This study experimentally evaluates the effects of group identity primed by property rights on pro-environmental behaviors and social norms in an urban Chinese environment. The research in this paper expands the research perspective and method of domestic waste management and provides a theoretical basis for the establishment of a long-term mechanism of environmental treatment. We used two simple binary choice tasks that test the PEB and environmental types of individuals. This is one of the earliest tests for group identity and (...) social norms in pro-environmental examinations in Chinese people. Our results reveal that publicity and education have a significant positive effect on the development of individual and group pro-environmental behavioral norms; housing ownership has no differentiating effect on individual environmental behavior; and the development of social norms of pro-environmental behavior varies according to group conditions, which, in turn, determines individual environmental behavioral choices and types of environmental behavior. The results also suggest that PEB may be shaped and norms may be built by group conditions rather than group identity. (shrink)

本书把最新反映邓小平哲学思想特色的论述分为:解放思想,实事求是,照辩证法办事,改革是解放和发展生产力的必由之路,面向世界,吸收人类文明成果等10部分加以编辑。.

This article is a response to Clifford Williams’s claim that the debate between A- and B theories of time is misconceived because these theories do not differ. I provide some missing support for Williams’s claim that the B-theory includes transition, by arguing that representative B-theoretic explanations for why we experience time as passing (even though it does not) are inherently unstable. I then argue that, contra Williams, it does not follow that there is nothing at stake in the A- versus (...) B debate. (shrink)

I offer an interpretation and a partial defense of Kit Fine's ‘Argument from Passage’, which is situated within his reconstruction of McTaggart's paradox. Fine argues that existing A-theoretic approaches to passage are no more dynamic, i.e. capture passage no better, than the B-theory. I argue that this comparative claim is correct. Our intuitive picture of passage, which inclines us towards A-theories, suggests more than coherent A-theories can deliver. In Finean terms, the picture requires not only Realism about tensed facts, but (...) also Neutrality, i.e. the tensed facts not being ‘oriented towards’ one privileged time. However unlike Fine, and unlike others who advance McTaggartian arguments, I take McTaggart's paradox to indicate neither the need for a more dynamic theory of passage nor that time does not pass. A more dynamic theory is not to be had: Fine's ‘non-standard realism’ amounts to no more than a conceptual gesture. But instead of concluding that time does not pass, we should conclude that theories of passage cannot deliver the dynamicity of our intuitive picture. For this reason, a B-theoretic account of passage that simply identifies passage with the succession of times is a serious contender. (shrink)

Usually, the B-theory of time is taken to involve the claim that time does not, in reality, pass; after all, on the B-theory, nothing really becomes present and then more and more past, times do not come into existence successively, and which facts obtain does not change. For this reason, many B-theorists have recently tried to explain away one or more aspect(s) of experience that they and their opponents take to constitute an experience of time as passing. In this paper, (...) I examine three prominent proposals of this kind and argue that, though intriguing, the proposals undermine, to some extent, the assumption that there is an element of experience that B-theorists need to take to be illusory. (shrink)

Does time seem to pass, even though it doesn’t, really? Many philosophers think the answer is ‘Yes’—at least when ‘time’s passing’ is understood in a particular way. They take time’s passing to be a process by which each time in turn acquires a special status, such as the status of being the only time that exists, or being the only time that is present. This chapter suggests that, on the contrary, all we perceive is temporal succession, one thing after another, (...) a notion to which modern physics is not inhospitable. The contents of perception are best described in terms of ‘before’ and ‘after’, rather than ‘past’, ‘present, and ‘future’. (shrink)

Temporal ontology is the part of ontology involving the rival positions of presentism, eternalism, and the growing block theory. While this much is clear, it’s surprisingly difficult to elucidate the substance of the disagreement between presentists and eternalists. Certain events happened that are not happening now; what is it to disagree about whether these events exist? In spite of widespread suspicion concerning the status and methods of analytic metaphysics, skeptics’ doubts about this debate have not generally been heeded, neither by (...) metaphysicians, nor by philosophers of physics. This paper revisits the question in the light of prominent elucidation attempts from both camps. The upshot is that skeptics were right to be puzzled. The paper then explores a possible re-interpretation of positions in temporal ontology that links it to normative views about how we should live as temporal beings. (shrink)

This paper presents a new cosmological argument based on considerations about grounding. I argue that, by assuming three plausible principles about grounding, we can construct a cosmological argument for the existence of a unique ungrounded being that ultimately grounds everything else. At the end of the paper I consider two possible objections, and offer my replies to them.

