In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.3 (2001) 483-503 [Access article in PDF] China and the Ideal of Order in John Webb's An Historical Essay.... Rachel Ramsey Scholars of seventeenth-century intellectual history have generally relegated John Webb to the footnotes of their work on universal language schemes, architectural history, and Sino-European relations. 1 In this essay I suggest that Webb's An Historical Essay Endeavoring a Probability that (...) the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language (1669), which argues that for 5000 years China preserved the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, makes significant contributions to seventeenth-century intellectual history and to our understanding of early modern European perceptions of China. When Webb's Essay is placed within the context of the seventeenth-century debates about the "primitive" language of Eden, China's ancient history, and the idealization of that empire's harmonious and prosperous culture, its deeply political nature becomes apparent.The Jesuit accounts and those of other travelers to China were especially appealing to English readers living in the aftermath of the civil wars and the turmoil of the early years of the Restoration because they offered glimpses of a seemingly ideal state ruled by a stable monarchy and blessed with seemingly infinite resources and unimaginable wealth; however, these accounts included evidence that China had maintained an unbroken historical record that antedated the Flood, thus implicitly challenging the veracity of the Old Testament account of Noah and the Universal Deluge. Webb's Essay solves the problem posed by the Jesuit accounts of China's ancient history by placing them within a revised biblical narrative; this solution makes it possible for him to claim that China's [End Page 483] exemplary status is a result of its possession of the primitive language and its socio-political virtues are the consequence of its Noachian origins. The revised biblical narrative not only made Webb's encomium to that country more acceptable to a bible-reading public and protestant king but offered a politically-safe way for him to criticize the restored English monarchy by contrasting it to an idealized account of China's social and political state. More specifically, the circumstances of Webb's years of service in the Office of the King's Works help us further understand what attracted a seventeenth-century architect to the Jesuit accounts of China and what motivated him to write the first English treatise on the Chinese language. Webb's political career allows us to read AnHistoricalEssay as a politico-theological justification for a reasoned critique of the patronage system which Webb held accountable for his thwarted career ambitions. Webb's Career and the Politics of the Restoration John Webb lived through some of England's most turbulent history and witnessed firsthand the effects of monarchical instability and regicide, the uncertainties of the Commonwealth, and the shortcomings of the Restoration. Born to a Somerset family in 1611 and educated at the Merchant Taylors' school, Webb became Inigo Jones's pupil in 1628 and served as his "Clerk Engrosser" from 1633 to 1641 in the Office of the King's Works, where Jones was Surveyor. During the early years of the English revolution Webb served as his mentor's deputy in London after Jones fled north with Charles I, but he was dismissed from his post in 1643 following an "accusation from one Mr. Carter to the Committee of the Revenue, that the said Mr. Jones was at Oxford." 2 During his absence from the Office of the Works, Webb supposedly sent detailed plans of London's fortifications and smuggled jewelry to the king, for which he was briefly imprisoned. 3 After Charles I's execution in 1649, Webb worked on several country houses, including those of the Earl of Rutland at Belvoir, the Earl of Peterborough at Drayton, and Sir Justinian Isham at Lamport but he was firmly excluded from holding any political post as a former consort of the martyred King. 4 He held an appointment briefly... (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to clarify the use and meaning of the concept of relativism in the context of National Socialism (NS). Section 1 examines the critical reproach that NS is a form of relativism. I analyze and criticize the common core of this widespread argument which has dominated discussions about the topic up to the present. Section 2 sketches the general debates on relativism before and during NS. I show that fascist thought could be associated (...) with both relativism and anti-relativism. In contrast to the received view, I argue that Nazi intellectuals regarded relativism as problem, and presented NS as the overcoming of relativism. Subsequently I turn to two major philosophers who connected their philosophy with NS. Section 3 investigates Bruno Bauch’s (1887–1942) nationalist philosophy. I show that he linked his concept of the nation with an objectivist value theory intended to oppose all kinds of relativism. Section 4 turns to Erich Rothacker’s (1888–1965) cultural anthropology. I argue that the revision of his philosophical views in the 1930s was accompanied by a political turn towards NS and a withdrawal from relativism. The brief conclusion (Section 5) summarizes the findings of the chapter. I conclude that, in the context of NS, relativism is mostly used in a pejorative sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Historical Narratives and the Meaning of NationalismLloyd KramerThe vast, expanding literature on nationalism may well defy every generalization except a familiar, general theme of intellectual history: texts about nationalism have always drawn their perspectives and passions from the evolving political and cultural contexts in which their authors have lived. Modern accounts of nationalism show the unmistakable traces of political, military, and cultural conflicts in (...) every decade of the twentieth century—from the era of nationalist rivalries before World War I to the redefinitions of gender, literature, and history that have emerged in contemporary postmodernism, postcolonialism, and multiculturalism.This connection between the texts of nationalist scholarship and the modern contexts of politics and culture suggests why historical narratives of nationalism have become part of the history of nationalism itself. Nationalism’s scholarly interpreters cannot easily separate themselves from the objects of their analysis, and their interpretations are often as diverse and fragmented as the nations they describe. This essay enters the debate on nationalism, describes recurring themes in the historical literature, and replicates a key characteristic of the historiography by stressing that the complexity of nationalism and its interpreters resists every simplifying, comprehensive definition. Histories of nationalism provide a striking example of how the history of ideas never reaches a point of uncontested closure and never finally escapes the political and cultural contexts in which all historical narratives are produced.Like most analysts of nationalism, I assume that it is one of the decisive forces in modern history and that its significance demands careful, critical analysis. It also calls for always incomplete definitions, one of which can be drawn from the German historian Peter Alter. Nationalism is “both an ideology and a political movement which holds the nation and sovereign nation-state to be crucial indwelling values, and which manages to mobilize the political will of [End Page 525] a people or a large section of the population.”1 Nationalist ideas are thus a distinctive form of modern thought that shapes the political actions and cultural identities of individuals as well as groups. The meanings of nationalism and national identity typically depend on various dichotomies that define the nation in terms of its differences from other places or people—the dynamic process of identity formation that has received wide attention in contemporary cultural studies. My own view of the “oppositional” structures in nationalist thinking coincides with the concise description by Peter Sahlins: “National Identity is a socially constructed and continuous process of defining ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’.... National identities... do not depend on the existence of any objective linguistic or cultural differentiation but on the subjective experience of difference.”2 Sahlins thus assumes that something called national identity is “there,” but he also insists that national consciousness is a “constructed” identity. Nationalism, in short, does not express or reflect a natural, primordial reality.The assumption that nationalisms are historical rather than natural phenomena shapes most of the scholarly literature, so that the study of nationalism leads to historical analysis rather than to biology or physical geography. Although there have been countless historical studies of nationalism in different periods, cultures, and conflicts,3 my discussion will refer to a small number of narratives that have made especially significant theoretical claims about the nature of nationalism. There is of course no way to analyze such theories without exclusions and generalizations, which I shall provide by focusing mostly on works about Europe and dividing the patterns of historical analysis into the following broad categories: (1) the description of nationalism as a central component of modernization, reflecting and also shaping intellectual, cultural, economic, social, and political transitions from premodern to modern history; (2) the claim that nationalisms are modern religious movements, related to but also displacing earlier religions; (3) the argument that nationalism is a linguistic, literary construction that depends on new forms of communication, intellectuals, and narratives; (4) the description of nationalism as a discourse of gender and ethnicity that shapes individual identities and also expresses anxieties about sexuality, culture, and respectability; and (5) the argument that nationalisms can be divided into categories (good/bad, Western/Eastern, [End Page 526] political/cultural) and phases that represent sharp differences in the development of modern... (shrink)

Modernization in China is accompanied by some specific features: aging, individualization, the emergence of the nuclear family, and changing filial piety. While young Chinese people are still the main caregivers for older adults, understanding the attitudes of young Chinese people toward aging and living independently in the context of modernization is important because it relates to future elderly care problems in China. By using in-depth interviews and qualitative methods, 45 participants were enrolled in the study, (...) 38 were women and 37 had no siblings. The ages ranged from 17 to 25 years. Results revealed that participants held diverse attitudes about older adults, but the general attitudes were that older adults are lonely, financially disadvantaged, have poor social support, lack hobbies, and care about their children more than themselves. Chinese college students were affected both by traditional filial piety and individualism; however, of the two, they seemed put greater value on independence. Moreover, traditional filial piety is changing in a modern direction, affected by Western ideas of individualism: the status of the senior is diminishing, and living with one’s parents is no longer regarded as a necessary component. Implications concerning age stereotypes, elderly care policies, and strategies are discussed. (shrink)

