Background: Healthcare workers in the front line of diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 are at great risk of both infection and developing mental health symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the following: whether healthcare workers in general hospitals experience higher mental distress than those in psychiatric hospitals; the role played by religion and alexithymic trait in influencing the mental health condition and perceived level of happiness of healthcare workers amidst the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic; (...) and factors that influence the resilience of healthcare workers at 6 weeks' follow-up.Methods: Four-hundred and fifty-eight healthcare workers were recruited from general and psychiatric hospitals, and 419 were followed-up after 6 weeks. All participants filled out the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, five-item Brief-Symptom Rating Scale, and the Chinese Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.Results: Under the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.3% of frontline healthcare workers in general hospitals reported having mental distress and perceived lower social adaptation status compared with those working in psychiatric hospitals. Christians/Catholics perceived better psychological well-being, and Buddhists/Taoists were less likely to experience mental distress. The results at 6 weeks of follow-up showed that the perceived lower social adaptation status of general hospital healthcare workers was temporary and improved with time. Christian/Catholic religion and time had independent positive effects on psychological well-being; however, the interaction of Christian/Catholic religion and time had a negative effect.Conclusions: Collectivism and individualism in the cultural context are discussed with regard to alexithymic trait and Buddhist/Taoist and Christian/Catholic religious faiths. Early identification of mental distress and interventions should be implemented to ensure a healthy and robust clinical workforce for the treatment and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

I am a worker. Not long ago I began to study Marxism-Leninism and Chairman Mao's works. In order to meet my needs in study and to follow lectures, I read several articles carried in Philosophical Research. I think I have been somewhat enlightened with regard to philosophy. Several articles on the identity between thinking and existence were carried in the latest issues of this journal. Issues Nos. 4 and 5 carried Comrade Chiang Li-ch'ün's article "Is There Identity Between Erroneous Thinking (...) and Existence?" After reading this article, I remembered many past events in work and production activity and then formed my views on this subject. Now I place my views before my comrades. As my cultural level is low, my views may be erroneous. I hope that they will spare no criticism of my views. In the following paragraphs I will take issue with Comrade Chiang Li-ch'ün primarily on the question of whether there is identity between erroneous thinking and existence. (shrink)

The practice of mathematical word problem is ubiquitous and thought to impact academic achievement. However, the underlying neural mechanisms are still poorly understood. In this study, we investigate how lexical consistency of word problem description is modulated in adults' brain responses during word problem solution. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging methods, we examined compare word problems that included relational statements, such as “A dumpling costs 9 dollars. A wonton is 2 dollars less than a dumpling. How much does a wonton (...) cost?” and manipulated lexical consistency and problem operation. We found a consistency by operation interaction in the widespread fronto-insular-parietal activations, including the anterior insula, dorsoanterior cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, and intraparietal sulcus, such that inconsistent problems engaged stronger activations than consistent problems for addition, whereas the consistency effect was inverse for subtraction. Critically, these results were more salient in the less successful problem solvers than their more successful peers. Our study is the first to demonstrate that lexical consistency effects on arithmetic neural networks are modulated during reading word problem that required distinct arithmetic operations. More broadly, our study has strong potentials to add linkage between neuroscience and education by remediating deficits and enhance instruction design in the school curriculum. (shrink)

Double 11 shopping carnival, celebrated by the most successful electronic-commerce Chinese company, Alibaba, has always been the online shopping festival with the highest turnover and involves the largest number of consumers and enterprises in China. This study integrates the elaboration likelihood model and stimulus-organism-response theory to study the dual-processing path of information, which drives customers’ behavioral intention on Double 11. There are 454 valid samples of data are collected, and the research model is tested using the partial least squares method. (...) Results show that in the Double 11 context, two different processing mechanisms affect consumers’ behavioral intention. Thereinto, consumers’ behavioral intention is more affected by the peripheral path than the central path. The affective experience affected by the information stimulus has a greater impact on the behavioral intention than cognitive experience. Furthermore, we find situational involvement have different moderating effects on the relationship between two experiences and behavioral intention. (shrink)

