In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides describes the Plague of Athens which killed an estimated 75,000 people in 430 BC, the second year of the war. Thucydides i...

This paper is an experiment in collective writing conducted in Autumn 2019 at the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. The experiment involves 12 international masters' students readi...

v. 1-32. Mou Zongsan xian sheng quan ji -- [33] Mou Zongsan xian sheng quan ji. Zong xu xiang mu.

Mou Zongsan uses the highest moral principle “autonomy” to interpret Confucius’ benevolence and Mencius’ “inherent benevolence and righteousness”, focuses on the self-rule of the will. It does not do any harm to Mencius’ learning, on the contrary, it is conducive to the communication between Chinese and Western philosophies. If we stick to Kant’s moral self autonomy and apply it to interpreting Zhu Xi’s moral theory, similarly we will discover the implications of Zhu Xi’s “autonomy” in his moral learning. Therefore, it (...) is inappropriate for Mou Zongsan to say that Zhu Xi’s ethics belongs to the autonomous one. (shrink)

Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 contends that Confucianism is an ethics of autonomy. It is maintained that Mou’s version of ethics of autonomy differs from Kant’s in that Mou comprehends subjectivity differently than Kant in such a way that he, unlike Kant, locates the ethical a priori in moral feelings instead of reason. This paper will explore Mou’s metaphysical grounding of morality to show that Kant’s notions of autonomy and subjectivity undergo more radical modifications in Mou’s contention.

Many historians of philosophy, with all their intended praise, let the philosophers speak mere nonsense. They do not guess the purpose of the philosophers.… They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said, to what they really meant to say.Mou Zongsan (1909–1995) is one of the key figures of contemporary New Confucianism (當代新儒家) who to this day remains largely unknown and grossly understudied in the West.1 This neglect by the Western academy contrasts sharply with the ever-growing output of literature by (...) Chinese and Taiwanese scholars in which Mou Zongsan emerges as one of the most discussed and most controversial Chinese philosophers of the twentieth century. Given this unfortunate East-West divide—as .. (shrink)

Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2023, Page 1-14.

