ARTICLES

Is Whatever Exists Knowable and Nameable?, pp. 401-414
Roy W. Perrett

Naiyayikas are fond of a slogan, which often appears as a kind of motto in their texts: "Whatever exists is knowable and nameable". What does this mean? Is it true? The first part of this essay offers a brief explication of this important Nyaya thesis; the second part argues that, given certain plausible assumptions, the thesis is demonstrably false.

The Golden Rule and Interpersonal Care -- From a Confucian Perspective, pp. 415-438
Qingjie James Wang

The essay compares between the traditional Christian version, some modern philosophical reformulations and the Confucian version of the Golden Rule. The author argues that the Confucian version of the Golden Rule, in contrast with its western parallels, is based on the ground of shu as bodily or somatic interpersonal care and love. It thus should be understood first of all as a human "way" rather than as a divine rule. It is a way grounded in human hearts and a way for human communities.

Zhuangzi's "Dream of the Butterfly" A Daoist Interpretation, pp. 439-450
Hans-Georg Möller

The essay introduces Guo Xiang's (252-312) reading of the famous "Butterfly Dream" passage from the Zhuangzi, a reading which differs significantly from modern ones, particularly those following the translation of Giles. Guo Xiang's view is based on the assumption that the character of Zhuang Zhou has no recollection of his dream after awakening and therefore does not entertain doubts about what or who he really is. This leads to a specific understanding of the allegorical and philosophical meaning of the text which stands in contradistinction to most modern interpretations.

Democracy with Chinese Characteristics: A Political Proposal for the Post-Communist Era, pp. 451-493
Daniel A. Bell

This fictitious dialogue is set in Beijing, June 3rd, 2007, one day before a constitutional convention on political reform in China. A professor of political philosophy named Wang defends a political proposal against the objections of a well-informed American democrat. After explaining why he rejects other proposals meant to reconcile democracy with rule by an intellectual elite, Professor Wang sketches out his own proposal for a bicameral legislature with a democratically elected lower house and an upper house composed of representatives selected on the basis of competitive examinations.

An Arab Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Culture: Constantine Zurayk on Culture, Reason and Ethics, pp. 494-512
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab

This paper is a critical discussion of Constantine Zurayk's philosophy of culture elaborated by him in his book entitled In the Battle for Culture, published in Arabic in Beirut in 1964. Zurayk is one of the most important Arab thinkers of the 20th century, who reflected on its main political events and analyzed its cultural crises. The paper aims on the one hand at relating the main theses of his philosophy to those of the German thinkers of the turn of the century, elaborated under the discipline known as Kulturphilosophie, in particular to the philosophy of life of Dilthey, Nietzsche and Simmel and to the neo-Kantian thought of Ernst Cassirer. On the other hand, it discusses the virtues and shortcomings of Zurayk's philosophy of culture, specially in the Arab context, and it does this by focusing mainly on his distinction between, and elaboration on, the descriptive and normative approaches to culture.

FEATURE REVIEW, pp. 513-518

BOOK REVIEWS, pp. 519-535

BOOK NOTES, pp. 536-537

BOOKS RECEIVED, pp. 538-540

CALL FOR PAPERS: "Cultural Collisions and Creative Interferences in the Global Village," pp. 541-543

INDEX, pp. 544-550

SPECIAL ISSUE: Human "Nature" in Chinese Philosophy: A Panel of the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies

ARTICLES

Language against its Own Mystifications: Deconstruction in Nâgârjuna and Dôgen, pp. 245-260
David R. Loy

Nâgârjuna and Dôgen point to many of the same Buddhist insights because they deconstruct the same type of dualities, mostly versions of our commonsense but delusive distinction between substance and attribute, subject and predicate. This is demonstrated by examining chapter 2 of the Mûlamadhyamakakârikâ and Dôgen's transgression of traditional Buddhist teachings in his Shôbôgenzô. Nonetheless, they reach quite different conclusions about the possibility of language expressing a "true" understanding of the world.

Microgenesis and Buddhism: The Concept of Momentariness, pp. 261-277
Jason W. Brown

Microgenesis is a process model of the mind/brain state that has developed out of the study of clinical symptoms that arise with damage to the brain. The microgenetic theory of the mental state provides an account of the neural basis of duration, the present moment, and the replacement of one mental state by the next. The resemblance of this theory to the concepts of momentariness and the replication of points in Buddhist writings is explored here.

Countering Sinocentrism in Eighteenth-century Korea: Hong Tae-yong's Vision of "Relativism" and Iconoclasm for Reform, pp. 278-297
Song Young-bae

Two philosophical problems are thoroughly treated here: (1) how close the philosophical idea of Hong Tae-yong in eighteenth-century Korea is to the non-absolutist Weltanschauung of Chuang-tzu, and (2) how, by means of this non-absolutist idea, Hong was able to question the orthodox sinocentrism that most Korean Neo-Confucianists of the time stubbornly took for granted. Hong felt that Korean intellectuals had to look beyond sinocentrism for a consciousness of their own cultural identity. As a Confucian reformist, he highlights the realization of this cultural identity as the imminently required move to accomplish social reform.

The Practice of Jen, pp. 298-316
Kim-Chong Chong

Under Mencius' influence jen has been regarded as part of a theory of nature. As such, commentators have had difficulty resolving the apparent paradox in Analects 9.1 that Confucius rarely talked about jen. No paradox arises if jen is seen as a practice involving self-cultivation as a never-ending task and the immediacy of ethical commitment where a cluster of emotions, attitudes, and values are expressed. Jen is an ethical orientation from which one speaks and acts--not particular qualities that one might enumerate and claim to possess. As such, the internal relation between jen and li does not amount to their being the same thing, as implied by some recent writers.

