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The unity of identity and difference as the absoluteness of all relativity: Hui Shi and the longing for a different logic Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Jana S. Rošker
This paper addresses the question of whether it is possible to develop theoretical methods to reconcile absolute principles on the one hand and relative tenets on the other. I will look at this que...
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Confucian propriety without inequality: A Daoist (and feminist) re-construction Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Christine Abigail Lee Tan
This work is a thought experiment in re-interpreting the virtue of li or ritual/propriety for the contemporary, multi-cultural, world. Using Zhuangzi, the Lunyu, and Zhongyong as my primary points ...
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On Garfield and Priest’s interpretation of the use of the catuskoti in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Cong Wang, Wang Wen-fang
According to Garfield and Priest’s interpretation, the positive use of the catuskoti by Nāgārjuna in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) shows that he endorses a four-valued semantics similar to that of Bel...
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Zhuangzi’s ethical nihilism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 David E. Soles, Deborah H. Soles
Zhuangzi often is portrayed as a kind of ethical relativist. This popular reading has been challenged by Philip Ivanhoe, who argues that Zhuangzi is not a relativist but rather that Zhuangzi articu...
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Unity and multiplicity of Ibn ‘Arabī’s philosophy in Indonesian Sufism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Ismail Lala
The connection between the unity of God and the multiplicity seen in the universe represents the central concern for the Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240). It deeply affected the ...
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Assertive or indicative? A philosophical study on translating the Confucian concept you yu yi 游於藝 Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Le Li, Riccardo Moratto
This article delves into the philosophical nuances involved in translating the Confucian concept of you yu yi 游於藝 into English. The concept, which refers to engaging in various arts or skills, pose...
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A posthumanist reading of the “happy” fish in The Zhuangzi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Quan Wang
This article argues for an alternative interpretation of the happy fish scene in The Zhuangzi: the fish are not happy. The fish undergo an unpleasant experience while the philosophers debate animat...
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The idea of shan 善 (goodness): A neglected philosophical relation between Guodian’s ‘Wu xing’ and Xunzi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Fan He
The ‘Wu xing’ belongs to Guodian bamboo slips texts, which were buried around 300 BCE and excavated in 1993. Its relation with Mengzi is widely investigated. Yet how it is philosophically related t...
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Philosophical incantations (Itihāsa and Epode). The power of narrative reason in the Mahābhārata Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Raquel Ferrández Formoso
Both the itihāsa-s of the Mahābhārata and the Platonic philosophical ‘epode’ are often used to persuade in conditions where emotion threatens to incapacitate the person for argumentative discourse....
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A metaphysical interpretation of ‘Heaven’ and the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ as practice: Takada Shinji’s argument about the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Park Junhyun
The purpose of this paper is to examine Takada Shinji’s (1893–1975) view of the ‘Mandate of Heaven (天命 tenmei)’. Takada understood the ‘Imperial Way (皇道 kōdō)’ as one of two axes, the ‘Mandate of H...
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The internal and external dimensions of Liu Zongzhou’s self-cultivation theory Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Xin Guan
It is commonly argued that Liu Zongzhou was dissatisfied with the fact that some followers of Wang Yangming in the late Ming Dynasty paid insufficient attention to self-cultivation practices (gongf...
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Names exist when carving begins (shi zhi you ming 始制有名): A theory of names in Daodejing (道德經) Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Hao Hong
Naming or names (ming 名) is one of the key concepts in Daodejing (道德經). According to a popular understanding, names in Daodejing correspond to features (xing 形) of things; ordinary things have name...
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Intention, ethics, and convention in Daoism: Guo Xiang on ziran (self-so) and wuwei (non-action) Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Paul J. D’Ambrosio
Much contemporary scholarship on ziran and wuwei views these concepts, which are often coupled, as being 1) anti-intention, effort, purpose, and self-consciousness; 2) indicative of a distinct type...