Guided by Basic Psychological Need Theory, we investigated the combined associations between need satisfaction and need frustration and their relations with theoretically relevant correlates including mindfulness, physical literacy, physical activity enjoyment, and physical activity. The participants were Singapore-based school students who completed a cross-sectional survey. The results of the latent profile analysis identified four distinct need profiles: profile 1–average satisfaction and frustration ; profile 2–low satisfaction, above average frustration; profile 3–very high satisfaction, very low frustration ; and profile 4–high satisfaction, (...) very high frustration. Among these, profile 3 was the most adaptive one; it had the highest levels of mindfulness, physical literacy, physical activity enjoyment, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Experiences of need satisfaction countered the negative effects of need frustration on these correlates. These findings enhance our understanding of students’ psychological need experiences and highlight the need for investigating the combined associations between need satisfaction and need frustration. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a growth in the literature in Western languages devoted to Mou Zongsan 牟宗三.1 Among the New Confucians, Mou's writings are regarded as the most argumentative and the most systematic. He is also one who has engaged with Western philosophers such as Kant, Wittgenstein, Russell, Whitehead, Hegel, and Heidegger. This essay addresses a more primordial theme: how does Mou Zongsan compare with Heidegger when they come to the central issue of the self-transformation of traditions and the question (...) of cultural communication and integration? In relation to these concerns, they respectively formulate the notion of the self-reversal of moral reason (or of liangzhi 良知... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Confucian Liberalism: Mou Zongsan and Hegelian Liberalism by Roy TsengMilan Matthiesen (bio)Confucian Liberalism: Mou Zongsan and Hegelian Liberalism. By Roy Tseng. Albany: SUNY Press, 2023. Pp. 405. Hardcover $95.00, isbn 978-1-4384-9111-0.With Confucian Liberalism, Roy Tseng sets a new landmark in the contemporary discourse on Confucian political theory. His intricate account of the political philosophy of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995) and other New Confucian philosophers, in conjunction with his (...) study of T.H. Green's (1836–1882) and other British idealists' liberalism, offer a fresh and novel approach to Confucianism and liberalism alike. Throughout the eight chapters of his book, Tseng develops the concept of "Confucian liberalism." This concept stays faithful to civil liberties, but grounds democracy on an ethics of self-realization and a perfectionist ideal of the state, "where the government helps the people to 'attain accomplishment according to the individual's nature' (jiu geti er shuncheng 就個體而順成)" (p. 125). On the one hand, this framework attempts to circumvent the overbearing tendencies of traditional Confucianism, whose moral imperatives had prohibited the development of an independent sphere of politics. On the other hand, it reintroduces the Confucian concept of humaneness (ren 仁) as an answer to the lack of common meaning in modern societies. On the one hand, Tseng therefore dissociates himself from anti-Confucian liberals such as Yin Haiguang 殷海光 (1919–1969) or Zhang Foquan 張佛泉 (1907–1994), who had proclaimed the incompatibility of Confucianism and liberal values. On the other hand, he also differentiates himself from what he calls "antiliberal Confucians." Especially recently, the latter have attracted much attention by proposing a political vision opposed to the perceived foreign and "Western" concept of liberalism. Under labels such as "political Confucianism" (Jiang Qing 蔣慶), "socialist Confucianism" (Chen Lai 陳來), "politics of benevolence" (Kang Xiaoguang 康曉光), "Confucian meritocracy" (Bai Tongdong 白彤東), or "Confucian political perfectionism" (Joseph Chan 陳祖為), they have had a profound impact on the discourse of Confucian political theory. Turning toward the [End Page 1] political works of Mou Zongsan and the British idealists, Tseng neither advocates for the inherent elitism and anti-Western sentiments of antiliberal Confucianism, nor does he fully subscribe to the radically iconoclast ideals of the anti-Confucian liberals who had denied all value of tradition and saw Confucianism as a mere obstacle toward a modernized China. Another aspect of Tseng's study that stands out from the current field of research on Mou Zongsan is his reading of Mou's conceptual framework through the lens of Hegel. While many prominent researchers, e.g. Li Minghui 李明輝, point toward Mou's reliance on Kantian ideas and concepts, Tseng convincingly argues that Mou's appropriation of the idealist framework, as well as many concepts utilized by Mou, are fundamentally Hegelian, therefore warranting a shift in perspective. Confucian Liberalism is subdivided into three parts and eight chapters. Part I, titled "Confucian Ethics," introduces the reader to Mou Zongsan's moral philosophy by providing a comparative analysis of Mou, Kant, Hegel, and the British idealists, primarily represented by T.H. Green and F.H. Bradley (1846–1924). In part II, "Civil Liberalism," Tseng then moves on to elaborate on the New Confucian view of politics. Here, he pays close attention to Mou's revaluation of Confucian politics through the Hegelian framework, the notion of "civility," and the concept of "humane government." Turning again to Mou and Green, the final part, "Perfectionist Liberalism," presents the political vision of a democratic state underpinned by a strong belief that the primary task of the state is to provide an environment for the individual citizens that allows them to fully realize their moral capabilities. The third part further argues that the values upheld by New Confucianism not only do not contradict the liberal values of human dignity, tolerance, and equal respect, but are in fact able to lay a moral foundation for modern democracies that is able to overcome the weaknesses of mainstream liberalism, manifested in atomism, nihilism, and egoism. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the core principles and concepts of Mou Zongsan's moral metaphysics. Following Mou's own approach, Tseng applies a comparative method in this introductory chapter, meticulously delineating the varying philosophical influences that shaped Mou's... (shrink)

In this paper, I give a metaphilosophical analysis of the core idea of deflationism by discussing some basic conceptual and methodological issues involved in the debate between deflationism and substantivism. In so doing, I argue for three positive points. First, the crux of the dispute between deflationism and substantivism is whether or not truth is substantive in its metaphysical nature and in its explanatory role in philosophical enterprises, rather than whether or not a minimal approach regarding conceptual resources is taken (...) to explain truth; a minimal approach itself is philosophically innocent. Second, there is no intrinsic connection between the core idea of deflationism and the Tarski-style equivalence thesis, which is often identified as implying or supporting the former. Third, there are some unbridged fundamental gaps between the core idea of deflationism and various redundancy theses; these redundancy theses cannot be identified as the former, nor can they be used to justify the former on their own. (shrink)

In Late Works of Mou Zongsan , this influential Chinese philosopher speaks on the future of Chinese culture, the achievements of Confucianism, the place of Buddhism and Daoism in Chinese philosophy, and the possibility of partnership between Chinese and Western thought.

