Abstract This paper reinterprets Li Zhi’s notion of the childlike heart-mind as a philosophical expression of free subjectivity embedded within an immanent, relational world. Rather than approaching tongxin 童心 as a romanticized ideal of innocence or spontaneity, it situates it within Li Zhi’s critique of Neo-Confucian moral dogmatism, metaphysical hierarchy, and imposed norms of cultivation. Instead of subordinating individuality to a cosmic order or dissolving subjectivity into an impersonal process, he advances a vision of ecological embeddedness grounded in critical, self-reflective agency. The study highlights Li Zhi’s relevance for contemporary debates on subjectivity, ecology, and the limits of moral abstraction in holistic thought.
Abstract This paper proposes Confucian jiaohua as an ethical framework to guide the integration of artificial intelligence ( AI ) into civic education. While AI increasingly mediates students’ access to civic knowledge, liberal models prioritizing critical reflection reveal limitations. Drawing on Confucian principles of “all under heaven” and “extension of love,” this paper outlines an approach centered on relational ethics, contextual judgment, and moral equality. Unlike liberal civic education, which abstracts moral learning from lived contexts, Confucian jiaohua emphasizes affective development and role-grounded responsibility. This paper argues that AI educational systems should not be framed as neutral tools but as active participants in a moral ecology that supports ethical growth through dialogue and situational learning. This framework balances technological innovation with moral cultivation, preparing students to engage as responsible global citizens.
Abstract Throughout his stellar career in academia Chung-ying Cheng shed light on the practice of philosophy. This discussion focuses on four aspects of his research grounded in the Yijing ’s philosophy of/as Change: 1. Globalizing Philosophy, 2. “Origins of Philosophy,” 3. The Power of Image and Limits of Language, and 4. Complementarity of the Hybrid Brain. The intent is to examine the role of Chinese philosophy as “an open and creatively self-generative system” that integrates reality with human experience in onto-hermeneutics. This merging of ontology and phenomenology reflected in the Yijing is confirmed by cognitive science studies of the bilateral brain.
This paper explains the moral dimensions of Onto-Hermeneutics through a three-tiered exposition of qing . First, as seen from the Xici , the hermeneutical is grounded in the interplay between qing and its patterning and constitutes the basis of the institutions of civilization. Secondly, the continuum between the “ontological” and the “hermeneutical” is reflected in the meanings of qing itself. Lastly, as seen through the Yue Ji , whilst all humans have qing , it is only the socio-cultural expression of qing , for example through Music, that leads to civilized existence. The Confucian moral project is a hermeneutic transformation of the ontological.
Jean Grondin's endeavor to revive metaphysics in a "post-metaphysical" age resonates with the ramifications of Cheng's onto-generative hermeneutics for Western philosophy. However, Cheng also pinpoints a shortcoming in Grondin that undermines his aims, an underdeveloped understanding of the cosmological source of creativity. To ameliorate this dilemma, Grondin's claim that Gadamer rejects the source of metaphysical light in Plato is reassessed based on (1) Heidegger's rethinking of existence as the Daoist beyond Being." Rather than a boundary to understanding, for Cheng, "beyond Being" signals an existential encounter with the Daoist void. In this way, the light in the ground up in Cheng's cosmo-ontology.
This paper explains the moral dimensions of Onto Hermeneutics through a three-tiered exposition of ging. First, as seen from the Xici, the hermeneutical is grounded in the interplay between ging and its patterning and constitutes the basis of the institutions of civilization. Secondly, the continuum between the "ontological" and the "hermeneutical" is reflected in the meanings of ging itself. Lastly, as seen through the Yue Ji, whilst all humans have ging, it is only the socio-cultural expression of ging, for example through Music, that leads to civilized existence. The Confucian moral project is a hermeneutic transformation of the ontological.
This paper stands as a commemoration for the lifetime work of Chung-ying Cheng (1935-2024) to create a world inter-culture of philosophy. Beginning in the late 1960s and carrying forward to today, Cheng was the single most important scholar to influence my own education and life. There were a few others along the way including Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002). Cheng, however, stood first and foremost above everyone, and in a single expression of admiration, he was my hero. The following account explains the interlacing of autobiography and philosophy between Cheng and myself, and what you can do with it.
This paper contrasts two models of agency and selfhood in the Confucian tradition. Engaging with the work of Chung-ying Cheng, I examine a metaphysical account in which the self becomes fully actualized through alignment with xing (human nature), dao (the way), and tian (heaven). I then develop an alternative interpretation-the articulation model-in which the self is realized and disclosed through practical activity. On this view, actions are not the product of a metaphysical free will, but expressions of the self in the process of gaining articulacy. Drawing on the Analects, Mengzi, and Xunzi, as well as contemporary work by Talbot Brewer, Christine Korsgaard, and Eric Hutton, I argue that this model offers a compelling account of Confucian agency and moral psychology. Rather than framing these two views as opposing, I suggest that their contrast illuminates the richness of Confucian thought on agency, responsibility, and the moral cultivation of the self.
