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)

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)

This volume offers arguments from eastern and western philosophical traditions to enrich and diversify our present conceptions of knowledge. The contributors extend contemporary Western epistemology in novel directions, through investigating and questioning entrenched conceptions of knowledge. The cross-tradition engagement with the neurosciences, psychology, and anthropological studies is an important feature of the volumes methodological approach that helps broaden our epistemological horizons. It presents a collection of perspectives on epistemic agency by engaging philosophical traditions east and west, including Japanese, Buddhist, Confucian, (...) Daoist, and Anglo-analytic. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi offers quite a few stories that centre on performance: a bellstand maker who selects wood to create wonderful bellstands; a ferryman who steers through rough waters; a cicada catcher who uses a stick, as if it were his hand, to catch cicadas; and a wheelmaker who, in using his chisel, feels it in his hand and responds with his heart. What is the role of the stick, for the cicada catcher, and the chisel, for the wheelmaker? What do (...) these masters know? I situate these questions within the intellectual context of the Zhuangzi, highlighting the text’s opposition to prevailing conceptions of a flourishing life. I draw on recent debates in extended mind and cognition to suggest that they offer interesting ways of understanding the knowledgeable practices of these masters. The frameworks and vocabulary of extended mind allow me to bring out how and why the Zhuangzi’s examples of mastery are apt and insightful reasons for rejecting the then current views on good government. The dialogue benefits both Chinese and Western traditions: the examples in the Zhuangzi help to diversify contemporary Western philosophy’s understanding of knowledge. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi is noted for its advocacy of many different perspectives—chickens, cicadas, fish and the like. There is much debate in the literature about the implications of Zhuangzi’s pluralist inclinations. I suggest that Zhuangzi highlights the limitations of individual, perspectivally-constrained, knowledge claims. He also spurns the ‘view from nowhere’ and is sceptical about the possibility of an ideal observer. For him, wisdom consists in understanding the epistemological inadequacies of each perspective. I propose that Zhuangzi’s philosophy offers significant insights to an (...) increasingly globalized world characterized by a plurality of ethical and value commitments. It does not assume there will necessarily be universal agreement or a standardized answer. Most importantly, it is a position that seeks to augment self-understanding and enrich the self in dialogue with and response to others. (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.

In this research, we surveyed 214 college journalists to assess their attitudes toward a series of ethical dilemmas. Significant predictors of a nine-item index included years enrolled in college,...

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)

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)

This essay focuses on Judith Butler’s configuration in Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism of sacred life from the mystical motifs that traverse Walter Benjamin’s writings as the pivot of an anti-identitarian ethics committed to non-violent resistance. To gain critical leverage on Butler’s post-secular stance, my analysis turns to Talal Asad’s ‘Redeeming the “Human” Through Human Rights’ chapter from Formations of the Secular, where he enunciates a disparity between a ‘pre-civil state of nature’ and the notion of ‘inalienable (...) rights’ that informs the subject’s rights under secular law. In underscoring the secular state’s inability or refusal to ascribe sacredness to ‘real living persons’ over and against ‘“the human” conceptualized abstractly, or imagined in a state of nature’ as presumed by natural law, Asad indirectly articulates what is at stake in Butler’s explication in Parting Ways of Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’. In this context, Butler unpacks Benjamin’s remarks about the sixth commandment’s non-coercive disposition and the inner struggle its provisional applicability prompts. A conception of ‘sacred life’ crystallizes through Butler’s emphasis on the open-endedness of this struggle, which encourages us to abandon a solipsistic investment in our own suffering in the process of acknowledging its eternally transient rhythm. I argue that Butler supplements this motif by drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s grounding of the political in cohabitation. My contention is that while ‘sacred life’ forms the backbone of Butler’s affirmation of civil disobedience, Arendt empowers Butler’s ethics to transcend Benjamin’s Jewish-messianic melancholy by radicalizing the passivity that refracts it. (shrink)

I would say very simply that the function of the intellectual is this: to put at the disposal of others, to put in common, this greater set of critical analytical tools, to make those tools freely available, and this naturally demands being rooted in reality that is in movement, a reality in which the researcher herself puts certain choices into practice, in which she can deem some matters to be more crucial than others. And the hope is, depending on the (...) choices made by all of those who are today committed to transforming that which exists, that there effectively comes about the wide-ranging social transformation of which we are in need.Costa’s definition of the intellectual is both inspiring and radical. Her.. (shrink)

