ABSTRACTDerrida’s philosophy starts with a law stated in The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy: “No analysis could present, make present in its phenomenon or reduce to the point-like natur...

It is usually believed that the concept of ‘qiwu 齊物’ in the Zhuangzi means ‘equalizing things’. This reading of the Zhuangzi, however, presupposes that things are originally separated and exist independently. The equality of things is just a mental construct in a specific state of mind. In this paper, we will argue that this reading does not stand; what Zhuangzi does in the ‘Qiwulun 齊物論’is to examine how myriad things are created from the original oneness. According to Zhuangzi’s philosophy of (...) thing, things are created by objectification through fact and value imposing. Oneness is therefore not a mere perspective but the condition for things being objectified. This understanding of the things’ being is comparable to Heidegger’s classification of thing and equipment, but it differs from Heidegger by its special implication on the Daoist liberation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many recent works on the methodology of intercultural philosophy point to a fundamental dilemma of the discipline: if there is a common ground for intercultural understanding, then the essence of this ground is universal instead of multi-cultural; if there are irreducible and incommunicable factors in different cultures, then complete understanding seems to be impossible. In this paper, I propose that this dilemma is founded on the assumption that intercultural philosophy is equivalent to intercultural understanding. I argue that, however, intercultural (...) philosophy should begin with questioning. Instead of understanding another culture using one’s own conceptual scheme, intercultural questioning puts one’s conceptual scheme and traditional worldview into question. The new questions obtained by phenomenologically reducing traditional thought will become a ground for intercultural dialogue without reducing one’s culture to another culture. Finally, I will use a case in Chinese philosophy to demonstrate the process of intercultural questioning. (shrink)

Among the many theories that explain the becoming of all things in the universe, there is a metaphysical viewpoint that all things are originated from one pure origin which is preceded by nothing. This metaphysical viewpoint can be called the idea of genesis. Derrida proposes that this concept of ‘genesis’ itself is founded upon a contradiction; ‘genesis, …, brings together two contradicting meanings in its concept: one of origin, one of becoming.’, p. xxi.) Based on this paradox, Derrida proposes that (...) all philosophical attempts to recover the pure origin here-and-now, which are categorized as the metaphysics of presence, are impossible. In this paper, I argue that Derrida’s criticism is based on the Augustinian question of time which presupposes that only the present moment is real. Recovery of the origin therefore means to reduce the non-present to the present. I contend that Daoism can respond to Derrida’s criticism because it possesses a nested idea of time—the idea that each present is encompassed by a deeper level of present as the background context. Accordingly, the recovery of origin does not mean to return to an elapsed past but a deeper context of all occurrence. This explains why dao, when it is understood as the origin of things in the world, does not succumb to Derrida’s criticism. Furthermore, it provides an alternative solution to the Derridean paradox of genesis. (shrink)

He (和), or harmony, has traditionally been a central concept in Chinese thought, and to this day continues to shape the way in which people in China and East Asia think about ethics and politics. Yet, there is no systematic and comprehensive introduction of harmony as has been variously articulated in different Chinese schools. This edited volume aims to fill this gap. The individual contributions elaborate the conceptions of harmony as these were exemplified in central Chinese schools of thought, including (...) Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Buddhism, and trace their impact on contemporary Chinese philosophy. The volume explores the various meanings and implications of harmony so as to consider its relevance as a value and virtue in the modern world. It provides an accessible but substantial introductory work for readers interested in learning about pertinent core concepts and theories in Chinese thought, as well as engages specialists in Chinese philosophy by explicating its implications for ethical, political, epistemological, and metaphysical reflection as the basic point of reference. (shrink)

Junior researchers can be abused and bullied by unscrupulous senior collaborators. This article describes the profile of a type of serial abuser, the White Bull, who uses his academic seniority to distort authorship credit and who disguises his parasitism with carefully premeditated deception. Further research into the personality traits of such perpetrators is warranted.

William C. Frederick proposes a naturalistic business ethics. Many commentators focus on the issues of naturalistic fallacy, deprivation of freedom of the will, and possibility of important and universal moral values in business ethics. I argue that an ethics being naturalistic is not a worry. The issue of deprivation of free will is irrelevant. Yet there are urgent questions regarding the possibility of important and universal moral values, which may prevent Frederick’s view from getting off the ground.

