Based on key passages in The Analects, I develop a Confucian account of agency: more precisely, an account of the relation between agent and deed (action). The Confucian view is contrasted with "standard" causal accounts of action (e.g., Davidson, Searle), which hold that what makes an event an action is that it is intended. According to the Confucian account, the defining mark of action is not the causal involvement of a (prior) intention, but instead the expressive relation between agent and (...) action. What's distinctive about an action is that it is expressive of who the agent is; the action expresses one's character or self. For the Confucians, what one really intends (the content of one's intention) is not a prior state to the action, but is rather determined or settled by the action as it is completed. I then explore the implications of the Confucian account for our understanding of three moral-psychological phenomena: weakness of will, self-deception, and moral regret. (shrink)

In recent years an orthodox Marxist-Leninist ethics has been developing in the Soviet Union. It is metaphysically based, teleologically oriented, and objectivist in its claims. Soviet ethical writings encompass five different activities: description, interpretative classification, prescription, content-analysis, and refutation. Among the distinctive features of the new Soviet Moral Code are its requirement of devotion to the Communist cause, its exclusively social orientation, and its emphasis on work. Upon analysis it turns out to prescribe a completely externalized and provincial morality. A (...) comparison of Soviet ethics with recent ethical writings from other East-European countries, however, shows that Marxist ethics need not follow the Soviet pattern. (shrink)

Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of Western (...) moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

In a precarious occupation, martial arts instructors must be inspiring and build a shared philosophy. Drawing on Taijiquan and Capoeira, which have their philosophical or epistemological roots in Asia and Africa, this article explores core concepts that feature in students’ enculturation. These concepts are grounded in epistemologies contrasting with Papineau’s work on popular and elite sport, Knowing the Score. More specifically, the philosophical approach used builds upon Papineau’s chapters on focus, cheating and racism, although these martial practices are not grounded (...) in the Judeo-Christian Western epistemologies underlying Papineau’s thinking. Indeed, one of the attractions for Western Capoeira and Taijiquan students is precisely their “strange” or exotic philosophical concepts driving specific pedagogical practices. Ethnographic fieldwork in Britain and written and oral accounts of embodied expertise are used to explore the practical uses of these non-Western epistemologies by teachers to build shared cultures for their students. Specifically, we examine the concepts of axé (life force) and malicia (artful trickery) in Capoeira, noting its contrast to Western ideas of energy and fair play. We then examine Taijiquan and the concepts of song (鬆 or “letting go”) and ting (听 or “focused listening”), considering the movement skill of systematic relaxation and the focus on specific components of human anatomy and body technique among adults unlearning embodied tension built throughout their lives. We close with considerations for projects examining the diverse, alternative southern, non-Western, and potentially decolonial and subaltern epistemologies in such martial activities. (shrink)

Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and his School of Mind dominated the intellectual world of sixteenth-century Ming China (1368-1644), and his Confucian philosophy has since remained an essential component of East Asian philosophical discourse. Yet, the volume of publications on him in the Western-language literature has consistently paled in comparison to the volume of scholarship on classical Chinese philosophy, modern Chinese philosophy, Buddhism, and Daoism. Studying Wang Yangming: History of a Sinological Field explains the history of writing in the West about (...) the famed Ming dynasty scholar-official. From eighteenth-century French Jesuit books to English-language publications in 2020, this book provides a historical overview and summary of a literature published by scholars attempting to grapple with one of the most influential Confucians in the history of China, East Asia, and the world. (shrink)

The structure and organization of the Roman army is a complex subject for ancient historians. Of its multiple aspects, the schedule of the daily routine is one of the most interesting but, at the same time, is scarcely known. Of course, huge progress has been made with the publication of the daily rosters of one particular auxiliary unit in the East (cohors XX Palmyrenorum, at Dura, Syria), but the detail of the chronological organization of the unit's schedule is still (...) to be revealed. (shrink)

The problematics of alienation have played a rather significant role in the discussions\nabout the sense and relevance of Marxism which have taken place in\nthe last twenty years. &dquo;Back to Marx&dquo; was at least one of the main slogans of\nthat ideological/intellectual movement, which evolved both in the East and\nWest from the mid-fifties and which is sometimes referred to as the trend of\n&dquo;humanist&dquo; Marxism. The idea of a &dquo;Marx-Renaissance&dquo; was undoubtedly\ndirected first of all against the completely petrified framework of institutionalized\nMarxism, turned (...) into a &dquo;religion of state&dquo; legitimating the domination\nof a bureaucratic apparatus over the population of East European societies.\nThe &dquo;rediscovery&dquo; and &dquo;rehabilitation&dquo; of the young Marx, the emphasis on\nthe continuity of his thought, meant not only a reintroduction of a number\nof categories, problems and ideas, which were thought fruitful in their critical\ninsight into contemporary conditions and which the impoverished and distorted\nversion of Marxism in official communist ideology (deliberately) failed\nto take into account: it also meant a global challenge to the appropriation of\nthe Marxian tradition by an apologetic ideology, which disguised its positivistic\ncontent through the form of an old-fashioned, dogmatic metaphysics; it\nwas an attempt to recover the critical/emancipatory meaning of this tradition\nwithin the realities of the twentieth century. It was in this context that the\nnotion of &dquo;alienation&dquo; again reappeared -- as a concept through which one\ncould articulate an attitude which was critical simultaneously of Western\ncapitalist and so-called &dquo;socialist&dquo; Eastern societies. Within the framework of\nEast European realities even the rather abstract character of this notion found\nin young Marx, was well suited to the theoretical vagueness and the practical\nlimitations of this new-found leftist criticism of home-societies. (shrink)