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The evolution of Xuantong in early Daoist philosophy Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-12-10 Fan He
Xuantong 玄同 (tentatively translated as dark oneness) is a unique Daoist idea that represents an ideally mental and physical state as a result of cultivation. However, owing to limited context in th...
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Guo Xiang’s account of ideal personhood: Self-fulfillment without the admiration of sages Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-08-20 Wai Wai Chiu
Guo Xiang’s philosophy of life, presented in the Commentary on the Zhuangzi, is sometimes characterized as advocating that people should follow their inborn qualities and be content with their give...
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Zhuangzi as externalist: Reconciling two interpretations of the Happy Fish debate Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-08-13 Ranie B. Villaver
In the English language contemporary literature, there are mainly two philosophical approaches to interpretation of the Zhuangzi’s Happy Fish debate. The two approaches to the famous passage are th...
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A contextual review of the Nei 內 (internality) / Wai 外 (externality) debate in the Mencius Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Yuzhou Yang
The theme of ren nei yi wai (rnyw) 仁內義外 in the Mencius has been crucial for the understanding of traditional Confucian/Mencian xin-xing theory. However, contemporary studies inspired by new discove...
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On being “without-desire” in Lao-Zhuang Daoism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Jacob Bender
This study clarifies how and why Daoist philosophers critique desires. For the Daoists, desires perceptually obstruct the capacity for people to understand and interpret situations. In particular, ...
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Did Mīrdāmād believe in the primacy of quiddity? Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-06-26 Hamid Reza Khademi, Reza Hesari
Some scholars showed that Mīrdāmād believed in the ‘primacy of quiddity’ by adducing his theory of ‘the simple act of creation’ in which an entity’s quiddity is the ‘object‘ of the act of creation,...
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The multifaceted perspective: Confucius’ political philosophy as manifested in his perception and engagement with Ji Shi 季氏 (the Ji family) Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-06-20 Tae-Seung Lim
Three main themes emerge in Confucius’ response to the Ji family, reflecting the core tenets of his zeitgeist philosophy. Firstly, by criticizing the usurpation of Ji Shi 季氏 (the Ji family), he emp...
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Is there a universal priority in cases of value conflicts? —Reverse engineering Quan 權 Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-06-07 Yuhan Liang
ABSTRACT When we face a choice between two incompatible actions, is there a universal priority? The early Confucians used the notion of quan 權 to navigate conflicts. On the one hand, quan can be a mean of weighing or assessing. Through quan, agents should be able to recognize the most valuable action and arrive at a universal priority. Thus, quan entails impersonal reasoning. On the other hand, quan
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The silent speaker: A Nietzschean reading of Rūmī’s aesthetics of lyric poetry Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-05-08 Hamidreza Mahboobi Arani
ABSTRACT Lyric poetry, often regarded as the epitome of subjectivity in the realm of artistic expression, emerges from the depths of the poet’s personal emotions. Hence, in the aesthetic landscape of the nineteenth-century Germany, it was excluded from the inventory of genuine art forms, all of which were deemed to be objective and disinterested. Associating lyric poetry with music in its origin and
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Reasserting the primacy of xing (human nature) and self-cultivation (xiushen): Li Cai’s (1529-1607) defense of Confucianism against the interpenetration of the three teachings Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-05-05 Lunan Li
ABSTRACT By the late Ming, the concept of ‘the mind/heart-cum-principle’ 心即理 had generated confusion in the relations between xing (human nature) and xin (mind/heart). Moreover, with the increasing interpenetration of the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, some scholars became gravely concerned that the perversion of traditional Confucian thinking had resulted in the degeneration
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Am I the only mind that exists? Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-05-02 A. K. Jayesh
ABSTRACT This article offers an argument against solipsism, the view that there is only one mind that exists, my own, and that the world is a projection of my mind. In the initial sections of the article, we offer a reductio ad absurdum argument against solipsism. For context and clarification, we draw from a number of Asian and Western philosophers, including notably from the Buddhist philosopher