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

This study uses a Marxist perspective to investigate Hong Kong students’ alienation from learning. Alienated learners find learning to be a meaningless, disempowering, and estranging activity. Fifteen Hong Kong undergraduate students were invited to join a photovoice project in which they actively took, shared, and discussed photographs of their experiences with learning. The results suggest that social beliefs about high-stakes examinations legitimize internal contradictions in the education system. This makes students uncritically and unreflectively accept alienated learning. Photovoice projects help the (...) students to become critically aware of their position, self-determination, and agency. (shrink)

The last millennium saw rapid change, spreading globalization, and shifting populations. These have posed moral, ethical, and social dilemmas that have challenged the very foundations of our beliefs and radically changed our way of life. In this volume, some of the world's greatest thinkers in philosophy, music, religion, and the arts share their insights on the future shape of human civilization. How can old cultural legacies fit new contexts? Can there be a universalist values coexist with local differentiation? Are literature (...) and music still relevant in a world where technology is dominant? By discussing these important issues in an interdisciplinary framework, these scholars have provided a provisional blueprint for our new society. (shrink)

Volume 53, Issue 2, February 2021, Page 181-196.

This article examines Schelling’s understanding of Laozi 老子. It begins with Schelling’s reception of Laozi’s text and its translation. The main part of this article focuses on Schelling’s discussion of Laozi in his Philosophy of Mythology. It then compares some of the key concepts mentioned in Schelling’s comments and their respective counterparts in Laozi: nothingness and wu 無, portal and abyss, reason and dao 道, name and concept, nature and ziran 自然, and so on, and analyzes the possible reasons for (...) his sympathetic understanding of Laozi as against his own philosophical system. The main argument is that Schelling’s romantic tendency means that he can have an alternative understanding of Laozi. Finally it concludes with a few remarks on the differences between Schelling and Laozi in terms of their philosophical systems and methods. (shrink)

Spiritual leadership has gained much traction among researchers and practitioners for its value-laden approach as it engenders feelings and expressions of a leader’s spirituality at the workplace by intrinsically motivating the followers to envision work as a calling, thereupon culminating in greater organizational performance. However, despite the significant attempts to consolidate the literature, organizational scholarly knowledge on spiritual leadership seems fragmented and incohesive. This is because the extant reviews pertaining to this field often employ subjective approaches in encapsulating the literature. (...) It is due to these limitations, leadership researchers might find it difficult to appreciate the advances made in the realm of spiritual leadership, to grasp a holistic understanding of its objective insights, and to chart a course for future research. Therefore, through our study, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future of spiritual leadership research. This study combines a bibliometric analysis with a literature review wherein we analyzed 337 papers published between 1980 and 2021. First, through bibliographic coupling, citation analysis, prestige analysis, and co-word analysis of extant studies, we highlight the prominent authors, influential works, leading organizations, countries, and journals in the realm of spiritual leadership. Second, through our content analysis of the leading articles obtained from clustering, we map the emergent core themes in spiritual leadership literature. Third, based on these emergent themes, we offer a comprehensive conceptual framework. Finally, we determine and present potential avenues for future research by employing the TCCM framework that could stimulate scholarly research in this domain and discuss theoretical and managerial implications. (shrink)

To evaluate and extend climato-economic theory, the use of more micro units of analysis, such as cities and families, may open up new data sources. The consideration of environmental demands other than thermal climate may also broaden the range of useful data. Longitudinal designs can provide causal evidence, and so can experiments if the theory can be applied to individuals.

This paper explores contemporary Jewish identity-formation and the centrality of official Holocaust memory and Zionism – understood as the ongoing settler-colonial project aiming at the formation and maintenance of a Jewish-exclusivist state in Palestine – to this process. It argues that identity politics within the Jewish community are based on an understanding of identity, which assumes it to be static and individual. In doing so, this political approach reproduces the essentialisation of Jewish communities under the banner of Zionism and official (...) state history. The paper aims to show how this process of identification between Judaism, official Holocaust memory and Zionism has been a state-led process, rooted in the historical development of antisemitism and European colonialism. In order to do so, it builds on a critique of classical Marxist analyses of the Jewish question. It finally proposes a more fluid approach to identity, which understands it as socially constructed, contested, and subject to political contestation. (shrink)

