本书共分六章,对私法统一化中具有全局性和法哲学性质的问题进行论述。第一章“私法统一化的缘起”:作者对“私法”和“统一”进行界定后,详细论述了私法中财产法和人身法本质上的不同,进而提出私法统一化的根本原 因在于人的“需要层次”。第二章“私法统一化的历程”:作者认为私法统一化的历史比较久远,但相对于人类漫长的历史,私法统一化的成效并不显著。第三章“影响私法统一化的因素之解析”:本书从影响私法统一化的有利 因素和不利因素两方面,详细地分析了影响私法统一化的多种因素。由此我们可以在实践中因势利导,趋利避害,大大加快私法统一化的步伐。第四章“私法统一化的原因探索”:本书运用心理学的视角考察了私法统一化的原因 ,认为“安全需要说”才是私法统一化的最根本原因。第五章“私法统一化的正当化考量”:鉴于私法统一化进程本身所固有的渐进性和艰难性等诸多问题,作者认为,私法统一化的发展趋势只能是相对统一。第六章“私法统一 化语境下的中国”:在统一化的语境下,中国私法的未来发展问题,是应当认真研究的重大问题。作者分析了我国私法的立法既要顺应私法统一化趋势的原因,又要注意私法立法的本土化问题。.

This book is a study of the transformation of Chinese political consciousness during the post-Mao era. Departing from the common wisdom of the day that Deng Xiaoping’s pragmatic-oriented reform has made ideological discussions irrelevant, this book holds that while it is probably true that no single, fixed ideology has existed during the period, the ideological dimensions not only have persisted, but also can be analyzed systematically.

When stripped to the bare bone, there are only 11 foundational paradigms in social sciences. These foundational paradigms are like flashlights that can be utilized to shed light on different aspects of human society, but each of them can only shed light on a limited area of human society. Different schools in social science result from different but often incomplete combinations of these foundational paradigms. To adequately understand human society and its history, we need to deploy all 11 foundational paradigms, (...) although more limited combinations of them may be adequate for understanding more specific social facts. (shrink)

This book is a study of the transformation of Chinese political consciousness during the post-Mao era.

This book traces ideological trends in China through a range of historical and comparative perspectives, spanning the ancient belief systems of Confucianism, Legalism, and Taoism to political ideologies of the present day. Chapters in this edited volume are divided into four parts: traditional Chinese ideology, ideology of the Republic, Maoism as an ideology and post Mao ideology, zoning in on specific historical periods from the Qing and Republic periods to the reform era, as well as the period after the founding (...) of the PRC - through which Mao Zedong's political thought is notably discussed from the perspective of epistemology and the global impact of Maoism. Key topics include Sun Yat-sen as the Father of the Republic, Li Dazhao, the early Marxist theoretician, Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist Fascism, Liang Qichao's emotional appeals through liberal political discourse, Jiang Zemin's theory of 'Three Represents' de-emphasising the Marxist concept of class, Hu Jintao's theory of 'Harmonious Society' and Xi Jinping's political thought. Contributions from world-leading scholars take both comparative and critical approaches, examining not only how studies of ideology are relevant, but how Chinese ideologies have retained their own characteristics distinct to the West. As the first comprehensive study of this subject in the English language, Chinese Ideologywill appeal to students and scholars of philosophy, political science, history, and Asian studies more broadly. (shrink)

Urban rail transit can improve a city’s accessibility. However, high construction and operation costs restrict the development of urban rail transit. Value capture recoups the additional value that the investments of urban rail transit confer to local land and is considered to be an effective measure to alleviate this financial problem. Understanding the land value uplift effects of urban rail transit is essential for understanding value capture. This study applied a Space-P model of urban rail transit network based on complex (...) network theory and demonstrated the influence of urban rail transit network characteristics on residential and commercial land prices. The model was tested with eight metropolises in China, using the 2003 to 2022 timeframe as the context. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the number of nodes and the land prices, the average clustering coefficient was highly positively correlated with the land prices, and there was a significant negative correlation between the average path length and the land prices. This study provides theoretical support for value capture, is beneficial for urban rail transit planning, and supports improvements in the development quality of urban rail transit networks. (shrink)

If the coming of the last universal cellular ancestor marks the crossing of the “Darwinian Threshold”, pre-LUCA evolution must have been pre-Darwinian. But how did pre-Darwinian evolution actually operate? Bringing together and extending insights from both earlier and more recent contributions, this essay advances three principal arguments regarding the pre-Darwinian evolution. First, in the pre-Darwinian epoch, survival essentially meant persistence within the prebiotic system, and it depended mostly on chemical variation and interaction. Second, selection operated upon four different properties: chemical; (...) chemical-physical; vesicles’ capacities in absorbing, engulfing, and merging; and protocells’ coupling of metabolism, replication, and division. Third, division evolved from a state without tight coupling of replication with division to a state of tight coupling. Eventually, protocells with a tight coupling of replication with division became the First Universal Cellular Ancestors and then LUCA. (shrink)

