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Articles 91 - 112 of 112

Full-Text Articles in History of Philosophy

Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields Feb 2013

Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

The concept of Sorge, as developed in Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) classic work, Sein und Zeit (1927), describes an existential-ontological state characterized by “anxiety” about the future and the desire to “attend to” the world based on our awareness of temporality. In Japan, this concept was borrowed and critically developed by Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). In Rinrigaku (1937–49), Watsuji argued that Heidegger’s Sorge remains overly reliant on the philosophical structures of Western individualism and subjectivism, and thus neglects the social dimension of human being. In turn, Watsuji’s contemporary, Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), developed an alternative theory of “concern” in his reflections on …

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Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2012

Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …

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The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2012

The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …

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The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2012

The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …

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Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2012

Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …

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Review: James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, And John C. Maraldo (Eds), Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Hawai'i, 2011), James Shields Apr 2012

Review: James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, And John C. Maraldo (Eds), Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Hawai'i, 2011), James Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Book Review: James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo (eds), Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Hawai'i, 2011)

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Freshest Advices On What To Do With The Historical Method In Philosophy When Using It To Study A Little Bit Of Philosophy That Has Been Lost To History, Bennett Gilbert Jan 2012

Freshest Advices On What To Do With The Historical Method In Philosophy When Using It To Study A Little Bit Of Philosophy That Has Been Lost To History, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The paper explores the question of the relationship between the practice of original philosophical inquiry and the study of the history of philosophy. It is written from my point of view as someone starting a research project in the history of philosophy that calls this issue into question, in order to review my starting positions. I argue: first, that any philosopher is sufficiently embedded in culture that her practice is necessarily historical; second, that original work is in fact in part a reconstruction by reinterpretation of the past and that therefore it bears some relation to historiographic techniques for the …

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人权与中国思想的中文版序 ［Preface To The Chinese Edition Of Human Rights And Chinese Thought］, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2011

人权与中国思想的中文版序 ［Preface To The Chinese Edition Of Human Rights And Chinese Thought］, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

自本书首次出版以来的这些年中,东西方的学者和普通公民仍在继续探讨人权的普遍性 与历史和文化特殊性之间的关系问题。中国在经济和政治实力方面的不断崛起无疑也增加了 中国人希望看到中国价值观崛起的渴望:一个拥有五千年文明历史的国家当然可以给当代世 界的贡献很多东西。近几年来,中国在“普适价值观”的倡导者与“中国模式”的支持者之 间掀起了一场广泛的争论。当然,人权并非是此场争论的唯一主题,争论也涵盖了经济和政 治组织、自由和福利之类的一般价值观,以及全世界是否或应否趋向一套单一的价值观等问 题。也许从此争论中可以得到的一个启示是,无论是对“普适价值观”还是对单纯“中国模 式”的单一理解而言,没有一个答案会适用于所有这些不同领域。 

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A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2011

A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The essay asks whether contemporary Western empirical studies of moral education, as exemplified in the distinctive research programs of Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin Hoffman, can enter into productive dialogue with the Neo-Confucian theories of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). The proposed dialogue proceeds in two stages. I begin with Zhu’s notion of “lesser learning” and the role therein of ritual, and consider their relations to Kohlberg’s ideas about the construction of moral rules and Hoffman’s findings concerning parental discipline (and particularly “induction”). The second stage turns to Zhu’s “greater learning” and its central concept of reverence, which I explain is best understood …

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A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2011

A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education And Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Ethics, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The essay asks whether contemporary Western empirical studies of moral education, as exemplified in the distinctive research programs of Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin Hoffman, can enter into productive dialogue with the Neo-Confucian theories of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). The proposed dialogue proceeds in two stages. I begin with Zhu’s notion of “lesser learning” and the role therein of ritual, and consider their relations to Kohlberg’s ideas about the construction of moral rules and Hoffman’s findings concerning parental discipline (and particularly “induction”). The second stage turns to Zhu’s “greater learning” and its central concept of reverence, which I explain is best understood …

