Search

Universal mind, despite historical links to esoteric metaphysics, can be objectively experienced through a practice called "shin shin toitsu," meaning mind and body unification. Universal mind became a central element of Eastern thought with the rise of Chan Buddhism in China. Bodhidharma taught that the one, or universal, mind is the foundation of existence. It is unchangeable and imperturbable. Moreover, it is expressed equally whether one is sitting in silence or performing a complex martial art. In Japan, the close historical relationship between religion and the martial arts transformed the concept of universal mind. This paper discusses how, in modern times, the efforts of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido (the way of harmony with ki); Tempu Nakamura, teacher of Japanese yoga; and Koichi Tohei, the founder of Shin Shin Toitsu Do (the way of mind and body unification) have presumably made it possible fo r anyone to directly experience universal mind within daily life. Then, as a way of evaluating this proposal, the paper analyzes universal mind using the philosophical and psychological principles of Western phenomenology. This sheds new light on both Eastern and Western perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the circular structure of values in China. The circular structure is a central element of Schwartz value theory and visualises the idea that some values are similar while others conflict with one another. Whereas numerous studies addressed the question whether the circular structure of values can be generalised cross‐culturally, results for China are inconclusive. In this paper, we argue that taking a closer look at China provides a challenge to the circular structure and allows for drawing conclusions regarding the limits versus generalizability of Schwartz' theory. For this purpose, we first conduct a re‐analysis of Chinese data from a former meta‐analysis (Study 1) and second, present results from a large study of 10,652 Chinese college students (Study 2). Results of Study 1 revealed that graphical representation of the circular structure matched theoretical expectations but five out of six samples showed relatively bad fit to the theorised structure. By contrast, data in Study 2 showed a good model fit. As an overall conclusion, the circular structure is well supported in the Chinese context, and small sample sizes in previous studies might have caused the imperfect match to the prototypical circular structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient Egypt and China share a realist process metaphysics related to human afterlife transformation. Veiling this transformative biophysics from the general population, the Egyptian pharaonic priesthood and the Chinese sages aimed to unify the universe via a transformation to cosmic mind or energy. To understand their process of change based on knowledge and observer-participancy, this research is a preliminary investigation into both cultures' similar use of psychic transformative signs (mountain, hybrid, gate) often found in religion, myth and literature. Grounded in the semiotics of C. S. Peirce and as part of a continuing inductive argument, testing predictions based on a thesis on the meaning of Ancient Egyptian texts, this paper examines the pharaonic path to universality profiled in ancient Egyptian texts, while showing that the ancient Chinese 'Way' is remarkably similar. In an attempt to approximately verify natural law via induction, this semiotic approach supports that, should we understand the classical action of signs as a holographic veil of the molecular world, a lawful biophysical system for the evolution to universal mind would be accessible to human reason. Depending on observer-participancy, a central feature of the quantum world, both Egyptian and Chinese texts reinforce that the mind acts as the cosmic unifying force. Mind may be the missing element related to 21st Century Physics' search for its 'Holy Grail,' a theory of quantum gravity to shed light on the Big Bang, microscopic black hole spacetime, and the unification of the four forces. To explore these ideas, this paper will examine biophysical survival messages preserved in Ancient Egyptian texts that are mirrored in the Chinese Lî Kî, the stele inscriptions of Ch'in Shih-Huang, and other texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concentrates on Feng's interpretation of Western philosophy from the perspective of metaphysical methodology and aims to display a limited observation of Feng's interpretation of Western philosophy through the window of metaphysical methodology. Based on a brief review of the recent studies of Feng Youlan and Western philosophy, this paper analyzes the progress and insufficient aspects in current studies on this issue and particularly clarifies what are the metaphysics and metaphysical methods in the context of Feng Youlan's philosophy. In clarifying Feng's interpretation of Western philosophy from the perspective of methodology, this paper further critically analyzes Feng's positive metaphysical methods and negative metaphysical methods, and assumes that Feng's negative metaphysical methods essentially is a kind of attitude towards metaphysics but neither a kind of metaphysics nor a kind of metaphysical methods. Instead of characterizing metaphysical methods as positive and negative as Feng did, this paper suggests an alternative division of metaphysical methods: direct and indirect methods of dealing with metaphysical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art (08687692) is the property of Logos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates the formation of the concept of science in modern Chinese thought from four perspectives. The first aspect concentrates on the Japanese origin of the concept of science, analyzing this concept through the formation of the late Qing branches of learning, fenke zhixue, and the knowledge system of positivism. The