In _The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life _Susan Mendus gathers a group of distinguished public figures—philosophers, historians, lawyers, and religious leaders—to reflect on a core issue within contemporary political debate. At the close of a century that will be remembered for its two world wars and its eruptions of genocide, the contributors examine the importance of an insistence on tolerance and the dangers of its lack, both historically and in the present day. How can toleration be fostered in (...) a contentious and tightly populated world? What situations and fears have historically fed attitudes of intolerance? When and how should states intervene? The authors of these essays seek answers to such questions and examine topics such as why certain national groups are especially vulnerable to intolerance and narcissistic fantasies and how the colonial view of intolerant exploitation as an acceptable norm of behavior has been replaced by a drive toward international solidarity. The essays address religious tolerance, the role of toleration in legal contexts, the philosophical justification of tolerance, and the concept of solidarity. Ethnic identity, nationalism, the “goods of conflict,” and the treatment of refugees seeking asylum are discussed as well. While one contributor argues that a moment of genuine tolerance is achieved only when there is a cost involved in the act of tolerating another person’s way of living, another stresses that rational, communal dialogue can only take place if the state is excluded from the discussion, if conflict is recognized as valuable, and if local communities come to consensus about what behavior and discourse is intolerable. Offering an accessible and engaging commentary on the concept of tolerance, _The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life_ will interest a wide range of readers of philosophy, political science, religion, sociology, and history. _Contributors_. George Carey, Christopher Hill, Michael Ignatieff, Helena Kennedy, Alasdair MacIntyre, Susan Mendus, Julia Neuberger, Bernard Williams. (shrink)

In this transdisciplinary investigation, we focus on the invention and development of gunpowder. We aim to answer the questions regarding (1) the inspiration behind the invention, including historical, mythological, and intellectual backgrounds, (2) how it came about in concreto, and (3) its impact on the history of science in China. We argue that the invention has to be viewed in a broader context and that various factors come into play with regard to the above questions. The (...) discussion starts by examining the preconditions of the invention of gunpowder in ancient Chinese mythology, natural philosophy, and the idea of life extension. After that, the invention, its direct contexts, and historical developments during the first millennium CE are investigated. To complement the former analysis of historical worldviews, the modern perspective of chemistry is applied in this context. From the angle of the additional question of “open individuals,” namely as agents of progress, this is also taken into consideration from the perspective of personality analysis. Finally, we investigate how the development of scientific understanding was embedded in the innovative philosophical developments of Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism. In our view, the early Chinese gunpowder research exemplifies the preceding and contemporary development of the scientific stratum that is part of the concept of the “investigation of things” (gewu) in the sense of the teachings of Zhu Xi (1130–1200). (shrink)

The book addresses for the first time the dynamics associated with the modernization of mathematics in China from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century from a transcultural global historical perspective. Rather than depict the transformations of mathematical knowledge in terms of a process of westernization, the book analyzes the complex interactions between different scientific communities and the ways in which the past, modernity, language, and mathematics were negotiated in a global context. In each chapter, Andrea Bréard provides (...) vivid portraits of a series of go-betweens based on a vast array of translated primary sources hitherto unavailable to a non-Chinese readership. They not only illustrate how Chinese scholars mediated between new mathematical objects and discursive modes, but also how they instrumentalized their autochthonous scientific roots in specific political and intellectual contexts. While sometimes technical in style, the book addresses all readers who are interested in the global and cultural history of science and the complexities involved in the making of universal mathematics. “While the pursuit of modernity is in the title, entanglement is of as much interest. Using the famous ‘Nine Chapters’ as a framework, Bréard considers a wide range of that entanglement from divination to data management. Bréard’s analysis and thought-provoking insights show once again how much we can learn when two cultures intersect. A fascinating read!”. (shrink)

As a part of the geographical knowledge introduced by Matteo Ricci from the West into China at the beginning of the 17th century, the concept of “Asia” had undergone a cool reception for over three hundred years and did not become a common idea of world geography until the early 20th century when it was publicized by textbooks and other mass media. As the author points out, Asia is not merely a geographical concept, but also refers to history, culture, (...) and politics. Although early Western missionaries and Chinese scholar-officials like Wei Yuan endowed Asia with a positive meaning as the origin of world civilization, from the mid-19th century on, Chinese intellectuals, out of a sense of crisis caused by the European invasion of Asia, tended to describe Asia as a backward continent subjugated by the white people. In the 1910s, against the background of Japan’s annexation of Korea, Asia was divided into two opposing parts, “the country invading other countries” and “the countries being invaded by other countries”. Along with the occupation of other Asian countries by Japan in the name of “the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” in the 1930s and 1940s, the concept of Asia also lost its charm among Chinese nationals. (shrink)

The spread of “capitalism” from West to East not only brought knowledge of an economic model but also offered nations a new path for development. This expansion was met by the rise of the socialist revolutionary movement, which aimed to overthrow the capitalist political and economic system. This article examines the concept of “capitalism” in the context of the debate on socialism. By studying the elaborations of Ziben zhuyi by its proponents and opponents, as well as the (...) class='Hi'>debate-related expressions proposed by later scholars in different contexts, this study reflects on the politicization of “capitalism”, the complexity of its meaning, and the degree of political ideology in its implementation. Based on the analysis of relevant papers on the debate, it concludes that as a highly politicized concept, “capitalism” reflects intellectuals’ assumptions regarding China’s future and the evolution of its political ideologies; “capitalism” has a complicated conceptual connotation, and it is necessary to consider its many aspects to present the full picture of what people think about it; and the degree of capitalist ideology varies in different periods and contexts. (shrink)

: The spread of “capitalism” from West to East not only brought knowledge of an economic model but also offered nations a new path for development. This expansion was met by the rise of the socialist revolutionary movement, which aimed to overthrow the capitalist political and economic system. This article examines the concept of “capitalism” in the context of the debate on socialism. By studying the elaborations of Ziben zhuyi by its proponents and opponents, as well as the (...) debate-related expressions proposed by later scholars in different contexts, this study reflects on the politicization of “capitalism”, the complexity of its meaning, and the degree of political ideology in its implementation. Based on the analysis of relevant papers on the debate, it concludes that as a highly politicized concept, “capitalism” reflects intellectuals’ assumptions regarding China’s future and the evolution of its political ideologies; “capitalism” has a complicated conceptual connotation, and it is necessary to consider its many aspects to present the full picture of what people think about it; and the degree of capitalist ideology varies in different periods and contexts. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The article aims to analyse the consciousness of masses in the communication system of the 20th century projecting the individual level onto the social one. _Theoretical basis._ In the fields of philosophy and other humanities since the middle of the last century there has dominated an opinion that the category of mass and its communication are second-rate and non-elitist phenomena. Condensing the experience of human history (especially – the nineteenth century – the time of the bourgeois revolutions and the (...) two world wars), such parameters were set by the creators of social psychology Gustave Le Bon and Sigmund Freud in their basic research "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind", "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego". Since ancient times the masses have really resembled immoral emotional neoformations, which minimized the individual qualities of the components of the whole and showed the features of a predominantly animal nature. It is no coincidence that those masses were called emotional, or just a crowd, regardless of the topos of existence: streets and squares, or the infospace of the first mass media (newspapers, radio, cinema, television). However, analysing the crowd, the scientists noted that this is only an extreme modification of the mass, and, in addition to it, there may be others – quite the opposite in their nature. With the advent of the World Wide Web, the situation has changed: scientists and futurists have been talking about the mass of intellectuals, which seems to be formed and combined in the field of information technology. And it surpasses the traditional elite in many respects. _Originality._ Having analysed the works of classic and modern researchers, we came to the conclusion that in fact the masses, like individuals (according to C. G. Jung), are divided into four types. Correspondingly, each of them has its own behaviour, psychology, philosophy etc. This article focuses on beliefs and ideological positions as the basis for the functioning of emotional, sensory, intuitive and rational masses in the context of 20th century philosophy. The object of our analysis was the philosophical schools of neo-positivism, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, existentialism, pragmatism, anthropology, phenomenology, and others. _Conclusions._ According to our assumption, regardless of the type of mass and direction of modern philosophy as a field of its implementation, rationalism comes to the fore everywhere (as a primary source and theoretical basis or motivation). Thus, it can be concluded that the rational mass now dominates, not emotional (which was thoroughly described by Le Bon and Freud). And this is quite natural in the age of digital technology. (shrink)

The religious question in China is not limited to the contemporary tensions between the Catholic and Protestant churches and the Beijing regime, the repression suffered by Tibetan Buddhists or Uighur Muslims and the problems associated with so-called ‘sectarian’ movements. Though these issues are very important and worthy of interest in themselves, they have to be understood in a wider context which takes in the totality of religious realities in China, including those we in the West do not (...) see because they fall outside our representations of what is religious. Furthermore, the contemporary religious question assumes meaning only if we consider all the struggles between the Chinese state and society's religious structures since the end of the 19 th century. In another publication I have sketched out the modern history of relations between the Chinese state and the religious structures of the society. Here I should like to show the importance of the concept of religion itself and of the controversies around it in the history of those conflicting relations. We shall see that the concepts, such as religion, used in the humanities and social sciences have consequences that go far beyond the context of academic debates and can help to feed repression and social conflict. (shrink)

