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Legitimacy Of Chinese Philosophy
The debate over whether the ancient Chinese masters can be counted as philosophers has been discussed since the introduction of this academic discipline into China about a hundred years ago. Cultural immersion in the West by figures such as Hu Shih and Feng Youlan led to an increased interest in a Chinese philosophy and stimulated the creation of this field which had not yet been labeled nor discussed as such until this point. Feng Youlan made a distinction between ''Zhongguo de zhexue'' ny philosophical activity pursued in Chinaand ''Zhongguo di zhexue'' ndigenous philosophy from Chinese soil The debates over the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy primarily concern the indigenous philosophy of China. They range in their central focus: whether the discipline of “philosophy” existed in traditional Chinese thought; whether the subjects and issues involved in the discipline existed in Chinese thought; and whether the now established discipline of Chinese philosophy can be truly ...
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Hu Shih
Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese liberalism and language reform in his advocacy for the use of written vernacular Chinese. He was influential in the May Fourth Movement, one of the leaders of China's New Culture Movement, was a president of Peking University, and in 1939 was nominated for a Nobel Prize in literature. He had a wide range of interests such as literature, philosophy, history, textual criticism, and pedagogy. He was also an influential redology scholar and held the famous Jiaxu manuscript () for many years until his death. Biography Early life Hu was born on December 17, 1891, in Shanghai to Hu Chuan () and his third wife Feng Shundi (). Hu Chuan was a tea merchant who became a public servant, serving in Manchuria, Hainan, and Taiwan. After Hu Shih's birth, Hu ...
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Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and their allies represented the "Second World". This terminology provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on political divisions. Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term ''Third World'' has decreased in use. It is being replaced with terms such as developing countries, least developed countries or the Global South. The concept itself has become outdated as it no longer represents the current political or economic state of the world and as historically poor countries have transited different income stages ...
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Comparative Research
Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences exemplified in cross-cultural or comparative studies that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may define categories differently (for example by using different definitions of poverty) or may not use the same categories. Definition Comparative research, simply put, is the act of comparing two or more things with a view to discovering something about one or all of the things being compared. This technique often utilizes multiple disciplines in one study. When it comes to method, the majority agreement is that there is no methodology peculiar to comparative research.Heidenheimer, Heclo & Adams 1983: 505 The multidisciplinary approach is good for the flexibility it offers, yet comparative programs do have a case to answer against the call that their research lacks a "seamless whole." There are certain ...
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Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Ancient Greek philosophy and the Western and Middle Eastern philosophies descended from it. He has also shaped religion and spirituality. The so-called neoplatonism of his interpreter Plotinus greatly influenced both Christianity (through Church Fathers such as Augustine) and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi). In modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche diagnosed Western culture as growing in the shadow of Plato (famously calling Christianity "Platonism for the masses"), while Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tra ...
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Wise Old Man
The wise old man (also called senex, sage or sophos) is an archetype as described by Carl Jung, as well as a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character. The wise old man can be a profound philosopher distinguished for wisdom and sound judgment. Traits This type of character is typically represented as a kind and wise, older father-type figure who uses personal knowledge of people and the world to help tell stories and offer guidance that, in a mystical way, may impress upon his audience a sense of who they are and who they might become, thereby acting as a mentor. He may occasionally appear as an absent-minded professor, appearing absent-minded due to a predilection for contemplative pursuits. The wise old man is often seen to be from a different culture, nation, or occasionally time, from those he advises. In extreme cases, he may be a liminal being, such as Merlin, who was only half human. In medieval chivalric romance and modern fantasy literature, he ...
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Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism ( ) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the social sciences under a system of natural law. It answers why-questions by a scheme of four causes, including purpose or teleology, and emphasizes virtue ethics. Aristotle and his school wrote tractates on physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Any school of thought that takes one of Aristotle's distinctive positions as its starting point can be considered "Aristotelian" in the widest sense. This means that different Aristotelian theories (e.g. in ethics or in ontology) may not have much in common as far as their actual content is concerned besides their shared reference to Aristotle. In Aristotle's time, philosophy included natur ...
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Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing offers to help him escape. Plato's dialogues are among the most co ...
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Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral way. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. While there is no general agreement on how formal and informal logic are to be distinguished, one prominent approach associates their difference with whether the studied arguments are expressed in formal or informal languages. Logic plays a central role in multiple fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises together with a conclusion. Premises and conclusions are usually un ...
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Mou Zongsan
Mou Zongsan (; 1909–1995) was a Chinese philosopher and translator. He was born in Shandong province and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and later to Hong Kong, and he remained outside of mainland China for the rest of his life. His thought was heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant, whose three Critiques he translated from English, possibly first,• Chan, Wing-Cheuk. "Mou Zongsan's Transformation Of Kant'S Philosophy." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33.1 (2006): 125-39. Print. into Chinese, and above all by Tiantai Buddhist philosophy. Over the last 40 years of his life, Mou wrote histories of " Neo-Daoist," Confucian, and Buddhist philosophy (totaling six volumes) a group of constructive philosophic treatises, culminating in his 1985 work, ''On the Summum Bonum'' (), in which he attempts to rectify the problems in Kant's system through a Confucian-based philosophy reworked with a set of concepts appropriated from Tiantai Buddhism. In the People's ...
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Kantian
Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. Ethics Kantian ethics are deontological, revolving entirely around duty rather than emotions or end goals. All actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle, which are vastly different from each other; it is according to this that the moral worth of any action is judged. Kant's ethics are founded on his view of rationality as the ultimate good and his belief that all people are fundamentally rational beings. This led to the most important part of Kant's ethics, the formulation of the categorical imperative, which is the criterion for whether a maxim is good or bad. Simply put, this criterion amounts to a thought experiment: to attempt to universalize the maxim (by imagining a worl ...
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Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Confucius's teachings and philosophy underpin East Asian culture and society, remaining influential across China and East Asia to this day. Confucius considered himself a transmitter for the values of earlier periods which he claimed had been abandoned in his time. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity. His followers competed with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era, only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. After the collapse of Qin and the victory of Han over Chu, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction in the new government. During the Tan ...
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Ren (Confucianism)
''Ren'' (, meaning "co-humanity" or "humaneness") is the Confucian virtue denoting the good quality of a virtuous human when being altruistic. ''Ren'' is exemplified by a normal adult's protective feelings for children. It is considered the outward expression of Confucian ideals. Yan Hui, one of the Four Sages, once asked his master to describe the rules of ''ren''. Confucius replied, "One should see nothing improper, hear nothing improper, say nothing improper, do nothing improper." Confucius also defined ''ren'' in the following way: "wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others." Confucius also said, "''Ren'' is not far off; he who seeks it has already found it." ''Ren'' is close to man and never leaves him. Gang Xu more specifically defined ''ren'' as "empathy", as elaborated by Confucius that "So, a man of Ren helps others become established if he desires to establish himself, and helps ...
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