On the seventh page of the People's Daily for April 15, 1958, Ma T'e published an article entitled "Discussions of Problems of Logic." In his conclusion he critically evaluates many people and even classifies me as a revisionist who must be criticized. I have studied this article closely and feel that it is shot through with difficulties.

Recently I have read in succession the four articles on formal logic and dialectics in the current year's Hsin chien-she: Mr. Chou Ku-ch'eng's "Formal Logic and Dialectics" in the second issue, Mr. I Chih's "A Criticism of Confused Concepts on Problems of Logic" in the fourth issue, Mr. Shen Ping-yuan's "A Discussion of ‘Formal Logic and Dialectics,’ " and Mr. Chou Ku-ch'eng's "Further Discourse on Formal Logic and Dialectics," both in the seventh issue. In my opinion, in Mr. (...) Chou's articles, several main theses on formal logic and on the relationship between formal logic and dialectics are erroneous; basically, I agree with the criticisms of Messrs. I and Shen. Nonetheless, I believe that Mr. Chou's errors have had their source in the theory of cognition in that he has unilateralized and absolutized certain aspects that were originally correct, thus leading himself in the wrong direction. In criticizing Mr. Chou, both Messrs. I and Shen failed to proceed from this premise, so they could not make others see where Mr. Chou's errors basically lie. Based on this approach, I am merely offering some personal views on several main problems concerning formal logic and the relationship between formal logic and dialectics as mentioned in Mr. Chou's article. It is hoped that Mr. Chou and other comrades will correct me. (shrink)

Some of the authors of the essays on Chinese philosophers prefer the pin yin system of romanization for Chinese names and words, while others prefer the Wade‐Giles system. Given that both systems are in wide use today, important names and words are given in both their pin yin and Wade‐Giles formulations. The author's preference is printed first, followed by the alternative romanization within brackets.

Compiled in the twelfth century A.D. by Chu Hsi, leading exponent of Neo-Confucianism, with the assistance of Lü Tsu-Ch'ien, Chin-ssu Lu serves as a summary of, and introduction to, the vast literature of Neo-Confucian philosophy. Adding a more rational theoretical foundation and new methods of moral cultivation and study to traditional thought and practice, Neo-Confucianism has exercised great influence upon thought and social life in East Asia in the past six hundred years. As the classical statement of this philosophy, this (...) anthology brings together passages from Chou Tun-i, Ch'eng Hao and Ch'eng I, and Chang Tsai on the Way, Learning, and Self-improvement, as well as assessments of the character of Sages and Worthies; also included is a chapter on the doctrines of Buddhism and Taoism, pointing out ways in which they deviated from the Confucian Way. It is a very stimulating work; indeed almost every sentence has spark and substance. Although it has been widely studied by East Asian scholars, so far in the West there has been only the translation into German by Father Olaf Graf, now virtually unobtainable. With his mastery of Chinese philosophical literature, his industriousness in research and his augmentation of the text by generous quotations from the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean commentaries, the translator has achieved extraordinary success in making the English version even more comprehensible than the original Chinese.--T. S. C. (shrink)

One of the interpretive devices that Ch'eng-kuan (澄 觀) is famous for having employed to distill the essence of the vast Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra (Tafang-kuang fo-hua-yen ching 《大方廣佛華嚴經》 was a series of variations on the contemplative theme (kuan-men 觀門) of the complete interfusion (yüan-jung 圓融) of the scripture's three chief protagonists (san-sheng 三聖) ── the Buddha Vairocana (Pi-lu-che-na 毘盧遮那) and the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī (Wen-shu-shih-li 文殊師利) and Samantabhadra (P'u-hsien 普賢). By aligning these three powerful sacred persons with a number of philosophical (...) categories that he believed to be central to the sūtra ── categories like "cause" (yin 因 ), "fruition" (kuo 果 ), "faith" (hsin 信 ), "understanding" (chieh 解), "insight" (chih 智), "practice" (hsing 行), "principle" (li 理), etc. ── he provided a focal point at which the rich and vivid meditative and liturgical lives of Hua-yen devotees could be made to converge with their philosophical reflections. -/- Although Ch'eng-kuan invoked this device in several of his writings, his most concerted development of it is a short essay entitled San-sheng yüan-jung kuan-men, which appears to have been written relatively late in his long career. Like many important Hua-yen texts, this essay seems to have been lost in China not long after its author's death. However, it was preserved in Korea and Japan and from the latter country was reintroduced to China in the last years of nineteenth century. Neither in China nor in the West has it yet been adequately studied. -/- The core of the present article is a critical edition of the Chinese text of the essay based on a careful comparison of all available versions and presented together with a copiously annotated English translation. The edition translation are preceded by a brief interpretive introduction and followed by an appendix in which are given: a detailed discussion of the work's textual history, detailed accounts of its various editions, and descriptions of its several surviving paraphrases and commentaries. (shrink)