Attending cram school has long been a trend in ethnic Chinese culture areas, including Taiwan. Despite the fact that school reform policies have been implemented in Taiwan, cram schools have continued to prosper. Therefore, in this educational culture, how to achieve a good educational effect is also a topic worthy of discussion. However, whether students really engage in those tutoring programs provided by cram schools has seldom been studied. To address this gap, this study explored how parents’ hovering attitude toward (...) life and coursework influences their children’s engagement in cram schools. This study targeted those students who attend English cram schools to test the correlates between two types of helicopter parenting, tutoring engagement and continued attendance at cram schools. A total of 320 questionnaires were sent out, and 300 were returned, giving an overall response rate of 93.75%. Excluding seven incomplete or invalid questionnaires, 293 valid questionnaires were received. The results of this study show that hovering behavior awareness is negatively related to cram school engagement, whereas cram school engagement is positively related to the intention to continue attending cram school. Moreover, the results imply that parents should alleviate their helicoptering behavior to enhance their children’s engagement in cram school tutoring programs. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

Purpose Moral orientation can affect ethical decision-making. Very few studies have focused on whether medical education can change the moral orientation of the students. The purpose of the present study was to document the types of moral orientation exhibited by medical students, and to study if their moral orientation was changed after preclinical education. Methods From 2007 to 2009, the Mojac scale was used to measure the moral orientation of Taiwan medical students. The students included 271 first-year and 109 third-year (...) students. They were rated as a communitarian, dual, or libertarian group and followed for 2 years to monitor the changes in their Mojac scores. Results In both first and third-year students, the dual group after 2 years of preclinical medical education did not show any significant change. In the libertarian group, first and third-year students showed a statistically significant increase from a score of 99.4 and 101.3 to 103.0 and 105.7, respectively. In the communitarian group, first and third-year students showed a significant decline from 122.8 and 126.1 to 116.0 and 121.5, respectively. Conclusion During the preclinical medical education years, students with communitarian orientation and libertarian orientation had changed in their moral orientation to become closer to dual orientation. These findings provide valuable hints to medical educators regarding bioethics education and the selection criteria of medical students for admission. (shrink)

Various walking speeds may induce different responses on the plantar pressure patterns. Current methods used to analyze plantar pressure patterns are linear and ignore nonlinear features. The purpose of this study was to analyze the complexity of plantar pressure images after walking at various speeds using nonlinear bidimensional multiscale entropy. Twelve participants were recruited for walking at three speeds for 20 minutes. A plantar pressure measurement system was used to measure plantar pressure patterns. Complexity index, a summation of MSE2D from (...) all time scales, was used to quantify the changes of complexity of plantar pressure images. The analysis of variance with repeated measures and Fisher’s least significant difference correction were used to examine the results of this study. The results showed that CI of plantar pressure images of 1.8 mph was significantly lower compared with 3.6 and 5.4 mph. The results also showed that CI significantly increased from the 1st min to the 10th min and 20th min with slow walking. Our results indicate that slow walking at 1.8 mph may not be good for postural control compared with moderate walking and fast walking. This study demonstrates that bidimensional multiscale entropy is able to quantify complexity changes of plantar pressure images after different walking speeds. (shrink)

