ABSTRACT Hou and Wang use modern logic as a research tool to attempt to conduct a strict logical analysis of the Haoliang debate. However, in their analysis, there are three serious logical errors. The first is the misuse of connectives for conjunctions and implications; the second is the incorrect formalization of OMS (one basic principle of the other‐mind skepticism); the third is the incorrect use of the rules of substitution. In this paper, these three errors are analyzed, explained, and corrected in detail.
ABSTRACT “Western‐centrism” refers to a worldview centered on Western civilization with an explicit belief in the superiority of Western cultures to non‐Western cultures in all aspects. How did it come into being? When was its intellectual foundation laid? Who made the formative efforts to establish it in intellectual thought? This essay suggests that as a systematic thought, its formative stage was set in the beginning of the Enlightenment and became an established intellectual belief before the modern era. In the course of its formulation, major Enlightenment thinkers laid its intellectual foundation. Its philosophical roots arose in some influential Enlightenment thinkers' encounters with Eastern intellectual thought, especially Chinese metaphysics, political theory, and moral philosophy. This essay focuses on some Enlightenment thinkers including Leibniz, Wolff, Quesnay, Montesquieu, Kant, Hegel, and other thinkers. By examining how Chinese philosophy served as a mirror for European thinkers to reflect on European thought and helped them formulate their own philosophical views, it attempts to show how the success and failure of cross‐cultural dialog lay the intellectual foundation of Western‐centrism and what lessons should be drawn from the intellectual encounters for future cultural exchanges.
Boredom besets us despite the advanced technology and diversified lifestyles nowadays. The article examines the sources of boredom and the ways to deal with it along with Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the Song Neo-Confucian. In light of Zhu, boredom can be reduced by making oneself less boredom prone, which is mainly achieved by the recognition of the meaning of and in life and existence. This recognition works in prompting us to find things interesting and engage in things. In other words, the antidote to boredom lies mainly in maintaining the liveliness of our heart-mind (xin (sic)), which is related to the recognition of the pattern (li (sic)). This account is intriguing as it can account for both the objective and subjective elements concerning the constitution of meaning, preventing meaning from being repressive or willful.
I discuss three philosophical puzzles about changing the past, and offer puzzling solutions, informed by the Coombes-Lewis-Vihvelin view of ability, or CVL for short. The queries are, respectively, (1) whether changing the past can be modeled, (2) whether rational agents are able to change the past, and (3) whether, given determinism, the necessity of the past hampers the prospect for free will. A model is a complete, consistent way the actual world might be. The first puzzle is whether, supposing the possibility of time travel, one can model changing the past. I argue that all models of time travel are Ludovician, meaning they do not permit changing the past. Call this weak accidental necessity: Another question arises about the strong accidental necessity of the past, whether weak accidental necessity entails that the past is beyond human control. David Lewis famously argues against this inference, offering a model of no-difference time travel along with a solution to the grandfather paradox: time travelers are able to change the past though they never do. CVL accepts Lewis's claims but replaces his contextualism with Kadri Vihvelin's wide-narrow ability distinction, informed by Olivia Coombes's cognitive science model, and supplemented with my own account of warrant for judgments about wide ability. The first two puzzles give rise to the third. CVL is a compatibilist view, holding that free will-understood as requiring the ability to do otherwise-is coherent given determinism. However, assumptions about the necessity of the past are prevalent in versions of the consequence argument for incompatibilism, the denial of compatibilism. My comments about the consequence argument are complex. I begin with the no-past objection and show that a standard reply leads to a determinism-independent argument against the ability to do otherwise. In addition, the consequence argument rests on the assumption that a lack of wide ability logically transfers: I am unable to leave a room if the door is locked unless I am able to unlock the door. I show the inference is invalid.
The philosophical system of the Shangjunshu 商君書 (the Book of Lord Shang ; hereinafter the BLS ) can be understood by analyzing its theses concerning the concept of the shengren 聖人 (sage). Similarly, to other philosophical texts in Chinese philosophy, the BLS expresses its ideals through the concept of the sage, devoting a great deal of space to expounding on it rather than simply assimilating the ideal of a sage to that of any male of exceptional ability. In the BLS , the sage establishes laws, defines all things, and attains fuguo qiangbing 富國強兵 (state enrichment and army strengthening) by combining agriculture and warfare. Focusing on the BLS 's theses on the sage, we can better understand the complex philosophy stated in this book and possibly gain insight into the directions that humanity should pursue.
