Author : Jane Geaney
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 43,70 MB
Release : 2002-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780824825577
By departing from traditional sinological approaches, this method uncovers a detailed picture of certain shared underlying views of sense perception in the Lun Yu, the Mozi (including the Neo Mohist Canons), the Xunzi, the Mencius, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi."--BOOK JACKET.
Author : Donald James Sturgeon
Publisher : Open Dissertation Press
Page : pages
File Size : 35,65 MB
Release : 2017-01-26
Category :
ISBN : 9781361342138
This dissertation, "Knowledge in Early Chinese Thought" by Donald James, Sturgeon, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Early Chinese philosophical texts contain discussions of the nature, origins, and possibility of knowledge, in which both positive accounts and skeptical responses to them are couched in importantly different terms to those most familiar from similar discussions in Western philosophy. In place of appeals to truth, belief, and fallibility of the senses, action, discrimination, and difference of perspective play crucial roles. The aim of this dissertation is to explain why this should be so, and what consequences this had for the early Chinese understanding of knowledge. In an attempt to answer these questions, I argue that, likely influenced by both facts about the classical Chinese language and key philosophical trends and interests of the time, discussions of knowledge by early Chinese thinkers generally referenced a broad notion of knowledge that was seen as being closely related to action. Linguistic factors also contributed to theorizing about knowledge focusing not on beliefs or other sentential structures, but rather on the drawing of action-guiding shi-fei distinctions, and the same shi-fei framework that was applied to perception was also applied to knowledge. Language, understood most fundamentally in terms of an ability to distinguish shi-fei and apply names to things in the correct way, also played an important role in the pre‐Qin understanding of knowledge. On a linguistic level, knowledge corresponded to reliably correct language use, and rigid fa (法 standards, models) were seen as underwriting this by providing the standard of correctness. Just as these fa could be used to measure the correctness of individual terms, thinkers interested in the correctness of doctrines and speech in general attempted to apply the same idea to larger linguistic structures such as sentences, in the hope of finding fa for correct language use at a higher level. In doing so, they discovered facts about natural language use that could not be accounted for using the types of fa they considered. Likely in part influenced by similar observations, others called into question the existence and uniqueness of standards in general and the adequacy of language in expressing knowledge. I argue that the prevailing positive view of knowledge ultimately gave rise to an interesting and nuanced form of skepticism grounded in a form of perspectivism. This skepticism does not merely have the negative consequence that we should question some of our knowledge commitments, but can also be used to suggest that - while still doubting - we can make practical use of our skepticism to improve our knowledge by considering a wider range of perspectives. DOI: 10.5353/th_b5204917 Subjects: Philosophy, Chinese
Author : Donald James Sturgeon
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 36,35 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Philosophy, Chinese
ISBN :
Author : Brook Ziporyn
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 39,67 MB
Release : 2012-09-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1438442890
Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledgethe subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditionsas all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.
Author : Leigh Jenco
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 12,33 MB
Release : 2016-05-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1438460457
Using Chinese thought, explores how non-Western thought can structure generally applicable social and political theory. With a particular focus on Chinese thought, this volume explores how, and under what conditions, so-called non-Western traditions of thought can structure generally applicable social and political theory. Reversing the usual comparison between local Chinese application and universal theory, the work demonstrates how Chinese experiences and ideas offer systematic insight into shared social and political dilemmas. Contributors discuss how medieval Chinese understandings of causal heterogeneity can relieve impasses within contemporary historiography, how current economic and social conditions in China respond proactively to the future configuration of world markets, and how hybrid modes of cross-cultural engagement offer new foundations for the enterprise of learning from cultural others. Each chapter works from Chinese perspectives to theorize the location of knowledge, its conditions of production, and the modes through which its content or adequacy is legitimated, challenged, and sustained. Rather than reproducing Eurocentric knowledge production in Chinese form, the mobilization of Chinese thought as a generally applicable body of theory actually breaks down clear boundaries between Chinese and non-Chinese thought.
