Two New JCP Issues

The Journal of Chinese Philosophy fell behind a bit in its publication schedule, but is now working to catch up, and has recently published 42(1-2), March-June 2015; and 42(3-4), September-December 2015. Tables of Contents for both issues are below.


March-June 2015

Volume 42, Issue 1-2
Pages 1–262

AU – Cheng, Chung-Ying
TI – Preface: Interpreting Philosophical Classics—Chinese and Western

AU – Fuyarchuk, Andrew
TI – Introduction: Interpreting Philosophical Classics—Chinese and Western

AU – Cheng, Chung-Ying
TI – Receptivity and Creativity in Hermeneutics: From Gadamer to Onto-Hermeneutics (Part One)
AB – There are two aspects of the hermeneutic: the receptive and the creative. In this article, first of all, I shall identify the strengths of these two aspects of the hermeneutic in the main development of hermeneutics in Western world. Heidegger and Gadamer take ontological receptivity as the source of the meaning of existence as well as the meaningfulness of texts. In my view such a form of receptivity has shaped the predominant paradigm of hermeneutic thinking in contemporary Europe or West. Therefore, I move to the creative formation and positive projection of a transformative cosmological philosophy, namely the Yijing《易經》philosophy in Chinese tradition. In these two contrasts we shall not only notice the strong divergence between the two paradigms but come to see how receptivity and creativity of the hermeneutic could be divergently identified and located in concrete understanding of nature of reality and nature of the human being.
AU – Bontekoe, Ron
TI – On Gadamer’s Failure to Appreciate the Hermeneutical Dimensions of Science
AB – In Truth and Method, Gadamer largely agrees with Dilthey’s reasons for, and sharp distinction between, the Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften. This, however, leads Gadamer to misrepresent the methodological practices of the natural sciences; to fail to appreciate that in the natural sciences personal judgment and tact—or a “feel” for the discipline—are indispensable to the discovery of “truths.” In this respect, however, he is not to be faulted too severely, for the role played by personal judgment in the natural sciences was only just beginning to be recognized by mainstream philosophers of science at about the time that Truth and Method was published.

AU – Risser, James
TI – A (New) Paradigm for Hermeneutics

AU – Watson, Stephen H.
TI – Montaigne’s of Cruelty and the Emergence of Hermeneutic and Intercultural Modernity: Three Rival Readings
AB – While classical interpretations of hermeneutics have often identified themselves with Montaigne, others have contested not only whether Montaigne is committed to an account of a hermeneutic self, but whether a hermeneutics of traditional or self-identity (or differentiation) is either possible or desirable. This article will investigate the continuing viability of hermeneutics through contested interpretations of Montaigne undertaken from the varying standpoints of phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Lacan), and critical theory (Horkheimer). These interpretations have shed significant light on Montaigne’s work and have in turn been further illuminated by it; they reveal not only something about the hermeneutics of Montaigne’s work, but about consciousness, and the timeliness of hermeneutics itself.
AU – Mattice, Sarah
TI – A Metaphorical Conversation: Gadamer and Zhuangzi on Textual Unity
AB – In Truth and Method, Gadamer asserts that prior to beginning the process of understanding a text, we make certain assumptions about the text being a unity modeled on a one-on-one conversation. How should we approach a text that was composed by so many authors over such a long span of time? Using resources from the Zhuangzi, I argue for expanding the metaphor across time, space, and identity in order to rethink Gadamer’s assumption and its operative metaphor.

AU – Simon, Jules
TI – The Art of Interpretation: Rosenweig’s Midrash and Heidegger’s Hermeneutics
AB – The shared trajectory and thought between the phenomenological hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger and midrashic analysis of Franz Rosenzweig is established with respect to the task of taking up existing “classical” texts such as “The Song of Songs” and “The Ister” as well with respect to the embodied conditions of understanding through language with a view to delineating the motivating factors and the structural guidelines that determine our interpretive activities; specifically, intentional structures that distinguish communicative acts from one another that either brings them into conflict or into fruitful and harmonious communities.