In this essay, we discuss a perspective remote from German academics on the examination of Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant, which was developed by Mou Zongsan (牟宗三). Mou focuses his interpretation of Kant on the infinite aspect of human morality and he praises Heidegger’s interpretation of the essence of human existence as “being-able-to-be”. Although, like Heidegger, he emphasizes the recognition of human finiteness as the basic premise of Kant’s philosophy, he refuses to apply this premise to Kant’s entire philosophy. He addresses (...) the fact that for Kant man is “finite but can be infinite”. Furthermore, he criticises Heidegger, on the one hand, for withdrawing the dimension of independence, infinity, supersensibility and timelessness from morality, and Kant, on the other hand, for rejecting the possibility of a positive use of intellectual intuition. By making use of a general insight from the schools of Chinese philosophy that positively recognise the intellectual intuition, one can, Mou believes, change the downsides of Kantian philosophy and organically connect Western and Asian philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, we discuss a perspective remote from German academics on the examination of Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant, which was developed by Mou Zongsan (牟宗三). Mou focuses his interpretation of Kant on the infinite aspect of human morality and he praises Heidegger’s interpretation of the essence of human existence as “being-able-to-be”. Although, like Heidegger, he emphasizes the recognition of human finiteness as the basic premise of Kant’s philosophy, he refuses to apply this premise to Kant’s entire philosophy. He addresses (...) the fact that for Kant man is “finite but can be infinite”. Furthermore, he criticises Heidegger, on the one hand, for withdrawing the dimension of independence, infinity, supersensibility and timelessness from morality, and Kant, on the other hand, for rejecting the possibility of a positive use of intellectual intuition. By making use of a general insight from the schools of Chinese philosophy that positively recognise the intellectual intuition, one can, Mou believes, change the downsides of Kantian philosophy and organically connect Western and Asian philosophy. (shrink)

Mou Zongsan (牟宗三) extols Heidegger’s interpretation of human Dasein as “being-capable” and admits that he was inspired by Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant in many ways; however, although he, like Heidegger, emphasizes that human finitude is the basic premise of Kantian philosophy, he refuses to apply this premise to Kant’s philosophy as a whole. He argues, for Kant, “human beings are finite but can be infinite.” Moreover, he, on the one hand, criticizes Heidegger for withdrawing the dimension of absolute spontaneity, infinitude, (...) supersensibility and supratemporality from morality and, on the other hand, criticizes Kant for rejecting the possibility of a positive use of intellectual intuition. By the general insight of Chinese philosophy, which positively recognize the intellectual intuition, Mou believes that one can change the downside of Kantian philosophy and organically combine Western and Asian philosophy. (shrink)

作為現代新儒家第二代的重鎮，牟宗三著力凸顯“現代性在中國”的民族文化特質，並與西方現代性展開“吸收”與“批判”的雙向互動。本書將牟宗三哲學置於“古今”“中西”的交會點上，探析他立足儒家思想建構“中國現 代性”的哲學思考，揭示其積極貢獻與內在問題。以牟宗三這一個案審視現代新儒家應對全球化及現代化的理論思考，其意義在於一方面以現代哲學的話語對傳統儒學予以詮釋和重構，另一方面以儒家價值為西方現代性補偏救弊 。.

Mou Zongsan (牟宗三) extols Heidegger’s interpretation of human Dasein as “being-capable” and admits that he was inspired by Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant in many ways; however, although he, like Heidegger, emphasizes that human finitude is the basic premise of Kantian philosophy, he refuses to apply this premise to Kant’s philosophy as a whole. He argues, for Kant, “human beings are finite but can be infinite.” Moreover, he, on the one hand, criticizes Heidegger for withdrawing the dimension of absolute spontaneity, infinitude, (...) supersensibility and supratemporality from morality and, on the other hand, criticizes Kant for rejecting the possibility of a positive use of intellectual intuition. By the general insight of Chinese philosophy, which positively recognize the intellectual intuition, Mou believes that one can change the downside of Kantian philosophy and organically combine Western and Asian philosophy. (shrink)

Fuzhi’s philosophies of qi. In this essay, both the strength and weakness of their interpretations will be critically examined. As a contrast, an alternative interpretation of the School of qi in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism will be outlined. This new interpretation will uncover that, like Leibniz, Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi introduced a non-substantivalist approach in natural philosophy in terms of an innovative concept of force. This interpretation not only helps to show the limitations of Mou Zongsan’s and Tang Junyi’s understandings of (...) Zhang Zai’s and Wang Fuzhi’s doctrines of qi, but also indicates a way to bridge the traditional Chinese philosophy of nature and modern physics. More generally, our critical discussions will bring to light a new angle with which to re-appreciate Mou Zongsan’s and Tang Junyi’s contributions to the development of Confucianism. (shrink)

本书内容包括:“一切综合判断的最高原理”与逻辑的两层涉指格——牟宗三哲学思想演进的一条轴线、前逻辑起点的考察等。.