The theory of Yin and Yang and the Five Movements is based on the concept of cyclical time. This ancient cosmological model postulates that when expansive energy reaches its apex, mutual life-saving relations prevail over mutually conflictual societal relations, and that this cycle repeats. This cosmic change model was first presented in ancient Korea and China, by Hado-Nakseo, via numerological configurations and symbols. The Hado diagram was drawn by a Korean thinker, Bok-hui (?-BC3413), also known as Great Empeor Fuzi or (...) Fu-hsi in Chinese mythology. Confucius once recognized him as the father of I Ching (Book of Changes). The Eastern cosmology was further developed by King Wen and the Duke of Zhou and compiled by Confucius (BC551?-BC 479) during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Nakseo diagram was first discovered by the famous King Wu of China, who founded the Xia dynasty. In contrast to the harmonious mathematical matrix of Hado, Nakseo symbolizes the conflictual and dynamic expansion of the universe. In the Nakseo world, masculine energy is structurally greater than feminine energy, continuously breeding disequilibrium and conflict. The Yin and Yang model suggests that everything in the universe exists as a combination of opposing dynamics. At any given time, one of the two dynamics grows while the other declines. When Yang energy is at its peak, Yin energy is at its nadir; then, a reversal occurs; and envetually the whole cycle repeats. It would thus be logical to express that when conflictual energy has reached its apex harmonious energy begins to wax. It can be argued that since the state of disequilibrium within the universe represented by Nakseo cannot indefinitely sustain its dynamic of expansion, harmonious international relationships eventually come to pervade the world. This argument represents a unique applicationof the concept of Yin and Yang logic to international arms race and arms control. This cyclical dynamics can explain the long-term process of arms build-up followed by eventually by nuclear standoff and subsequent nuclear arms control regimes as NPT, CTBT, MTCR, SALT, START, PSI and etc. One can boldly claim that Yin and Yang logic offers a clue to creating a theory of structural peace by discovering a constructivist element in the model. The esoteric matrixes of ancient Korea and China thus provide humanity with an new vision for nuclear disarmament and a sustainable peace. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe impact of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program on psychological outcomes and quality of life in lung cancer patients remains unclear. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the MBSR program on psychological states and QoL in lung cancer patients.MethodsEligible studies published before November 2021 were systematically searched from PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang databases. The risk of bias in eligible studies was assessed using the Cochrane tool. Psychological variables and QoL (...) were evaluated as outcomes. We used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system to grade the levels of evidence. Statistical analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.4 and STATA 14.0.ResultsA total of 17 studies involving 1,680 patients were included for meta-analysis eventually. MBSR program significantly relieved cancer-related fatigue and negative psychological states, enhanced positive psychological states, and improved quality of sleep. Evidence on MBSR programs' overall treatment effect for QoL revealed a trend toward statistical significance.ConclusionBased on our findings, the MBSR program shows positive effects on psychological states in lung cancer patients. This approach should be recommended as a part of the rehabilitation program for lung cancer patients.Systematic Review Registrationhttps://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-mwvbq-v1, identifier: 10.17605/OSF.IO/MWVBQ. (shrink)

A bilingual translation of Zhu Xi's 朱熹 Yixue qimeng 易學啟蒙 (1186).