Drawing on a wide range of texts and using an interdisciplinary approach, this volume shows how Chinese and Japanese intellectuals mobilized the past to create a better future. It is especially significant today given a world where, amidst tensions within Asia and the rise of China, East Asian intellectuals and governments constantly find new political meanings in their traditions. The essays illuminate how throughout Chinese and Japanese history, thinkers constantly weaved together nationalism, internationalism and a politics of time. (...) This volume explores a broad range of subjects such as premodern and early modern attempts to conjure a politics of Confucianism, twentieth century Japanese Marxist interpretations of Buddhism and Japanese and Chinese endeavors to imagine a new world order. In sum, this book shows us why understanding East Asian pasts are essential to making sense of ideological trends in contemporary China and Japan. For example, without understanding Confucianism and how modern intellectuals in China grappled with this body of thought, we would be unable to make sense of the Chinese government's current promotion of the Chinese classics. This book will interest students and scholars of political science, history and Asian Studies, sociology and philosophy. (shrink)

The earliest references to Darwin in China, which came by way of the network of Protestant missionaries, emerged in the early 1870s: the principle of general transformism and ideas about human origins were transmitted to the Chinese intellectual landscape. Only with the “evolutionary sensation” aroused by Yan Fu, in the mid-1890s, did Chinese readers begin to learn of Darwinian principles like the “struggle for existence” and “natural selection.” Translation of the Origin began much later, in 1902, and (...) the initial effort was misleading. In his translation of the first five chapters of the Origin, published before 1906, Ma Junwu used linguistic strategies to modify Darwin’s texts so as to reflect Yan’s progressive transformism. But in his 1920 translation of the book in its entirety, Ma redid his earlier work. The complete Chinese Origin did not generate a sensation in the biological community. Even so, the deliberate selection, absorption, and appropriation of Darwinian ideas by the Chinese over the next several decades assimilated the new evolution into their own cultural setting. The case of “Darwin in China” details a specific Chinese context that deepens our understanding of how audiences for new scientific theories can be actively involved in the processes of appropriation and universalizing, while also disseminating, modifying, and assimilating Darwinian ideas in local context. (shrink)

In addition to this much-needed clarification of the uses and abuses of the term "modernity," Yack here provides a fresh look at familiar modern ideas and practices such as nationalism, constitutionalism, and liberal democratic politics. Our world, the author suggests, offers us far stranger and more unexpected combinations that are dreamt of in modernist and postmodernist philosophies. His critique of the tendency to treat modernity as an integrated and coherent whole will expand the reader's vision to take in the (...) broader landscape of surprising and inconsistent features in the social and political world that surrounds us. The Fetishism of Modernities will be of interest to social, political and cultural theorists, intellectual historians and philosophers, as well as anyone with a stake in current debates about modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.4 (1999) 150-177 [Access article in PDF] The Desire for the Sovereign and the Logic of Reciprocity in the Family of Nations Lydia H. Liu It may sound like a truism that the modern nation cannot imagine itself except in sovereign terms. But what is this truism saying or, rather, withholding from us? When Benedict Anderson wrote his influential study of nationalism in 1983, he circumscribed the (...) imagining of the nation as "both inherently limited and sovereign" and relied on this basic understanding to explain the global transformation of dynastic empires into nation-states [Imagined Communities 6]. That insight, however, has not drawn to itself as much attention or scrutiny as some of his other concepts, like "print capitalism" or "creole nationalisms." If one were to name a few of the blind spots in the contemporary discussions of nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora, one of them would be the place and placing of sovereignty and sovereign right. To those of us whose initial purpose has been to historicize the nation and nationalism, this blind spot cannot but raise some serious methodological and interpretive questions. Insofar as sovereignty articulates a major mode of exchange between nation and empire in recent history and moreover figures prominently in the realm of what Anderson calls "quotidian universals" [Spectre of Comparisons 33], the truism of its truth needs to be unpacked carefully.Hence, I would like to raise some tentative questions about desire and sovereignty, not in terms of legal studies, but in light of what we have learned about colonial exchange and its production of difference, fetishism, identity, and the logic of reciprocity. I am going to show that these intellectual and material developments have had significant bearings on the making of international law such that our inquiry into the latter can no longer be confined to the self-explanatory evolution of legal discourse. For sovereign thinking is one of those areas that must be reexamined, to borrow Edward Said's words, "according to a detailed logic governed not simply by empirical reality but by a battery of desires, repressions, investments, and projections" [18].In this essay, I begin with a critical analysis of Benedict Anderson's work, focusing on the interplay of the historical and the universal in his study of the nation. I am particularly interested in examining what Anderson chose to do, or not to do, with sovereignty in his theory of nationalism, and I raise some questions about his idea of the "modular," whereby the universal takes on the role of a migrant figure making histories [End Page 150] here and there. Section two introduces the subject of fetishism and desire into the discussion by linking the display of the thrones of the Emperor Qianlong in British museums to significant moments of sovereign thinking in the reign of Queen Victoria and the Empress Dowager of China at the turn of the century. In section three, I attempt a detailed discussion of the sovereignty complex of Ku Hung-ming, a diasporic subject who grew up in colonial Malaysia, was educated in Europe, and ended up serving China as his adopted sovereign country. My analysis centers on Ku's well-known defense of the Empress Dowager during the popular nationalist uprising of 1900 and his work as a translator and publicist in Anglo-Chinese military confrontations. Finally, I turn to the theories of international law itself and ask how nineteenth-century jurists revised the notion of sovereignty to arrive at a new constitutive theory of recognition in the heyday of imperialist expansion. I argue that any attempt to explain the rise of the modern nation-state must take full account of this significant revision in the early nineteenth century, because the revision signaled a paradigmatic shift from natural law to positivist jurisprudence to the effect that a constitutive understanding of sovereign right would eventually overcome and displace the natural law notion of universal sovereignty. Sovereign Thinking in Migrant Nationalisms In Imagined Communities, Anderson pointed to sovereignty as a necessary condition in thinking about the nation when, for example, he... (shrink)

Contemporary political theorists have sought to invoke Judith N. Shklar's liberalism of fear in discussions about human rights across cultural and national boundaries. These discussions would benefit from thinking with Chinese liberal thinker and activist Hu Ping, who considered the liberalism of fear an accurate description of the rediscovery of liberalism in contemporary China after the post-Cultural Revolution. Hu's different uses of memories of the Cultural Revolution not only reflected Shklar's thesis in the liberalism of fear that liberals (...) should speak to memories of cruelty to inspire a liberal politics of cruelty-prevention. They also demonstrated how social and political contexts shaped political needs, which, in turn, changed readings of the past and challenged important assumptions in Shklar's political theory. Hu's uses of memory and fear shed light on the limits of Shklar's approach, revealed the importance of confronting the question of courage in any applications of the liberalism of fear, and called for more nuanced discussions about the conditions upon which memories of cruelty could be considered a pro-liberal force. (shrink)

Diversity is both an unavoidable aspect of twenty-first century living and a powerful challenge to older philosophical traditions that still assume as normatively universal a set of values, ways of thinking, institutions, and habits of living that emerged within earlier eras of more homogeneous cultures, less developed technologies, and more accepted forms of linguistic, legal, religious, economic, political, and military domination. Within recent years, new styles of philosophical discourse, including deconstruction, postmodernism, feminism, post-colonialism, and critical race theory, have persuasively challenged (...) these universalistic assumptions to reveal the important human differences they marginalize. Experience-based appreciation of the mutually educative potential of diverse standpoints as well as sober concern about the perils of our present times have led many thinkers to look for contemporary forms of pragmatism and cosmopolitanism as hospitable intellectual gathering places for urgently needed cross-difference conversations that may reflect and give substance to shared visions of democratic diversity. The eight authors in this volume engage in cross-difference conversations with other thinkers from earlier periods and other philosophical traditions, as well as with each other, in order to reconstruct pragmatism and cosmopolitanism in ways that are more attuned to our lived experience of diversity as well as our hopes for a diversity-appreciating democratic future. (shrink)

This article reassesses Weber's position on the influence of Confucianism on China's failure to develop the modern form of capitalism by focusing on the conception of wealth among the merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It starts with a review of the criticisms directed towards Weber's theses, including his claim about an affinity between Calvinism and the spirit of capitalism, and his assertion about the lack of moral tensions in Confucianism. We argue that despite the flaws (...) in his analyses, Weber's position that ideas matter is still relevant. The main shortcoming of his argument about the link between the Confucian value system and the failure of China to develop a modern form of capitalism is that he overlooked a critical element in this value system. This was the idea, widely shared among the merchants in late imperial China, of the desirability of disposing of one's wealth. This had the effect of discouraging the accumulation of capital in a period of incipent capitalism. While this idea was intrinsic to the Confucian intellectual tradition, it was also reinforced by the vulnerable position of the merchants under the omnipotent structure of state political power during the Ming dynasty. This shows that while ideas were crucial in preventing China from developing modern capitalism, they did not operate in isolation from the socio-political context as a historical force. (shrink)

Modern British nursing developed from the mid‐nineteenth century and was seen as a morally purifying activity and as a potential force for social cohesion. It was also considered an activity fit for women. However, it embodied a fundamental tension within Victorian sensibility between a kind of rationalistic utilitarianism and a faith in transcendent values. This paper explores this tension and suggests that it can be detected in current debates about practice and evidence in nursing in the contemporary context (...) of a rise of managerialism in public services. (shrink)