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Buddhism and Spinoza on the three kinds of knowledge Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Soraj Hongladarom
ABSTRACT The conceptions of three kinds of knowledge in Buddhism and in Spinoza are compared. There are both similarities and differences in the two conceptions, both of which provide interesting insights into both traditions. The similarities are that the three kinds of knowledge represent a hierarchical structure, starting from the first kind, characterized by sense perception. The second kind for
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Obituary: Dr Brian Carr (1946–2022) Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Ian Richard Netton
Published in Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East (Vol. 33, No. 2, 2023)
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A new critique of Mou Zongsan’s Kantian interpretation of Mengzi’s ethics Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-01-03 Xiangnong Hu
ABSTRACT The New Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan once compared the ethics of Mengzi to that of Kant, claiming that Mengzi’s ethics shares the same fundamental features with Kant’s and can therefore be better understood through a Kantian lens. This paper aims to argue against Mou by elaborating on two important but hitherto insufficiently addressed differences between Kant’s and Mengzi’s ethics. First
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Reiteration and automaton: A posthumanist reading of repetition in Zhuangzi and Jacques Lacan Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-12-28 Quan Wang
ABSTRACT This article compares repetition in Zhuangzi and Jacques Lacan from three perspectives: repetition as a mechanism, a revelation, and a solution. First, repetition enables us to detect underlying structures. Zhuangzi loses himself in observing the intricate animal relationships (the mantis, cicada, magpie) without any knowledge of being watched over by a garden-keeper. Lacan rewrites these
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Yangsheng 養生 as ‘making a living’ in the Zhuangzi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-12-08 Kevin J. Turner
ABSTRACT The story of the butcher Pao Ding is one of the best known from the Zhuangzi 莊子. The key concept in this story is yangsheng 養生. This has been understood as involving the preservation of life through various methods of cultivation. However, one insightful perspective has yet to be considered: work. This article sets the stage for understanding yangsheng in terms of work by appealing to Western
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Reading Nishida Kitarō as a New Confucian: With a Focus on His Early Moral Philosophy Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-12-05 Wing Keung Lam
ABSTRACT This paper attempts to read Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) as a New Confucian, with a focus on his early moral philosophy. While the influence of Buddhism on Nishida’s philosophy is surely significant, this paper argues that it is actually Confucianism which plays a more important role. It is for this reason that fruitful comparisons can be made between his work and the so-called New Confucianism
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Śaṅkara’s philosophy of dreaming: Constructing an unreal world Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Neil Dalal
ABSTRACT This article analyzes Śaṅkara’s use of dreaming in Advaita Vedānta. For Śaṅkara, dreaming functions philosophically as a direct phenomenal inquiry into mind and consciousness. Dreaming also functions as a syllogistic illustration. While dreaming, we experience unreal objects that do not exist apart from our minds. Dreaming thus illustrates the waking world’s nonrealism despite perceiving it
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The concept of svasaṃvedana in Dignāga and Candrakīrti Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-09-08 Tsering Nurboo
ABSTRACT The concept of reflexive awareness (Sanskrit svasaṃvedana or svasaṃvitti, Tibetan rang rig) is considered an important epistemological notion in the Dignāga tradition of Buddhist pramāṇa theory. The traditionally accepted view is that Dignāga advocates Yogācāra’s notion of reflexive awareness in the Pramāṇasamuccaya and Candrakīrti rejects it altogether. By contrast, the present paper revisits
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A logical analysis of the debate on Hao River Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-08-05 Xudong Hao
ABSTRACT The debate between Zhuangzi and Huizi has profound epistemological significance, however, the main body of their debate comprises logical inferences and refutations. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the logical aspects of the debate. Some scholars have suggested that Huizi’s argument is self-contradictory; however, in fact, based on such evaluations of Huizi’s argument, we can conclude
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Apocalyptic claims and the everyday: Tosaka Jun, history, and journalism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-08-01 Emerson R. Bodde