"A major transformation in thought took place during the Southern Sung (1127-1279). A new version of Confucian teaching, Tao-hsueh Confucianism (what modern scholars sometimes refer to as Neo-Confucianism), became state orthodoxy, a privileged status which it retained until the twentieth century." "Existing studies of the new Confucianism generally depict a single line of development to and from Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the greatest theoretician of the tradition. In this study of unprecedented scope, however, Hoyt Cleveland Tillman offers an integrated intellectual history (...) of the development of Tao-hsueh Confucianism which for the first time places Chu Hsi within the context of his contemporaries. Tillman's methodological strategy allows a rich, complex picture of the Tao-hsueh movement to emerge - one that is sure to transform the field of Sung Confucianism." "To reconstruct the evolution of the Tao-hsueh group, Tillman studies a number of Confucians from four distinct periods, reflecting the basic diversity that existed among them. His discussion is deeply grounded in political and philosophical history and in research on the social networks that joined the members of the Tao-hsueh group. Within this framework, he provides a vivid account of the changing scope of the movement, tracing its development into a "fellowship" and at times a political faction and demonstrating its movement from diversity to gradually increasing exclusiveness, particularly under the influence of Chu Hsi. Close attention is given to confrontational writings and debates within the group, which covered such issues as humaneness, the function of the mind, uses of the Book of Changes, social welfare programs, teaching methods, expediency, and the grounds for knowledge and authority." "A superbly erudite work, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi's Ascendancy is an invaluable contribution to the study of the history of Confucian thought in China."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of the intersection of two monumental products and shapers of the Chinese tradition: the I-ching (Book of Change), which has influenced nearly all schools of Chinese thought for two millennia; and Chu Hsi (1130-1200), whose systematization of the Confucian tradition (known in the West as Neo-Confucianism) has dominated Chinese intellectual history until the present century. Focusing on Chu Hsi's theory of mind and his view of the ordinary person's need for concrete methods of self-cultivation, the (...) dissertation demonstrates how Chu Hsi's understanding of the I – its history, its contents, and it use in the practice of divination -- was fully integrated with his moral-metaphysics and his methodology of attaining Sagehood (the Neo-Confucian religious goal). In broader perspective, this is a study of the nature and limits of Confucian rationalism, the pragmatic character of Chinese philosophy, and the incorporation of a religious ritual (divination) into a philosophical system. Chapter I is an Introduction in two sections. The first is a survey of ancient Greek and modern theories of divination, establishing a comparative framework in which to analyze Chu Hsi's theory of divination. The second is a brief sketch of the two major schools of I-ching interpretation prior to Chu Hsi. Chapter II outlines the intellectual-historical context of Chu Hsi's approach to the I, concentrating on the complementary poles of his central problematic: cultural (the problem of the "transmission of the Way") and individual (the problem of mind). The "mind of the Sage" is discussed as a symbol of the unification of these poles. Chapter III is an examination of Chu's theory of I-ching interpretation, and the role of the mythic Sage Fu Hsi, who created the hexagrams and began the transmission of the Way, in Chu Hsi's system. Chapter IV concerns the practice of divination as a method of self-cultivation. It is proposed that Chu regarded I-ching divination – within certain limits -- as a method of detecting incipient changes in external events and in one's mind, thereby cultivating "moral responsiveness," or the ability to respond in a timely, intuitive, and correct way to change. Chapter V explores certain levels of symbolic meaning in the "philosophy of change" presupposed by hexagram divination. It is suggested that the human ability to transform oneself into a fully realized moral being, in responsive harmony with the natural world, is a Confucian way of grounding the self in the creative principle that constitutes the ontological foundation of the phenomenal world. (shrink)

