the school of wisdom literature in the Old Testament has prepared the New Testament for an understanding of the meaning of Christ as God's wisdom. This wisdom comprises essentially God as Father (Abba) as well as the theology of the cross and resurrection. He further points out that early Christians, following the example of Jesus Christ, had direct experience of God as Father. Owing to the... (shrink)

Everybody knows that the Revolution of 1911 was an anti-imperialist and antifeudal democratic revolution led by the revolutionary and democratic group of the bourgeoisie in the period of the old democratic revolution in China. The leader of that revolution was Sun Yat-sen, and the guiding ideology was his old Three People's Principles. It is well known that Chairman Mao has made a series of scientific appraisals of these facts, but the newspapers and magazines controlled by the anti-Party clique of Wang (...) Hung-wen, Chang Ch'un-ch'iao, Chiang Ch'ing and Yao Wen-yuan openly oppose Chairman Mao's scientific appraisals, betraying the fundamental principles of Marxism, distorting the Revolution of 1911 as a struggle between Confucians and Legalists, and replacing Sun Yat-sen as the standard-bearer of the revolution with Chang T'ai-yen, who played first an active and then a devastating role in the revolution. All this is part of the clique's attack on the Party in order to usurp the Party, seize power, restore capitalism and fabricate the "history" of the struggle between the Confucians and the Legalists. (shrink)