The fundamental changes that took place at the beginning of the 21st century in all spheres of public life actualized the personalized trend of the modern personality, namely its social and professional development, which is associated with the concept of “career”. The purpose of the article is to characterize the pool of factors that determine a career as a socio-cultural phenomenon of modern society. Based on macro- and microsociological approaches, the parameters of career transformation are determined. Economic ones consist in (...) the transition from working professions to expert-type professions that require a high level of education and specialization. Technological - in the development of information technologies, which led to changes in the technical and technological component of social production and the growth of a separate social group of intellectual workers. The transformation of interests and value orientations of a person has led to a shift in the emphasis of personal performance from external signs to individualistic factors. The patterns of new realities in the world of work, which led to the transformation of the concept of career and new trends, are characterized. The first model includes the presence of higher education, intellectual work in the specialty and a fairly low level of income. The second model is based on ideas about the American dream and the unlimited possibilities of the individual, where the main component is a high material status and own business as a symbol of success. The third model is a highly paid professional with a high level of prestigious education and a good profession. A new type of career is defined - “polyvariant”. These days, success in career strategies requires constant professional development and gaining experience. Through the individualization and pluralization of lifestyles and consumption, people are more able to choose their own path to success, including various forms of life and career development. The tendencies of the spread of self-employment and the development of professional qualities in the career strategies of a modern person are determined. Through the individualization and pluralization of lifestyles and consumption, people are more able to choose their own path to success, including various forms of life and career development. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four (...) kinds of textual-context error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically. (shrink)

The bond of faith that man has established with his creator was realized through the prophet. The problem of anti-prophecy, which is widely experienced at the intellectual level with its dimensions affecting our age, corresponds to a serious belief problem. The principles known via prophecy in monotheistic religions are summarized as beliefs in Allah, prophecy, and afterlife. The theology of monotheistic religions emerged within the framework determined by the prophethood. As a result, the prophethood, as the starting point of (...) religion, appears as the most accurate way to obtain information about God and the afterlife. An anti-prophetic attitude has been observed in the anti-religious circles and names renowned for it have been seen in the historical path. This anti-prophetic attitude seen in the Iranian origin dualist traditions and in the Indian origin belief circles of Barāhima and Buddhism living in the lands acquired as a result of the Islamic conquests, has led to serious debates in the Islamic society. Scholars who wrote polemical works against them produced answers by staying in the scope of reason. In these works, which stand out with their erudition, the institution of prophethood in the person of the Prophet Muhammad is supported by historical and traditional arguments and then by verses of the Qurʾān. The basic arguments of the prophethood called ‘hujaj and a‘lām’ are included in apologetic works of the early period, which are mainly based on the traditional evidence of prophethood accepted by the People of the Book. The Works aiming to demonstrate the propehthood in muslim thought until the classical period diveded into two groups in terms of content. Firstly : works that deal with prophethood only through traditional evidence and narrations that narrate miracles and similar wonderful events that took place in the hands of the messenger. Secondly, works aiming to prove prophethood in historical and sociological terms, along with its traditional evidence. In the following period, scholars whose main purpose is to systematically prove the prophethood continued their writing activities on the same subject. During this activity, a special literary genre named Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa was formed in the literature. This article aims to introduce the essential examples of Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa Works, written against the anti-prophetic challenges emerged in the second century of the hijra and gradualy increased during the third and fourth centuries of the hijra and focus on their place and importance in the literature. (shrink)

The intellectual impact of the First World War in China is often understood as having led to a disenchantment with the West and a discrediting of the authority of “science”, while at the same time ushering in a renewed sense of cultural as well as national “awakening”. Important developments such as the May Fourth Movement, the rise of Chinese Marxism, and the emergence of modern Confucianism have become integral parts of the narrative surrounding the effects of the “European (...) War” in China, and bear witness to the contested relation between tradition and modernity in twentieth-century Chinese thought. Through a case study of a number of wartime and post-war texts written by the “cultural conservative” thinker and publicist Du Yaquan, this paper tries to draw attention to the complexity and occasional ambiguity of responses to the “Great War” in modern Chinese intellectual history. More specifically, the following pages offer an analysis of Du’s critique of “materialism” in the context of his quest for social freedom and cultural continuity, his enduring commitment to scientific notions of social evolution and political governance, and his approach to the relations among war, the nation-state, the individual, and the international interstate order developed against the background of the First World War. (shrink)

This book rewrites the story of classical Chinese philosophy, which has always been considered the single most creative and vibrant chapter in the history of Chinese philosophy. Works attributed to Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi and many others represent the very origins of moral and political thinking in China. As testimony to their enduring stature, in recent decades many Chinese intellectuals, and even leading politicians, have turned to those classics, especially Confucian texts, for alternative or complementary (...) sources of moral authority and political legitimacy. Therefore, philosophical inquiries into core normative values embedded in those classical texts are crucial to the ongoing scholarly discussion about China as China turns more culturally inward. It can also contribute to the spirited contemporary debate about the nature of philosophical reasoning, especially in the non-Western traditions. -/- This book offers a new narrative and interpretative framework about the origins of moral-political philosophy that tracks how the three normative values, humaneness, justice, and personal freedom, were formulated, reformulated, and contested by early Chinese philosophers in their effort to negotiate the relationship among three distinct domains, the personal, the familial, and the political. Such efforts took place as those thinkers were reimagining a new moral-political order, debating its guiding norms, and exploring possible sources within the context of an evolving understanding of Heaven and its relationship with the humans. Tao Jiang argues that the competing visions in that debate can be characterized as a contestation between partialist humaneness and impartialist justice as the guiding norm for the newly imagined moral-political order, with the Confucians, the Mohists, the Laoists, and the so-called fajia thinkers being the major participants, constituting the mainstream philosophical project during this period. Thinkers lined up differently along the justice-humaneness spectrum with earlier ones maintaining some continuity between the two normative values (or at least trying to accommodate both to some extent) while later ones leaning more toward their exclusivity in the political/public domain. Zhuangzi and the Zhuangists were the outliers of the mainstream moral-political debate who rejected the very parameter of humaneness versus justice in that discourse. They were a lone voice advocating personal freedom, but the Zhuangist expressions of freedom were self-restricted to the margins of the political world and the interiority of one's heartmind. Such a take can shed new light on how the Zhuangist approach to personal freedom would profoundly impact the development of this idea in pre-modern Chinese political and intellectual history. (shrink)

This paper is intended to investigate the role of Venture-Capital Syndication background in the relationship between intellectual capital and portfolio firm performance ; specifically, this article examines the moderating effect of VCS’s leading firm background and member heterogeneity on the effect of IC on PFP. This study used a modified VAIC model to measure IC to compose a 4-component variable including human capital, structural capital, relational capital, and innovation capital. The data were collected from VCS-backed and listed firms in (...) China during 2014 to 2018 applying the pooled OLS model for hypotheses test, Generalized Method of Moments to reduce endogeneity and unobserved factor control, and also return on equity instead of ROA for the robustness test. Empirical results showed that IC and its components can improve PFP for VCS-backed firms in China; in detail, IC showed greater impact on performance of firms invested by foreign lead investors than in private or government VCS, specially reflected in the impact of innovation capital on PFP. Furthermore, IC showed weaker impact on PFP of mixed VCS-backed firms compared to pure VCS-backed firms and showed diminished effect on higher VCS member heterogeneity mainly reflected in the impact of relational capital on firm performance. These findings propose a new way of combining IC and VC to improve firm performance and are beneficial to theoretical development of IC and VC as well as a perspective for VC firm managers to choose suitable partners prior to join a VCS. (shrink)

The development of modern Chinese thought involves an ongoing interaction between internal processes and impacts of foreign ideas. Several intellectual controversies are interwoven into its history and among these one of the more philosophical ones began some 90 years ago, in 1923. In this controversy, supporters of science or scientism and supporters of metaphysics or Confucian tradition debated issues of what both sides referred to as "the view of life." The study of the view of life controversy by Gad (...) C. Isay discusses the positions of the view of life supporters who upheld metaphysics against scientism. It focuses on both the philosophical merit of their views and the relevance of these views to the question of culture in modern China. Considering the sources of the view of life problem in traditional Chinese thought and the discussions that followed after the controversy, it is argued that the view of life question was a central theme in Chinese thought from its beginning. In this respect, modern discussions of this problem indicate continuity with the past. However, these discussions demonstrate too, the dynamics of changing conceptions regarding the context of human relationships that are related directly to the meeting with the West. Isay's study traces the development of these discussions from their beginning up to our days giving a comprehensive survey of the philosophy of the view of life in modern Chinese thought. (shrink)

