This book explains the general intellectual climate of the early Ch'ing period, and the political and cultural characteristics of the Ch'ing regime at the time. Professor Huang brings to life the book's central characters, Li Fu and the three great emperors - K'ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, and Chien-lung - whom he served. Although the author's main concern is to explain the contributions of Li Fu to the Lu-Wang school of Confucianism, he also gives a clearly written account of the Lu-Wang and (...) Ch'eng-Chu schools from the twelfth century to the eighteenth. In a clear, succinct style, Huang explains the historical differences between the Ch'eng-Chu and Lu-Wang schools without sacrificing the subtleties of either. The book culminates in a discussion of the hero-emperor K'ang-hsi's appropriation of the 'Tradition of the Way' from his intellectual officials, which denied them their traditional role as moral censors and critics of the emperor's exercise of authority. (shrink)

Because the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge is a method of thinking, Ch'eng Tzu dealt with it first. In Erh Ch'eng i-shu [Legacy of the Two Ch'engs], section 25, it is said: "The Ta hsueh [Great Learning] states: A thing has its essentials and nonessentials, an affair has a beginning and an end. Knowledge of what is primary and what is secondary approximates the truth." Ch'eng Tzu maintained that the most important thing in study is to know (...) what is essential and what is nonessential - the beginning and the end. The extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things; it is essential and constitutes the beginning. Governing the world and the state is nonessential and constitutes the end. Chu Tzu [Chu Hsi] said: "Ch'eng Tzu discussed the theory of the investigation of things in detail." But what is the extension of knowledge and the investigation of things? Chu Tzu maintained that "to investigate" [ko] means "to study thoroughly" [ch'iung]; the term "thing" [wu] means "principle" [li]. To investigate the thing is to study its principle thoroughly. A thorough study of principle leads to an extension of knowledge; without a thorough study there can be no extension. Consequently, he thought that the investigation of things is the beginning of truth and that the student who undertakes the investigation of things is already near the truth. Why? Because the student who undertakes the investigation of things can control his mind completely. Although the key to governing the state and pacifying the world lies in the person — as in the saying "governing the world and the state must begin with the person" — one who would govern the state and pacify the world must first cultivate himself. Cultivating the self is the key to governing the state and pacifying the world, and the means of cultivating the self are the investigation of things, the extension of knowledge, sincere thought, and a correct mind. Perhaps the reader will ask, what the relationship is between cultivating the self, on the one hand, and the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge, on the other hand? Cultivating the self belongs to the realm of ethics; investigating things and the extension of knowledge belong to the realm of knowledge. Given the fact that the cultivation of the self belongs to the realm of ethics and the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge belong to the realm of knowledge, how can an intrinsic relationship between these two dissimilar realms develop? We know that Ch'eng Tzu emphasized two kinds of knowledge, moral knowledge and empirical knowledge. He maintained that if there were only empirical knowledge, there would be only the physical person dependent upon external things without knowing truth. Moral knowledge is true knowledge; therefore, it is necessary to transform empirical knowledge into moral knowledge. Only when external, empirical knowledge and internal, moral knowledge are combined is there true knowledge. But how are empirical knowledge and moral knowledge combined? Chu Tzu elaborated on this point. In the collected writings of Chu Tzu there is an explanation of the couplet "Heaven gave birth to the people/There are things and there are laws" from the Shihching [Book of Poetry]: "Ta ya cheng min." Chu Tzu maintained that in the line "There are things and there are laws" from the Shih-ching, the word "thing" [wu] means "form" [hsing] and the word "laws" [tse] means principle [li]. "Form" is a metaphysical concept, and "law" is what is called metaphysics. Man certainly cannot be without this thing, but unless we understand the "principle" of this "thing," we have no way of knowing whether it conforms to the correct form of life or of deciding the appropriateness of the thing. We must, therefore, seek the principle of this thing. But even if we know the thing and seek its principle, we still have not reached "the limits of the thing"; "the principle of the thing" has not been thoroughly studied and our knowledge of it is not complete. Consequently, we must strive "to reach its limits." This is the meaning of the statement:Only by investigating the thing and arriving at the thing itself can the principle of the thing be known completely. When the principle of the thing is known completely, our knowledge of it is extended and focused. Without obscuration, weaknesses and insurmountable barriers, the intention cannot but be sincere and the mind cannot but be up-right. (shrink)

This article discusses the arguments of chang tsai (1020-1077) against buddhism on the one hand and for reassertion of the confucian ethics on the other, With quotations translated from the chinese texts relevant to the following points: i) chang's criticism of buddhism, Ii) "the western inscription" or hsi ming, Iii) the dual concept of nature or hsing, Iv) man by nature a moral being, V) the problem of evil, Vi) the problem of moral knowledge, And vii) the religious significance (...) of li or rituals. (shrink)

Xiu zhen xu yu (wai pian) -- Tan Lao sui gan -- Yin shi yang zhen.

