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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan Feb 2024

Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper compares criticisms of Singapore’s meritocracy, especially against its impact on income disparities and class divisions, with Michael Sandel’s critique of the meritocratic ethic in the United States. Despite significant differences in their history and politics, meritocracy has similar dysfunctions in both societies, allowing us to draw theoretical conclusions about meritocracy as an ideal of governance. It then contrasts Sandel’s communitarian critique of meritocracy with recent Confucian promotion of political meritocracy and meritocratic justice and argues that the Confucian principle of “promoting the virtuous and talented” is different from the contemporary conception of meritocracy. Textual evidence indicates that a …


Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan Feb 2024

Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article engages the views of PRC Confucian scholars who responded to the United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's citing of Confucius in his majority opinion on same-sex marriage in 2015. It questions their separation of tolerance for homosexuality from legalization of same-sex marriage and argue that tolerance is not enough. The arguments in the mainland Confucian discourse about same-sex marriage highlights the historical and persistent entanglement of Confucianism with patriarchy. Instead of reviving traditional patriarchal society, further entrenching and increasing gender inequality, contemporary Confucianism could shape its own unique modern society that aspires to (and hopefully one day …


Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton Sep 2023

Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …


Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik Jan 2023

Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is common knowledge that Martin Heidegger’s attempts at engaging non-Western philosophy are very much a construct of his own making. This article in no way seeks to disagree with those observations, but argues two things: first, that Heidegger’s “dialogue” with his two main other sources of inspiration, the ancient Greek thinkers and the German poets, is not different in kind or in principle from his engagement with East Asia. One can of course quite easily argue that Heidegger’s main interest was the ancient Greek thinkers, and then the poets, and only lastly Asia. But this hierarchy in preference does …


Country Report: The Teaching Of Philosophy In Singapore Schools, Steven Burik, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra Dec 2020

Country Report: The Teaching Of Philosophy In Singapore Schools, Steven Burik, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore’s education system is widely regarded as one of the best in the world. In this report, we will focus on education at the primary, secondary, and junior college levels, and will not discuss the education offered in polytechnics (vocational colleges) and universities. We will also focus exclusively on Singapore’s public school system, which Singapore citizens are required to attend unless they are granted a special exemption. In addition to public schools, there are also international schools, which cater to the relatively large expatriate population in Singapore and typically offer a curriculum leading to the IB diploma. All public schools …


The Other China Model: Daoism, Pluralism, And Political Liberalism, Devin K. Joshi Oct 2020

The Other China Model: Daoism, Pluralism, And Political Liberalism, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While scholars often portray Chinese political thought and tradition as standing in opposition to Western notions of political liberalism, little consideration has been given to compatibility between liberalism and Daoism, a prominent religion and long-standing alternative school of thought among Chinese peoples. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study in comparative political thought compares Laozi’s Dao De Jing with John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty to illustrate certain core political ideas in the Dao De Jing and their treatment in Mill’s landmark text on political liberalism. Although the two texts diverge in terms of advocacy of popular representation, public contestation, …


Translation Of: Interview With Jacques Derrida: The Western Question Of "Forgiveness" And The Intercultural Relation, Ning Zhang, Steven Burik Mar 2020

Translation Of: Interview With Jacques Derrida: The Western Question Of "Forgiveness" And The Intercultural Relation, Ning Zhang, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

These two interviews with Jacques Derrida were conducted by Ning Zhang in 1999 and 2000, respectively, in preparation for the publication of his book Writing and Difference in Chinese and his first academic trip to China in 2001. In the first interview, Jacques Derrida tries to clarify the ethical concerns with regard to his deconstructive analysis of Western traditions, through his critical reading of the concept of forgiveness. In this interview he gives us a clearer insight into his ideas about the problem of intercultural exchange, especially concerning questions of translation, translatability, and untranslatability, as central issues of his work. …


Translation Of: Place: Derrida And Nishitani, Rolf Elberfeld, Steven Burik Mar 2020

Translation Of: Place: Derrida And Nishitani, Rolf Elberfeld, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In his works Chora [Derrida, Jacques. 1993. Khôra. Paris: Galilée] and “Comment ne pas parler? Denegations” Derrida used the metaphor chora from Plato’s Timaeus (49a and following) to continue his struggle with the metaphysics of presence. In 1926 Nishida, the founder of the Japanese Kyōto School, used the same metaphor to create a new foundation of philosophy. Nishitani, a disciple of Nishida, developed the work of Nishida in close connection to Zen Buddhist experiences. Derrida tries to show the limits of language within the game of language, whereas Nishitani starts from an experience beyond language, but tries to make …


George Yeo [Singapore, Minister Of Foreign Affairs], George Yeo Aug 2017

George Yeo [Singapore, Minister Of Foreign Affairs], George Yeo

Digital Narratives of Asia

George Yeo, former Minister of Foreign Affairs who became a business leader, speaks to DNA about his philosophical Taoist worldview, the impact of the rise of China, and the challenges facing ASEAN at its 50th year. He talks on how the soft power of ASEAN's policy of non-interference has yield some successes.


Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko Feb 2017

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges byanalysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favourof the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does thegovernment actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answerthese questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving thegovernment from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favouror not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making.The exposure of a judge to …


Comparative Resources: Continental Philosophy And Daoism, Steven Burik Feb 2016

Comparative Resources: Continental Philosophy And Daoism, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

I argue that continental philosophical resources are more appropriate for comparative philosophy regarding classical Daoism since they in various ways challenge the dominant metaphysical orientation of Western thought and give us a better and more appropriate vocabulary to make sense of important Daoist ideas within the confines of Western languages. Since classical Daoism is largely non-metaphysical or at least not metaphysical in the same way as the Western history of philosophy is, it makes sense that those within the Western tradition who have sought to displace the dominant metaphysical tradition would be more in tune with such non-metaphysical considerations. I …


Can American Christians Care About Hong Kong’S Umbrella Movement?, Justin Kh Tse Nov 2014

Can American Christians Care About Hong Kong’S Umbrella Movement?, Justin Kh Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It’s a delicate task to write about how American Christians, especially evangelicals, can care about Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.


Confucius, Mencius And The Notion Of True Succession, John N. Williams Apr 1988

Confucius, Mencius And The Notion Of True Succession, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.