Objective: Quality of Life is an important predictor of patient's recovery and survival in lung cancer patients. The aim of the present study is to identify 1-year trends of lung cancer patients' QoL after robot-assisted or traditional lobectomy and investigate whether clinical and sociodemographic variables may predict these trends.Methods: An Italian sample of 176 lung cancer patients undergoing lobectomy completed the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire—Core 30 at the pre-hospitalization, 30 (...) days, 4 months, 8 months, and 12 months after surgery. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were also collected. The individual change over time of the 15 dimensions of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the effects of pre-surgery scores of QoL dimensions, type of surgery, perioperative complications, and age on patients' QoL after surgery were studied with the individual growth curve models.Results: Patients had a good recovery after lobectomy: functioning subscales improved over time, while most of the symptoms became less severe over the care process. Perioperative complications, type of surgery, pre-surgery status, and age significantly affected these trends, thus becoming predictors of patients' QoL.Conclusion: This study highlights different 1-year trends of lung cancer patients' QoL. The measurement of pre- and post-surgery QoL and its clinical and sociodemographic covariables would be necessary to better investigate patients' care process and implement personalized medicine in lung cancer hospital divisions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu HsiDavid L. HallJohn Berthrong. Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi. SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 254. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $24.50.Given the irenic and deferential tone of John Berthrong's prose in his Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi, his readers might (...) not readily suspect that an intellectual drama of real significance is being played out in its pages. In this brief review I will attempt to provide the outlines of that drama, and to assess Berthrong's directing skills.We begin with the rather startling fact that before the "Dictionary Supplement" to the 1971 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published, one would have searched that work in vain for the principal word in the title of Berthrong's book. The OED entry on "creativity" contains three illustrations of its use-one from a literary critic (1875) and the other two from A. N. Whitehead's Religion in the Making (1926).Berthrong is to be congratulated for recognizing, as most process thinkers have not, that Whitehead introduced not only a new word into our philosophical vocabulary but also a radically novel means of interpreting the world and our experience of it-one that answers to feelings and forms of understanding that have been seriously marginalized in the West. What this means, of course, is that Whitehead's understanding of "creativity" in terms of the spontaneous emergence of novelty requires a radical transvaluation and reconstruction of the nature and import of ontological speculations within the Western tradition. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Western philosophy simply lacks interpretative insights permitting a responsible elaboration of Whitehead's understanding of creativity. Berthrong must look beyond Western culture to find resources with which to defend [End Page 571] Whitehead's novel understanding of creativity properly against the criticisms of mainstream ontologists such as Robert Neville.It is Whitehead's placement of ontological issues within his speculative scheme against which Neville's criticisms are directed. And, as we shall see, it is this same issue that leads Berthrong to appeal to the Chinese Neo-Confucian Chu Hsi to defend Whitehead against Neville.It is important to recognize that by the time that Berthrong was awakened from the contented slumber of a Whiteheadian scholastic by Neville's Calvinesque critique, he was already expert in the mainstream thought of an alternative cultural milieu. While other champions of Whitehead's novel speculations have been forced to work within the Western philosophical tradition, Berthrong is able to access a tradition in which discussions of creativity as the spontaneous emergence of novelty employ terms such as ch'i ("matter-energy," "energizing field"), tzu-jan ("self-soing"), i ("change," "becoming"), and ch'eng ("self-actualization," "creativity") that did not come late to Chinese dictionaries. Neville is certainly familiar with Chinese philosophical thought, but he approached the Asian traditions in a serious manner only after his principal intuitions had been systematically articulated. Thus, while Berthrong looks to the Chinese Neo-Confucians for assistance in formulating Whitehead's defense, Neville expects these same thinkers to offer exemplifications of his own solidly wrought reflections. The consequence of this state of affairs is that, in his debate with Neville, Berthrong has the advantage of a somewhat greater flexibility.Berthrong's flexibility is demonstrated by his method of engaging his principal interlocutors. He employ's Wayne Booth's "coductive" method, which avoids dialectical sublation or analytic reduction in favor of the analogical correlations of concepts and doctrines. Coduction is essentially an ethos-based method expressed through conversations or debates that aim not at refutation or the establishment of a final view but at an enlargement of understanding leading to what Whitehead termed "wide intellectual tolerance."In his triangulation of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi, Berthrong provides accurate and balanced presentations of the pertinent ideas of each of the principals. He succinctly articulates Whitehead's understanding of the world as comprised by "actual entities," whose coming into being and passing away express the creative process that is the general... (shrink)