Background eHealth was widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Much attention was given to the technical aspects of eHealth, such as infrastructure and cost, while the soft skill of compassion remained underexplored. The wide belief in compassionate care is more compatible with in-person interactions but difficult to deliver via e-platforms where personal and environmental clues were lacking urges studying this topic. Purpose to explore the experience of delivering compassionate care via an eHealth platform among healthcare professionals working to contain the (...) COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A qualitative study design with an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach was used. Twenty healthcare professionals (fifteen nurses and five physicians) who provided care using technology platforms, such as telephone hotlines, mobile apps, and social media, were interviewed individually. Ethical considerations Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board. Results Participants stated that “eHealth enabled compassionate care during the pandemic” by ensuring patient care availability and accessibility. They shared experiences of “communicating compassionate care via eHealth” with suggestions of addressing patients’ needs with empathy, adopting a structured protocol to guide eHealth communication, and using more advanced visual-media methods to promote human-to-human interaction. They recommended “setting realistic mutual expectations” considering the limitations of eHealth in handling complex health situations and staffing shortages. Participants considered “low eHealth literacy hinders compassion.” Additionally, they recommended the need for “institutional/system-level support to foster compassionate care.” Conclusion Participants recognized the importance of integrating compassion into eHealth services. Promotion of compassionate care requires standardization of eHealth services with institutional and system-level support. This also includes preparing adequate staffing who can communicate compassionate care via eHealth, set realistic expectation, and adjust communication to eHealth literacy level while meeting the needs of their patients. (shrink)

Guanxi as one of the key factors leading to business success in China (PRC) has ironically been synonymous with bribery. This raises some serious questions: should Western foreign firms do business in China? How should they do business with Chinese firms? This study investigated the relationship between guanxi orientation and cognitive moral development in an attempt to determine whether the level of guanxi orientation of Chinese business people affects their ethical reasoning. Based on a classification of Chinese enterprises (Nee, 1992), (...) it was found that Chinese enterprises rely on guanxi for business to different extents. However, their levels of cognitive moral development are not significantly different, suggesting that guanxi orientation has very little to do with ethical reasoning (as captured through an established measure of cognitive moral development). Furthermore, time in profession was found to positively affect guanxi orientation; however, age failed to predict guanxi orientation and education turned out to be a negative predictor of guanxi orientation. (shrink)

Enterprise philanthropy is practiced in a very unique and rudimentary form in China. Based on a unique random survey data on 3837 Chinese private enterprises conducted in 31 provinces of China in 2006, I find the significant positive relationship between enterprise philanthropy donation and enterprise profitability, and the result supports the political and institutional power view of enterprise philanthropy in the latest development of China. Simply put, Chinese private enterprises carried out philanthropy activities to better protect property rights and nurture (...) political connections, which in turn, leads to better enterprise profitability. The␣result is even stronger in institutions weaker provinces. (shrink)

An inclusive vision of mathematics-- its beauty, its humanity, and its power to build virtues that help us all flourish. For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a diverse audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves personal reflections, puzzles, and stories to (...) show how mathematics meets basic human desires and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. Readers will explore mathematical concepts-- and see how mathematical thinking can even fulfill such longings as for love, play, freedom, justice, and community. Some lessons come from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher Jackson's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can-- and must-- be open to all. (shrink)

What signals do firms in emerging economies send to stakeholders when they adopt corporate social responsibility practices? We argue that in emerging economies, firms that adopt CSR practices positively signal investors that their firms have superior capabilities for filling institutional voids. From an institution-based view, we hypothesize that the institutional environment moderates the signaling effect of CSR on a firm’s financial performance. Based on a sample of firms from ten Asian emerging economies, we find a positive relationship between CSR practices (...) and financial performance. This positive relationship is stronger in the less developed capital market than in the more developed one. The financial benefits of CSR practices are also more salient in the low information diffusion market than in the high one. We emphasize that signaling theory and the institution-based view can jointly contribute to the CSR literature. (shrink)

This paper documents that business ethics has positive impacts upon the development of intellectual capital. Knowledge has become the most important asset of modern businesses, and this study argues that business ethics is associated with the development of intangible knowledge resources—intellectual capital. Businesses with ethical values at the core reinforce ethical conducts and successfully build trust with their various stakeholders, leading to the formation of an ethical and trustworthy corporate culture and a positive corporate environment. Thus, in this reasoning, an (...) ethical approach to business can encourage open communication, problems solving, knowledge sharing and creativity among employees to increase organisational capital; enhance interactions and relationships with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders to increase social capital; attract and retain good talent to increase human capital. Questionnaire survey is adopted as the research method with businesses in the electronic and information technology industries in Taiwan as sample. The results suggest that business ethics is associated with increased intellectual capital. Thus, this study demonstrates that the development of intellectual capital is in line with strengthened ethics. It contributes to the literature through combining research on business ethics with intellectual capital theories and extends the extant intellectual capital literature. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy has been developing in China for over a century, and philosophers shaped by the analytic tradition have grown into an important philosophical community in China. The views of contemporary analytic philosophers in China on central philosophical issues and their similarities and differences with analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries have not been systematically investigated. Bourget and Chalmers have conducted two large-scale online questionnaire surveys on analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries. Inspired by their studies, a survey on analytic philosophers in (...) China was performed. It is found that philosophers in China had no agreement on most issues. According to the comparative analysis with the results of Bourget and Chalmers’ second survey, there were significant differences in views as well as thinking styles between analytic philosophers in China and English-speaking countries. And these differences may be partially explained by cultural factors and academic environments. (shrink)