In this paper, I try to make sense of the growing block view using Kit Fine’s three-fold classification of A-theoretic views of time. I begin by motivating the endeavor of making sense of the growing block view by examining John Earman’s project in ‘Reassessing the prospects for a growing block model of the universe’. Next, I review Fine’s reconstruction of McTaggart’s argument and its accompanying three-fold classification of A-theoretic views. I then consider three interpretations of Earman’s growing block model: the (...) hybrid growing block, the purely tensed growing block, and Michael Tooley’s growing block. I argue for three claims. First, Finean ‘standard’ versions of these views are less congenial to the growing blocker than ‘non-standard’ ones. Second, the hybrid view is problematic on either version. And third, ‘non-standard’ versions are not fully intelligible. I provide further support for the first and third of these claims and explain why I take them to support a minimal account of passage as succession, which undercuts some of the motivation for Earman’s project. Lastly, I answer three objections. (shrink)

In his recent book ‘Experiencing time’, Simon Prosser discusses a wide variety of topics relating to temporal experience, in a way that is accessible both to those steeped in the philosophy of mind, and to those more familiar with the philosophy of time. He forcefully argues for the conclusion that the B-theorist of time can account for the temporal appearances. In this article, I offer a chapter by chapter response.

Emotions are believed to converge both through emotional mimicry and social appraisal. The present study compared contagion of anger and happiness. In Experiment 1, participants viewed dynamic angry and happy faces, with facial electromyography recorded from the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii as emotional mimicry. Self-reported emotional experiences were analyzed as emotional contagion. Experiment 2 manipulated social appraisal as the gaze of expression toward the target. The results showed that there was emotional contagion for angry and happy expressions both in (...) Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Experiment 1 indicated an overt mimicry pattern for happy faces, but not for angry faces. Experiment 2 found an influence of social appraisal on angry contagion but not on happy diffusion. The two experiments suggest that the underlying processes of emotional mimicry and social appraisal are differentially relevant for different emotional contagion, with happiness processing following a mimicry-based path to emotional contagion, and anger processing requiring social appraisal. (shrink)

Present-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for positive events to be located in the present rather than the non-present, and for negative events to be located in the non-present rather than the present. Very little attention has been given to present-bias in the contemporary literature on time biases. This may be because it is often assumed that present-bias is not a distinctive psychological kind; that what explains people’s being present-biased is just what explains them displaying various other time-biases. (...) According to this view, there is no need to investigate present-bias independently of investigating these other biases, since present-bias is really just a manifestation of these other biases. We call this the manifestation thesis. We take up the question of whether the manifestation thesis is true, and argue that it is not. Thus, by failing to investigate present-bias in its own right we are failing fully to understand the spectrum of ways in which people display time biases. In turn, we suggest, this may have implications for the ways we evaluate whether present-bias is rationally permissible. (shrink)

In modern times, academics have used the perspective of political liberty and spiritual freedom to interpret and explain Zhuang Zi’s happy excursion as well as the substance of all his other thoughts. The starting point of the former is the political idea of laissez-faire; the latter involves the unique character of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy on life. But it misses the spiritual deficiency contained in Zhuang Zi, and so it is difficult to respond to criticism from modern liberals. This article argues (...) that it is not quite accurate to use happy excursion to express modern freedom, but the spiritual tradition of happy excursion as a kind of native resource could still serve as a way to introduce the idea of liberalism at the level of a life philosophy based on independence, individual consciousness and the personal conscience and virtues embraced by the happy excursion thought of Zhuang Zi. (shrink)

This essay reveals five points in which Heidegger misreads Hegel in “Hegel’s Concept of Experience”: (1) By forcedly introducing the concept of “will”, he interprets Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit into Metaphysics of Presence; (2) interprets concepts such as “statement” and “the road of skeptics” as the process of phenomenological reduction; (3) reduces Hegel’s Sein to Seiende; (4) replaces “Contradiction” with “Ambiguity” so the active Dialectics become passive; (5) exaggerates conscious experience and puts it into a real ontology, regardless of the (...) significance of Logic and Encyclopedia of Philosophy . By an analysis of this misreading we can find the internal connection between Heidegger’s thought and that of his philosophical forerunner, Hegel. (shrink)

