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On “viewing things” and “viewing
nothing”: A dialogue between Confucianism and Phenomenology
HUANG Yushun
Front. Philos. China. 2008, 3 (2): 177-193.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-008-0012-z
In traditional Chinese expressions, guannian 壜_? (ideas) are results of guan 壜 (viewing). However, viewing can be understood to have two different levels of meanings: one is “viewing things,” that is, viewing with something to view; another is “viewing nothing,” that is, viewing with nothing to view. What are viewed in “viewing things” are either physical beings —all existing things and phenomena —or the metaphysical being (for example, the “Dao as a thing”). In both cases, something is being viewed. What is viewed in “viewing nothing” is the being itself, or “nothing,” in which there is nothing to view. According to Confucianism, the existence of “nothing” manifests itself as life sentiments, especially the sentiment of love, which is the very root and source of benevolence; moreover “viewing nothing” is, in essence, a perception of life. Life sentiments or the perception of life is “the thing itself ” prior to any being or any thing.
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A differentiation of the meaning of “qi”
on several levels
LI Cunshan
Front. Philos. China. 2008, 3 (2): 194-212.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-008-0013-y
In Chinese philosophy, although the concept of “qi” has numerous meanings, it is not completely without order or chaotic. Generally speaking, “qi” has several different levels of meanings, such as in philosophy, physics, physiology, psychology, ethics, and so on. On the philosophical level, “qi” is similar to “air,” and it is essentially similar to the “matter-energy” or “field” in physics, which refers to the origin or an element of all things in the world. It is from this point that the meanings of “qi” in physiology, psychology, ethics as well as aesthetics are derived. This paper analyzes the meanings of “qi” on five levels and seeks to clarify misunderstandings about “qi,” such as its alleged pan-vitalistic, conscious and pan-ethical characters.
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A transition of Chinese humanism and aesthetics
from rationalism to irrationalism —With a focus on the debate
between Li Zhi and Geng Dingxiang during the Ming Dynasty
XU Jianping
Front. Philos. China. 2008, 3 (2): 229-253.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-008-0015-9
Chinese people attach importance to intuition and imagery in ways of thinking that are quite sensible, but the result, i.e. the thoughts that are popularized in virtue of political power, are rather rational. These rational thoughts, which were influenced by Buddhism and continually became introspective, had been growing more irrational factors. Up to the middle and late Ming Dynasty, when the economy was developed, they merged with the growing emphasis on daily needs of food and clothes and the envisagement to the utilitarian circumstances, and finally broke through the threshold of rationalism. Under the attack of Geng Dingxiang, Li Zhi who emphasized these thoughts was forced beyond his previous boundaries and led a whole variation in how he viewed a series of issues including values, humanity, ethics and aesthetics. This indicated a historical change from rationalism to irrationalism in Chinese humanism and aesthetics thoughts.
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A critical analysis of structural realism
WANG Wei
Front. Philos. China. 2008, 3 (2): 294-306.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-008-0019-5
The epistemological version of structural realism, proposed by Cao Tianyu, has great influence in the philosophy of science. Syntheses has published a special volume discussing the topic. Cao criticizes anti-realism, as well as the epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism. From the concepts of structure, ontology, and construction, he analyzes the objectivity of scientific theories as having five aspects: construction, historicity, holism, revision, and revolution. This paper systematically analyzes and comments on Cao’s structural realism. The author agrees with his criticism of the under-determination thesis, is neutral to his argument against ontological discontinuity, and questions his universal language argument.
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A formal treatment of the causative constructions
in Chinese
ZOU Chongli
Front. Philos. China. 2008, 3 (2): 307-316.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-008-0020-z
There are at least five kinds of causative constructions in Chinese, the constructions of the collocation of verbs and prepositional phrases, verb-copying constructions, “ba” constructions with an object ahead, verb-copying constructions with their complements, and pivotal constructions with commands. But the current type-logical grammar has no tools representing the meanings of causative constructions. It would be neither intuitive nor simple to describe these constructions by means of the current type-logical grammar. So we intend to improve the type-logical grammar by adding CAUSE as a logical constant, complementing the structure rules about the movement and addition or deletion of some components of causative constructions, assigning categories to Chinese nouns and prepositions; then we give an intuitive as well as simple analysis on these causative constructions. Based on this work we shall extend the multimodal system of type-logical grammar, increase structure postulates, make constraints on frame semantics, and then prove the soundness and completeness of that system.
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