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Translating And Interpreting The Mengzi: Virtue, Obligation, And Discretion, Stephen C. Angle Nov 2010

Translating And Interpreting The Mengzi: Virtue, Obligation, And Discretion, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The essay focuses on two aspects of the translation and interpretation of Mengzi in Bryan Van Norden’s new translation. First, I argue that Van Norden’s explanation of virtues in terms of obligations is potentially problematic, and show instances in which this unusual understanding of virtue influences the translation itself. Second, I highlight the ways in which Van Norden’s translation and commentary have effectively thematized the role of “discretion (quan 權)” in Mengzi’s text, and make some suggestions for how we can arrive at an even deeper understanding of this important concept. 

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How Serious Is Our Divergence?, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2007

How Serious Is Our Divergence?, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Near the beginning of his magisterial A Cloud Across the Pacific, Thomas Metzger sums up what he calls his “paradoxical combination of reflexivity with cultural patterns” as follows:
This book is based on the premise that thinking about how to improve political life cannot be the product of either a closed cultural system or of reason as a uniform cognitive faculty with which all persons try to apprehend and reflect on objective realities or universal principles. Insisting that both dimensions are paradoxically combined in everyone’s thinking, I take issues with two groups — the Western scholars fascinated just with …

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How Serious Is Our Divergence?, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2007

How Serious Is Our Divergence?, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Near the beginning of his magisterial A Cloud Across the Pacific, Thomas Metzger sums up what he calls his “paradoxical combination of reflexivity with cultural patterns” as follows:
This book is based on the premise that thinking about how to improve political life cannot be the product of either a closed cultural system or of reason as a uniform cognitive faculty with which all persons try to apprehend and reflect on objective realities or universal principles. Insisting that both dimensions are paradoxically combined in everyone’s thinking, I take issues with two groups — the Western scholars fascinated just with …

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'Dao' As A Nickname, Stephen C. Angle, John A. Gordon Dec 2002

'Dao' As A Nickname, Stephen C. Angle, John A. Gordon

Stephen C. Angle

Few would deny that the Dao De Jing is a puzzling text.One puzzle that has particularly vexed interpreters in recent years is how to understand the central term of the text, ‘dao.’ The difficulty can be brought out by considering the first lines of two consecutive chapters:
[41] When the highest type of men hear the way, with diligence they are able to practice it....
[42] The way gives birth to the one....
‘Way’—the ubiquitous and appropriate translation for ‘dao’—seems to be used in two very different fashions in these two passages. In [41], ‘way’ looks to be used in …

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Review Of Jensen: Manufacturing Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2000

Review Of Jensen: Manufacturing Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Confucianisms, according to Lionel Jensen, are the results of a four-century long process
of pious manufacture: pious, because aimed at truth rather than manipulation; manufacture,
because the work has been done out of materials close to hand. These materials are the texts,
words, and symbols out of which traditions are invented and re-invented. Jensen’s book is
simultaneously a meditation on the ecumenical goals of “traditionary invention” and a close
study of the specific ways in which sixteenth- and twentieth-century communities have
negotiated between inherited meanings and current circumstances. Its case studies splendidly
exemplify its broader theoretical themes; I will look …

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Review Of Jensen: Manufacturing Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle Dec 2000

Review Of Jensen: Manufacturing Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Confucianisms, according to Lionel Jensen, are the results of a four-century long process
of pious manufacture: pious, because aimed at truth rather than manipulation; manufacture,
because the work has been done out of materials close to hand. These materials are the texts,
words, and symbols out of which traditions are invented and re-invented. Jensen’s book is
simultaneously a meditation on the ecumenical goals of “traditionary invention” and a close
study of the specific ways in which sixteenth- and twentieth-century communities have
negotiated between inherited meanings and current circumstances. Its case studies splendidly
exemplify its broader theoretical themes; I will look …