Safeguarding GenAI models against threats and aligning them with security requirements is imperative yet challenging. This chapter provides an overview of the security landscape for generative models. It begins by elucidating common vulnerabilities and attack vectors, including adversarial attacks, model inversion, backdoors, data extraction, and algorithmic bias. The practical implications of these threats are discussed, spanning domains like finance, healthcare, and content creation. The narrative then shifts to exploring mitigation strategies and innovative security paradigms. Differential privacy, blockchain-based provenance, quantum-resistant algorithms, (...) and human-guided reinforcement learning are analyzed as potential techniques to harden generative models. Broader ethical concerns surrounding transparency, accountability, deepfakes, and model interpretability are also addressed. The chapter aims to establish a conceptual foundation encompassing both the technical and ethical dimensions of security for generative AI. It highlights open challenges and lays the groundwork for developing robust, trustworthy, and human-centric solutions. The multifaceted perspective spanning vulnerabilities, implications, and solutions is intended to further discourse on securing society’s growing reliance on generative models. Frontier model security is discussed using Anthropic proposed approach. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Prior Analytics is probably the earliest existing systematic philosophical writing on a syllogistic system and theory of logic. In this work, Aristotle introduces the categorical syllogistic, consisting of three figures and fourteen valid moods. This paper proposes that Aristotle distinguishes a general notion of syllogisms from a more technical notion of syllogisms. Syllogisms that belong to the categorical syllogistic fall under Aristotle’s technical notion of syllogisms that must satisfy two conditions: (1) a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, and (...) (2) the premises derive a conclusion that necessarily follows from them in regard to attributing the major extreme to the minor. (shrink)

如果孔孟生活在我們的時代， 他們對21世紀的重大問題與挑戰，會提出什麼看法？ 孔孟對變動劇烈恍如漩渦的21世紀， 特別是處於新冠病毒肆虐的現代人， 會以何種倡議，讓人的「自我」能夠安身立命， 在黯兮慘悴中仍能持守「不動心」的境界？ 孔孟思想是中華文化的主流思想，也是我們現代人從事各種思考，包括政治、社會、經濟、文化、個人生命等面向的重要文化資源。中國與亞洲的崛起，對世界局勢影響深遠，是本世紀最重要的劃時代事件之一，孔孟思想也重新 獲得世界各國知識界的重視。歐美學界都在爭取儒學的發言權，儼然已成為國際學術界的新趨勢。 《深叩孔孟》並不是傳統的、以背誦為主的經典研讀；而是從21世紀出發為思考，與孔孟進行心靈的對話，厚植我們在現世參與文明對話的本土思想資源。 本書是黃俊傑教授在臺灣大學講授「深叩孔孟」通識課程的講稿，一共分為十二講，每講均附閱讀作業、延伸閱讀、思考問題、關鍵詞、本講內容架構圖，方便讀者自學參考。.

The signature of the formal language of mereology contains only one binary predicate P which stands for the relation “being a part of”. Traditionally, P must be a partial ordering, that is, ${\forall{x}Pxx, \forall{x}\forall{y}((Pxy\land Pyx)\to x=y)}$ and ${\forall{x}\forall{y}\forall{z}((Pxy\land Pyz)\to Pxz))}$ are three basic mereological axioms. The best-known mereological theory is “general extensional mereology”, which is axiomatized by the three basic axioms plus the following axiom and axiom schema: (Strong Supplementation) ${\forall{x}\forall{y}(\neg Pyx\to \exists z(Pzy\land \neg Ozx))}$ , where Oxy means ${\exists (...) z(Pzx\land Pzy)}$ , and (Fusion) ${\exists x\alpha \to \exists z\forall y(Oyz\leftrightarrow \exists x(\alpha \land Oyx))}$ , for any formula α where z and y do not occur free. In this paper, I will show that general extensional mereology is decidable, and will also point out that the decidability of the first-order approximation of the theory of complete Boolean algebras can be shown in the same way. (shrink)

Mereological theories are theories based on a binary predicate ‘being a part of’. It is believed that such a predicate must at least define a partial ordering. A mereological theory can be obtained by adding on top of the basic axioms of partial orderings some of the other axioms posited based on pertinent philosophical insights. Though mereological theories have aroused quite a few philosophers’ interest recently, not much has been said about their meta-logical properties. In this paper, I will look (...) into whether those theories are decidable or not. Besides, since theories of Boolean algebras are in some sense upper bounds of mereological theories which can be found in the literature, I shall also make some observations about the possibility of getting mereological theories beyond Boolean algebras. (shrink)