ABSTRACT In this paper, drawing upon Tosaka Jun’s response to Interwar debates on historicism and his account of everydayness, I offer an explanation for why contemporary secular apocalyptic claims lack convergence by focusing on the historical dimension of such claims. Everydayness, organized the routines of work and rest, is shown to be the basis for a sense of historical time, and theoretical journalism
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The origin of human morality: An evolutionary perspective on Mencius’s notion of sympathy Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-07-17 Kanghun Ahn
ABSTRACT This paper investigates Mencius’s notion of sympathy from the perspective of evolutionary biology. First, I point out that Mencius and evolutionary biologists concur that humans are endowed with a unique ability to sympathize with others beyond kin and friends. Subsequently, I offer an analytic account from an evolutionary perspective on how this ability emerged and developed as an innate
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On the philosophical function of the ‘sage’ in the Laozi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-07-13 Paul J. D’Ambrosio
ABSTRACT In philosophical interpretations of the Laozi the function of the ‘sage’ is a relatively under concentrated on topic. Although nearly every scholar does have something to say about the sage, comments are usually brief and often revolve around the sage as some particular character-type; for example highlighting the sage as a ‘sage-ruler’. In this article we will argue that the sage serves as
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Some suggestions on playing games through reading the 15th Assembly of the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Che-Yuan Hsiao
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the relation between meditative practices and games, and argues that it is reasonable to see meditative practices as games based on structural features they have in common as well as the text in the 15th Assembly of the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, which teaches the perfection of meditative absorption and compares meditative practices to playing games implicitly. This paper then
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Avicenna on the problem of God’s knowledge of multiple things Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-06-11 Amirhossein Zadyousefi
ABSTRACT (i) God is omniscient; therefore, for any two propositions, P1 and P2, God knows both that P1 and P2. (ii) If God knows multiple things, then God is not simple. (iii) But, God is supposed to be a simple being. As is clear, propositions (i)–(iii) form an inconsistent triad. This is the general form of one of the problems, which I call the Problem of Plurality (PP), with which Avicenna was engaged
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Sensibility and moral values in Mengzi’s metaethics Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-05-11 Meng Zhang
ABSTRACT This paper examines the current scholarship on Mengzi’s metaethical thoughts and reconstructs Mengzi’s view to contribute to our understanding of the relation between sensibility and the apparent objectivity of morality. I first overview two features of morality that an adequate metaethical theory needs to account for—the apparent objectivity and the motivational force of moral values, highlighting
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The art of setting up authority: Han Fei’s doctrine of Shi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Liang Liu
ABSTRACT Shi is fundamental and indispensable in understanding Han Fei’s political philosophy. Han Feizi presents a political term with different meanings such as power, status, and situation. Han Fei’s doctrine of Shi attempts to consolidate and strengthen the prince’s Shi by limiting the subjects’ status and power. Any knighthood or government position must be granted by following suitable inheritance
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The skillful living in the Zhuangzi, Buddhism, and Stoicism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-04-19 Yu Jiang-Xia
ABSTRACT The significant role of skill in Zhuangzi’s good life has been argued by most Zhuangzi scholars. However, there is ongoing debate concerning the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that underwrite the skillful activity and the way it contributes to a good life. Based on previous research, this paper makes a comparative study between Buddhism, Daoism, and Stoicism. The aim is to prove that
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Path-bound normativity and a Confucian case of historical holism Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-03-07 Yujian Zheng
ABSTRACT I bring a new thesis of historical holism to bear on the well-known Mencius-Xunzi dispute about xing/性. The significance of doing so seems bi-directional: in the first direction, i.e. applying the thesis to the dispute, my reconstruction of both Mencius’s and Xunzi’s views aims at revealing a largely neglected but important aspect of Confucian thought. While in the second direction, whoever
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Sage and great person in Zhang Zai’s thought Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-03-04 Yunwoo Song
