In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the XunziKurtis HagenVirtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Edited, with introduction, by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000. Pp. xvii + 268.Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe, is an anthology that has much to recommend it. It brings together several seminal (...) papers on Xunzi by established and distinguished scholars of Chinese philosophy, such as Antonio S. Cua, D. C. Lau, David S. Nivison, and Henry Rosemont, Jr. It also includes contributions from relative newcomers, who focused their dissertations on Xunzi's philosophy, namely T. C. Kline III and Eric Hutton. While most of these essays have been previously published, some appear in print for the first time in this volume. There is also a succinct introduction, name and subject indexes, and a targeted bibliography, which may serve as a reading list for those interested in supplementing their study of Xunzi. Another nicety is that references to passages in the Xunzi in older articles have been updated to include John Knoblock's translation1 as well as A Concordance to the Xunzi,2 and romanizations have been standardized to pinyin. [End Page 434]For the most part, the title Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi accurately represents the most prominent subject matter of the book. However, by "nature" what is meant is apparently "human nature," if that is an adequate translation for the concept Xunzi designates with the character xing. Xunzi's view of tian (the propensities of nature, the heavens) is not prominently discussed.3 Most of the essays, chapters 4 through 11 (the final chapter), deal extensively if not primarily with understanding Xunzi's conception of human nature. Chapters 5 through 7 are tied even closer together under the theme of moral agency (more on their connection below). Virtue is the topic of chapter 3 and plays a role in chapters 4 and 7.Although the first two chapters seem not to fall neatly within these categories, Henry Rosemont, Jr.'s contribution, "State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary," seems an appropriate choice for the lead chapter of this collection. A sweeping polemic in defense of Xunzi's political philosophy, this seminal essay demonstrates the philosophical strength and potential relevance of Xunzi's thought. Specifically, Rosemont argues that Xunzi's political system is no less "reasonable" than democracy, and that while Xunzi advocates what Karl Popper would call a "closed society," Xunzi's system is defensible against Popper's critique of such societies.4The second chapter, "Ethical Uses of the Past in Early Confucianism: The Case of Xunzi," is authored by Antonio S. Cua, who has been a consistent contributor to the understanding of Xunzi's philosophy for more than twenty years. A collection of essays on Xunzi would be incomplete without Cua's work being represented. However, given the themes of the book, it is not entirely clear why this particular piece was selected. While Cua has written on both human nature and virtue in the Xunzi, this essay only tangentially addresses the theme of virtue. Nevertheless, it exemplifies the kind of careful scholarship characteristic of Cua's work, and there is something to be said for an anthology like this to exhibit breadth as well as focus. In his contribution, Cua analyzes Xunzi's appeal to history in terms of its "pedagogical function," "rhetorical function," "elucidative function," and "evaluative function."In chapter 3, "Virtues in Xunzi's Thought," Jonathan W. Schofer offers a lucid depiction of Xunzi's moral theory as a kind of virtue theory, despite the lack of any systematic analysis on Xunzi's part of a specific set of virtues. He then suggests that, given Xunzi's theory and goals, the omission of any analysis of specific virtues may have been deliberate.The last eight chapters deal extensively with the issue of human nature. Chapter 4, "Xunzi: Morality as Psychological Constraint," by Joel J. Kupperman, compares Xunzi's and Mencius' conceptions of human nature. Kupperman argues that, unlike Mencius, Xunzi does not really have a "view of human... (shrink)

The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he looks to himself for all help or harm.– Epictetus [Enchiridion, 48]Make your rules of life brief, yet so as to embrace the fundamentals; recurrence to them will then suffice to remove all vexation, and send you back without fretting to the duties to which you must return. – Marcus Aurelius [Meditations, Book Four, 3]Epictetus was born a slave. Marcus Aurelius became an emperor. Both were Stoics, and adhered to the same (...) root principles of self-discipline, broadly sharing an understanding of the human condition. In this paper, I present, in skeletal outline, a simple program of personal governance derived from Roman Stoicism as espoused by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. What I have dubbed “The IDEAMethod” is my attempt to resuscitate a few central tenets of Stoic counsel and to explain and defend their efficacy for responding rationally and effectively to the many vicissitudes and challenges endemic to the human condition. I hope to breathe a bit of new life into a Stoic analysis of self-disciplinary propriety that served the needs of a slave, an emperor, and innumerable lives lived between those two material extremes. (shrink)

When the "human sciences" in the West followed the physical sciences in the 18th and 19th centuries with new measurements, methods, and language, the "metaphysics of infinity" lost its credibility. The response of Western religions was to retrench in a stronger authoritarianism, especially by the last half of the 19th century. While the new human sciences were being extended even to study the history and philosophy of religions, those religions themselves placed more emphasis on their understanding of the Absolute or (...) Unquestionable. That split became a burden both to those who were religious and to those who were not. Here, W. Royce Clark argues that humanity's survival may depend on the development of a universal or inclusive ethic in which religions move beyond their Absolutes. Clark poses the sharp challenge: Are religious communities ready to abandon the foundations that until now they have insisted were the only adequate foundation for ethics? (shrink)

How To Think Philosophically invites reflection on curiosity, wonder, and inquiry. Part I explains philosophy as a way of developing the disciplines and intellectual virtues for seeing and inhabiting the world. Part II introduces the domains of philosophical thinking: epistemology (how we know), metaphysics (what we know), and ethics (how to live).

Can poem and picture collaborate successfully in a composite art of text and design? Or does one art inevitably dominate the other? W.J.T. Mitchell maintains that Blake's illuminated poems are an exception to Suzanne Langer's claim that "there are no happy marriages in art—only successful rape." Drawing on over one hundred reproductions of Blake's pictures, this book shows that neither the graphic nor the poetic aspect of his composite art consistently predominates: their relationship is more like an energetic rivalry, a (...) dialogue between vigorously independent modes of expression. W.J.T. Mitchell is Professor of English and Art and Design at the University of Chicago and editor of Critical Inquiry. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Computational functionalism [5] fails to understand the embodied and situated nature of behaviour by taking steady state functions as theoretical primitives, and by interpreting cognitive behaviour from a language-like, observer dependant framework without a naturalized normativity. Evolutionary functionalism [28, 27], on the other hand, by grounding functional normativity on historical processes fails to give an account of normative functionality based on the present causal mechanism producing behaviour. We propose an alternative autonomous dynamical framework where functionality is defined as contribution to (...) self-maintenance [15, 10, 35] and normativity as satisfaction of closure criteria. We develop this framework by a set of formal definitions in the framework of dynamical system theory and propose the hypothesis of an homeostatic-plasticity [31, 40] based general purpose value system as an internalized normative mechanism that selects between internal state trajectories to produce adaptive functionality under different environmental conditions. To test the hypothesis we develop a simulation model where lower level specifications of a control arquitecture (an homeostatic plastic DRNN) give rise (through a simulated evolutionary process) to adaptive behaviour in a foraging task where food sources can be poisonous or profitable. Analysis of the evolved agent show that plastic changes occur when the agent produces salient adaptive interactions, those plastic changes determining the adaptive strategy. The embodied and interactive adaptive functionality is dynamically analysed, illustrating the autonomous dynamical framework. (shrink)

William Cunningham was a prominent British economist and economic historian. In this book, which was first published in 1917, Cunningham provides a concise guide to various aspects of political philosophy, with a particular focus on British political institutions. Appendices are included and textual notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in political philosophy and the nature of governance.