长期以来，中国学术界流行把儒家的基本思想乃至整个中国文化归结为“天人合一”，并常常把“天人合一” 的源头归结于《易经》。其实考诸中国思想史，把儒家的基本思想总结为“天人合一”，特别是把“天人合一” 的来源归结于《易经》的说法并不准确，是一种误导。《易经》的“天、地、人”三才思想较之于“天人合一”更为符合儒家思想的本旨。在儒家三才和谐的理念中，天、地、人三者各自都有自身的功能与价值。身为三才和谐结 构中的积极参与者，人类拥有促进与维持宇宙和谐的重要责任。就环境哲学而言，儒家的“三才”说既不是“环境保护主义”，也不是“自然保护主义”，而且相对于大地伦理学与深层生态学等西方的整体性环境哲学而言，儒家 整体性的环境哲学赋予人类在宇宙间以一个更崇高的地位和责任。 .

The problem of Cartesian dualism is viewed as falling under a more general problem: the problem of human unity. This problem is both ancient and modern: whether a human being is a substantial unity of soul and body or merely a contingent one. I compare Aristotle's and Descartes's response to this problem. My thesis is that an important factor in generating Cartesian dualism is the rejection implicit in Descartes's metaphysical codification of the new mathematical science of (...) nature, namely, the rejection of Aristotle's radical teleological concept of nature. It is argued that the modern intractable problem of the relation of mind to body turns historically and metaphysically on the Cartesian substitution of the mathematically refined concept of body--three-dimensional extension--for the once-influential Aristotelian teleological concept of corporeal substance. (shrink)

The problem of human unity lies at the heart of Edith Stein’s investigation of the structure of human nature in her mature works. By examining her resolution of this problem in Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person and Endliches und ewiges Sein, I show how Stein incorporates two foundational teachings of Thomistic anthropology, namely, the substantial unity of the human being and the soul as form of the body, while reinterpreting the meaning of these teachings through (...) performing a fresh phenomenological investigation. Though this investigation leads Stein to propose a conceptually different explanation of human unity and bodily formation than that given by Aquinas, I argue that this conceptual difference should not be understood as if Stein and Aquinas stand squarely opposed on these important anthropological questions, but rather that Stein’s presentation lies in decisive continuity with the adopted teachings of Aquinas and represents an expanded conception of these teachings that also includes some contrast and disagreement. (shrink)

This book brings to focus one of the prominent 20th century Indian thinkers, Sri Aurobindo, by providing an overview of his philosophy on life and yoga, and by elucidating his thought in the context of contemporary society. This text is unique in approaching Sri Aurobindo as a problem solver and from a conflict resolution perspective, the latter being the author’s expertise. Sri Aurobindo’s contributions such as Ideal of Human Unity, Integral Yoga, Life Divine and his poetic vision as (...) embodied in his epic poem, Savitri, are explored in-depth. The book explores these ideas to seek possible solutions to the current predicaments of human life and society. This monograph attracts not only students and researchers in the fields of philosophy, religion, yoga, political science, international politics, Indian thought, and conflict resolution, but also general interest readers. (shrink)

Scientists are rapidly mapping the chemical and physical pathways that constitute biological systems, making the complexity of processes such as inheritance, development, evolution, and even the origin of life increasingly tractable. Through genetics and neuroscience, biological understanding is now being extended deeply into the human sciences and has begun to transform our understanding of behavior, mind, culture, and values. The idea of a science-driven unity of knowledge has reemerged in several forms in both reductionist and nonreductionist frameworks. This (...) volume examines some of the extraordinary empirical discoveries that have caused a revival of this idea and presents theories from thinkers in a variety of disciplines, including E. O. Wilson, Eric Kandel, and Elaine Scarry. (shrink)

In outdoor education discourse the notion of relation is often employed to convey basic connections between humanity and nature as human–nature relationships, yet the sense of relation itself is rarely questioned. Drawing on the work of Peirce and Dewey, I explore the ramifications of a more nuanced understanding of relation, specifically how relation works with and within differing senses of unity. These ramifications have consequences for how we understand human–nature relationships, which I argue are better conveyed in (...) terms of culture–place. The various forms of unity described by Peirce inform more nuanced understandings of culture–place as cultureplace, with implications for the notion of transculturality. My specific concern with outdoor education then enables me to show how cultureplace and culture–place may be considered to have relevance pedagogically, especially in relation to dealing with cultural and environmental crises. (shrink)

1. A Historical Look at Unity 2. Field Guide to Modern Concepts of Reduction and Unity 3. Kitcher's Revisionist Account of Unification 4. Critics of Unity 5. Integration Instead of Unity 6. Reduction via Mechanisms 7. Case Studies in Reduction and Unification across the Disciplines.