ABSTRACT The idea of the Confucian sage-king can be politically dangerous if the implication is that anyone can become a sage through learning. But Confucians after the Han dynasty generally saw the task of becoming a sage practically impossible, while Neo-Confucians after the Song distinguished between the moral and the political authorities. Zhang Zai of the Northern Song dynasty, however, maintained
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Nishida Kitarō and Muhammad ‘Abduh on God and reason: Towards a theology of place Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
ABSTRACT I compare the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945) with the Egyptian philosopher and reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905). Both philosophies emerged within similar cultural contexts. Both thinkers attempt to think relationships between the individual and the universal through organic models. In parallel, both philosophies produce paradoxical positions regarding the integration of
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Qian Mu reads Zhuangzi: Regarding ‘there has not yet begun to be a “there has not yet begun to be nothing”’ Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-02-24 John R. Williams
ABSTRACT To advance our understanding of both the Book of Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 (c. fourth to third century BCE) and Qián Mù 錢穆 (1895–1990)’s Zhuāngzǐ studies 莊學, I aim to squarely face one of the more obscure passages in the former with recourse to an explanation from the latter. The passage in question is that from the second chapter beginning with the claim ‘there is a beginning’ (有始也者) and culminating with
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Miki Kiyoshi’s Philosophy of History and the historical role of myth Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-02-03 Fernando Wirtz
ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that Miki’s concept of myth offers a continuation and consolidation of his Philosophy of History (1932), providing an important conceptual tool to comprehend his philosophical project. To understand Miki’s originality, it is important to contrast his conception of history with that of Rickert’s, one of Miki’s professors during his stay in Germany. Although scholarship
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Mindfulness and attention: Towards a phenomenology of mindfulness as the feeling of being tuned in Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-01-31 Erol Čopelj
ABSTRACT There is a consensus in the contemporary literature that mindfulness is a kind of attention. From here the literature divides into two opposing camps:the ‘Quietists’ and the ‘Cognitivists’. For the Quietists mindfulness is ‘bare attention’: the kind of attention that remains when all higher-order mental activity is suspended. For the Cognitivists, by contrast, mindfulness is a kind of retentive
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A neglected interpretation of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Amirhossein Zadyousefi
ABSTRACT It seems Avicenna’s passages regarding God’s knowledge of particulars are susceptible of being given two different types of interpretation. The main difference between these two accounts of his theory concerning God’s knowledge of particulars is that one of them, which I call the Neglected Interpretation, appeals to some metaphysical entities as the proxies of concrete particular objects,
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Thought-suppression in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra: against Ian Whicher’s interpretation of Patañjali’s yoga Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-09-30 Joseph Suk-Hwan Dowd
ABSTRACT The Pātañjalayogaśāstra (PYŚ) is typically understood to define yoga as thought-suppression. In several publications, Ian Whicher has sought to avoid the conclusion that the PYŚ endorses thought-suppression by proposing that the PYŚ’s definition of yoga refers not to thought-suppression but to liberation from the puruṣa’s misidentification with the mind. I argue that Whicher’s proposal is
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Forgetting oneself or personal identity in relation to time and otherness in the Zhuangzi Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-09-30 Youru Wang
ABSTRACT This article is one of the author’s serial writings to assimilate Ricoeur’s three-fold ethical investigation into various areas of human acts of forgetting, including 1) the therapeutic or pathological area, 2) the pragmatic area, dealing with individual and group’s self-identity in relation to time and otherness, and 3) the more explicitly ethical-political (social and institutional) area
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The inconsistencies in Wang Chong’s Lunheng eliminated in the light of analogical reasoning Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-09-29 Yingjin Xu
ABSTRACT To have a coherent picture of Wang Chong’s Lunheng is difficult. Some of Lunheng’s chapters obviously show Wang’s hostility to a large part of the folklore (including the social institutions based on it) and traditional philosophical texts. In some other chapters, however, Wang appears to be more sympathetic to the social institutions related to folk religious beliefs. Esther Sunkyung Klein
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Ren 仁 (Humaneness) and Li 禮 (Ritual) in a painting metaphor from the perspective of contextual individuality Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Yuzhou Yang