In the last two centuries, our world would have been a safer place if philosophers such as Rousseau, Marx, and Nietzsche had not given intellectual encouragement to the radical ideologies of Jacobins, Stalinists, and fascists. Maybe the world would have been better off, from the standpoint of sound practice, if philosophers had engaged in only modest, decent theory, as did John Stuart Mill. Yet, as Ronald Beiner contends, the point of theory is not to think safe thoughts; the point (...) is to open intellectual horizons. In Philosophy in a Time of Lost Spirit, Beiner reflects on the dualism of theory and practice. The purpose of the theorist is not to offer sensible guidance on the conduct of social life but to test the boundaries of our vision of social order. Whereas the liberal citizen should embody the practical virtues of prudence and moderation, the theorist should be radical, probing, and immoderate. Looking back at the liberal-communitarian debate of the 1980s, Beiner recognizes that the antidote to our spiritless times lies neither in the embrace of community over individualism nor of individualism over community: both individual and community need to be submitted to radical questioning. It is by exposing ourselves to the challenge of fearless thinking encountered at the philosophical extremities that we are most likely to understand our own world at a deeper level. In this collection of essays and reviews, Ronald Beiner helps us to think critically about the thought-worlds of our foremost contemporary thinkers, including Hannah Arendt, Allan Bloom, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, J¦rgen Habermas, Will Kymlicka, Christopher Lasch, Richard Rorty, Judith Shklar, Leo Strauss, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer. (shrink)

These essays collectively present new perspectives on the history of modern science in China since 1900. Fa‐ti Fan describes how science under the Republic of China after 1911 exhibited a complex local and international character that straddled both imperialism and colonialism. Danian Hu focuses on the fate of relativity in the physics community in China after 1917. Zuoyue Wang hopes that a less nationalist political atmosphere in China will stimulate more transnational studies of modern science, which (...) will in turn reveal the underlying commonalities in different national contexts. Sigrid Schmalzer compares the socialist and the capitalist contexts for science in China and reopens the sensitive question of the “mass line” during the Cultural Revolution. Grace Shen describes the tensions early Chinese scientists felt when choosing between foreign models for modern geology and their own professional identities in China. Taken together, these accounts present us with a comparative history of modern science in China that is both globally and locally informed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond Revisionism:The Bicentennial of Independence, the Early Republican Experience, and Intellectual History in Latin AmericaElías José PaltiLatin America's Revolution of Independence was an event of world-historical importance. Citizens of different regions simultaneously created new nation states and established republican systems of government. This occurred at a time when the very meaning of the notions of "nation" and "republic" remained ill-defined. In such a context, a number of (...) debates naturally emerged regarding the tenets of modern politics, and the kind of dilemmas and problems contained therein.Yet the assessment of the historical relevance of these disputes has been precluded by the teleological assumptions which have informed traditional approaches in the history of ideas. These assumptions have led historians to interpret these disputes as mere expressions of local prejudices that prevented the correct understanding of the true meaning of the modern liberal concept of representative democracy. According to this traditional view, the concerns of Latin American commentators were seen as "deviations" from the rational path of conceptual development and understanding. It was necessary to undermine this traditional teleological prejudice before the debates around these notions produced in Latin America in the nineteenth century could reveal their historical significance and become matters for systematic analysis. The rise of a "new intellectual history," insofar as it has [End Page 593] questioned the assumed rationality and logical consistency of the putative models and disclosed the contingent nature of their foundations, has opened the door to an entirely new universe of problems and issues for scholarly research in the field of Latin American politico-intellectual history.The great wave of new studies on the crisis of the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the emergence of new national states, triggered by the approach of the Bicentennial of Independence, has been greatly influenced by this new set of questions.1 Historians from different countries in Latin America have revisited that fundamental event, and have sought to revise established perspectives in the field. This has made room for the development of a self-defined "revisionist" position. However, what is to be revised has not always been clear.The revisionists seek to dislocate an epic narrative of independence as the epiphany of long-lasting struggles of oppressed nations to recover their rights to self-determination.2 They argue that the teleological, nationalistic biases of traditional approaches led their authors to see as already present at the point of departure an entity (the nation) which actually could be perceived only at the point of arrival. If understood in this way, however, the revisionists' contributions are hardly innovative. In the decade of the 1960s, a series of studies, propelled by the spread in Latin America of Marxist thought and social history, as well as by the increasing presence of American and European historians in the field, had already destabilized Manichean emplotments of the Revolution of Independence as a struggle between liberty and oppression.3 These studies introduced a number of nuances that questioned the objective basis of the states that emerged from the rupture of colonial ties. Instead, they demonstrated that the new states were the result of the contingent process of formation rather than its premise. [End Page 594] Yet it is not here that the profound transformation of the discipline has occurred. Revisionists do concentrate their criticism on the contents of nationalistic narratives, but leave untouched the theoretical premises on which these narratives rest. They fail to penetrate and undermine the sets of antinomies on which those teleological perspectives are grounded: enlightenment / romanticism; rationalism / nationalism; "liberty of the Modern" / "liberty of Ancient;" modernity / tradition; individualism / organicism, etc. In the following pages I will trace the origins of revisionism in Latin American, its contributions to the field of politico-intellectual history, and the kind of problems that it raises in turn.The Tradition of History of "Ideas" in Latin AmericaMany scholars consider Charles Hale to be the key figure in the emergence of the revisionist critique. As Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo remarks, for the case of Mexico (which has served as the exemplary case for the entire region): "Up to the moment Charles Hale came to intervene, we could recount to ourselves a delicious... (shrink)

The motto of the Royal Society—Nullius in verba—was intended to highlight the members’ rejection of received knowledge and the new place they afforded direct empirical evidence in their quest for genuine, useful knowledge about the world. But while many studies have raised questions about the construction, reception and authentication of knowledge, Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences is the first to examine the problem of evidence at this pivotal moment in European intellectual history. What constituted (...) evidence—and for whom? Where might it be found? How should it be collected and organized? What is the relationship between evidence and proof? These are crucial questions, for what constitutes evidence determines how people interrogate the world and the kind of arguments they make about it. In this important new collection, Lancaster and Raiswell have assembled twelve studies that capture aspects of the debate over evidence in a variety of intellectual contexts. From law and theology to geography, medicine and experimental philosophy, the chapters highlight the great diversity of approaches to evidence-gathering that existed side by side in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this way, the volume makes an important addition to the literature on early science and knowledge formation, and will be of particular interest to scholars and advanced students in these fields. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of the relations between modernity and secularization. The author argues that the discourse on secularization is the most appropriate strategy for modern self-understanding. The discourse itself is not homogeneous. One approach is a classical theory of secularization, which considers the secularization as a universal world-historical process, which passed the stages “modernization – secularization – rationalization.” Other approach is to interpret modern society as a post-secular society, but with relevance to religious ethos. This approach considers (...) Modernity as a unique social reality with a specific type of rationality and a set of behavioral strategies, which were formed as a result of the transformation of religious social reality, the center of which was a Christian myth. Accordingly, modernization becomes the result of secularization, and not vice versa, as the proponents of the first approach assumed. The thematization in the discourse on the secularization of a new type of society, which J. Habermas called post-secular society, demonstrates a crisis of principles constituting the Modernity’s foundations. Predictions of the epoch of an irreligious society did not come true, and secular reason is now forced to reckon with other types of rationality and take them into account, including in public space. This situation suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new form of social reality. Thus, the article concludes: discourse on secularization is recognized as the most adequate strategy of the comprehension of Modernity; secularization should be viewed as a consistent detranscendentalization of Christian social reality; the emergence of a post-secular society indicates fundamental transformations in the field of the most general ideas about the nature of cultural mind and cultural identities. (shrink)

