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79Legalism as Legal Positivism?Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 40 163-168. 2008.The Rule of law often is considered to be a criterion for legal positivistic thinking. According to this maxim: can the Chinese Legalistic thinking of Shang Yang and Han Fei be considered as a sort of Legal Positivism? There are many positions shared by both, like the idea of a positive law or the binding character of the law despite of person and sympathies or even the concept of the law as a system. There is, however a important difference between them: legal positivism can be best described a…Read more
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45Han Fei, De, WelfareAsian Philosophy 23 (3): 260-274. 2013.This paper explores the relation of order and welfare for Han Fei's philosophy. It will be claimed that the Legalist did indeed show concern for the overall quality of life of society, claiming that his model state would lead to a substantial increase for the individual's welfare. On the other hand, although he acknowledges (and cares) for these positive consequences, Han Fei does not attach any value for legitimizing the system he proposes to them. Even if there were any value attached to benef…Read more
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43Bell, Daniel A., The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015, 318 pagesDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 15 (4): 639-642. 2016.
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41No Problem With Weakness of the WillProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 33 53-58. 2008.Weakness of the Will can impose a problem for most theories of rationality, since they try to assess rationality in the framework of one theory. Here, Akrasia is divides in three different types and each analyzed separately. First, someone changes her mind on her action. Second, someone “forced” to change her action without changing her mind. This force is alien to the will and can be a psychological cause. Finally, third, the same alien force is working upon the agent, but theagent thinks it to…Read more
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35Adventures in Chinese Realism: Classic Philosophy Applied to Contemporary Issues (edited book)SUNY Press. 2022.What is Chinese Realism and how to update its research program? Realism analyses the world as it is – not as it should be. Realists, then, propose dealing with actual, real-world problems using actual, real-world instruments, such as incentives, rewards, and punishments. Once a major power in classical Chinese philosophy, Realism, or Legalism, fell out of favor early on in Chinese history. Its ideas, however, remain alive and powerful. This edited volume shows that many of the Legalist recipes f…Read more
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27Goldin, Paul, ed., Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei: New York: Springer, 2013, 10 + 288 pages (review)Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 13 (3): 425-429. 2014.
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24The Institutions of Privacy: Data Protection Versus Property Rights to DataSATS 22 (1): 111-129. 2021.This paper investigates the conceptual possibility for, and the institutions relating to a positive right of private property to data. To do so, it distinguishes between structured data, as a designator, and datapoints, which are data embedded in the timeline. The reasoning being explored here is: the agents generating datapoints – he source of the data – have a right to private property to the datapoints they generate. The agents, then, can choose to retain the datapoints or to sell them to dat…Read more
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22Connolly, Tim, Doing Philosophy Comparatively: London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, 208 pagesDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 17 (2): 277-281. 2018.
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20Where Hanfei ErrsAuslegung 32 (1): 1-14. 2018.The Chinese Legalist Hanfei claimed that by separating the duties of the ruler as such from any moral claims attained to it, he made it possible for all rulers to apply “artifacts” for ruling. Ruling through moral superiority will fail because only few rulers will achieve it. Through the ruler running the “carefully oiled state machinery” as quasi-causal system, Hanfei claims to have developed a system of government suited even for the mediocre rulers. This paper claims that Hanfei shifted the d…Read more
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19Confucianism, Commerce, CapitalismCulture and Dialogue 8 (2): 295-322. 2020.This paper discusses commerce in Early Confucianism. It argues that the virtuous Confucian agent engages with the world in different ways, including in commerce – it is another way of acting with virtue. This conception is compared with two roughly contemporary approaches in economics, the thought of Wilhelm Röpke and the Humanomics project by Vernon Smith. In both, virtue is constitutive to commerce. However, they differ substantially in the exact relationship between virtue and commerce. While…Read more
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18Being a Self‐Interested, Parents‐Loving Person Delighted by Music—And a MohistPhilosophical Forum 51 (1): 33-47. 2020.The Philosophical Forum, EarlyView.
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14Editorial & IntroductionCulture and Dialogue 8 (2): 183-195. 2020.Introduction to special issue of Culture and Dialogue, on “Confucianism: Comparisons and Controversies,” co-edited with Henrique Schneider.
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12Introduction: Why Talk About Mozi Today?Philosophical Forum 51 (1): 3-16. 2020.The Philosophical Forum, EarlyView.
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12Chinese philosophy: The philosopher as activistHuman Affairs 31 (4): 488-495. 2021.In contemporary academic philosophy, Chinese Philosophy remains a niche. This has a lot to do with its presentation, which often creates an impression of alienness and allegory, making its contribution, especially to analytical questions, not obvious. This paper examines how a change in presentation eases the inclusion of Chinese Philosophy into the mainstream. On the assumption that there has been an “activist turn” in the discipline in general, philosophical interest in a tradition that ranges…Read more
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9Hanfei: der politische Realismus in der chinesischen PhilosophieArchiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 109 (2): 273-290. 2023.Whether for the republican president Sun Yat-sen or for the communist helmsman Mao Zedong, the legalist philosopher Hanfei (韓非), whose works marked the Qin Empire some 2200 years ago, still seems to be a source of inspiration. This paper traces the philosophy of Hanfei as a representative of political realism. In order to do so, these paper proceeds in three steps: First, realism is explained in terms of Hanfei, the “author” himself. Second, it is weighed how far his philosophy represents a brea…Read more
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7The early Confucian philosophy of agency: virtuous conductLexington Books. 2024.Virtuous conduct is the philosophy of agency within Early Confucianism. Drawing on the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, this book characterizes Early Confucianism as a progressive philosophy due to its human-centered program for social reform, its process view of self-cultivation, and its development.
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6Legalism as Legal Positivism?Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 40 163-168. 2008.The Rule of law often is considered to be a criterion for legal positivistic thinking. According to this maxim: can the Chinese Legalistic thinking of Shang Yang and Han Fei be considered as a sort of Legal Positivism? There are many positions shared by both, like the idea of a positive law or the binding character of the law despite of person and sympathies or even the concept of the law as a system. There is, however a important difference between them: legal positivism can be best described a…Read more
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Hegemony : China's foreign policy through Han Feizian lensesIn Eirik Lang Harris & Henrique Schneider (eds.), Adventures in Chinese Realism: Classic Philosophy Applied to Contemporary Issues, Suny Press. 2022.
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Asian Philosophy |