Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture

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SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1998 - Philosophy - 336 pages
This book continues a comparative project begun with the authors' Thinking Through Confucius and Anticipating China. It continues the comparative discussions by focusing upon three concepts--self, truth, transcendence--which best illuminate the distinctive characters of the two cultures. "Self" specifies the meaning of the human subject, "truth" considers that subject's manner of relating to the world of which it is a part, and "transcendence" raises the issue as to whether the self/world relationship is grounded in something other than the elements resourced immediately in self and world. Considered together, the discussions of these concepts advertise in a most dramatic fashion the intellectual barriers currently existing between Chinese and Western thinkers. More importantly, these discussions reformulate Chinese and Western vocabularies in a manner that will enhance the possibilities of intercultural communication.
 

Contents

Prologue
xi
The Problematic of Self in Western Thought
3
THE MODERN SELF
11
THE VAGUENESS OF THE SELF
14
The FocusField Self in Classical Confucianism
23
THE MINDLESS SELF
28
THE BODILESS SELF
31
THE AIMLESS SELF
35
LOGIC AND RHETORIC
135
CHINA AND THE WEST
143
A Pragmatic Understanding of the Way Dew it
147
PLOTTING A COURSE DAO i
148
ONE WAY OR MANY?
150
BECOMING AN EXEMPLARY PERSON JUNZI
155
LIVING UP TO ONES WORD XIN AND HAVING INTEGRITY CHENQ ift
161
BECOMING A GENUINE PERSON ZHENREN JtA
163

THE NONWILLING SELF
37
SELF AS FIELD AND FOCUS
39
The FocusField Self in Classical Daoism
45
DIFFERENCE AND DEFERENCE
58
SELF HUMOR AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THINGS
68
Chinese Sexism
79
DUALISTIC SEXISM
86
CORRELATIVE SEXISM
88
Excursus on Method
103
ARS CONTEXTUALIS
111
WHAT HAS ATHENS TO DO WITH ALEXANDRIA?
112
SOME IRONIES OF THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
120
Cultural Requisites for a Theory of Truth in China
123
COHERENCE AND WORLD ORDER
124
REALITY AND APPEARANCE
126
THEORY AND PRACTICE
128
RATIONAL ARGUMENTS
129
CONVERGENCES AND DIVERGENCES
171
TRUTH AND THE HARMONY OF THE WAY
180
The Decline of Transcendence in the West
189
THE COLLAPSE OF THE WESTERN GODS
193
THEOLOGY AND MYSTICISM
203
THE WANING OF TRANSCENDENCE IN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
212
Tian and Doo Sit as Nontranscendent Fields
219
TIAN X
232
DAO il
244
The Chinese Community without Transcendence
253
COULD SOCRATES AND CONFUCIUS BE FRIENDS?
254
RITES AND RIGHTS
269
Notes
287
Works Cited
317
Index
331
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

David L. Hall is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is the author of The Civilization of Experience: A Whiteheadian Theory of Culture; The Uncertain Phoenix: Adventures Toward a Post-Cultural Sensibility; and Eros and Irony: A Prelude to Philosophical Anarchism. With SUNY Press, Professor Hall is coauthor of Thinking Through Confucius (with Roger T. Ames); and Anticipating China (with Roger T. Ames); author of The Arimaspian Eye and Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New Pragmatism.

Roger T. Ames is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii and editor of Philosophy East and West. He is the author of The Art of Rulership: A Study in Ancient Chinese Political Thought and coeditor of Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (with J. Baird Callicott); Self and Deception: A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry (with Wimal Dissanayake); Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice; and Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice (both with Wimal Dissanayake and Thomas Kasulis), all published by SUNY Press. He is also the translator of Sun-tzu: The Art of Warfare; and Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare (with D. C. Lau).

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