ABSTRACT Mohism has been called the most religious of all Chinese philosophies. Living up to that name, it developed unique proofs for the existence of the spiritual realm within a distinctly Chinese context. The Mozi uses testimonies from China’s mythic history to prove the existence of spirits. But beyond these cultural proofs, the Mozi also introduces a logical argument that is very similar to Pascal’s wager. Beyond these four explicit arguments, the Mozi also contains a fifth proof based on the (...) existence of a supernatural order that exists in the structure of the world. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology has received much attention recently, both critical and constructive, but much less work has been done looking at the relationship between Marion’s work on Descartes and his phenomenological project. The present article begins by making a point of clarifying Marion’s understanding of the meaning of Descartes’s cogito, and contrasting it with the standard understanding as found in Leibniz, Kant, and Heidegger. Following the discussion of these various interpretations of the cogito, we examine some of the similarities between (...) Marion’s particular interpretation of Descartes’s cogito as a performative exercise and Marion’s particular phenomenological analyses of givenness and the saturated phenomenon. Notably, in Marion’s view both the cogito and givenness overcome incorrect conceptions of objectness and being, both of them exceed the limits of syllogistic logical formulations, and both are irreducible to their apparent constituting parts. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology has received much attention recently, both critical and constructive, but much less work has been done looking at the relationship between Marion’s work on Descartes and his phenomenological project. The present article begins by making a point of clarifying Marion’s understanding of the meaning of Descartes’s cogito, and contrasting it with the standard understanding as found in Leibniz, Kant, and Heidegger. Following the discussion of these various interpretations of the cogito, we examine some of the similarities between (...) Marion’s particular interpretation of Descartes’s cogito as a performative exercise and Marion’s particular phenomenological analyses of givenness and the saturated phenomenon. Notably, in Marion’s view both the cogito and givenness overcome incorrect conceptions of objectness and being, both of them exceed the limits of syllogistic logical formulations, and both are irreducible to their apparent constituting parts. (shrink)