AU – Joy, Morny
TI – Paul Ricoeur: From Hermeneutics to Ethics
AB – Paul Ricoeur’s early appreciation of hermeneutics introduced a dynamic interaction between a reader and a text. Employing both explanation and understanding, aided by the catalyst of Kantian creative imagination, Ricoeur revitalized hermeneutics from being simply a method of interpreting the literal meaning of a text. Such an openness to the text, as a form of otherness, initiated new insights into human ways of being and acting. In time, however, Ricoeur became disheartened by the unmerited suffering that he witnessed human beings were inflicting on other beings. He qualified his hermeneutic foundations so as to introduce compassion and justice as modes of action towards rejected and mistreated others.
AU – Palmquist, Stephen R.
TI – Twelve Basic Philosophical Concepts in Kant and the Compound Yijing
AB – This is the third in a series of articles that correlates Kant’s architectonic with the Yijing’s sixty-four hexagrams (gua 卦). Previous articles explained “architectonic” reasoning, introduced four levels of the “Compound Yijing,” consisting of 0 + 4 + 12 + (4 × 12 = 48) gua, and suggested correlating the fourth level’s four sets of twelve to the four “faculties” in Kant’s model of the university. This third paper examines the philosophy faculty, assessing whether the twelve proposed gua meaningfully correlate with twelve basic philosophical concepts that Kant introduces in his three Critiques. A key difference emerges: Kant’s architectonic method aims to produce synthetic a priori knowledge, while the Yijing’s architectonic method aims to produce analytic a posteriori belief.
AU – Ng, On-Cho
TI – The Yijing and Onto-Generative Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Cheng Chung-Ying’s Philosophy
AB – Chung-ying Cheng has been systematically expounding, expanding, and extending the insights and parameters of Western hermeneutics, producing a new understanding of Chinese philosophy by way of an onto-generative hermeneutics that unravels not only the epistemological workings of the ineluctable human process of interpreting and understanding, but also encapsulates the ontological conditions of which the process is an integral expression. His work functions as the bedrock of a philosophy of culture; the practical expression of Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics, construed as a valid and consistent theory of culture, dismisses the ideality of meaning by subjecting all cultural realities to constant reinterpretation, based on a non-foundationalist conception of culture, while squarely rooted in the ontological source of creativity.

AU – Hassoun, Nicole J.
AU – Wong, David B.
TI – Conserving Nature; Preserving Identity
AB – There are two broad approaches to environmental ethics. The “conservationist” approach on which we should conserve the environment when it is in our interest to do so and the “preservationist” approach on which we should preserve the environment even when it is not in our interest to do so. We propose a new “relational” approach that tells us to preserve nature as part of what makes us who we are or could be. Drawing from Confucian and Daoist texts, we argue that human identities are, or should be, so intimately tied to nature that human interests evolve in relationship to nature.

AU – Neville, Robert Cummings
TI – Value and Selfhood: Pragmatism, Confucianism, and Phenomenology
AB – This article articulates a dialogue between Edward Casey, Cheng Chung-ying, and me that began at the Eastern Division annual meeting in Philadelphia of the American Philosophical Association, in a session sponsored by the International Society for Chinese Philosophy. There, we read brief versions of the papers presented in this issue and commented on one another. Casey represented Continental phenomenology, Cheng the Chinese tradition as he has developed it into onto-generative hermeneutics, and I the melding of American pragmatic and Confucian traditions that I have been developing.

AU – Casey, Edward S.
TI – Phenomenology at the Edge of its Orbit
AB – Although cultures far away and with other languages and customs are felt to be exotic by many in one s own culture, all cultures recognize the importance of a consistent bodily praxis as a basis for ethical behavior. I show that thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Dewey, James, Peirce, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty all acknowledge this habitual-bodily basis as well as its deeply social character. So does Confucius, even if he emphasizes ceremonial aspects more than Aristotle, the American pragmatists, and phenomenologists. Linking these thinkers is a common emphasis on the performative dimension of reliably repetitive bodily actions that engender effective social actions and interactions.