Yuan (sic)(resentment, animosity) appears in early Chinese texts more than 2,000 times. Many passages in the Analects recommend non-resentment as an important virtue in self-cultivation. One reads in Analects 14: 35, "Do not resent Heaven nor hold grudges against men." Interestingly, Analects 14: 34 adds a thought-provoking comment that one should not repay another's yuan (resentment/animosity) with virtue. Rather, "repay another's yuan with straightforwardness (zhi i) and [only] repay virtue with virtue." Analects 14: 34 suggests that righteousness (yi (sic)) demands some sort of retribution-an interesting contrast to Daodejing, Chapter 63, "recompense resentment/animosity with virtue." Yet, the Analects also instructs that one should not "repay animosity with animosity." This paper explores Confucian ethics of retribution, the appropriate response to another's animosity, and the pros and cons of such a theory when applied to women's suffering of injustice.
Chung-ying Cheng was one of the first Anglophone interpreters of Dai Zhen's thought who pointed to Dai's philosophical subversion of the Cheng-Zhu li li-based metaphysical scheme by privileging the existential manifestations of qing j (sentiments and emotion) and yu (sic)(desires) in the ontological realm of qi (psycho-physical force), such that his philosophy may be characterized as an architectonic vitalist worldview that features the dynamic creativity of humanity's rationality and intellection in relation to its natural and biological constitutions of blood and breath (xueqi xinzhi ),whose workings find instantiations and expressions in the socio-cultural domain of "human relations and daily practice" (renlun riyong). My paper, inspired by Cheng's pioneer study of Dai's philosophy, ponders whether the Qing thinker's rejection of the priority of li in ethical construal and his appeal to qing and qi may be read as an agent-driven moral sentimentalist ethics-what I call qing-ism-in which the test and criterion of right action is its leaning toward enhancing the welfare and care of oneself and fellow human beings. It may be argued that Dai conceives of emotions and desires as the basic premise of ren T-(humaneness) as well as the point of reference for moral terms (good-and-bad/right-and-wrong), adjudicated by affective and conative attitudes.
Bernard Williams' notion of "thick concepts" provides useful targets for comparative philosophy, in that such concepts appear to be behind common terms in many different languages. Words routinely translated "courage" occur both in the Xunzi(1T-)and Aristotle, but what lies behind these terms (such as yong (sic), andreia) is very different indeed. One similarity is however surprising: yong in the Xunzi in itself is not straightforwardly a virtue, just as only a certain form of andreia is in Aristotle. Furthermore, both are role virtues, applying to different roles in each case. In the best form, they apply to the officers and gentleman on the one hand, and on the other to the citizen soldier prepared to die for his city because that is the fine thing to do.
It is often assumed that the Europe/China intellectual dialogue started with Leibniz. However, its French component is often overlooked. In 1688, three authors in France will dedicate complete monographs to Confucius’s life and thinking. Simon Foucher, Jean de Labrune, and François Bernier. In La Mothe Vayer’s 1642 De la Vertu des Païens , one can found already a chapter dedicated to Confucius (maybe the first apparition of Confucius in the context of a European secular philosophical text). The Chinese contribution to world philosophy in the 17th & 18th centuries cannot be reduced either to Missionary Sinology or to Leibniz universalist idealism.
Cheng Xuanying’s (ca. 601–ca. 690) Expository Commentary to the Daode Jing partakes in and interacts with earlier Daode Jing exegesis, yet, the specific commentarial language seems idiosyncratic in the context of Daode Jing exegesis. It does, however, share expressions with Buddhist commentarial literature. This shared terminology is not derived from the sacred scriptures, but used only in the commentaries. It suggests a philosophical discourse, which crosses the divides of the three teachings. The paper will elaborate the hypothesis of shared discourses of the teachings in the commentarial literature with a concrete example from Cheng Xuanying’s commentary to Chapter 2 of the Daode Jing .
This article elaborates on the yin-yang philosophy and its modern relevance. Through historical, linguistic, textual and contextual examinations, it first argues that no textual evidence has been found for the “perceptions” of yin and yang as a systematic philosophy prevailing before the late Warring States period, and that the dynamics of the yin-yang philosophy was deliberately downgraded to give way to the Dao philosophy in the imperial reconstruction during the Western Han dynasty. It is then focused on the contemporary relevance of yin-yang ideas by examining the strengths and weaknesses of the three paradigms commonly used to define the nature of and relations between yin and yang . It will finally investigate why the yin-yang philosophy has been resurfaced in the contemporary time and what kind of potentials it may encompass for comparative philosophy and inter-philosophical dialogue.
Bernard Williams’ notion of “thick concepts” provides useful targets for comparative philosophy, in that such concepts appear to be behind common terms in many different languages. Words routinely translated “courage” occur both in the Xunzi 《荀子》 and Aristotle, but what lies behind these terms (such as yong 勇 , andreia ) is very different indeed. One similarity is however surprising: yong in the Xunzi in itself is not straightforwardly a virtue, just as only a certain form of andreia is in Aristotle. Furthermore, both are role virtues, applying to different roles in each case. In the best form, they apply to the officers and gentleman on the one hand, and on the other to the citizen soldier prepared to die for his city because that is the fine thing to do.
According to Confucianism, in an ideal family, parents care especially for their children, and children especially love and respect their parents. However, in a non-ideal situation, parents might be negligent. In this paper I present a relational view of filial piety and argue that this view helps explain how Confucians should deal with the non-ideal situation, especially when the parents are not caring. The structure of the paper is as follows. In the first section, I explain how filial piety and family are understood in early Confucianism. In the second section, I show how the justification for the obligation of filial piety offered by early Confucians presupposes an ideal situation. In the third section, I argue that the traditional view of filial piety fails to deal with non-ideal situations and that a relational view could be a good alternative. In the last section, I will reply to several objections to the above relational view.