What, if anything, makes death bad for the deceased themselves? Deprivationists hold that death is bad for the deceased iff it deprives them of intrinsic goods they would have enjoyed had they lived longer. This view faces the problem that birth too seems to deprive one of goods one would have enjoyed had one been born earlier, so that it too should be bad for one. There are two main approaches to the problem. In this paper, I explore the second (...) approach, by Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer, and suggest that it can be developed so as to meet deprivationists’ needs. On the resulting view, metaphysical differences between the future and the past give rise to a corresponding axiological difference in the intrinsic value of future and past experiences. As experiences move into the past, they lose their intrinsic value for the person. (shrink)

The God of Western religion is said to be eternal. But what does that mean? Is God somehow beyond time, living a life that does not involve one thing after another? Or is God's relationship to time much more like ours, so that God's eternality just consists in there being no time at which God doesn't exist? Even for non-believers, these issues have interesting implications for the relation between historical and scientific findings on the one hand, and religion on the (...) other. This Element introduces the reader to the requisite metaphysical background, and then examines reasons for and against thinking of God as timeless. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit a dispute between Mikel Burley and Robin Le Poidevin about whether or not the B-theory of time can give its adherents any reason to be less afraid of death. In ‘Should a B-theoretic atheist fear death?’, Burley argues that even on Le Poidevin’s understanding of the B-theory, atheists shouldn’t be comforted. His reason is that the prevalent B-theoretic account of our attitudes towards the past and future precludes treating our fear of death as unwarranted. I (...) examine his argument and provide a tentative defense of Le Poidevin. I claim that while Burley rightly spots a tension with a non-revisionary approach to our ordinary emotional life, he doesn’t isolate the source of that tension. The real question is how to understand Le Poidevin’s idea that on the B-theory, we and our lives are ‘eternally real’. I then suggest that there is a view of time that does justice to Le Poidevin’s remarks, albeit a strange one. The view takes temporal relations to be quasi-spatial and temporal entities to exist in a totum simul. (shrink)

This essay argues that individual-oriented informed consent is inadequate to protect human research subjects in mainland China. The practice of family-oriented decision-making is better suited to guide moral research conduct. The family’s role in medical decision-making originates from the mutual benevolence that exists among family members, and is in accordance with family harmony, which is the aim of Confucian society. I argue that the practice of informed consent for medical research on human subjects ought to remain family-oriented in mainland China. (...) This essay explores the main features of this model of informed consent and demonstrates the proper authority of the family. The family’s participation in decision-making as a whole does not negate or deny the importance of the individual who is the subject of the choice, but rather acts more fully to protect research subjects. (shrink)

In order to establish his "school of principle" system of thought, which was founded on objective idealism, Zhu Xi proposed a theory of "investigating things and exhausting principles" [gewu qiongli]. This became the epistemological foundation for his system of thought. This epistemology formed an organic whole with his world view. On the one hand, his "theory-of-investigating-things" epistemology opened up pathways for his system of objective idealism; on the other hand, his "school-of-principle" system formed the theoretical foundation for his epistemology of (...) "investigating things" and gave this epistemology its obviously metaphysical characteristics. (shrink)

Metaphysics is the part of philosophy that asks questions about the nature of reality – about what there is, and what it is like. The metaphysics of time is the part of the philosophy of time that asks questions about the nature of temporal reality. One central such question is that of whether time passes or flows, or whether it has a dynamic aspect.