Aesthetic experience is that in which the participation of our senses is elevated to the highest possible position; thus, the aesthetic experience offers us a chance to better recognize the fact that the human being is a composite yet unitary substance integrating matter and spirit. Aesthetic experience is also that in which not only the senses but other human powers—imagination, emotion, and intellect—are involved in aesthetic perception; thus, this helps us better realize the organic interplay of our powers (...) as a whole. In this paper, I employ a Thomistic approach to illustrate aesthetic experience, because the truth that the human being is an undividable unity of matter and spirit.. (shrink)

The European Convention of Human Rights system was originally created to sound the alarm if democracy was threatened in the member states. Yet, it eventually developed into a very different system with a focus on providing individual justice in an ever growing number of member states. This transformation has raised fundamental questions as to the level of difference and diversity allowed within the common European human rights space. Was the system to rest on minimum standards with room for (...) domestic differences, or was it to create uniform standards? These questions have come up as increasingly contentious issues over the past years and have triggered a number of reforms seeking to introduce more subsidiarity in the system, striking a different balance between the European and national oversight of human rights. The article analyses this turn to subsidiarity by exploring whether the reform process has introduced new forms of difference and diversity within the common space of European human rights. Covering the period from 2000 to the end of 2019 and using a dataset of all judgments of the period, the article provides a structural analysis of developments in reference to the margin of appreciation which is the European Court of Human Rights’ long-standing tool for balancing the common standards, yet leaving space for individual member states to find local solutions to implementing those standards. It concludes that recent developments have contributed to a more federal-style construction of European human rights with more space for differences within the common general standards. (shrink)

This volume explores the issues at the center of many historical and contemporary reflections on community and sociality in Continental philosophy. The essays reflect on the thought of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, Arendt, Derrida, Badiou, Fanon, Baldwin, Nancy, Agamben and Laruelle. Continental Perspectives on Community brings the different approaches of these thinkers into conversation with each other. It discusses the possibility of how the concept of community can extend beyond the one and beyond any sense of unity and totality. Additionally, (...) the book shows how notion of community in plurality is at the heart of ethical and political reflections on alterity and race, of political philosophical reflections on the exception, and of ontological reflections on what it means for humans to be social. In this way, it offers an important contribution to the examination of how a community can be thought today. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on social, political, and cultural issues in Continental philosophy. (shrink)

It is commonly held that nature is knowable in itself and that death has no explanatory priority in knowing nature. I reject both claims as they undermine an account of the unity of human life, failing, respectively, to thematize the limitations of finite understanding and to acknowledge what’s most certain about finite existence. I use Kant’s idea of the thing in itself and Heidegger’s idea of death to solve two structurally analogous antinomies these failures leave intact. I conclude (...) that to think these ideas is to represent the telos that unifies our living as, respectively, finite knowers and finite beings. (shrink)

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy.

In his many and varied writings, St Thomas presents us with both a sophisticated account of human action and a complicated moral theory. In this article, I shall be considering the question of whether St Thomas’s theory of action and his moral theory are mutually consistent. My claim shall be that St Thomas can preserve the ontological unity of human action—but only at the cost of rendering it extremely difficult to evaluate in a manner consistent with his (...) moral theory, or, alternatively, that he can provide a viable ethical analysis of human action—but only at the cost of compromising its ontological unity. In the first section of this article I shall examine St Thomas’s account of a particular kind of moral action, namely lying. Two basic questions concerning the specificity of unicity of human action will emerge from this examination: 1) what makes an act to be a specific moral act?, and 2) what makes a specific moral act to be one act? In the second section of the article I shall attempt to show, by means of a textual examination, that St Thomas does not appear to be able to provide an account of human action that will satisfactorily answer both these basic questions at the same time. (shrink)

The body of this paper develops the following subjects, as they are, I believe, the essential elements in the structure of Hume's Enquiry.

As the primary value system in Chinese culture for almost 2,000 years, Confucianism has profoundly influenced the mindset of Chinese people. Cultural psychology studies have highlighted that individuals with different cultural backgrounds vary in their preferences for certain personality traits, such as self-construal, and their metacognitive characteristics, such as thinking modes. Compared with Western cultures, Chinese culture shows a preference for the interdependent self and holistic thinking. To investigate the relationship between the relational-interdependent self, holistic thinking, and traditional Chinese values, (...) we surveyed 327 Chinese adults using the Confucian Traditional Values Survey, Holistic Thinking Scale, and Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale. The results show that Confucian values positively influence both holistic thinking and the relational-interdependent self, the latter of which partially mediates the positive relationship between Confucian values and holistic thinking. This study deepens the understanding of the psychological features of Chinese culture. (shrink)