AU – Cheng, Chung-Ying
TI – Phenomenology and Onto-Generative Hermeneutics: Convergencies
AB – In examining phenomenology as a base onto-generative hermeneutics (onto-hermeneutics) I find the gradual movement from pure phenomenology in Husserl to an ontological phenomenology in Merleau-Ponty through Heidegger and Gadamer. I argue thus that there is an implicit connection between the phenomenological and the ontological. In order to bring out the desirable connection between the two we must have hermeneutic interpretation of one in terms of the other. This leads to the idea of onto-hermeneutic circle of phenomenology and ontology based on the integration of the four phenomenologies which represent a wider comprehension and deeper intuition. It is in terms of this wider comprehension and deeper intuition of reality I introduce the Chinese notion “ben-ti 本體” (root-body) as “onto-generative” as well as onto-phenomenological. I suggest five principles as constituting the basic formulation of such a hermeneutic system as both theory and methodology: (i) Principle of comprehensive observation (guan 观) (the Yijing); (ii) Principle of objective reference (wu 物)1 (the Yijing); (iii) Principle of perception, reflection, and memory (gan 感) (the Yijing and the Confucian); (iv) Principle of intersubjective understanding and interpretation based on (ren 仁) (the Confucian); and (v) Principle of practical end and action (xing 行) (the Confucian).

AU – Cook, Constance
TI – “Mother” (Mu 母) and the Embodiment of the Dao
AB – This article employs newly discovered Warring States texts to reexamine questions regarding the use of the word mother (mu母) in the Laozi—did it refer to the feminine role of providing and caring for the descendants of an inherently male cosmic and social order or was it simply a metaphor for an abstract philosophical concept? The author reinforces the latter interpretation suggesting that Mother referred to that existential moment of temporal transition between the cycle of life and death.

AU – Kun, Wang
TI – Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy. By
AU – Stephen Angle. (Cambridge: PB – Polity Press, 2012. X, 204 Pp. ISBN-13:978-0-7456-6130-8.)

AU – Mih Tillman, Margaret
TI – Revolution as Restoration: Guocui Xuebao and China’s Path to Modernity, 1905–1911. By
AU – Tze-ki Hon. (Leiden: PB – Brill, 2013. 135 Pp. ISBN-10: 9004247807, ISBN-13: 978-9004247802.)

AU – Pang-White, Ann
TI – Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture. By
AU – Robin R. Wang. (New York: PB – Cambridge University Press
, 2012. xii, 250 Pp. Hardback, ISBN 1107000157. Paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-16513-6.)

AU – Bao, Yongling
TI – Das Wichtigste im Leben: Wang Yangming (1472–1529) und seine Nachfolger über die “Verwirklichung des ursprünglichen Wissens” (Zhi Liangzhi《致良知》) (The Most Important Thing in Life: Wang Yangming [1472–1529] and His Successors on the “Realization of Original Knowledge”). By
AU – Iso Kern. (Basel: PB – Schwabe Verlag, 2010. xxxi, 824 Pp. Hardcover/Hardback, ISBN 978-3-7965-2514-8.)


September-December 2015

Volume 42, Issue 3-4
Pages 263–432

AU – Cheng, Chung-Ying
TI – Preface: Action Theory and Chinese Philosophy—Unity of Knowledge and Action

AU – Connolly, Timothy
TI – Introduction: Action in Chinese Philosophy

AU – Brindley, Erica
TI – Authoring Non-Action in Early China
AB – This essay explores a call for non-action in certain ancient Chinese texts that, contrary to expectation, implicitly upholds definitions of action that are comparable to Western understandings of the term. The call for non-action in ancient Chinese texts differs significantly, however, from what Western theorists usually define as legitimate, agent-led action through its negation of viewing means-end calculations as the basis of action. Closer analysis of such formulations on non-action reveal that that there is room for a broader definition in action theory of what constitutes a coherent, unified, creative agent.

AU – Blake, Susan
TI – Agency, Non-Action, and Desire in the Laozi
AB – I present a reading of non-action in the Laozi that describes the relation of desire to non-action, the highest form of ethical action. Rather than advocating elimination of desires, or even of “self-oriented” desires, the text recommends simply reducing desires if they impede the quietism that is of primary importance. To defend my interpretation, I demonstrate its agreement with early commentaries on the Laozi.