Author : Barry Allen
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 49,5 MB
Release : 2015-04-07
Category : History
ISBN : 0674335910
Barry Allen explores the concept of knowledge in Chinese thought over two millennia and compares the different philosophical imperatives that have driven Chinese and Western thought. Challenging the hyperspecialized epistemology of modern Western philosophy, he urges his readers toward an ethical appreciation of why knowledge is worth pursuing.
Author : Alexus McLeod
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 50,31 MB
Release : 2022-03-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 135020403X
"Transcendence and Substance in Early Chinese Thought offers a new account of the history of early Chinese philosophy, as well as a reconsideration of current understandings of early Chinese thought, by focussing on transcendence and substance. These two concepts are sometimes seen as being at odds with naturalist approaches to philosophy. By offering a robust account of early Chinese thought, Alexus McLeod and Joshua R. Brown argue that in fact non-naturalist positions can be found in early Chinese texts, in topics including transcendence, substance, soul-body dualism, and divinity. Moreover, by closely examining a range of early Chinese texts, and providing comparative readings of a number of Western texts and thinkers, this book offers a way of reading early Chinese Philosophy as consistent with the religious philosophy of the East and West, including the Abrahamic and the Brahmanistic religions. Co-written by a philosopher and theologian, this book draws out unique insights into early Chinese thought, highlighting in particular new ways to consider a range of Chinese concepts, including tian, dao, qi, xing, and win"--
Author : Brook Ziporyn
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 29,72 MB
Release : 2012-09-20
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1438442904
Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledge—the subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditions—as all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.
Author : Yan Xuetong
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 36,7 MB
Release : 2013-08-25
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1400848954
From China's most influential foreign policy thinker, a vision for a "Beijing Consensus" for international relations The rise of China could be the most important political development of the twenty-first century. What will China look like in the future? What should it look like? And what will China's rise mean for the rest of world? This book, written by China's most influential foreign policy thinker, sets out a vision for the coming decades from China's point of view. In the West, Yan Xuetong is often regarded as a hawkish policy advisor and enemy of liberal internationalists. But a very different picture emerges from this book, as Yan examines the lessons of ancient Chinese political thought for the future of China and the development of a "Beijing consensus" in international relations. Yan, it becomes clear, is neither a communist who believes that economic might is the key to national power, nor a neoconservative who believes that China should rely on military might to get its way. Rather, Yan argues, political leadership is the key to national power, and morality is an essential part of political leadership. Economic and military might are important components of national power, but they are secondary to political leaders who act in accordance with moral norms, and the same holds true in determining the hierarchy of the global order. Providing new insights into the thinking of one of China's leading foreign policy figures, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in China's rise or in international relations.
Author : Zehou Li
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 30,41 MB
Release : 2019-08-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1000651134
Li Zehou is widely regarded as one of China’s most influential contemporary thinkers. He has produced influential theories of the development of Chinese thought and the place of aesthetics in Chinese ethics and value theory. This book is the first English-language translation of Li Zehou’s work on classical Chinese thought. It includes chapters on the classical Chinese thinkers, including Confucius, Mozi, Laozi, Sunzi, Xunzi and Zhuangzi, and also on later eras and thinkers such as Dong Zhongshu in the Han Dynasty and the Song-Ming Neo-Confucians. The essays in this book not only discuss these historical figures and their ideas, but also consider their historical significance, and how key themes from these early schools reappeared in and shaped later periods and thinkers. Taken together, they highlight the breadth of Li Zehou’s scholarship and his syncretic approach—his explanations of prominent thinkers and key periods in Chinese intellectual history blend ideas from both the Chinese and Western canons, while also drawing on contemporary thinkers in both traditions. The book also includes an introduction written by the translator that helpfully explains the significance of Li Zehou’s work and its prospects for fostering cross-cultural dialogue with Western philosophy. A History of Chinese Classical Thought will be of interest to advanced students and scholars interested in Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, and Chinese intellectual and social history.