Yung Sik Kim's new book is a welcome addition to the large number of studies of the thought of Chu Hsi, arguably the most important literati thinker in China since the Southern Song dynasty . Chu's ideas became orthodox empire‐wide during the early Ming dynasty , and during the Ming and Qing dynasties millions of candidates for the imperial civil service examinations mastered the “Learning of the Way” associated with Chu and his followers. With the exception of the pioneering study (...) by Yamada Keiji in 1978, nearly all previous accounts of Chu's ideas written by students of Chinese philosophy have emphasized the metaphysical, moral, and epistemological concerns in Chu's writings. Those more concerned with imperial dogma and state power in China since 1400 have tended to paint Chu Hsi's “Learning of the Way” as a monolithic, authoritarian ideology that legitimated the Ming and Qing dynasty rulers politically, socially, and culturally among gentry elites.Kim acknowledges that the core of Chu Hsi's grand intellectual synthesis was focused on moral and social philosophy, but in this book Kim provides compelling information that Chu was also concerned with natural knowledge about the three levels of reality: heaven and earth, the myriad things in the world, and the human realm. Humans thus formed a triad with heaven and earth as the most numinous living thing because they were endowed with the psycho‐physical stuff of ch'i that was most clear and complete. Recognizing no boundary between the physical and the spiritual, Chu Hsi equated human nature with the universe. The basic concepts that informed Chu's natural world were yin‐yang, the five evolutive phases, and the dualism of li and ch'i .Chu Hsi advocated a scholarly agenda that would explain why things and events were as they were. Through the “investigation of things,” the heavenly principle that inscribed the ch'i of each object and event could be discovered. Normally historians of Chinese philosophy stress the place of universal heavenly li in Chu's thought, but Kim makes a concerted effort not to overlook the important place of ch'i as the aggregated collection of stuff in the universe, some dense and falling like the earth, some airy and rising like heaven. Indeed, as important as li was for Chu Hsi's moral philosophy, ch'i was the most important concept he employed to explain natural phenomena, material changes, and earthly events. With no discontinuity between matter and life, or between materiality and mind, Chu's philosophy made no allowance for the Western distinctions between the material and spiritual spheres or between the physical and mental realms.It was precisely such views that troubled the Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci who came to China in the late sixteenth century. Ricci and his European cohort would be condemned in the early eighteenth century by French Jansenists and Spanish Franciscans for their overly accommodational compromises with traditional Chinese religious practices such as ancestor worship, which Ricci interpreted as a civil rite. Nonetheless, when Ricci studied Chu Hsi's moral philosophy and natural thought, he was appalled at its materialism and atheism, which he considered the fault of Buddhism and its impact on Song literati such as Chu Hsi.The “noninertness” of ch'i carried over from the dynamic materiality of all things, including the human mind, to the formless and unfathomable spirits and ghosts that existed in a border area outside the natural realm between heaven and human beings. The dispersion of ch'i upon death could take many forms but, according to Chu Hsi, in the end all such ch'i disaggregated, leaving no ongoing or abiding spiritual form for humans, plants, or animals. The ch'i of the ancestors could be prayed to because the materiality of their descendants was the same ch'i, but even this continuity could not survive more than a few generations. Again, the Jesuits were shocked at this atheistic view of the human soul and its eventual demise materially with no possible eternal life after death.Accordingly, Kim's careful study of what Chu Hsi thought about the natural world makes it evident that most modern studies have elided an essential aspect of traditional Chinese thought, particularly the centrality of ch'i in the dynamic processes of collection and dispersion that produce all things, whether living or inanimate. Students of Chinese philosophy have tended to prioritize those aspects of Chu Hsi's views on universal li and its instantiated forms that are more amenable to a Western, Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic reading drawn ultimately from the debate between Plato and Aristotle over the universal forms of particular things.Modern presentations, in other words, have failed to grasp why a generation of Jesuit scholars who spent their adulthood in China during the seventeenth century found Chu Hsi's views alien and dangerous. Kim deserves credit for going against the tide of twentieth‐century scholarly interpretation and restoring to Chu Hsi those aspects of his natural philosophy that have been conveniently repressed to make his views more palatable. Rather than just the builder of the orthodox brick wall of traditional Chinese moralism, we can see that Chu Hsi's natural philosphy challenged any view of the world that assumed theological differences between life and death, mind and body, or the spiritual and physical. (shrink)