The aim of this book is simple: to invite readers to consider what it means to lead a good life, and to offer practical advice, based on the Buddhist teachings, as to how this can be accomplished. In each of more than thirty brief essays, Master Hsing Yun treats a specific moral or ethical issue, using quotations from the rich treasury of the Buddhist scriptures as a point of departure for his discussion. Among the topics he considers are control (...) of the body and of speech, overcoming greed, ending anger, patience under insult, how to manage wealth, how to get along with others, what it means to practice Buddhism, and the blessings and joys of that practice. The Buddhist precepts are introduced as guideposts along this path of liberation, and friendship, gratitude, and service to others are presented as essential elements of a common quest to discover and to embody our innate goodness and humanity. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study is to explore and map the intellectual structure of business ethics studies during 1997–2006 by analyzing 85,000 cited references of 3,059 articles from three business ethics related journals in SSCI and SCI databases. In this article, co-citation analysis and social network analysis techniques are used to research intellectual structure of the business ethics literature. We are able to identify the important publications and the influential scholars as well as the correlations among these publications by (...) analyzing citation and co-citation. Three factors emerged in this study are: (1) ethical/unethical decision making, (2) corporate governance and firm performance, and (3) ethical principles and code of conduct. (shrink)

Controversies surrounding social media platforms have provided opportunities for institutional reflexivity amongst users and regulators on how to understand and govern platforms. Amidst contestation, platform companies have continued to enact projects that draw upon existing modes of privatized governance. We investigate how social media companies have attempted to achieve closure by continuing to set the terms around platform governance. We investigate two projects implemented by Facebook (Meta)—authenticity regulation and privacy controls—in response to the Russian Interference and Cambridge Analytica controversies surrounding (...) the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of stage management, we analyze the techniques deployed by Facebook to reinforce a division between what is visible and invisible to the user experience. These platform governance projects propose to act upon _front-stage data relations:_ information that users can see from other users—whether that is content that users can see from “bad actors”, or information that other users can see about oneself. At the same time, these projects relegate _back-stage data relations_—information flows between users constituted by recommendation and targeted advertising systems—to invisibility and inaction. As such, Facebook renders the user experience actionable for governance, while foreclosing governance of back-stage data relations central to the economic value of the platform. As social media companies continue to perform platform governance projects following controversies, our paper invites reflection on the politics of these projects. By destabilizing the boundaries drawn by platform companies, we open space for continuous reflexivity on how platforms should be understood and governed. (shrink)

There is an eminent tradition of thought that sees in the phenomenon of time something contradictory. This tradition has been recently revived by some contemporary proponents of dialethism – the view that there are true contradictions. In this paper, I will contribute to this line of thinking by tracing the first steps of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. In particular, I will argue that the experiential flow of time can be accounted for in the framework of an intentionalist approach to (...) temporal perception if we conceive of time-consciousness as a quasi-multiplicity, i.e., a multiplicity of non-self-identical parts, hence the embrace of dialethism. Section 1 introduces dialethism, discusses Priest's dialethic theory of motion and time, and motivates the project of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. Section 2 introduces the intentionalist approach to time-consciousness and distinguishes pure intentionalism from sense-data intentionalism; both subscribes to a certain Principle of Simultaneous Awareness but interprets it differently. In Sect. 3, I offer an in-depth analysis of this principle and identify its core as the requirement of self-unification, i.e., the requirement that time-consciousness unifies itself in flowing without any higher-order act of unification. Section 4 then argues that pure intentionalism can satisfy this requirement by embracing dialethism. I conclude by noting how the dialethic account of time-consciousness incorporates a central extensionalist insight within an intentionalist outlook. (shrink)

The signature of the formal language of mereology contains only one binary predicate which stands for the relation “being a part of” and it has been strongly suggested that such a predicate must at least define a partial ordering. Mereological theories owe their origin to Leśniewski. However, some more recent authors, such as Simons as well as Casati and Varzi, have reformulated mereology in a way most logicians today are familiar with. It turns out that any theory which can be (...) formed by using the reformulated mereological axioms or axiom schemas is in a sense a subtheory of the elementary theory of Boolean algebras or of the theory of infinite atomic Boolean algebras. It is known that the theory of partial orderings is undecidable while the elementary theory of Boolean algebras and the theory of infinite atomic Boolean algebras are decidable. In this paper, I will look into the behaviors in terms of decidability of those mereological theories located in between. More precisely, I will give a comprehensive picture of the said issue by offering solutions to the open problems which I have raised in some of my papers published previously. (shrink)

