-
Speaking Wordly: An Adverbial View of RepresentationDissertation, Duke University. 2000.Numerous theories of intentionality have been proposed which seek to account for the aboutness of signs, symbols, and representations. Typically such theories attempt to provide a naturalistic account of intentionality, and such theories are often offered for supposed mental representations which are thought to have natural, underived intentionality. While theories of intentionality have problems, it is thought that some such theory must work, at least in principle. ;I offer an alternative adver…Read more
-
7Samsāra in a Coffee CupIn Fritz Allhoff, Scott F. Parker & Michael W. Austin (eds.), Coffee, Wiley‐blackwell. 2011-03-04.This chapter contains sections titled: Buddhist Backgrounds Brewing Up a Self Just a Cup of Coffee – or a Karma Macchiato?
-
17Qigong, Philosophical Reading, and the Cultivation of Attention: Chinese Contemplative Body Practices and Slow PhilosophySport, Ethics and Philosophy 16 (2): 165-179. 2020.Qigong practices are contemplative body practices and meditation techniques that emerge from Chinese philosophical, medical, and martial traditions. This paper argues that qigong is a kind of embod...
-
428. Aging, Equality, and Confucian SelvesIn Roger T. Ames Peter D. Hershock (ed.), Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence, University of Hawaii Press. pp. 483-502. 2015.
-
36Qigong, Philosophical Reading, and the Cultivation of Attention: Chinese Contemplative Body Practices and Slow PhilosophySport, Ethics and Philosophy (2): 1-15. 2020.Qigong practices are contemplative body practices and meditation techniques that emerge from Chinese philosophical, medical, and martial traditions. This paper argues that qigong is a kind of embod...
-
20Anscombe’s “I,” Zhuangzi’s Pipings of Heaven, and The Self That Plays the Ten Thousand Things: Remarks on Thomas Ming’s “Who Does the Sounding?”Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 17 (4): 569-584. 2018.
-
16An Indirect Argument for Strategic VotingJournal of Applied Philosophy 23 (4): 433-444. 2006.abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections…Read more
-
30Understanding the Heart-Mind Within the Heart-Mind of the NèiyèDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 15 (3): 393-412. 2016.The Nèiyè 內業 talks of “a heart-mind within a heart-mind” that is somehow connected to or prior to language. In the context of the overall advice on looking “inward” or “internally” as part of the meditation and mysticism practice that the Nèiyè introduces, this talk of a heart-mind within a heart-mind arguably invites comparisons with a Cartesian “inner theater” conception of mentality. In this paper, I examine the “inner” talk of the Nèiyè in order to tease out its identifiable commitments in p…Read more
-
31Body Practice and Meditation as PhilosophyTeaching Philosophy 39 (2): 115-135. 2016.What challenges arise when attempting to incorporate body practice and meditation into undergraduate philosophy courses? In recent years, a number of philosophers have begun teaching such practices in academic classrooms, and at my university I have experimented specifically with teaching qigong, taijiquan (i.e., t’ai chi), hatha yoga, and meditation techniques in a variety of courses on East Asian and Indian philosophy. Teaching body practices and meditations poses potential problems about excl…Read more
-
661Aging, Equality, and Confucian SelvesIn Roger T. Ames Peter D. Hershock (ed.), Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence, University of Hawaii Press. pp. 483-502. 2015.Liberal democracy aims to treat all adult citizens as politically equal, at least in ideal cases: Once a citizen is over the age of majority, she is deemed a full-fledged member of the community and in theory has equal standing with all other adult citizens when it comes to making policy and participating in the political realm in general. I consider three questions: (1) Is there any plausible alternative to a standard "all adult citizens have equal political standing" model of democracy that co…Read more
-
Saṃsāra in a coffee cup : self, suffering, and the karma of waking upIn Fritz Allhoff, Scott F. Parker & Michael W. Austin (eds.), Coffee - Philosophy for Everyone: Grounds for Debate, Wiley-blackwell. 2011.
-
56An indirect argument for strategic votingJournal of Applied Philosophy 23 (4). 2006.abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections…Read more
-
53Mou, Bo, Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement.: Boston: Brill, 2006. xx + 355 pagesDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 7 (4): 457-460. 2008.
-
110Turning representation inside out: An adverbial approach to the metaphysics of language and mindPhilosophical Forum 40 (4): 437-471. 2009.In order to resolve problems about the normative aspects of representation without having to (1) provide a naturalized theory of intentional/semantic properties, (2) accept non-natural intentional/semantic properties into our worldview, or (3) eliminate intentionality, this article questions a basic assumption about the metaphysics of representation: that representation involves representation-objects. An alternative, nonreifying approach to the metaphysics of representation is introduced and de…Read more
-
28Body Practice and Meditation as PhilosophyTeaching Philosophy 39 (2): 115-135. 2016.What challenges arise when attempting to incorporate body practice and meditation into undergraduate philosophy courses? In recent years, a number of philosophers have begun teaching such practices in academic classrooms, and at my university I have experimented specifically with teaching qigong, taijiquan (i.e., t’ai chi), hatha yoga, and meditation techniques in a variety of courses on East Asian and Indian philosophy. Teaching body practices and meditations poses potential problems about excl…Read more
-
284Mengzi, strategic language, and the shaping of behaviorPhilosophy East and West 58 (2): 190-222. 2008.: This essay introduces a way of reading the Mengzi (Mencius) that complicates how we understand what Mengzi is recorded as saying. A pragmatic-strategic reading of the Mengzi is developed here, according to which Mengzi attends to and operates under important pragmatic constraints on speech. Based on a close reading of key passages, it is argued that truth-telling and descriptive accuracy are less important to Mengzi than guiding people along the Confucian path. This reading has implications fo…Read more