I examine the relation between naturalistically motivated and other critiques of grounding and similar critiques of the contrast between A- and B-theoretic views of time. I argue that even the combined dialectical upshot of nonunity objections in the latter case is not what it is in the former. I sympathetically discuss the objection that the notion of grounding is not intelligible and part of ‘esoteric’ metaphysics; this objection turns out to be just as serious in the case of the A/B (...) contrast. I then consider whether grounding is needed to draw the A/B contrast in the first place and answer this question in the negative. Finally, I comment on the costs of esotericism in both cases. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Das Projekt einer philosophischen Umgestaltung des Daoismus begleitet mich schon seit langem als vorläufige Idee. In der 1995er Ausgabe der Philosophical Dynamics Nr. 4 veröffentlichte ich einen kurzen Artikel mit dem Titel Ein vorläufiger Überblick über die Umgestaltung der daoistischen Philosophie, der später als Vortrags Transkript in meine Vierzehn Vorlesungen über die Methodologie der Geschichte der Philosophie aufgenommen wurde. 邓晓芒: 道家哲学改造德临时纲要, 收入《哲学史方法论十四讲》, 重庆大学出版社, 2015 年, 第 246–283 页 [Deng Xiaomang: Siebte Vorlesung: Ein vorläufiger Überblick über die Transformation der (...) daoistischen Philosophie, in: Vierzehn Vorlesungen über die Methodologie der Geschichte der Philosophie, Chongqing: Verlag der Universität Chongqing, 2015, S. 246–283.]. Im Prozess der Kritik der traditionellen chinesischen Philosophie durch den Vergleich chinesischer und westlicher Kulturtraditionen kam ich auf die Idee, dass, wenn wir westliche Elemente in unsere traditionelle chinesische Kultur aufnehmen und ein neues Gedankengebäude errichten wollen, dieses Projekt als ein gemeinsamer Ausgangspunkt dienen kann. Während der moderne Neukonfuzianismus auf der „kreativen Transformation“ der Tradition des Konfuzianismus basiert, beruht meine Wiedergeburt der traditionellen chinesischen Kultur auf der Kritik am Konfuzianismus und der Umgestaltung der daoistischen Philosophie. Vor zwanzig Jahren jedoch befand sich dieses Projekt noch im Stadium einer Skizze und ich hatte keine Zeit, sie zu entwickeln, also nannte ich sie einen „vorläufigen Entwurf“. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz möchte ich diese Fragestellung auf den historischen Spuren der daoistischen Philosophie weiter vertiefen. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Das Projekt einer philosophischen Umgestaltung des Daoismus begleitet mich schon seit langem als vorläufige Idee. In der 1995er Ausgabe der Philosophical Dynamics Nr. 4 veröffentlichte ich einen kurzen Artikel mit dem Titel Ein vorläufiger Überblick über die Umgestaltung der daoistischen Philosophie, der später als Vortrags Transkript in meine Vierzehn Vorlesungen über die Methodologie der Geschichte der Philosophie aufgenommen wurde. 邓晓芒: 道家哲学改造德临时纲要, 收入《哲学史方法论十四讲》, 重庆大学出版社, 2015 年, 第 246–283 页 [Deng Xiaomang: Siebte Vorlesung: Ein vorläufiger Überblick über die Transformation der (...) daoistischen Philosophie, in: Vierzehn Vorlesungen über die Methodologie der Geschichte der Philosophie, Chongqing: Verlag der Universität Chongqing, 2015, S. 246–283.]. Im Prozess der Kritik der traditionellen chinesischen Philosophie durch den Vergleich chinesischer und westlicher Kulturtraditionen kam ich auf die Idee, dass, wenn wir westliche Elemente in unsere traditionelle chinesische Kultur aufnehmen und ein neues Gedankengebäude errichten wollen, dieses Projekt als ein gemeinsamer Ausgangspunkt dienen kann. Während der moderne Neukonfuzianismus auf der „kreativen Transformation“ der Tradition des Konfuzianismus basiert, beruht meine Wiedergeburt der traditionellen chinesischen Kultur auf der Kritik am Konfuzianismus und der Umgestaltung der daoistischen Philosophie. Vor zwanzig Jahren jedoch befand sich dieses Projekt noch im Stadium einer Skizze und ich hatte keine Zeit, sie zu entwickeln, also nannte ich sie einen „vorläufigen Entwurf“. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz möchte ich diese Fragestellung auf den historischen Spuren der daoistischen Philosophie weiter vertiefen. (shrink)

This article is an evaluation of Le Poidevin’s use of Carnap ’s stance on ontology within the philosophy of religion. Le Poidevin claims that 1) theists need to take God to be a putative entity within space-time in order for their claim that God exists to be meaningful, and that 2) instrumentalism about theology is viable. I argue that although Le Poidevin’s response to Carnap ’s argument is no less problematic than that argument itself, his position is in fact thoroughly (...) un-Carnapian. The upshot is that his discussion provides some support to atheism, but none to either of his two official conclusions. (shrink)

This entry provides an overview of some key positions on God and time and discusses arguments for and against divine timelessness. The final section outlines some other philosophical contexts in which the concept of eternity can play a role.

Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz’s book Nothing to Come: a Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time offers an incredibly rich and skillful defense of the growing block theory (GBT), a view of time that arguably has much intuitive appeal, and which has been under attack from many sides. Nonetheless, I have to report that the book’s tense-logical course of treatment has not worked for me; I still struggle with making sense of the GBT. This article begins by drawing (...) out some implications of the book’s set up. First, the notion of existence in play here is not interpretable on the basis of ordinary usage. Second, it would be a mistake to take the tense-logical framework to have any metaphysical significance. I then articulate two main worries about their version of the GBT. The first worry takes a familiar shape: it is just hard to see how their view is dynamic in the relevant sense. The second worry is that the topic seems to have been changed. C&R’s logical system helps itself to key notions whose intended interpretation includes a solution to every metaphysical puzzle about the GBT, so that these puzzles are not so much addressed as enshrined in a formal system. That is, their view seems to answer the question of how language should behave, if the GBT were (somehow) true. (shrink)

With a previous paper (Niu & Wang, 1995), a general, hypothetical outline of the mechanism of carcinogenesis was proposed. With reference to the fact of starvation-induced hypermutation in micro-organisms, we propose that the hypoxia commonly seen in the cells at the centre of solid tumours might also result in hypermutation, and then p53-dependent programmed cell death. Like the apparently adaptive mutations in micro-organisms, only those genes (e.g. p53) that enable the cells to escape from apoptosis may be selected.

Division of labour is a marked feature of multicellular organisms. Margulis proposed that the ancestors of metazoans had only one microtubule organizing center (MTOC), so they could not move and divide simultaneously. Selection for simultaneous movement and cell division had driven the division of labour between cells. However, no evidence or explanation for this assumption was provided. Why could the unicellular ancetors not have multiple MTOCs? The gain and loss of three possible strategies are discussed. It was found that the (...) advantage of one or two MTOC per cell is environment-dependent. Unicellular organisms with only one MTOC per cell are favored only in resource-limited environments without strong predatory pressure. If division of labour occurring in a bicellular organism just makes simultaneous movement and cell division possible, the possibility of its fixation by natural selection is very low because a somatic cell performing the function of an MTOC is obviously wasting resources. Evolutionary biologists should search for other selective forces for division of labour in cells. (shrink)

To cope with the water deficit resulting from saline environment, plant cells accumulate three kinds of osmotica: salts, small organic solutes and hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins. Salts such as NaCl are cheap and available but has ion toxicity in high concentrations. Small organic solutes are assistant osmotica, their main function is to protect cytoplasmic enzymes from ionic toxicity and maintain the integrity of cellular membranes. Hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins are the most effective osmotica, they have some characteristics to avoid crystallization even in (...) high concentration, but because they are expensive they are not as commonly used as salts or organic solutes. In addition there is the question of whether the genetic information for growth in saline environment is present in all kinds of plants, both halophytes and nonhalophytes. (shrink)

From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, carcinogenesis should be looked upon as a protective mechanism against destruction of DNA. Because genes expressed in embryonic cells are covered and protected by heterochromatinization, they are the most appropriate ‘alternate genes’ compared to genes that are expressed already in somatic cells. When DNA-damage occurs, the embryonic genes can be activated. Some somatic cells exhibit some features of embryonic cells.

This article relates the philosophical discussion on naturalistic religious practice to Tim Crane’s The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist’s Point of View, in which he claims that atheists can derive no genuine solace from religion. I argue that Crane’s claim is a little too strong. There is a sense in which atheists can derive solace from religion and that fact is worth acknowledging.

