This article investigates the key aspects of the Confucian virtue ethics such as the "chun- tzu" (Superior Person), the Five Relationships of society, the particular Confucian virtues of "jen" (benevolence) and "li" (propriety), the moral vision of the "tao" (Way), and the understanding of the "t'ien- ming" (Mandate of Heaven). The thesis of the article is that the moral matrix provided by the web of social relationships allows the Confucian ethics of virtue to function well, and that a consideration (...) of this Confucian moral matrix may illuminate the Western debate on the ethics of virtue vs the ethics of duty. (shrink)

Hui-yüan was born in Tai hsien of Shansi Province in A. D. 334 and died in A. D. 416.

The traditional Chinese idea of t'ien‐jen‐ho‐i (Heaven and humanity in union) implies that humanity has to live in harmony with nature. As science and technology progress, however, the idea appears increasingly outmoded, and it becomes fashionable to talk about overcoming nature. Ironically, though, the further science reaches the more clearly are its limitations exposed. The exploitation of nature not only endangers many life forms on earth but threatens the very existence of the human species. I propose that a reconstruction (...) of the traditional Chinese idea of T'ien‐jen‐ho‐i will help us envisage a new and salutary relation between humanity and nature. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION G. Soros I was hoping to deliver a paper at the Wuhan Conference on Karl Popper's philosophy, but business interfered. ...

In ancient times in our country, Wang Ch'ung was an eminent materialist and a brilliant atheist, a progressive thinker who opposed the orthodox feudal thought. This has gone basically unquestioned. This year the February 21 issue of Kuang-ming jih-pao printed in its philosophy section an article by Comrade T'ung Mo-an, "Is Wang Ch'ung a Peasant Class Thinker?" The article is an evaluation completely denying this. T'ung believes that the purpose of Wang Ch'ung's works was "to uphold the rule of the (...) Han," "ardently and unconditionally to sing the praises of the Han ruler and court," "to make sacred the rule of the Han," "to get the populace to live quietly, forever in a servile position," and "to view inimically and to slander peasant uprisings." "Wang Ch'ung was an orthodox thinker of the landlord class," "a thinker produced in the interests of the rule of the landlord class who confirmed the feudal orthodoxy." Although I myself am not praising Wang Ch'ung as a peasant class thinker or denying that in Wang Ch'ung's thought there are negative elements, I am completely unable to agree with the basic viewpoint that the author puts forward. (shrink)

Having read the works of Wang Ch'ung [A.D. 27-c. 100], I realized that they need to be recapitulated. Here I shall evaluate Wang Ch'ung and his thought and present what I feel to be the real significance that Wang Ch'ung's thought still has today.

The dramatic events of the crisis have reignited debates on the independence of central banks and the scope of their mandates. In this article, I contribute to the normative understanding of these developments by discussing John Rawls’s position in debates of the 1950s and 1960s on the independence of the US Federal Reserve. Rawls’s account of the central bank in his property-owning democracy, Democratic Central Banking, assigns authority over monetary policy directly to the government and prioritizes low unemployment over price (...) stability. I contrast DCB with Central Bank Independence, which requires that the central bank is independent of the government and pursues low inflation. I evaluate DCB by asking whether justice as fairness requires democratic control of the central bank and argue that it does not. Instead, so I argue, the choice between DCB and CBI should be justified in terms of the difference principle. By reflecting on central banking in a property-owning democracy, I cast new light on the Rawlsian realistic utopia of a just capitalist society, while also investigating democratic objections to today’s independent central banks. (shrink)

近三十年臺灣思想文化界思索的主題，在本書可讀到錢新祖老師的先見之明 儘管錢老師已離開這個世界，但他的思想之於臺灣社會，仍未遠離 本書收錄了錢新祖教授從一九七○年代中期開始撰述的中英文論著共二十六篇，內容涵蓋思想史論與文化批評。錢氏積極參與中文學術文化界的對話，從其留下的眾多論述，可以清楚看出近三十年來臺灣思想文化問題發展的延續 性軌跡，進而感受到作為思想者的錢氏對其當下時空毫不苟且的反思。錢氏一生看重「語言」之於人類存在的重要性、渴望揉和多元文化價值而亟欲創造一種新語言，本書特別收錄的英文論文，為此留下了重要的紀錄。.

1980年代開風氣之先，將當代西方思潮批判性地引入中國思想研究領域的錢新祖教授所留下的《中國思想史講義》將再度啟迪新一代的人文社會學研究者 本書為錢新祖先生極具個人見解的中國思想史，不同於一般哲學史或思想史教科書機械式的綱舉目張，書中每講都直接進入哲學問題，展開討論分析，盡顯洞見。例如論中國思想的起源，直指人文主義的稱說所涉及的是中西對天 人關係構想的不同。作者有紮實的中西學術基礎，又能跳出各自的思考局限，從對比中彰顯中西思想傳統的特色，在書中發展為一種自覺的跨文化比較分析措辭手法，在現今全球化的語境中，特別值得參考。.

Apostoli and Brown have shown that the class of formulae valid with respect to the class of -ary relational frames is completely axiomatized by Kn: an n-place aggregative system which adjoins [RM], [RN], and a complete axiomatization of propositional logic, with [Kn]:□α1 ∧...∧□αn+1 → □2/ is the disjunction of all pairwise conjunctions αi∧αj )).Their proof exploits the chromatic indices of n-uncolourable hypergraphs, or n-traces. Here, we use the notion of the χ-product of a family of sets to formulate an alternative (...) definition of an n-trace, which in turn enables a new and simpler completeness proof. (shrink)

The 2022 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond, and Philip Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises”. Jens van 't Klooster reflects on Bernanke, Diamond, and Dybvig's work.

Democratic societies are rife with talk of trust in institutions such as governments, banks, news agencies, medical practitioners, nuclear power plants, weather forecasters and social network sites. These institutions are anonymous in the sense that citizens tend to know very little about them. Philosophers have argued that trust in the absence of sufficient evidence may fit a child who trusts its parents but is inappropriate for the vigilant citizens of a democratic society. In this article, I defend the appropriateness of (...) trusting anonymous institutions against its critics. To this end, I develop two principles of appropriateness that apply to a wide range of trusting attitudes. First, the principle of epistemic duties according to which the truster should not be culpably ignorant about the trustee, where, what constitutes culpable ignorance will depend on the relationship of trust. Second, the principle of appropriate normative expectations according to which a truster should have normative expectations that fit the relationship with the trustee and the valued outcome at stake in the trust relation. I then show that it is often appropriate to trust anonymous institutions. In fact, the evidential requirements on trust are sometimes so low as to allow citizens to trust institutions which they know literally nothing about. (shrink)