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the ‘secularization thesis’. Conflicts between the claims of women's equality and the claims of religion are well-documented vis-à-vis all major religions and across all (...) regions. The ongoing moral panic about the presence of Islam in Europe, marked by a preoccupation with policing Muslim women's dress, reminds us of the centrality of women and gender power relations in the interrelation of religion, culture and the state. Added to postmodern and other critiques of the secular-religious binary, most sociological research now contradicts the equation of modernization with secularization. This article focuses on the challenges that these developments pose to politically oriented feminist thinking and practice. It argues that non-oppressive feminist responses require a new critical engagement with secularism as a normative principle in democratic, multicultural societies. To inform this process, the author maps and links discussions across different fields of feminist scholarship, in the sociology of religion and in political theory. She organizes the main philosophical traditions and fault lines that form the intellectual terrain at the intersection of feminism, religion and politics in two broad groups: feminist critiques of the Enlightenment critique of religion; and feminist scholarship at the critical edges of the Enlightenment tradition. The author argues that notwithstanding the fragmented nature of feminist debates in this area, common ground is emerging across different politically oriented approaches: all emphasize ‘democracy’ and the values that underpin it as the larger discursive frame in which the principle of secularism can be redefined with emancipatory intent in a neo-secular age. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body by Xing WangWenbin Wang (bio)Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body. By Xing Wang. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. x+ 325. Hardcover €114.00, ISBN 978-90-04-42954-3.Physiognomy (xiangshu 相術) as a technique of fortune-telling via the observation of the body has a long history in China and is still a living tradition. As a part of the traditional Chinese (...) technological repertoire of "Techniques and Methods" (fangshu 方術), records of performing physiognomy date back to the Spring and Autumn period (8th-5th centuries B.C.) (p. 31). According to Lisa Raphals, physiognomy was a crucial part of early Chinese philosophical discussion of the body, cosmology and human existence.1 Yet Wang Xing argues that despite its long history, our knowledge of Chinese physiognomy before the Ming dynasty is rather limited due to the small amount of pre-Ming physiognomy manuscripts still in existence. Chinese physiognomy as we know it today is largely based on its predecessors in late imperial China, and it was during the late Ming that most of the well-known extant physiognomy manuals were produced (p. 34). In contrast, the paucity of academic surveys of Ming physiognomy means that when it comes to scholarly examination of Chinese physiognomic texts and academic representation of physiognomic theories, misinterpretation often occurs. Wang is particularly critical of an early academic work on Chinese physiognomy by American anthropologist William Lessa, who made many dubious and broad assertions about the origin and characteristics of Chinese physiognomy (p. 15).2 In this context, Wang's Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body is the first monograph in the English-speaking world primarily dedicated to the study of Chinese physiognomy in the Ming dynasty, including its social, textual, intellectual and technological history. It is also the first work in English that comprehensively introduces the history of Chinese physiognomy in early to late imperial China.Wang's investigation of this topic is two-fold. On the one hand he tackles physiognomy manuals and records of physiognomy practice from a historical perspective. Wang uses a very famous Ming physiognomic "encyclopedia," The Compendium of Divine Physiognomy (Shenxiang quanbian 神相全編), as the main text in his discussion of physiognomic knowledge, as well as a large amount of anecdotal writings from the Song to Ming periods. On the other hand, Wang consciously draws links between Chinese physiognomic theories and modern Western philosophical and anthropological debates on the body, symbolism and phenomenology. To push forward this conversation, Wang establishes a unique [End Page 1] framework for interpreting the conceptualization of the body, fortune and the cosmos in Ming physiognomic texts: the "homological" body on which time is "spatialized," discussed further below. It is this second facet of the argument that could most intrigue and inspire scholars of Chinese philosophy like myself. As Marta Hanson comments, Wang's work is an excellent example of how Chinese technical as well as cosmological works could problematize and challenge modern Euro-American academic theorizations of Asian culture and how professional sinological study could contribute to salient modern intellectual debates.3 When reading Wang's book, readers should always bear in mind his intention to bring together Ming physiognomic theories with broader contemporary philosophical discourse.Apart from the introduction, there are seven chapters in the book. The first two chapters serve as the historical section of the discussion (although historical analysis is also an indispensable part of later chapters). Chapter 1 provides readers with an overall background to physiognomy in China, especially its categorization as a form of elite knowledge in traditional catalogues, the development of core physiognomic theories and concepts in relation to traditional Chinese cosmology and medical theories, and the textual history of Ming physiognomy manuals. Beyond providing general information, in my view the author here makes three outstanding points: the first is that what we know as Chinese physiognomy is actually not merely a technique of human body divination, but also a method of predicting human future via observing the whole material world. Wang mentions a very important branch of physiognomy in historical catalogues called "physiognomy of things" (xiangwu 相物) (p. 27), in which anything from a horse... (shrink)

As a traditional clothing symbol that is unique to the Chinese nation, the dragon symbol combines the distinctive features of the Chinese nation, reflecting the depth of mental changes and the historical context of Chinese culture. The image of the dragon has formed a kind of dragon pattern as a certain set of ideas about the culture that encoded all its changes. Therefore, in national clothing the dragon image has been one of the most favorite patterns for thousands (...) of years. With the interweaving of world cultures and the deepening of the concept of clothing design, the dragon pattern will incorporate fresh elements of Western culture while maintaining the essence of traditional Chinese culture, and show a new design image through the utilization of various innovative ideas and design methods. The following methods were used for the study: literature review, field research, analysis of design cases, analysis of fashion trends. Using these methods, the specifics of using dragon designs in the fashion industry in different seasons and years are analyzed, and the trend of their evolution in the field of high fashion is studied. In the article we analyzed modern trends of clothing design and gave their characteristics. The results of the study showed that even in modern youth fashion this national symbol is actively used, which indicates that the patterns and images of the dragon have real applicability and wide prospects of application in modern fashion design. Modern clothing design provides a rich cultural heritage for modern clothing to retain the characteristics of civilization on the basis of continuous innovation. The use of dragon motifs in modern clothing not only meets the aesthetic concepts of modern people, but also adds vitality to clothing design. (shrink)

Studies on Chinese nationalism in Western academia have been influenced by a popular theory called ‘the culturalism-to-nationalism thesis’, a loosely formulated interpretive paradigm which emerged in late 1960s. The literature on this topic, however, reveals an inadequate understanding of traditional Chinese thinking and its influence on Chinese thought in modern history. An examination of the work of Li Dazhao (1889–1927) and his philosophical heritage not only will open up a valuable source for us to rethink about this (...) thesis and its defects, but also will shed light on the complicated background and perspective that give rise to modern Chinese nationalism. Given the interest in Chinese nationalism in contemporary world, an understanding of its historical roots is particularly timely, since in order to understand China’s current and future actions one must understand the origins of Chinese nationalist thinking and its transformations in time. This paper makes a contribution to that historical understanding. I argue that traditional Chinese philosophy, especially the Daoist world view and Confucian ethics played a significant role in shaping Li’s patriotic and nationalist stance. It also predisposed him intellectually to accept the internationalist characteristic of Marxism. (shrink)

The effects of heredity and the environment on the development of human being, which is a multidimensional being, have been discussed for many years. Studies on the religious development of man were also influenced by these discussions. In this context, in order to better understand the nature of religious development, some theories such as behavioral, cognitive or stage theories have emerged. In a sense, these theories have also identified the direction of religious development. However, many of these theories did (...) not address their religious development as a whole. This restricted the understanding of religious development. Therefore, this article has two main purposes. First, to bring the ecological theory which is the human development model proposed by Bronfenbrenner, which considers human development as a whole with the environment and events in which it lives, to the literature of our country's religion psychology. The second aim is that to contribute to a better understanding of the psychological foundations of religious development through the use of this theory. In this article where qualitative research method has been used, some quantitative study data have been used. In the article, the ecosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem, and the effect of each of the chronosystem on religious development is discussed. In this article, it is concluded that approach to religious development in the context of ecological theory can be useful.Summary: Human being is existentially open to development. The openness of human to development is not a choice but a requirement. Therefore, each individual must experience a developmental process in which physiological, psychological and sociological conditions are intertwined unless he has voluntarily terminated his existence. Psychologists, who are aware of this, attach a special importance to the phenomenon of development. Is heredity is more effective in human development, or the environment? This question is a result of the importance that psychologists attribute to development.Essentially, the roots of these debates on human development are based on the foundation of modern psychology. For example, Locke, one of the most important philosophers of the 18th century, rejected the idea of ​​Descartes, one of the 17th-century thinkers, that man came to the world equipped with all sorts of knowledge and skills. Unlike Descartes, Locke argued that the source of all human knowledge is based on experience. According to Locke, the mind of the newborn baby is an un scraped tablet = tabula rasa, but it is not only the normal knowledge but also the source of God's imagination.This perspective on human development naturally affected the problem of religious development. For example, Jung sought the basis of religious faith in the collective unconscious, referring to the hereditary foundations of religious faith in a sense. On the other hand, Pratt approached the problem of religious development on the basis of experience.In general, religious development studies carried out on more experienced grounds have brought some theoretical approaches. Goldman, for example, examined the course of religious development from childhood to adolescence. For him, religious thought is not that different from non-religious thought in terms of form and method. Fowler, on the other hand, expressed that faith is not always religious in terms of content and context, and has developed a theory of belief development that includes religious development. However, some religious development models brings a different perspective to the development of the religious phenomenon in Turkey have been developed. Three-stage religious development model developed by Karaca is one of them. According to this model, the process of religious development of human beings is completed through three stages: inner tendencies, awakening of religious interest and questioning, harmony and stability.The necessity of using multi-dimensional approaches to understand the human being is a multidimensional entity is undoubtedly a reality. For this reason, it can be stated that the diversity of the explanation models for the religious development phenomenon mentioned above is a richness. It is thought that looking at the phenomenon of religious development in terms of the ecological theory developed by Bronfenbrenner, will increase the wealth of the means to understand the phenomenon of religious development. In this context, the main aim of this article is to provide the literature on the psychology of religion in our country and to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of religious development in the context of the theory of ecological theory put forward by Bronfenbrenner in a holistic way.The qualitative research method has been used in this article, besides the explanations and analyzes, the data of the quantitative studies, which are not directly related to the subject, have also been utilized.The basic step of the ecological theory that Bronfenbrenner suggested is a structure in which many systems from family to political and cultural systems overlap to better understand human development. The microsystem, which represents the innermost layer surrounding the individual, expresses the basic structure in which the individual lives and interacts with other people, while the mesosystemincludes the developing individual and the home and the school, school and workplace. It includes connections between two or more microsystems or contexts. The ecosystem, which is an extension of the mesosystem covering both formal and informal structures and relationships, does not directly affect the individual; however, it surrounds the individual by influencing the current arrangements that the individual has been in. The part of the theory that expresses the attitudes and ideologies of the culture in which the individual lives is the macrosystem. The last link of the theory is the chronosystem. The chronosystem, which explains how socio-historical conditions, lifelong transitions and environmental events occur in a pattern, has an important place in the development history of the individual.Although human beings are born with capability for believing, this situation alone is not enough to complete the process of religious development in a healthy way. When considered in the context of ecological theory, the religious development of the individual is affected from the first degree of the microsystem which is in direct contact with his family, school, peer groups, religious groups and playgrounds. In addition, the mesosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem affect the religious development of the individual either directly or indirectly. However, it should be noted that the effects of these systems on religious development are always double polarized.In order to better understand the psychology of religious development in the context of ecological theory, it is thought that the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that will be done with different groups in which the systems constituting the theory are effective will provide illuminating information about the subject. However, researchers, who will study religious development, are very careful when analyzing the relationships of the variables such as gender, age, civil status, education level, occupational groups and socio-economic level expressing the characteristics of the sample group in the experimental studies and used as independent variables. to be. Since, although the effects of these variables on the level of religiousness, the effects of these variables on dependent variables can be limited without considering the ecological theory. (shrink)

