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In this paper, I situate C.S. Peirce's theory of knowledge and action in comparison to Chinese philosophy. My argument is that the comparison makes it important to understand Peirce's abduction and his maxim as a much more potent force in comparative philosophy. Peirce's priority of practical effects over theory is similar to Confucian conceptions of truth and action. Jon Alan Schmidt has summarized sixty-one formulations of Peirce's maxim, from which I draw the four main expressions of the maxim here. According to Peirce, understanding the meaning of concepts in terms of actual effects is the core element of the maxim. This view can be seen as an echo in Wang Yangming's theory of the unity of knowledge and action. The theory is essentially a moral humanist philosophy. It integrates morality, ethics, and politics. It is similar to Peirce's pragmatic maxim, as James Liszka has explained. Finally, reflecting on the recent studies of Peirce's semiotics in China, I discuss the significance of Peirce's pragmatism in Chinese philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An appreciation of the emphasis on flexibility in the Analects is one of the most consistent motifs in the various interpretations of this text. When applied specifically to normative readings, embracing adaptability, having malleable standards, and taking particulars into account are both promising and challenging ways to think about whether something might be moral or ethical. This paper attempts to deconstruct this familiar discussion along novel lines that can reveal new ways to reflect on the importance of flexibility in the Analects, while, at the same time, it reconstrues ways in which comparative projects might be oriented. The main argument is this: the Analects does not recognize a categorical distinction between a moral and non-moral realm. Whereas, in much modern academic thought, there is a distinction between what counts as contingencies and what is up to the individual, which, in turn, loosely corresponds to the non-moral and moral realms, the Analects does not make such clear distinctions. Everything, including core moral issues such as the individual's own choice, moral guidelines, and the contextualization of (moral) models, is all ultimately grounded in contingencies. Nevertheless, the Analects provides ways of reflecting on choices and actions that aim to steer people in specific directions. We may understand this as a type of morality, but one that is significantly distinct from those wherein the difference between the moral (non-contingent) and non-moral (contingent) is foundational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To be sure, I that i may be McGhee's challenge to contemporary philosophy, but whether the challenge is I also i an I objection i to McGhee's picture "remains to be seen" - attendant on what actually I happens i in a secular humanist community that is more than a gestural proposal but could be a real way of life performing the roles for its participants that McGhee requires. Several lines of debate converge in this rich work by Michael McGhee to any one of which it would be uncharitably, and distortingly, reductive to collapse its reading. In this spirit, McGhee understands spirituality as a matter of practice in a philosophical community aiming to sustain and protect disciplines of moral improvement in its members. [Extracted from the article]

This article presents Jeong Jedu (Hagok; 1649–1736) on the topic of emotions and its comparative and contemporary relevance. It discusses this leading neo-Confucian thinker's thought-provoking Four-Seven thesis and its vital implication for self-cultivation and ethics. This important topic has not been discussed in current scholarship on Korean Confucianism. The article begins with the Confucian notion of emotions (jeong/qing, 情), according to its textual and philosophical background in the Chinese tradition, and then covers key issues regarding the "Four Beginnings" of virtue, the "Seven Emotions", and leading neo-Confucian perspectives by Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and Wang Yangming (1472–1529). The article also provides a brief comparative analysis of Toegye's and Yulgok's leading Korean opinions on the nature, role, and problem of emotions. The third section focuses on Hagok's interpretation in the same context. The fourth section discusses Hagok's ethics and spirituality of emotions in terms of the mind's original essence (bonche/benti) and innate knowledge (of good) (yangji/liangzhi) in connection to Wang Yangming's doctrines. The final section concludes by considering the originality and distinctiveness of Hagok's holistic interpretation. It also presents my contemporary reflections to articulate how Hagok's groundbreaking insights compare with certain Western theories of emotions and why they offer a worthwhile resource for comparative philosophy, religion, and ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pfister's summary of the written Chinese record of their conversation indicates that Cheng does not address the role of Christian philosophy and hence, the role of the inner word in Gadamer's hermeneutics. Contributions by Stephen Palmquist and Nicholas Brasovan position Cheng in relation to Kant and Gadamer by way of Aristotle's ethics respectively. Although differing traditions guide their inquiries and research, Cheng and Gadamer recall the wisdom of the past to ameliorate the fragmentation in contemporary life. [Extracted from the article]

