JeeLoo Liu

In this paper, I attempt to make use of Western metaphysical taxonomy to explicate the cosmological variances in Chinese philosophical schools, especially with regard to the debates among the Neo-Confucian thinkers. While I do not presume that Chinese philosophers dealt with the same Western issues, I do believe that a comparative study of this nature can point to a new direction of thinking concerning the metaphysical debates in Neo-Confucianism. This paper is divided into three parts. In Part I, I employ Robert Nozick’s notion of natural cosmic state to analyze the fundamental difference between the Confucian and Daoist cosmologies. Even though this notion of natural cosmic state has no comparable match in Chinese philosophy, it may serve as a schematizing device for our comparative study of Chinese cosmology. In Part II, I employ Nicholas Rescher’s distinction between “laws of nature” and “laws for nature” to analyze the debate on the status of cosmic principle a between Zhou Dunyib and Zhu Xic on the one hand, and Zhang Zaid and Wang Fuzhie on the other. 1 In Part III, I employ the notion of supervenience, as defined by Jaegwon Kim, to argue that in the debate on the status of cosmic principle, it is Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi’s view that better preserves the causal relevance of cosmic principle.

Kripke's puzzle is an old and familiar story. It was put forward in Kripke's 'A puzzle about Belief.'[1979] But even today it still has such a charm that people are drawn to it time and time again. In this paper I shall use his puzzle as the stepping stone for developing a new description theory of proper names. Kripke tries to defend his direct reference theory against the charge that it cannot explain the role of proper names in an epistemic context (such as belief, thought, etc.). There are many famous puzzles involving substitution salva veritate for different names of the same referent, and the description theory can easily dissolve them by suggesting that different names have different senses. These puzzles were considered to be defeating the direct reference theory of proper names. Kripke thus tries to demonstrate a similar puzzle that does not involve different names, and thus does not involve different senses. Using his principle of disquotation and principle of translation,1 Kripke presents a puzzle which involves a Frenchman Pierre who is attributed the following set of beliefs: (1) Pierre believes that London is pretty. (2) Pierre believes that London is not pretty. According to Kripke, the two belief reports attribute a contradiction to Pierre, even though Pierre himself cannot be interpreted as being inconsistent.2 Kripke also discusses another puzzle which invokes only the principle of disquotation and no translation is involved. This is the example of Peter’s two beliefs concerning the politician/musician Paderewski. In this case, we get a similar set of contradictory belief reports: (3) Peter believes that Paderewski has musical talent. (4) Peter believes that Paderewski has no musical talent.

It has been noted in recent literature (e.g., Ross & Spurrett 2004, Kim 2006, McLaughlin 2006 and Cohen 2005) that functionalism can be separated into two varieties: one that emphasizes the role state, the other that emphasizes the realizer state. The former is called “role functionalism” while the latter has been called “realizer functionalism” (Ross & Spurrett 2004, Kim 2006, Cohen 2005) or “filler functionalism” (McLaughlin 2006). The separation between role functionalism and realizer functionalism mars the distinction traditionally made between functionalism and the identity theory, because realizer functionalism can be seen as the synthesis of functionalism and the identity theory. In this paper, I begin with an analysis of the distinction between role and realizer functionalism. I shall further develop realizer functionalism as a viable, or arguably the best, explanatory model for the mind-brain relation. Finally, I will argue that under realizer functionalism, we can give an account of how mind is placed in the material world without at the same time giving up on the autonomy of psychology. The autonomy of psychology is tantamount to the thesis that mental properties are not type-identical with, nor type-reducible to, physical properties of the brain. In the philosophical debate on reductive and nonreductive physicalism, reductivism seems to be gaining the upper hand these days. In the final section of this paper, Ishall sketch my defense of nonreductive physicalism. I believe that the current enthusiasm for reductionism is misguided, and I shall show that under realizer functionalism, reductionism in the sense of reductive explanation, i.e., providing explanation of the psychological in terms of the underlying physical properties, is not a feasible project.

Tian-tai Buddhism and Hua-yan Buddhism can be viewed as the two most philosophically important schools in Chinese Buddhism. The Tian-tai school was founded by Zhi-yi (Chih-i) (538-597 A.D.). The major Buddhist text endorsed by this school is the Lotus Sutra, short for “the Sutra of the Lotus Blossom of the Subtle Dharma.” Hua-yan Buddhism derived its name from the Hua-yan Sutra, translated as “The Flower Ornament Scripture” or as “The Flowery Splendor Scripture.”1 The founder of the Hua-yan school was a Chinese monk named Du-shun (557-640 A.D.). The second patriarch of Hua-yan is Zhi-yan (602-668 A.D.), who studied with Du-shun. However, it is generally acknowledged that the real founder of Hua-yan Buddhism is its third patriarch, Fa-zang (643-712 A.D.). He introduced the division of “the Realm of Principle” and “the Realm of Things,”2 which was developed by Hua-yan’s fourth patriarch Cheng-guan (738-839? A.D.) into the defining thesis for Hua-yan Buddhism – the “four dharma realms”: the Realm of Principle, the Realm of Things,3 the Realm of the Noninterference between Principle and Things, and the Realm of the Noninterference of All Things.

This paper begins with Thomas Nagel's (1970) investigation of the possibility of altruism to further examine how to motivate altruism. When the pursuit of the gratification of one's own desires generally has an immediate causal efficacy, how can one also be motivated to care for others and to act towards the well-being of others? A successful motivational theory of altruism must explain how altruism is possible under all these motivational interferences. The paper will begin with an exposition of Nagel's proposal, and see where it is insufficient with regard to this further issue. It will then introduce the views of Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi, and see which one could offer a better motivational theory of altruism. All three philosophers offer different insights on the role of human reason/reflection and human sentiments in moral motivation. The paper will end with a proposal for a socioethical moral program that incorporates both moral reason and moral sentiments as motivation.

Chinese philosophy has its roots in religion, and has spread to the general Chinese public as a mixture of attitudes in life, cultural spirit, as well as religious practices. However, Chinese philosophy is not just a collection of wisdom on life or a religious discourse on how to lead a good life; it is also a form of philosophy. And yet its philosophical import has often been slighted in the Western philosophical world. Two hundred years ago, Hegel remarked that there is no separation between philosophy and religion in the East: “That which we call Eastern Philosophy is more properly the religious mode of thought and the conception of the world belonging generally to the Orientals and approximates very closely to Philosophy.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. 1) Under this conception, Hegel’s attitude with Chinese philosophy was completely dismissive. He described Confucius as “only a man who has a certain amount of practical and worldly wisdom — one with whom there is no speculative philosophy,” and “it would have been better had [his works] never been translated.” With Laozi’s conception of ‘dao,’ Hegel commented: “to the Chinese what is highest and the origin of things is nothing, emptiness, the altogether undetermined, the abstract universal,” and “if..

The mental: [I] The unconscious: A totally unconscious man has a mind and the mind is in various states. ___ He does not lack knowledge and beliefs. ___ He may be credited with memories and skills. ___ He may be credited with likes and dislikes, attitudes and emotions, current desires and current aims and purposes. He may be said to have certain traits of character and temperament. He may be said to be in certain moods..... [The mental states of a totally unconscious person are thus "causally quiescent": ___ knowledge and beliefs may be said to be causally quiescent while they are not producing any mental effect in the person.].