This article discusses the temporalization of space central to the mainstream discourse of European modernity: a discourse which hierarchized all cultural spaces into a temporal narrative enabling Europe’s self-portrayal as the emancipatory future of humanity. This discourse created a gap between the perceived particularism of non-European cultures (seen as traditional) and the universalism of a modernity associated with the contemporary cultures of Europe and North America, while portraying modernization as a passage from the former to the latter. Chinese intellectuals (...) who adopted this metanarrative therefore faced the following challenge: how can Chinese particularism be adapted to a culture of modernity regarded as universal? While May Fourth iconoclasts answered this question by simply rejecting the idea that an accommodation between Chinese particularism and modern universalism was possible, other intellectuals attempted to argue that at least some aspects of Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modern universalism. This article discusses an interesting instance of such an attempt at negotiating the perceived tension between the modern discourse of universalism and the particularism of Chinese culture, as provided by Liang Shuming in Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies. This work attempted to show that Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modernity by providing a new metanarrative which peripherized the role of Western culture in the process of modernization. This article suggests, however, that by adopting a portrayal of modernization as a passage from particularism to universalism, Chinese culture could be reauthorized, within Liang’s metanarrative, only at the cost of being de-complexified, homogenized, and de-historicized; only at the cost of being no longer Chinese. (shrink)

Man is a creature with an awareness of existence. One of the most important questions that human beings have been seeking answers to since ancient times is what kind of value they have in terms of being human and what rights and responsibilities they have in relation to this. The term “human rights” is one of the modern concepts that emerged in direct connection with this process of inquiry. The concept of human rights has a political, secular framework of meaning (...) in terms of its development. However, human rights are being discussed in a wide field of meaning, which includes many philosophical, moral, and theological dimensions. In this study, the concept of human rights is analyzed in terms of God-human relationship. The theological framework of human rights in the Qur'ān is drawn on the basis of mīsāq (the covenant) between God and man. As a requirement of the mīsāq, Allah has entrusted man with a trust, appointed him as a caliph and honored him with it. The nature of this honor is the duty to make Godʾs laws prevail on earth, and for this purpose, the earth has been given to manʾs service. After man has taken his place on the stage of existence in this way, manʾs rights have two dimensions. The first is the rights that human beings have in the worldly-social context in terms of being human. The concept of human rights, as conceptualized by Western societies, is directly related to this dimension. In the second dimension, human rights have a religious-spiritual content as the rights that arise when the relationship/obligation of man with God is in question. These rights, which can also be expressed as the theological dimension of human rights debates, are rights related to the divine commandment. From a religious and spiritual point of view, human rights are related to having knowledge about the matters that one is obliged to do, being able to do them (istiṭāat), acting with free will, and being rewarded and punished for all these. In this study, the theological foundations of human rights are discussed. In this respect, it is aimed to overcome the limitations caused by grounding the concept of human rights from a secular perspective and present a more holistic and comprehensive metaphysical grounding of human rights. (shrink)

The Danish author Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is one the best-known theologians in the intellectual history of modernity since the nineteenth century. His influence is comprehensive: it is to be detected, amongst others, in theological, philosophical, literary, psychological and aesthetic discourses across the globe in many contexts. As such this publication will provide welcome input in further reflection on Kierkegaard's role in the interpretation of Scripture in modernity. Huls's book is a refreshing addition to Kierkegaardian studies, which will pave (...) the way for further research on one of the great thinkers of our time. It is also a useful contribution to the debate in contemporary hermeneutics about the legacy of the Enlightenment and the nature of biblical interpretation as a hermeneutical enterprise. Scripture aims to bring us back to our being-seen-in-God. By being alone with it, we realize that in it we are looking in the mirror of Him who loves us from our origin. In reading Scripture, we can, consequently, not be allowed to flee in all sorts of human fabrications about Scripture, as if only the knowledge of theologians could expose the true meaning of Scripture. Every person, whether well-schooled or not, whether he has much or little knowledge, knows Scripture, because before all else Scripture lives in us. Scripture merely reminds us of the Word that is spoken in us immediately and that constitutes our subjectivity. As long as the Word has not truly made us fall silent and we ourselves still think we have a say, the Word does not yet have us in its grasp. Only when we truly fall silent, in the realization that our human logic shrinks into insignificance compared to the wisdom of Him who loves us from our origin, can this Word become directive in our existence. Because there is truly only one eternal object of wonder -- that is God -- and only one possible hindrance to wonder -- and that is a person when he himself wants to be something. (shrink)

I offer a principled objection to arguments in favour of legalizing non-voluntary euthanasia on the basis of the principle of beneficence. The objection is that the status of death as a benefit to people who cannot formulate a desire to die is more problematic than pain management care. I ground this objection on epistemic and political arguments. Namely, I argue that death is relatively more unknowable, and the benefits it confers more subjectively debatable, than pain management. I am not primarily (...) referring to the claim that it is difficult to make comparisons between live and post-mortem states, but rather to the fact that it is epistemically and metaphysically problematic to impute a “life-worse-than-death” or a state of “suffering-calling-for-death” to people who cannot subjectively wish to die, as though this kind of suffering were a medically observable fact rather than a belief- and value-laden notion. On the contrary, people enduring similar causes of pain may have different experiences of suffering and views on how it affects the worthwhileness of their existence or the desirability of death or of continuing their lives. The projection of a “suffering-calling-for-death” onto infants or people with severe intellectual disabilities may not be indefensible, but it is more controversial than judging that pain management will improve their well-being from the perspective of beneficence. My argument also relies on our society’s liberal endeavour to avoid endorsing unverifiable beliefs about life and death or controversial conceptions of the good life. My goal is not to suggest we should not attend the suffering of cognitively disabled people. On the contrary, I only cast doubt on too quick an assumption that ending their lives is the best way of caring for them, when robust palliative treatments are available. Moreover, I express the concern that a lack of attention to distinctions between “pain-calling-for-relief” and “suffering-calling-for-death” may be based on ableist projections and assumptions. I conclude that it is imperative to continue research into the nature of pain and suffering experienced by individuals with mental or cognitive impairments preventing them from expressing autonomous wishes about the kind of treatment that would most benefit them. (shrink)

The problem of mental existence is a multidimensional subject that is related to many issues with its ontological and epistemological aspects. Both philosophers and theologians have addressed this problem from different perspectives and have discussed it among themselves. These discussions have produced some evidence and criticisms about mental existence in terms of acceptance and rejection. In these discussions, which are also associated with different issues, the use of information about maʿdūm, particularly as evidence of mental existence, also helped (...) pinpoint the source of the knowledge about maʿdūm. The fact that maʿdūm is the subject of knowledge is often a matter of consensus among theologians if some exceptions are disregarded. Particularly due to the extension of the subject of kalām to the known, it is a matter accepted by the scholars that maʿdūm can be known, whether it is mumkin (possible) or mumtani‘ (impossible). Therefore, the issue of where the information about it is located has emerged as an extension of the discussions on mental existence. In this context, in terms of epistemological theories they adopted, both theologians and philosophers have questioned the epistemological and ontological location of the knowledge of such concepts as ma'dūm, which hardly exist in the objective world but can be reasoned out or judged or imagined, and they have tried to determine the source of this knowledge. As a result of this effort, they have recognized that the source of knowledge about maʿdūm can be explained in two ways: the mind and outside world. In response to theologians, who claimed that the place of knowledge about maʿdūm is the mind, it has been claimed that the place of this knowledge is not the mind but the outside world. No consensus has been reached among those who claimed that the information was outside; some claimed that this information was in Plato's ideas, while others claimed that it was in the active mind. On the other hand, there has been no disagreement among those who considered the source of knowledge about maʿdūm as the mind. Based on this perspective, the present study tried to identify the source and place of information about maʿdūm, with a particular reference to the later kalām period, based on the evidence put forward to prove mental existence and the criticisms against such evidence. As a part of these discussions, the disputing parties were specified and the criticisms of the opponents towards each other were also included. This is because the nature of these criticisms is critical as such criticisms are capable of revealing the opinions of those who have opposing views about the source of knowledge of maʿdūm. The scope of the present study was limited to al-Rāzī and some later theologians as it was Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, who brought mental existence up for discussion as a specific point of debate. Therefore, in the present study, the famous theological texts that are highly representative of mental existence in the late kalām period and prominent commentaries written on these basic texts were preferred. (shrink)