second aspect takes gezhi (investigating things and extending knowledge), qiongli (exhaustion of principle) and other concepts as clues and analyzes the relationship between the concepts of modern science and the study of the school of principle lixue to show the breakdown and connection between scientific concepts fused in the three aspects of nature, morality and politics and the Confucian world view. The third aspect takes as its focus the systematization of scientific research, analyzing the agencies of science, scientific publications and the scientific community's formation and the influence of these elements on society and culture. The fourth aspect takes the May Fourth debate on East-West notions of civilization and the debate on science and metaphysics as its focus, discussing scientific language, the debate between civilizations and the formation of the fields of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with an appreciation and critique of the remarkable work of Peter Sloterdijk which makes it possible to open up a number of issues concerning philosophy and its relation to the social sciences and humanities, most particularly concerning the role of evidence and the pervasiveness of Eurocentrism. In particular, the paper argues that it is possible to think of different ways of raising the spectre of space which are as plausible as the account provided by Sloterdijk's spatial philosophy/philosophy of space. Navigating by the compass of classical Chinese civilisation, I proceed to sketch out a different diagnosis from that of Sloterdijk of how space is being materialised in contemporary Euro-American cultures. Drawing on logographic traditions of writing the world, I argue that, rather than describing what is now being produced by capitalism and other actors as a warehoused world full of lost souls, it is possible to think of different means of describing how the future is being scripted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces the eccentric or unfamiliar concepts of interality and interalogy by proceeding from the tradition of Eastern, especially Chinese, philosophy. After elucidating the etymological meanings and the philosophical significances of the terms, the author suggests that interalogy as the study of interality could be a way of looking at the world alternative to traditional Western ontological or metaphysical ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that philosophy in the sense of metaphysical speculation is universal and not at all language-specific. At the beginning of traditional Chinese philosophy, the ancient Chinese thinkers were concerned with social morality, raising questions which differed greatly from those of ancient Greeks and the language they used was typologically different from the western languages, but in the end the thinking and debating over their questions gave rise to speculations on language names which were unmistakably metaphysical in nature and oriented toward the establishment of conditions of truth in language. This shows that truth-seeking is a universal predisposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feng Youlan (1895–1990), a preeminent philosopher of twentieth-century China, tried to build a modern Chinese metaphysics that was at once universal and based on a structure of traditional Chinese concepts such as li/principles and qi/vital energy. His intellectual borrowings included New Realism, an early twentieth-century school of philosophy that attempted to provide a scientific basis for metaphysics. New Realism’s affirmation of the objectivity of a priori logical relationships in the universe enabled Feng to construct a metaphysical structure of philosophy in China without becoming bogged down in the debate of the priority of practice over principle in Chinese history. While most published work has treated Feng’s famous “negative method” as the “more Chinese” part of his work in contrast to his writings influenced by New Realism, this article argues that Feng’s logical/metaphysical construct of philosophy in China sought to build a metaphysical discourse of experience by employing both a logical/analytical and a “negative” nonverbal method resembling Chan Buddhist practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From the perspective of world philosophy, one phenomenon of the 20th century is quite intriguing. Certain philosophers in China as well as in the West, finding the traditional conception of epistemology too narrow-minded, argued that its scope should be expanded. The Chinese way of expanding epistemology might be called the metaphysical approach, and the Western way the practical approach. In this article, I will first give an outline of both approaches and then try to demonstrate that a substantial dialogue can be created between them. By focusing on the problem of the articulation of what we know, I will make the metaphysical approach and the practical approach engage each other and thus prove to be mutually complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

one of the greatest writers in ancient China, Tu Fu has exerted immense influence upon subsequent poets, including those living in the modern era. Combining history and text with theory, this essay intends to make an in-depth exploration of the rewriting of Tu Fu by Feng Zhi, Yang Mu, Xi Chuan, and Liu Waitong. First, I contextualize the selected four poems composed in 1941, 1974, 1989, and 2000, respectively; and then do a close reading of them. By doing so, this essay aims to observe the tensions between historical narrative and literary imagination, and between symbolic metaphor and living world, so as, ultimately, to interpret how the factors of aesthetics, politics, and metaphysics shaped the different images of Tu Fu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers of Philosophy in China is the property of Higher Education Press Limited Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)