Sorti exsangue de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le Japon s'est superbement redressé grâce à ses innovations techniques, d'abord destinées à améliorer le quotidien du peuple. Aujourd'hui, face à de nouveaux maux sociaux, dont l'inéluctable vieillissement rapide de la population et l'anxiété croissante face à un monde chamboulé, le recours à des solutions scientifiques et techniques est, pour les Japonais, une évidence. À tort ou à raison, les machines ne leur font pas peur. Mieux, elles les émerveillent. Et lorsque les Japonais (...) usent de moyens de télécommunications toujours plus puissants et omniprésents, ou fréquentent des mondes irréels, n'est-ce pas un moyen d'éviter la confrontation directe avec autrui ou soi-même, en choisissant la représentation virtuelle de l'être idolâtré ou en se recréant sous une forme idéalisée ?Out bloodless WWII, Japan has recovered superbly thanks to its technical innovations, all aimed at improving the lives of the people. Today, faced with new social ills, including the inevitable rapid aging of the population and the growing anxiety in a world turned upside down, the use of scientific and technical solutions is for the Japanese evidence. Wrongly or rightly, the machines do not scare them. Best, they all marveled. And when the Japanese wear of telecommunications increasingly powerful and ubiquitous, or attend unreal worlds, is not this a way to avoid direct confrontation with others or yourself, choosing the virtual representation of the be idolized or by recreating an idealized form? (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 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)

This comprehensive introductory textbook to early Chinese philosophy covers a range of philosophical traditions which arose during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in China, including Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism. It considers concepts, themes and argumentative methods of early Chinese philosophy and follows the development of some ideas in subsequent periods, including the introduction of Buddhism into China. The book examines key issues and debates in early Chinese philosophy, cross-influences between its traditions and interpretations by scholars up (...) to the present day. The discussion draws upon both primary texts and secondary sources, and there are suggestions for further reading. This will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in the foundations of Chinese philosophy and its richness and continuing relevance. (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)

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

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)

Learning social studies content is important for all students, including those with severe disabilities. However, there is a limited amount of research that specifically examines teaching social studies to this population of students. Therefore, educators must look to research-based practices in other academic areas (e.g., English language arts) to determine new strategies to teach this important content. Using a multiple probe across participants design, three fifth-grade students with severe disabilities were taught to answer comprehension questions during read-alouds of social studies (...) text using a modified system of least prompts and graphic organizer. Findings indicate all students improved on the correct number of comprehension questions answered independently. Implications for practice and ideas for future research to teach social studies to students with severe disabilities are discussed. (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)

One of the most influential contemporary authors of the new materialist turn in the social sciences is Karen Barad. Barad’s work in agential realism, based on her interpretations of quantum physics, has been widely cited within a growing body of new materialist publications. However, in translating Barad’s assertions into social domains, there has been increasing critical appraisal of the physics underlying her work and its relationship with non-quantum domains. In this paper, we contribute to this discussion by exploring aspects of (...) agential realism through quantum decoherence and quantum Darwinism. We explore implications for Barad’s metaphysics and the relationship of the social with the rest of the material world. (shrink)

This essay articulates the contribution that the Zhuangzi can make to contemporary epistemological discussions of wisdom. It suggests that wisdom in the Zhuangzi involves, in part, correctly distinguishing the "heavenly" (or the naturally given) from human artifice. It is important for humanity to understand naturally given conditions (e.g., seasons, climate, forces, mortality) to grasp what is within, and what beyond, our initiatives. To enable this, we need to be openly engaged with the world, rather than approach it with rigid convictions (...) about outcomes or goals. We characterize such openness and readiness to engage as an attitude, that of "epistemic humility." In building up our position, we assess two themes in analytic philosophical debates on wisdom: the epistemic component of wisdom and the domain of wisdom. This helps establish what we believe is an important contribution of the Zhuangzi to the discussion on wisdom, that is, the wise person's epistemic humility. (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.

Alcohol use and abuse play a major role in both crime and negative health outcomes in Scotland. This paper provides a description and ethical and legal analyses of a novel remote alcohol monitoring scheme for offenders which seeks to reduce alcohol-related harm to both the criminal and the public. It emerges that the prospective benefits of this scheme to health and public order vastly outweigh any potential harms.

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)

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)