Despite striking similarities, the connection between Madhyamaka Buddhism and Richard Rorty's philosophy has been almost entirely ignored. This article aims to correct this oversight by suggesting that much could be gained by exploring their connection. It does so, first, by establishing the similarities and differences between Rorty and Madhyamaka, and second, by demonstrating that Madhyamaka vocabulary can solve significant problems in Rorty's thought. In particular, the article will argue that Madhyamaka can alleviate the tension between irony and liberalism, by showing that internalisation of anti-essentialism induces liberal sentiments. This allows us to conceive of irony and solidarity as existing in harmony and mutual dependence, without attempting to reconcile them theoretically. In doing so, this article provides the basis for a cross-cultural conception of anti-essentialist ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confucianism tends to play only a marginal role in current theorizing about justice, which is a global pursuit dominated by Western theory and its strong tendency to assume that justice refers to some substantive conception of distributive, socioeconomic justice. This article examines and compares reconstructions of Confucian justice by Joseph Chan, May Sim, and Fan Ruiping. Each reconstruction makes reference to both classical and modern Western justice theory and thus each involves a comparative approach; indeed, each reconstruction seeks ultimately, in its own distinctive fashion, to present a version of Confucian justice that is comparable with modern Western justice theory. In this article we assess, critically and comparatively, the tertium comparationis and the arguments in each reconstruction. While our analysis does not wholly endorse any of the reconstructions, it shows that there is a richness and vitality to Confucian justice theory that merits proper consideration in justice theory conceived as a truly global and cosmopolitan discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution focuses on Neo-Confucian texts as collected by Zhu Xi (朱熹 1130–1200) and Lü Zuqian (1137–1181) and is a look from the ‘outside’, from the perspective of German theories of Bildung (‘self-cultivation’). It aims at demonstrating that among other insights that today’s readers may gather from Neo-Confucian literature, one aspect protrudes from others: that learning can be considered as a virtue—even a meta-virtue—a form of life and mode of self-formation of the person. It does not seem exaggerated, from this perspective, to state that Neo-Confucian philosophy is—to a large extent—a philosophy of learning and self-transformation which offers fruitful irritants for questioning the widespread habits of thinking about skills and their development in today’s strong and problematic discourses and corresponding educational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay provides a brief introduction to the articles by David Little and Abdulaziz Sachedina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented in which the author discusses Eastern and Western cultural foundations underlying philosophical and ethical views on learning, highlighting the views of philosophers Socrates and Confucius. The author considers differences in the ethical thought of Socrates and Confucius, and he considers problems with the approach of comparative philosophy.

For Maurice Blanchot, the ethical relationship is to be sought not in the developmental and self-reflexive movement of acquiring identity dialectically in the relationship between one entity and the other, but rather in the productive process of attaching and distancing. This makes a neutral relationship in which the human remains in between, in the back and forward movement exploring abyssally his/her own existential potentiality without being reduced into the social or the transcendental purpose. This argument corresponds with Ibn 'Arabi's ethics concerning the notion of the perfect man. The perfect man does not carry out perfection by acquiring all of God's attributes but he/she becomes a neutral space, barzakh, within which God makes a relationship among His attributes through which entities are created. In this sense, the perfect man becomes the very relationship, the medium through which God presents Himself. Beyond the moral and mystical relationship in which the human is striving after God, the perfect man is simultaneously within and outside God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YAO XINZHONG AN INTRODUCTION TO MORALITY AND RELIGIOUSNESS IN CHINA AND THE WEST Thegreatlongevityofworldreligionsandmoralsystemscangivethem theappearanceofunchangeablityinculturalhistory,andtheseemingly everlastingsystemsaresaidtohavebeen"fixed" intheirprincipaldoctrines,identifyingwaysoflifeinspecificgeographicallocationsandhistorical contexts, although they have already dynamically spread to all parts of the world, and been entrenched in many layers of social life in nations and cultures. 4 None of these typologies INTRODUCTION 549 exclude morality from religiousness or religiousness from morality. Perhaps more than Christianity, Confucianism can serve a better example of how morality penetrates religiousness and functions as a special mode of spirituality. [Extracted from the article]