In the eighteenth century, Voltaire presented China as the kingdom of philosophers. The term philosophe, which appeared at this period, is the ancestor of the "intellectual," a name most historians date back to the Dreyfus Affair at the beginning of the twentieth century. But the request for a specific role in public affairs by literati is much more ancient than this specific case. After all, at least since the early nineteenth century, the Russian intelligentsia affirmed its involvement in (...) the public sphere. And discussions have been going on in China for decades to assess how much modern zhishifenzi can be considered as the heirs to the traditional literati, or shi. All along the twentieth century, and especially after the May Fourth movement signaled its irruption on the political scene, the intelligentsia has been involved in the definition of the way to "save China." The 1920s and 1930s have been witnesses to raging debates on the path to modernization, the necessity to create a new culture in rupture with Confucianism, and on the desirable political system for China.1 The majority of intellectuals agreed on the necessity to introduce the values of Enlightenment in the Middle Kingdom, but they soon diverged on the type of political system that would best ensure their enactment. Intellectuals were soon involved with the various political parties that competed for the leadership of the country, and opposition between exponents of parliamentary democracy such as Hu Shi and Marxists such as Chen Duxiu. (shrink)

Although Freud makes only occasional, brief references to China and Chinese culture in his works, for almost a hundred years many leading Chinese intellectuals have studied and appropriated various Freudian theories. However, whilst some features of Freud’s views have been warmly embraced from the start and appreciated for their various explanatory and therapeutic values, other aspects have been vigorously criticized as implausible or inapplicable to the Chinese context. This book explores the history, reception, and use of Freud and (...) his theories in China, and makes an original and substantial contribution to our understanding of the Chinese people and their culture as well as to our appreciation of western attempts to understand the people and culture of China. The essays are organised around three key areas of research. First, it examines the historical background concerning the China-Freud connection in the 20thcentury, before going on to use reconstructed Freudian theories in order to provide a modernist critique of Chinese culture. Finally, the book deploys traditional Chinese thought in order to challenge various aspects of the Freudian project. Both Freudianism’s universal appeal and its cultural particularity are in full display throughout the book. At the same time, the allure of Chinese cultural and literary expressions, both in terms of their commonality with other cultures and their distinctive characteristics, are also scrutinized. This collection of essays will be welcomed by those interested in early modern and contemporary China, as well as the work and influence of Freud. It will also be of great interest to students and scholars of psychology, psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, religion, and cultural studies more generally. (shrink)

Tracing the origins of modern political thought through three sets of arguments over history, morality, and freedom In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, about what is involved in comparing individual human lives to the whole of human history. How can we compare them, or understand the results of the comparison? Kant’s question injected a new, future-oriented dimension into existing discussions of prevailing norms, challenging (...) their orientation toward the past. This reversal made Kant’s question a bridge between three successive sets of arguments: between the supporters of the ancients and moderns, the classics and romantics, and the Romans and the Germans. Sonenscher argues that the genealogy of modern political ideologies—from liberalism to nationalism to communism—can be connected to the resulting discussions of time, history, and values, mainly in France but also in Germany, Switzerland, and Britain, in the period straddling the French and Industrial revolutions. What is the genuinely human content of human history? Everything begins somewhere—democracy with the Greeks, or the idea of a res publica with the Romans—but these local arrangements have become vectors of values that are, apparently, universal. The intellectual upheaval that Sonenscher describes involved a struggle to close the gap, highlighted by Kant, between individual lives and human history. After Kant is an examination of that struggle’s enduring impact on the history and the historiography of political thought. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, China was on the brink of change. Different ideologies - those of radicalism, conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy - were much debated in political and intellectual circles. Whereas previous works have analyzed these trends in isolation, Edmund S. K. Fung shows how they related to one another and how intellectuals in China engaged according to their cultural and political persuasions. The author argues that it is this interrelatedness and interplay between different schools (...) of thought that are central to the understanding of Chinese modernity, for many of the debates that began in the Republican era still resonate in China today. The book charts the development of these ideologies and explores the work and influence of the intellectuals who were associated with them. In its challenge to previous scholarship and the breadth of its approach, the book makes a major contribution to the study of Chinese political philosophy and intellectual history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 221-223 [Access article in PDF] John J. Conley. The Suspicion of Virtue: Women Philosophers in Neoclassical France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 222. Cloth, $39.95. The rediscovery of forgotten women philosophers began in the 1970s and has yielded important results by broadening substantially the intellectual history of early modern Europe. In The Suspicion of Virtue: Women (...) Philosophers in Neoclassical France, John J. Conley expands even more the corpus of philosophical texts written by women to include five authors whose work has never been considered in this context. Five salonnières, traditionally considered the authors of light literature, are the subject of Conley's book. By expanding the "map of philosophy sites and genres" (159), Conley has looked beyond the university setting and beyond the female philosophers associated with the major male figures of [End Page 221] the period. He argues that the salon produced important female philosophers whose intellectual power was especially revealed in their highly original consideration and discussion of virtue and whose work provides an alternative to the philosophy produced by the canonical male authors of the seventeenth century.As he explores the moral philosophies of Sablé, Deshoulières, Sablière, Vallière, and Maintenon, Conley shows us how the salon promoted experimentation with alternative methods of philosophical analysis. Specifically, the salon produced philosophical arguments that were "characterized more by debate and by epigrammatic commentary than by the lecture and the treatise" (158). It promoted new methods of argument and focused thematically on moral issues.The works of the Jansenist Madame de Sablé rely on the maxime, the literary genre associated most closely with salon culture. In her Maximes, Sablé engages in moral psychology to offer a critique of aristocratic society. She writes about the pride and self-interest that defines this milieu, and she draws a clear distinction between a physical aristocracy (based on blood and rank) and a spiritual aristocracy of the virtuous. For this author, the essential trait of the individual is moral identity, not family or heritage.The poetry and philosophy of Madame Deshoulières is rooted in naturalism and inspired by the works of Lucretius and Gassendi. For her, virtue involves "an ecological reverence for the material world" (49). She addressed the vice and confusion that come from human misconceptions about nature. In particular, the human refusal to accept mortality reflects a broader refusal to accept the materialist nature of human beings. The belief in human superiority and immortality constitutes an attack on nature and explains human efforts to dominate nature. The belief in human immortality in turn raises issues of morality because it produces in humans hubris and the consequent mistreatment of the animal world and material environment. For Deshoulières virtue involves reverence for the material world.With Sablière the ethical person is the "redeemed saint, the sinner freed to a life of charity by the sovereign action of God and summoned to a particular set of moral duties in the midst of austere prayer" (94-95). Her maxims refer ultimately to spiritual abandonment to the will of God, and Sablière combines a deeply mystical piety, shaped by contact with Quietism, and the idea of the sovereignty of God, derived from Augustinian theology. The individual is dependent upon God's grace, and to live a moral life requires serious contemplation and communication with God and pyschological detachment from self, a relationship that springs from God's initiative.La Vallière also interprets virtue in an Augustinian vein, but her approach to virtue does not insist on abandonment of the world. She writes about knowing God through the experiences of repentance and conversion. Her Reflections on the Mercy of God is a dialogue with God on the part of repentent female voice. Her voice is definitely gendered, and she witnesses to God's mercy.Finally, Conley shows us in turn that the salonnières brought to their discussion of virtue an interest in etiquette and manners that derived from the distinctive experiences of women. Here the... (shrink)

I argue that the theological traditions of natural law and wisdom offer helpful meeting points in discussions about evolutionary “purpose” and contingency in relation to theological purpose, and serve to form the basis for a theology of nature. Natural law offers a way of describing the ordered action of God toward complexity in a contingent world without using the language of either “design” or “progress.” The theological tradition of wisdom as implicit in the natural world, learned in the human (...) community, and received as gift of grace offers a further means of interconnecting biological reality with spiritual experience, while retaining distinctions. Wisdom and natural law intersect inasmuch as natural law is participation in Eternal Wisdom, although the latter makes sense only from the prior perspective of faith. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study investigated what information about brain death was available from Google searches for five major religions. A substantial body of supporting research examining online behaviors shows that information seekers use Google as their preferred search engine and usually limit their search to entries on the first page. For each of the five religions in this study, Google listings reveal ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death. These results suggest that family members (...) who go online to find information about organ donation in the context of brain death would find information about ethical controversy in the first page of Google listings. Organ procurement agencies claim that all major world religions approve of organ donation and do not address the ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death that is readily available online. (shrink)