This essay begins a conversation between Bernard Williams and Confucius (of the Analects ) in response to the general question of whether individuals are internally motivated in adopting role-specific reasons for action. It is argued that certain social roles such as Father, Son, Husband, Wife, Minister or Ruler, and Citizen or Subject are thick ethical concepts operative in Confucian ethical communities, such that the application of these thick ethical concepts results in role-specific internal reasons for action. If so, the Confucian (...) emphasis on li 禮 constitutes ethical knowledge regarding the applicability of these thick ethical concepts, the practice of which actively offers individuals reasons to apply their social roles. This expands Williams' ethical theorizing to account for the ethical significance of social roles and relationships within Confucian ethical communities, as the collective practice of li within a Confucian ethical community serves as a background to the sort of ethical theorizing favored by Williams. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of xiao 孝, often translated as filial piety or familial deference, which is compatible with Bernard Williams’s insistence that ethical deliberation should be indeterminate and open-ended, rather than pre-established on the basis of one’s social relationships. Through a critical reading of Williams’s account of ethical knowledge localized to an advisor model, I suggest that we trust those who share similar experiences in social relationships to offer advice specific to our social roles. This trust exhibits itself (...) as xiao, which amounts to no more than the deference children have towards their parents as their guides on the ethical question of how we ought to live—‘we’, as individuals who share common experiences of being children, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and other such social roles. (shrink)

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease is an immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that is present in both adults and children. The most common clinical manifestations are optic neuritis, myelitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, and brainstem syndrome. Cerebral cortical encephalitis is a rare clinical phenotype of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease, which usually begins with seizures, headaches, and fever, and may be misdiagnosed as viral encephalitis in the early stages. Herein, we report two typical MOG antibody -positive patients presenting (...) with CCE, both of whom presented with headache, fever, seizures, and who recovered completely after immunotherapy. In addition, we performed a systematic review of the present literature from the perspectives of population characteristics, clinical symptoms, MRI abnormalities, treatments, and prognosis. Among the patients reported in 25 articles, 33 met our inclusion criteria, with the age of onset ranging from 4 to 52 years. Most of the patients had seizures, headache, fever, and unilateral cortical lesions on brain MRI. For acute CCE, 30 patients were treated with high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone, and the symptoms of most patients were completely relieved after immunotherapy. This study reported our experience and lessons learned in the diagnosis and treatment of MOG-Ab-positive CCE and provides a systematic review of the literature to analyse this rare clinical phenotype. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the cross-cultural validity of the Organizational Stressor Indicator for Sport Performers scale by investigating its psychometric properties with Ghanaian footballers. The study particularly sought to assess in the Ghanaian context, 1, the convergence validity and reliability of the OSI-SP scale, 2, the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale to understand the applicability of its factor structure, and 3, whether the OSI-SP hypothesized model fits the data collected within the study context. The intensity (...) aspect of the OSI-SP questionnaire was administered to 424 Ghana Premier League male footballers who took part in the 2020/2021 season. Quality control strategies were put in place to ensure consistency across interpreters and as well improve the validity of the data. The results from a multi-factor first-order confirmatory factor analysis showed some level of convergence validity of the OSI-SP scale in the Ghanaian context using football players. Out of the 23 items on the original scale, 20 met the factor loadings criterion. In assessing the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale using Heterotrait-monotrait, 50% of the correlation ratios met the criterion for the original 23-item instrument. Comparing the new model with the original model using the Akaike Information Criterion value, the model fit indices for the modified model appeared better than the original model with 23-items. Generally, there was minimal support for the applicability of the OSI-SP instrument across the sample of Ghanaian footballers. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail. (shrink)

This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing - from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese (...) philosophical and literary research. This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process. (shrink)

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

This study evaluated the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) using a sample of university students in mainland China. Nine hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in this study. The internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scale were examined. The Chinese versions of the BSCS demonstrated good internal consistency. The BSCS also showed significant moderate correlations with other construct-related scales. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that (...) only a modified 11-item BSCS with a four-factor structure was a good model fit in the sample of Chinese university students. The implications for research and theoretical development are discussed. (shrink)