I thank Professor Lauren F. Pfister for LINYU GU 540 impressivelyandinvaluablyconnectingthissymposiumtothespecial honorofholdingamostencouragingandstimulatingsession:thedialogue between Professor Richard Swinburne and Professor ChungyingChengonGod,morality,andConfucianism. To make the current special issue all the more distinguishing and far reaching, I would like to give particular thanks to Professor Ping Zhang and Professor Brook Ziporyn for joining in this project andespeciallyfortheirirreplaceablecontributiontothetheme. Forboththecurrentspecialissueandotherongoingprojectsofthis journalandmyownlifejourneyinthesepastyears,Iwishtotakethis privilegedmomenttopresentmymostheartythankfulnesstothehigh confidence, sustained faith, and precious friendship of many names above,alongside withthefollowswhose existencehasbeenagenuine importanceandceaselesssupportinmyworldandtomywork:ProfessorG€ unterAbel,Dr.FriederikeAssandri,ProfessorMichaelBeaney, Professor Daniel A. Bell, Professor S ebastien Billioud, Professor Edward S. Casey, Professor Lawrence Foster, Professor Bernhard Fuehrer, Mr. Cheng Hong, Ms. Renee M. Kojima-Itagaki, Professor ChenLai,ProfessorMathewA.Foust,ProfessorJosephGrange,ProfessorYongHuang,Dr.XiyiHuang,ProfessorXinyanJiang,Professor Philip J. Ivanhoe, Professor Robert C. Neville, Professor On-cho Ng, Dr.PanSong,Ms.MirasyM.Pfister,ProfessorXiaoyangWei,Professor Yang Hongsheng, Professor Xiaomei Yang, Professor Jiyuan Yu, Professor Jinmei Yuan, Professor Qianfan Zhang, Professor Zhang Yunqi,andmanyotherswhoarealwaysonmymindandinmyheart. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the contemporary comparative philosophy. It states that this philosophy is a kind of suicidal endeavor which strives to make itself necessary through the transformation of philosophy into a more inclusive field and is fundamentally about culture. It mentions that comparative philosophy two agenda, the genuinely agenda and the synthetic agenda that transform general field into less geo-culturally exclusive landscape.

See Taylor, Ethics of Authenticity, 9-10; and Taylor, "Self-Interpreting Animals", 67, 69-70. Jocp 1692 114..132 pauline c. lee "SPEWING JADE AND SPITTING PEARLS": 1 LI ZHI'S ETHICS OF GENUINENESS I. Introduction Li Zhi (Zhuowu) (1527-1602), widely known as one of the foremost iconoclastic thinkers in Chinese history, was born in the commercial southern district of Jinjiang in the port city of Quanzhou, the southern province of Fujian, in the sixth year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Period (1527). 124 pauline c. lee V. A Li Zhi-Inflected Ethics of Genuineness The late-Ming and the modern malaise are distinctly different, but Li and Taylor are similar in seeking for a higher ground between what Taylor refers to as the two extremes of boosters and knockers. [Extracted from the article]

The article looks at the need for comparative philosophy in ethics. It discusses the propositions and reasons behind the need for comparative philosophy and analyzes the differences between traditional Chinese and Indian beliefs of ethical thought. The author also reflects on the drive and influence of ethical philosophy when it comes to making decisions in life.

The article focuses on the role of ethics in the philosophy of Zhuangzi and Lévinas. It reflects on the subjectivity of Lévinas' work on ethics and the plurality and distinctions of ethical subjects falling under the Daoist'se relativism and skepticism from the philosopher Zhuangzi. It also presents the problems and pitfalls of comparative philosophy.

NEWS AND NOTES International Symposium Series on Comparative Philosophy: "Morality and Religiousness: Chinese and Western" In celebrating the 40th founding anniversary of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy (JCP) (founded by Chung-ying Cheng in 1973), from August 14-15, 2013, the Lau China Institute of King's College London and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy co-organized and co-hosted "The 3rd International Symposium Series on Comparative Philosophy" (Diwujie Guoji Bijiao Zhexue Xilie Yantaohui) under the theme "Morality and Religiousness: Chinese and Western" (Zhongxi Zhexue zhong de Daodexing yu Zongjiaoxing). "Morality and Religiousness in Early Confucianism"; Session VII. The symposium was paneled with seven thematic sessions: Session I. "Chinese Philosophical Origin in Morality and Religiousness"; Session II. [Extracted from the article]