ABSTRACT The contextual dimension of ren or li is celebrated in English studies of Confucian ethics. However, it often gives way to the issue of individual practice in studies concerning the relationship between ren and li due perhaps to an excessive focus on personal moral development. Inspired by a painting metaphor from the Analects, the present study reassesses this unbalanced approach to the ren-li
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The scope of the pramāṇas in classical and postclassical Sāṃkhya Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-08-30 Ołena Łucyszyna
ABSTRACT One of the lively polemics between Buddhists and Naiyāyikas is devoted to the question of whether each pramāṇa—means of knowledge—has an independent scope of validity, which does not overlap the scopes of other pramāṇas, or whether more than one pramāṇa can be applied to the same object. Dignāga and continuators of his thought defend pramāṇa-vyavasthā, ‘autonomy of [the object spheres of]
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Is Mohism really li-promotionalism? Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-07-30 Yun Wu, Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi
ABSTRACT A longstanding orthodoxy holds that the Mohists regard the promotion of li (benefit, 利) as their ultimate normative criterion, meaning that they measure what is yi (just, 義) or buyi (unjust, 不義) depending on whether it maximizes li or not. This orthodoxy dates back at least to Joseph Edkins (1859), who saw Mozi as a utilitarian and an ally of Bentham. In this paper, we will argue that this
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Confucian freedom: assessing the debate Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-05-04 Robert A. Carleo III
ABSTRACT What place does freedom have in Confucianism? We find a wide spectrum of views on the matter: some deny that Confucians value or even conceive of freedom, while others celebrate uniquely exalted forms of Confucian freedom. This paper examines the range of proposals, finding consensus among these diverse views in that all identify distinctive Confucian emphases on (i) subjective affirmation
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Differences and similarities between the later-Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion and the Islamic mystical tradition Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-04-26 Vahid Taebnia
ABSTRACT Despite all fundamental divergences, the similarities formed between some interpretations of the later-Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion and the tradition of Islamic Mysticism (Sufism), can yet be philosophically recognized. These basic analogies are as follows: 1) The inextricability of belief and practice and the priority of practice over knowledge 2) The characterization of the core
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Eastern and Western creativity of tradition Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-05-27 ConRong Wang, Qiduan Chen
ABSTRACT Western creativity is usually entrusted to the human imagination, regarded as a mental power capable of envisioning eternally original artefacts, while in the East creativity is entrusted to nature-in-the human, what Taoist philosophy calls qi, a spiritual power capable of reflecting the passing changes of nature in paintings, poems, and other forms of art. It is the intention of this paper
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Existence as a first-order predicate: Themes from Mirdamad Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-05-14 Davood Hosseini
ABSTRACT Mirdamad, a prominent philosopher of the Late Medieval Period active in the Islamic world, regards existence as nothing in reality. In this paper, I employ methods devised by contemporary analytic philosophers to reinterpret his theory of existence. Based on my interpretation, this theory of existence has many aspects. Metaphysically, existence is nothing in reality. In effect, it is not a
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On self-deception: from the perspective of Zhu Xi’s moral psychology Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-04-30 Kaili Wang
ABSTRACT In order to construct a satisfactory theory of cheng-yi 誠意 (making thoughts sincere), Zhu Xi 朱熹 develops an account of how self-deception (zi-qi 自欺) is possible—a profound problem that has puzzled many philosophers. In Zhu’s opinion, zhi 知 (knowing) can be divided into two categories: a priori knowing and empirical knowing. The further division of empirical knowing defines three sorts of self-deception:
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Re-visiting the role of craft in Zhuangzi’s philosophy Asian Philosophy Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Raymond W.K. Lau
ABSTRACT In the ‘Cook Ding cutting up an ox’ parable, Zhuangzi advanced a doctrine on craft and its relationship with Dao. With reference to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in conjunction with an analysis of Zhuangzi’s epistemological position, we argue that Zhuangzi understood craft as involving the supersession of the cognitive. In craft, the relationship between human and world is non-cognitive and ‘pre-objective’