This chapter explores some of the relations between Quine’s and Carnap’s metaontological stances on the one hand, and contemporary work in the metaphysics of time, on the other. Contemporary metaphysics of time, like analytic metaphysics in general, grew out of the revival of the discipline that Quine’s critique of the logical empiricists (such as Carnap) made possible. At the same time, the metaphysics of time has, in some respects, strayed far from its Quinean roots. This chapter examines some likely Quinean (...) and Carnapian reactions to elements of the contemporary scene. (shrink)

Context: A central motivation behind various embodied, extended, and enactive (4E) approaches to cognition is to ground our understanding of minds and cognition within the biological structures that give rise to life. Because of this, their advocates often claim a natural kinship with dynamical and developmental systems theories. However, these accounts also explicitly or implicitly privilege individual organisms in ways that contrast with many of the insights of systems and developmental systems approaches to biology. Problem: The prioritization of individual organisms (...) within 4E approaches to cognition contrasts with the default entangled structure of biological systems associated with cognitive agency. We provide means for 4E cognitive science to move beyond an individual-centred view of cognitive agency. Method: We first identify and problematize individual-centredness within various predominant 4E approaches by comparison with biological research and developmental systems theory. Subsequently, we offer conceptual resources from the field of ecological research for understanding cognitive agency beyond the predominant focus on individual organisms. Results: Cognitive agency may be understood without privileging individual organisms by reading nonequilibrium maintenance in terms of a dynamic differentiation instead of individual organismic autonomy. This form of organizational structure corresponds to the notion of sympoiesis from ecological research. Implications: Approaching cognitive agency without privileging individual organisms should be invaluable to advocates of 4E cognition seeking to ground notions of cognition and mind within contemporary biological research. Constructivist content: We seek to expand upon existing constructivist perspectives on the organizing principles of cognitive agency, such as sensorimotor embodiment and autopoiesis, arguing that meta-organismic cognitive agents (including humans) embody distributed relations beyond the privileging of individual organisms. Key words: 4E cognition, autopoiesis, cognitive agency, developmental systems theory, enactivism, extended mind thesis, holobionts, sympoeisis. (shrink)

儒學在現代民主的脈絡下，如何走出新局？ 本書是對「如何由儒學開出民主」此一宏大提問的正面回應， 提出由儒學邁向公民哲學的「公民儒學」， 作為在民主社會中理解歧見、協商講理的公民態度。 秉持儒學理念的公民，如何站在公民論述的位置而展開民主多元時代的儒學視野？一如書名「公民儒學」所示，這是本書論述的核心主題，並提出由儒學邁向公民哲學的新方向。 本書以臺灣民主場域為論述起點，本著大膽設想、嚴格檢驗的探索精神，在創用儒學論述資源中，建立公民哲學的立論方式，並處理民主多元、科學技術、國計民 生，以及人在天地之間的位置與價值取捨等議題。本書強調「重新設定觀點」的重要性，那是一種理解歧見，掌握關鍵，而調節情勢並願意合理協商的講理方式與態 度。.

Depression is associated with a bias toward negative interpretations of social situations and resistance to integrating evidence consistent with positive interpretations. These features could contribute to social isolation by generating negative expected value for future social interactions. The present study examined potential associations between depressive symptoms and positive (i.e. trust and liking) and negative (i.e. distrust and disliking) social impression formation of individuals who previously appeared in positive or negative contexts. Participants (N = 213) completed the Interpretation Inflexibility Task and (...) were subsequently asked to provide social impression ratings of characters from each scenario type of the task (i.e. positive and negative) as well as characters not previously encountered. In examining social impression formation, higher severity of depressive symptoms was associated with higher negative social impression ratings regardless of scenario outcome, as well as lower positive social impression ratings, but only for characters who previously appeared in positive contexts. Those higher in depression also rated novel characters as significantly more unlikeable and untrustworthy and to an equivalent degree as the characters previously encountered. These findings suggest a role of negative interpretation bias and inflexibility in contributing to negative evaluations of potential social interaction partners in depression. (shrink)

ㅤThis is a response to Hud Hudson's book 'The Fall and Hypertime' (OUP).

This is a book of guidance rooted in the wisdom of ancient China. Bestselling author Deng Ming-Dao provides key poetic lines that distill the essence of Taoism, organizing them in the form of a journey. The material here is drawn from a variety of sources, including, the Yijing, 300 Tang Poems, and the full text of the Daodejing. As Deng Ming-Dao notes, "We walk the Way each day. We don't know what's ahead, and so it's helpful to have (...) the wisdom of others to guide us. They have left us a message to encourage us. They have spoken of the joys, griefs, and purity that we should embrace. Like good pathfinders, they give us direction and prepare us for what we might encounter. They let us walk for ourselves. We have a wonderful companion for the journey." This profound collection of ancient wisdom is the resource for those looking for daily sustenance and guidance on the path of life. -- inside front cover. (shrink)