In Quest of Harmony: Plato and Confucius on Poetry, pp. 317-345
Zong-qi Cai

How Plato and Confucius formulate their views on poetry in light of their overriding concerns with harmony is examined here. Both acknowledge the educational value of poetry in similar terms and set up similar moral-aesthetic standards. Both rank poetry lower than other objects of learning because they find poetic harmony to be less significant than intellectual or moral harmonies. But both take note of the transforming aesthetic experience afforded by poetry in certain circumstances, and identify this experience of the attainment of blessed harmony with the ultimate reality--Truth or the will of Heaven. Despite all these similarities, their embrace of opposing schemes (vertical versus horizontal) of harmony leads to a fundamental difference between their views on the nature of poetry, which for Plato is an epistemological process and for Confucius largely an existential process.

FEATURE REVIEW, pp. 346-376

BOOK REVIEWS, pp. 377-391

BOOKS RECEIVED, pp. 392-400

SPECIAL ISSUE: "Subjectivity": Li Zehou and his Critical Analysis of Chinese Thought
Guest Editor: Timothy Cheek

Introduction: A Cross-cultural Conversation on Li Zehou's Ideas on Subjectivity and Aesthetics in Modern Chinese Thought , pp. 113-119
Timothy Cheek

ARTICLES

Combining Marx with Kant: The Philosophical Anthropology of Li Zehou, pp. 120-149
Woei Lien Chong

Li Zehou is known as the "intellectual leader of the Chinese Enlightenment" of the 1980 s. His major quest has always been for a way to define the role of human agency versus determinism on the one hand, and voluntarism on the other. In the 1980s, Li came forward with a philosophical anthropology (his "theory of subjectivity" or "practice") that moves between two poles: On the one hand, mankind is different from the animals because of its capacity to mold its own environment in a goal-directed way because of "tools," which means that subjectivity is real if mankind can indeed to a great extent control its own destiny. On the other hand, human control over nature is subject to limitations that are largely determined by the level of technology and social organization in any given society at a certain time. Li attributes the widespread appeal of Maoist voluntarism in China to the persistence of the belief in the transformative power of the human will, unaided by science and technology.

The Transformative Power of Art: Li Zehou's Aesthetic Theory, pp. 150-173
Jane Cauvel

The power of the arts to transform animates Li Zehou's aesthetics, well known to Chinese aestheticians but little known in the West. Li believes his sedimentation theory combined with his reinterpretations of Marx and traditional Chinese thought overcome weaknesses in Western aesthetics. Ideas Li sees as fundamental to aesthetic development, the transforming powers of aesthetic experience, and goals Li sets for self-cultivation and creativity as artists confront contemporary global issues are examined. Perhaps overly sanguine to jaded Western readers, Li's confidence that Chinese traditional philosophies and aesthetics can respond constructively to the disruptions of contemporary culture and technology are thought-provoking and insightful.

Subjectivity and "Subjectality": A Response, pp. 174-183
Li Zehou

Li Zehou responds personally to the analyses of his ideas by Chong and Cauvel, acknowledging their summary evaluation while restating the main ideas of his publications, using his own vocabulary.

FEATURE REVIEW, pp. 184-206

BOOK REVIEWS, pp. 207-237

BOOK NOTES, pp. 238

BOOKS RECEIVED, pp. 239-244

ARTICLES

Emotional Control and Virtue in the Mencius, pp. 1-27
Manyul Im

This essay argues against the standard reading of Mencius that the emotions are perfectible or that they require perfecting in order to render a person virtuous. Rejecting this perfectibility reading allows us to explore two interesting philosophical points: (1) we can give an account of moral virtue and moral development that is significantly different from broadly Aristotelian accounts and that provides a psychologically realistic model of the Mencian sage; and (2) this account introduces a conception of emotional engagement as active and under a person's control.

Experience and Culture : Nishida's Path "To the Things Themselves," pp. 28-44
Andrew Feenburg

The word "experience" refers to at least four different concepts: empirical experience, lived experience, experience as Bildung, and the domain of pure consciousness prior to the division of subject and object. All of these concepts of experience are at work in the thought of Nishida Kitaro, where they take on a specific historical and political character in response to the situation of Japan in the world system.

The Structure of the Chinese Language and Ontological Insights: A Collective-Noun Hypothesis, pp. 45-62
Bo Mou

Through a comparative case analysis regarding the Chinese language, it is discussed how the structure and functions of a natural language would bear upon the ways in which some philosophical problems are posed and some ontological insights shaped. Disagreeing with Chad Hansen's mass noun hypothesis, a collective-noun hypothesis is argued for: (1) the denotational semantics and relevant grammatical features of Chinese nouns are like those of collective nouns; (2) their implicit ontology is a mereological ontology of collection-of-individuals with both part-whole and member-class structure; and (3) encouraged and shaped by the folk semantics of Chinese nouns, classical Chinese theorists of language take this kind of mereological nominalism for granted.

Kami and Daimon: A Cross-cultural Reflection on What Is Divine, pp. 63-74
Robert S. Gall

The purpose here is to recall the diversity of our experience, particularly the archaic experience, of what is divine, through Motoori Norinaga and Martin Heidegger and their considerations of the archaic notions of kami and daimon. Using their insights and other sources also becomes a means for reconfiguring our understanding of philosophy of religion as a thinking that enacts what it is about, drawing no hard and fast distinctions between thinking and practice, in the hope of seeing religion as it is.

BOOK REVIEWS, pp. 75-94

BOOK NOTES, pp. 95-97

BOOKS RECEIVED, pp. 98-101

CALL FOR PAPERS: "Technology and Cultural Values--On the Edge of the Third Millennium," pp. 102-112