Quite a few results concerning the decidability of mereological theories have been given in my previous paper. But many mereological theories are still left unaccounted for. In this paper I will refine a general method for proving the undecidability of a theory and then by making use of it, I will show that most mereological theories that are strictly weaker than CEM are finitely inseparable and hence undecidable. The same results might be carried over to some extensions of those weak (...) theories by adding the fusion axiom schema. Most of the proofs to be presented in this paper take finite lattices as the base models when applying the refined method. However, I shall also point out the limitation of this kind of reduction and make some observations and conjectures concerning the decidability of stronger mereological theories. (shrink)

It is customary practice to define ‘x is composed of the ys’ as ‘x is a sum of the ys and the ys are pairwise disjoint ’. This predicate has played a central role in the debate on the special composition question and on related metaphysical issues concerning the mereological structure of objects. In this note we show that the customary characterization is nonetheless inadequate. We do so by constructing a mereological model where everything qualifies as composed of atoms even (...) though some elements in the domain are gunky, i.e., can be divided indefinitely into smaller and smaller proper parts. (shrink)

美感教育的實施，不可避免必須面對「不同主體之間的美感」可能存在殊異性的問題，本書試圖立於互為主體性的基礎，論述一種「共鳴美感」的新視野，並描繪出臺灣美感教育的未來可能新願景。首先，筆者先透過美感教育相 關議題之探討，析論推動美感教育可能面臨的潛在難題與挑戰，其次，針對問題而論述出一種「共鳴美感經驗」之理念，以作為解決構想；最後，透過實際個案來闡述「共鳴美感」在課程教學中的可能樣貌，包含：以「共鳴」的 「共感性」作為「美育課程實踐」的核心；以「共鳴」的「協同性」作為「教學藝術體現」的策略；以「共鳴」的「他者性」作為形塑「自我主體認同」之途徑。.

Self-deception may be a natural consequence of active goal operation instead of an adaptation for negotiating the social world. We argue that because autonomous goal programs likely drove human judgment and behavior prior to evolution of a central executive or “self,” these goal programs can operate independently to attain their desired end states and thereby produce outcomes that “deceive” the individual.

Objects: With the advent of genetic technologies, many genetic/metabolic disorders can be detected asymptomatically but might be untreatable, and the benefits and risks of screening for them are not fully known. The purpose of this study is to explore current practice with regard to the parental consent process in newborn screening .Design: Staff in 23 obstetric clinics/hospitals that conduct NBS in one city of southern Taiwan were interviewed. Using content analysis, 15 interview transcripts, eight completed questionnaires, and other relevant documents (...) from the 23 clinics/hospitals were analysed to reveal the framework of the parental consent process in NBS in southern Taiwan.Main measures: Three categories—informed consent, informed dissent, and no informed/consent—were developed to analyse the parental consent process in NBS.Results: The parental consent procedures in NBS and the quality of the information provided before obtaining consent vary widely. Because the traditional NBS was incorporated into routine paediatric practices in most clinics/hospitals, the most frequently encountered consent model is “informed dissent” and “no informed/consent” ; while an “informed consent” model is the frequent model for screening rare metabolic/genetic disorders.Conclusions: Specific guidelines to regulate the parental consent process for NBS are essential. Further studies should investigate parental responses to NBS, taking these as the basis on which to establish an informed consent model in Taiwan. (shrink)

Mereology is the theory of the relation “being a part of”. The first exact formulation of mereology is due to the Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski. But Leśniewski’s mereology is not first-order axiomatizable, for it requires every subset of the domain to have a fusion. In recent literature, a first-order theory named General Extensional Mereology can be thought of as a first-order approximation of Leśniewski’s theory, in the sense that GEM guarantees that every definable subset of the domain has a fusion, (...) and this has been achieved by positing an axiom schema which in effect defines infinitely many axioms. Intuitively, in order to range over every definable subset, such an axiom schema seems unavoidable. But this paper will show that GEM is finitely axiomatizable and that all we need are just finitely many instances of the said axiom schema. (shrink)

Prior research on workplace ostracism and helping behavior has yielded mixed results. This study integrates social learning theory and social role theory by constructing a multilevel model to examine the relationship between supervisor ostracism and helping behavior that focuses on the mediating role of coworker ostracism and the moderating role of subordinate gender. Using a two-wave, multisource approach, data were collected from 382 employees and 43 immediate team leaders in four business corporations in Guangxi Province, China. The results of path (...) analysis reveal that supervisor ostracism has a cross-level effect on helping behavior through the mediating role of coworker ostracism. Furthermore, the positive direct effect of supervisor ostracism on coworker ostracism and the negative cross-level indirect effect of supervisor ostracism on helping behavior via coworker ostracism was stronger for men than women. These findings expand and deepen our understanding of the ostracism field. (shrink)