© The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] edited volume is based on the proceedings of an international workshop held in 2009 on the theme of ‘Material Evidence and Narrative Sources’ during the fourteenth annual gathering of the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, focused on ‘Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of Islamic Societies’. Fifteen articles seek to (...) integrate material and textual evidence for the medieval and modern Middle East, deliberately adhering to a trend of interdisciplinarity that began in the 1970s, exemplified in the approach of specific studies by Michael Cook, Leor Halevi, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, and Jacob Lassner, as well as in the recent publications of the editors, D. J. Talmon-Geller’s Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids... (shrink)

What is time? Is time real, or a mere illusion? We seem to feel the passage of time in our consciousness but are doomed to encounter great difficulty when trying to get a deeper grip on the nature of time. As Augustine famously remarked, "if no one asks me about what time is, I know what it is, but if I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know". The present essay does not aim so much (...) at giving a complete answer to this intricate and difficult question as to focus on Zhuangzi to excavate the idea of time inherent in his philosophical writings. A second aim is to show how it relates to some of the contemporary concerns about time. More specifically, our concern is not about... (shrink)

George Ohsawa's account of his 1955 visit to Dr. Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Africa and how he discovers a cure for deadly tropical ulcers followed by his teachings on the physical and mental aspects of disease, the traditional approach to healing versus the symptomatic medicine of today, and the priniciple of the unifying principle of yin and yang--the foundation of macrobiotics.

Voyage is the first part of The Coast of Utopia , Tom Stoppard's long-awaited and monumental trilogy that explores a group of friends who came of age under the Tsarist autocracy of Nicholas I, and for whom the term intelligentsia was coined. Among them are the anarchist Michael Bakunin, who was to challenge Marx for the soul of the masses; Ivan Turgenev, author of some of the most enduring works in Russian literature; the brilliant, erratic young critic Vissarion Belinsky; and (...) Alexander Herzen, a nobleman's son and the first self-proclaimed socialist in Russia, who becomes the main focus of this drama of politics, love, loss, and betrayal. In The Coast of Utopia , Stoppard presents an inspired examination of the struggle between romantic anarchy, utopian idealism, and practical reformation. (shrink)

The revival of Confucianism in China since the Reform and Opening is a topic that has received much scholarly attention. Beginning in the 1980s, this revival has included the establishment of a multitude of research institutes and study societies; local, national, and international conferences and symposiums; the restoration of historical sites; the introduction of a Confucian curriculum into schools; and an increasingly voluminous scholarship.1 Reasons for the revival include government policy and the search for “a new source of ideological legitimacy (...) for the state”; “a renewed academic interest” among intellectuals searching “for ways of dealing with China’s current social and political predicament”; the... (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between Philipp Frank and James Bryant Conant in light of two issues that engaged leading American intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century: the place of metaphysics in higher education and the responsibilities of intellectuals as educators to defend democracy against the rise of totalitarianism. It suggests that Frank’s relationship to pragmatism was nourished by his professional and intellectual relationships to Conant and that each of their contributions to our understanding of science is inseparable from their efforts (...) to engage their fellow intellectuals as well as the public about these pressing issues of their day. (shrink)

This paper argues that debates between the Confucians and Mohists in Classical China anticipate contemporary discussions in political philosophy. Specifically, their debates about our responsibilities to other people are akin to debates between Rawlsans, Cosmopolitans, and Utilitarians about the content of our political obligations to other people, and about the proper scope of application of norms of justice.

The present article constitutes an attempt to analyse the historical causes of the present crisis affecting the Arab world and the failure to build modern states in this region. It has to be noticed that from the three main ethnic groups constituting the pillars of the Middle East, i.e. the Persians, the Arabs and the Turks, the Arab failure and the generalization of violence in Arab societies and between Arab states is to be adequately analysed in order to be (...) able to contribute to peace, reform and a dignified life for Arab citizens. Different historical factors are identified in the article, some of them internal to Arab societies, but inextricably linked to massive foreign interferences in the region. The last of these interferences are linked to the instrumentalization of religion in the last period of the cold war in order to stop the extension of Soviet and communist influence in the Arab and Muslim world. Since then, this use of religion for political purpose in the conflicts about supremacy in the region has destroyed ethics and citizenship and given rise to generalized violence and acts of terrorism, in addition to other economic and social factors that are identified in the article. (shrink)

Some of the foremost living scholars in Islamic thought have come together to create a standard and definitive work on the subject of Islamic thought. Noted scholars from North America, Europe, and the Middle East offer new and generative interpretations of major themes in the field. They address perennial theological and philosophical questions: the nature of the God-head, the ultimate constitution of matter, the world's origin, causality, divine providence and the existence of evil, freedom and determinism, political wisdom, and (...) the reaches of human knowledge, The contributions include historical and analytical expositions of these issues in medieval Islam as well as discussions of individual thinkers, translations of Arabic texts with commentary, comparisons of Greek and Islamic thought, and bibliographical and textual sources. As a whole, these essays offer a wealth of philosophical, theological, bibliographical, philological, and historical information. Among the outstanding contributions are: an article by Charles Butterworth on Aristotle's rhetoric and how it was understood by al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes; Richard M. Frank's essay on the concepts of atoms and bodies, one of the most complex subjects in Islamic theology; and an article by Shams Inati on Ibn Sina and single expressions that discusses how language relates to mental processes and the unknown. Michael E. Marmura develops a new perspective on the subject of efficient causality, emphasizing the paradigmatic position of God's relationship to the world; Muhsin Mahdi analyzes a treatise of Averroes' that deals with the relationship between philosophy and law. (shrink)