Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

_Contemporary Chinese Philosophy_ features discussion of sixteen major twentieth-century Chinese philosophers. Leading scholars in the field describe and critically assess the works of these significant figures. Critically assesses the work of major comtemporary Chinese philosophers that have rarely been discussed in English. Features essays by leading scholars in the field. Includes a glossary of Chinese characters and definitions.

How the Tao applies to the ecological understanding of the human environment for the purpose of human well-being as well as for the hannony of nature is an interesting and crucial issue for both environmentalists and philosophers of the Tao. I formulate five basic axioms for an environmental ethic of the Tao: the axiom of total interpenetration; the axiom of self-transformation; the axiom of creative spontaneity; the axiom of a will not to will; and the axiom of non-attaching attachment. I (...) show that each axiom generates important consequences for environmental ethics and that together they provide a necessary foundation for environmental ethics. (shrink)

This is an up-To-Date analysis of kung-Sun lung's thesis "white horse is not horse" and the underlying class logic. Critique is made of the wrong-Headedness of the mass-Term interpretation (hansen) and a shallow understanding of classical chinese grammar in light of modern logic. Neo-Ruohist canons on identity, Difference, Separableness and inseparableness are also analyzed for comparison and contrast.

In this article, I present a model of four dimensions for the idea of learning in the classical Confucian perspective. This model is intended to capture the most essential four aspects of learning which explain why self-cultivation of a human person toward an end of self-fulfillment and social transformation of humanity is possible. I shall also show how this model illuminates all basic uses of the term ‘xue’ in the Analects and thus leads to a more coherent understanding of the (...) Confucian moral and ethical philosophy than have been previously done. A copingstone principle of sincerification is also suggested for enabling the advancement of a person to a higher status of life such as junzi and shengxian. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by a question of naturalized epistemology of W. V. Quine and the question is how a naturalistic account gives rise to theoretical understanding with its realistic ontology. I concentrate on the possibility of the principle of reification by way of interpretation and the point is how we interpret interpretation in a naturalistic account. First, we must distinguish between Quine and Carnap based upon the distinction of interpretation versus reduction. Second, we should take seriously the function of (...) observation and the consequent interpretation with regard to reality and ontological understanding. This article also exams the positions of Descartes, Kant and recent philosophers Gadamer and Davidson. In doing so, some test cases of interpretation analyze in particular the case of “anomalous monism”. Finally, this paper makes effort to focus on quantum mechanics as an object of naturalistic interpretation, although it is itself a naturalistic interpretation of classical physics and relativity based upon observation of new features of reality. In conclusion, the Yijing philosophy of change is cited as a possible, useful and meaningful interpretation of quantum mechanics just as quantum mechanics could be a useful and meaningful interpretation of the Yijing’s onto-cosmology (which theory I had established two decades ago). (shrink)

There are two aspects of the hermeneutic: the receptive and the creative. In this article, first of all, I shall identify the strengths of these two aspects of the hermeneutic in the main development of hermeneutics in Western world. Heidegger and Gadamer take ontological receptivity as the source of the meaning of existence as well as the meaningfulness of texts. In my view such a form of receptivity has shaped the predominant paradigm of hermeneutic thinking in contemporary Europe or West. (...) Therefore, I move to the creative formation and positive projection of a transformative cosmological philosophy, namely the Yijing《易經》philosophy in Chinese tradition. In these two contrasts we shall not only notice the strong divergence between the two paradigms but come to see how receptivity and creativity of the hermeneutic could be divergently identified and located in concrete understanding of nature of reality and nature of the human being. (shrink)

This article offers a synthetic characterization of Chinese philosophy based on an analytical reconstruction of its main traditions and thinking. Three main traditions in Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism, are depicted and discussed, together with some comments on Chinese Marxism in the contemporary scene. Four characteristics of Chinese philosophy are presented: intrinsic humanism, concrete rationalism, organic naturalism, and a pragmatism of self?cultivation. It is clear from the discussion that these four characteristics are interrelated and mutually supporting and thus (...) should be better understood in the context of one another. Many open problems of philosophy, such as transcendence, evil, logic, and theoretical knowledge, are raised by an inquiry into Chinese philosophy. If Chinese philosophy serves to make us critically aware of these problems and to provide alternative ways of thinking, we are more than justified in presenting Chinese philosophy as a philosophy of universal concern and universal significance. (shrink)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

This book is based on my doctoral dissertation written at Harvard University in the year of 1963. My interest in Peirce was inspired by Professor D. C. Williams and that in Lewis by Professor Roderick Firth. To both of them lowe a great deal, not only in my study of Peirce and Lewis, but in my general approach toward the problems of knowledge and reality. Specifically, I wish to acknowledge Professor Williams for his patient and careful criticisms of the original (...) manuscripts of this book. I also wish to thank Professor Firth and Professor Israel Scheffler for their many suggestive comments regarding my discussions of induc tion. However, any error in this study of Peirce and Lewis is completely due to myself. Chung-ying Cheng Honolulu, Hawaii March,1967 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V SUMMARY IX CHAPTER I: Introduction I I. Problem of Justifying Induction and Proposal for Its Dissolution I 2. Two Types of Recent Arguments for the Validity of Induction 3 Arguments from Paradigm Cases and Uses of Words 4 3. (shrink)

The question of xing has received much attention in the revival of Neo-Confucian philosophy (called Contemporary Neo-Confucianism) in present-day Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China and among scholars of Chinese philosophy in the United States. It also has much to do with a critical consciousness of both the difference and the affinity between the Chinese philosophy of man and morality and the contemporary Western philosophy of human existence and moral virtues. The study of this has great meaning for the development of (...) a global onto-ethics and an onto-ethics of the future of humankind. (shrink)