Students and teachers of Chinese history and philosophy will not want to miss Daniel Gardner's accessible translation of the teachings of Chu Hsi —a luminary of the Confucian tradition who dominated Chinese intellectual life for centuries. Homing in on a primary concern of our own time, Gardner focuses on Chu Hsi's passionate interest in education and its importance to individual development. For hundreds of years, every literate person in China was familiar with Chu Hsi's teachings. They informed the curricula of (...) private academies and public schools and became the basis of the state's prestigious civil service examinations. Nor was Chu's influence limited to China. In Korea and Japan as well, his teachings defined the terms of scholarly debate and served as the foundation for state ideology. Chu Hsi was convinced that through education anyone could learn to be fully moral and thus travel the road to sagehood. Throughout his life, he struggled with the philosophical questions underlying education: What should people learn? How should they go about learning? What enables them to learn? What are the aims and the effects of learning? Part One of _Learning to Be a Sage_ examines Chu Hsi's views on learning and how he arrived at them. Part Two presents a translation of the chapters devoted to learning in the _Conversations of Master Chu_. (shrink)

The picture-word interference paradigm has been used to investigate the time course of processes involved in word retrieval, but is challenging to implement online due to dependence on measurements of vocal reaction time. We performed a series of four experiments to examine picture-word interference and facilitation effects in a form of covert picture naming, with and without gamification. A target picture was accompanied by an audio word distractor that was either unrelated, phonologically-related, associatively-related, or categorically-related to the picture. Participants were (...) instructed to judge whether the name of the target picture ended in the phoneme assigned to the block by pressing corresponding keys as quickly and accurately as possible. Experiments 1 and 2 successfully replicated categorical interference and phonological facilitation effects at different optimal stimulus-onset-asynchronies between words and pictures. Experiment 3 demonstrated that a key gamification feature motivated faster speed at the expense of accuracy in the gamified vs. experimental format of the task. Experiment 4 adopted the optimal SOAs and verified that the gamification reveals expected interference and facilitation effects despite the speed-accuracy tradeoff. These studies confirmed that categorical interference occurs earlier than phonological facilitation, while both processes are independent from articulation and inherent to word retrieval itself. The covert PWI paradigm and its gamification have methodological value for neuroimaging studies in which articulatory artifacts obscure word retrieval processes, and may be developed into potential online word-finding assessments that can reveal word retrieval difficulties with greater sensitivity. (shrink)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 4 million Italians migrated to the United States of America (U.S.), which they regarded as a utopia. The film _The Legend of 1900_, which was inspired by Alessandro Baricco’s monologue _Nocecento_ and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, tells the story about the genius pianist 1900, an orphan, who is fostered by Danny, a black coalman in the boiler room of an ocean liner, and whose parents are presumably Italian immigrants. Due to (...) immigration law, 1900, a man with neither identity, visa, nor legal papers, cannot legally set foot on American soil. As a genius pianist, his existence is nothing more than that of musician—an entertainer to passengers on the gigantic trans-Atlantic liner Virginian, the only place he is permitted to live. According to Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, a ship is “a piece of floating space, a placeless place”—a vessel transporting people to the land of their dreams. However, 1900, who has no legal status, will never arrive in utopia aboard Virginian. He can only construct a heterotopia—a mirror of utopia—so that it to him is a utopia. In the eyes of the law, 1900 is a legally non-existent person on Virginian, a placeless place. However, it is this lawless heterotopia and isolation that create a genius. In this paper, I illustrate how Virginian, as a place outside the law of land, metaphorically gives birth to a pianist, 1900, and why 1900 at the end chooses not to leave the ship, while also discussing the meaning behind the film and the relationship between law and space. (shrink)

"Whenever one intends to overturn a political power, one must first create a general view and begin working from an ideological basis. The revolutionaries are like this. The counterrevolutionaries are also like this." [1] During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the Legalists, who represented the newly rising landlord class, and the Confucianists, who represented the slave-owning class, engaged in an intense ideological struggle around the central issue of seizing or opposing the seizure of power, restoring (...) or opposing the restoration of the ancient ways. The field of the study of history, which is an organic part of ideology, became an important line of struggle for the Confucianists and the Legalists. (shrink)