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Jean-Luc Nancy And The Corpus Of Philosophy, Gary Shapiro Jan 1994

Jean-Luc Nancy And The Corpus Of Philosophy, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

How to touch, tactfully, the corpus of Jean-Luc Nancy? How can this corpus be shared and divided (partagé}? How can these words or thoughts be weighed? This text seems to set itself vigilantly and rigorously in opposition to the mystery of the incarnation and urges us to demystify the discourses of the body. The very translatability of the paper--to whatever degree translation is possible--and its presentation--in whatever way presence is possible--are modalities closely linked to the question of what body and corpus are and can be. The text "Corpus" is exscripted, to speak with Nancy, written out, that …

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Subversion Of System / Systems Of Subversions, Gary Shapiro Jan 1991

Subversion Of System / Systems Of Subversions, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

What might it mean to think outside or beyond the Hegelian system of philosophy? Already in Hegel's own time this was a question that came to occupy those who labored under the weight of his speculative and comprehensive system of thought. The easiest and most immediately appealing strategy was to seize upon some category that seemed to be relatively neglected within the system, something that seemed to have been too easily aufgehoben into the totality. Kierkegaard is sometimes represented as centering his challenges to the Hegelian system around the valorization of the unhappy consciousness; that is, the consciousness aware of …

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Translating, Repeating, Naming: Foucault, Derrida And The Genealogy Of Morals, Gary Shapiro Jan 1990

Translating, Repeating, Naming: Foucault, Derrida And The Genealogy Of Morals, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Two cautions or warnings (at least) must be heeded in the attempt to do justice to Nietzsche's project of a genealogy of morals in the text that bears that name. While the Genealogy is often regarded as the most straightforward and continuous of Nietzsche's books, he tells us in Ecce Homo that its three essays are "perhaps uncannier than anything else written so far in regard to expression, intention, and the art of surprise.” If we should think ourselves successful in penetrating to these uncanny secrets and saying what Nietzsche's text means, once and for all, we would then have …

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Peirce's Critique Of Hegel's Phenomenology And Dialectic, Gary Shapiro Jul 1981

Peirce's Critique Of Hegel's Phenomenology And Dialectic, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Although Peirce clearly and repeatedly stated his intention to construct a philosophical system, each of his attempts in that direction is at best fragmentary and some are ultimately incoherent. The ambiguities of Peirce's cosmology, his theory of meaning and his conception of truth cannot be avoided by anyone who carefully considers his own "guess at the riddle." Rather than cataloguing these puzzles, I hope to give at least a partial account of why they remain in the work of a philosopher who was avowedly systematic, possessed great analytic and synthetic powers, and had an acute sense of the physiognomy of …

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Habit And Meaning In Peirce's Pragmatism, Gary Shapiro Jan 1973

Habit And Meaning In Peirce's Pragmatism, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The pragmatic movement has often been misunderstood; the most frequent misconceptions, which assimilated the philosophies of Peirce and James in particular to forms of positivism, reductionism, or crude voluntarism seem to be on the wane. Peirce's scholastic realism, his doctrine of signs, and his conception of truth as the unique and destined goal of inquiry now tend to receive the attention that was formerly reserved for his empiricism and pragmatism. A similar change in the estimation of James seems to be taking place insofar as his theory of truth is seen as much less simplistic than was formerly supposed; and …

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Dialectic As A Philosophical Method, Pierre Grimes Jan 1958

Dialectic As A Philosophical Method, Pierre Grimes

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Philosophy is the quest for wisdom and hence it may share a common end with religion. Not all philosophies are, however, concerned with this end, nor, again are all religions involved with a quest for wisdom. There may be different techniques and tools employed in the accomplishment of wisdom, but this dissertation is concerned only with the study of the nature and use of reason. In the philosophy of Plato reason is employed in diverse fields including mathematics, myths, and elaborate analogies, but when he turns to reason itself, then it becomes important to this analysis. Reason may be utilized …

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