AU – Ramsey, John
TI – Wisdom, Agency, and the Role of Reasons in Mengzi
AB – I examine the role moral reasons play in the Mengzi and their relationship to Mengzi’s conception of wisdom. Some commentators have argued that agency in early Chinese thought is best characterized as performance based rather than deliberation based. I propose that Mengzi’s conception of agency is both performative and deliberative because he understands wisdom as a sort of expert decision making. Consequently, Mengzi relies on moral reasons of two sorts. First, duan-reasons are reasons to act so as to overcome internal obstacles to action and, second, renyi-reasons are reasons to act so as to achieve a goal that constitutes moral success.

AU – Kim, Youngmin
TI – Moral Action in Zhan Ruoshui’s 湛若水 (1466–1560) Philosophical Anthropology
AB – This article frames Zhan Ruoshui’s philosophical anthropology in a way as to compare it with two competing positions—those of Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming—and explores it as an answer to a set of questions many mid-Ming philosophers shared, rather than to perennial, ahistorical philosophical questions. As against Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming, Zhan proposes his characteristic motto, suichu tiren tianli, as a way to unite the self and the world. The implication is that moral knowledge must be pursued neither (merely) in the dimension of things and affairs, nor outside the dimension of things and affairs.

AU – Cocks, Samuel
TI – Wang Yangming on Spontaneous Action, Mind as Mirror, and Personal Depth
AB – The intention of this paper is to reveal how Wang Yangming’s account of spontaneous action includes the development of a sense of personhood and world that both involve historical depth. This will require me to demonstrate how Wang’s use of the mirror metaphor does not necessitate a strictly empty account of the human person and their experienced world. I will first elucidate how it is possible to interpret Wang as suggesting that the latter two are poor in depth and identity. Then I will go on to demonstrate that the latter reading does not do justice to Wang’s insistence on the rectification and hence stabilization of the person and things across time, past and future.
AU – Allen, Barry
TI – To Really See the Little Things: Sage Knowledge in Action
AB – Sage knowledge knows the evolution of circumstances from an early point, when tendencies may be inconspicuously, “effortlessly” diverted. This knowledge is expressed, not “represented,” being an intensive quality of action rather than of belief, proposition, or theory, and its effortlessness is not a matter of effort versus no effort, but of the intensity with which effort tends to vanish. The value of such knowledge and the explanation of its accomplishment in terms of perceiving incipience or “really seeing the little things” crisscross lines among Confucians, Neo-Confucians, Daoists, and Art of War thinkers. What distinguishes these currents arises not from different definitions or justifications of knowledge but instead different ideas about how to acquire such knowledge and especially how to train it for wisdom.

AU – Weber, Ralph
TI – On the Contemporary Study of “Chinese Philosophy” in Europe
AB – What is the state of affairs with regard to the academic study of “Chinese philosophy” in Europe? This is the rather straightforward question that I address in the present article. Focusing on developments since 2007, I depict the institutional landscape in terms of associations and journals, present an overview of translations, and offer a survey of research, mostly of works published in languages other than English. The aim is not in the first instance to offer an exhaustive bibliography, but to document the many research activities taking place in all parts of continental Europe. Personal comments about the prospects of “Chinese philosophy” in Europe conclude the article.

AU – Weber, Ralph
TI – A Bibliography on “Chinese Philosophy” in Europe, 2007–2013

AU – Møllgaard, Eske
TI – An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. By
AU – Steve Coutinho. New York: PB – Columbia University Press, 2014. x, 231 pp. Paperback. 978-0-231-14339-4.

AU – Hatley, James
TI – Levinas and Asian Thought. Edited by Leah Kalmanson, Frank Garrett, and Sarah Mattice. Pittsburgh: PB – Duquesne University Press

AU – Fox, Alan D.
TI – Zhuangzi: Text and Context. By
AU – Livia Kohn. Honolulu: PB – Three Pines Press, 2014. 335 pp. ISBN-10: 1931483272; ISBN-13: 978-1931483278.
AU – Mih Tillman, Margaret
TI – The Challenge of Linear Time: Nationhood and the Politics of History in East Asia. Edited by Viren Murthy and Axel Schneider. Leiden: PB – Brill, 2014. ISBN13: 9789004260139; E-ISBN: 9789004260146. 301 pp.

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