Morality and Metaphysics

2012

Since these selected Neo-Confucians had similar philosophical concerns and their various philosophical positions were based on largely the same Confucian classics, the best way to capture their philosophical variances is to present their views thematically rather than chronologically. The structure of this book lays out the metaphysical foundations for Neo-Confucian theories of mind and morality. The major common themes in NeoConfucianism include: 1) The relationship between the two constituents of the universe—cosmic principle (li) and cosmic force (qi); 2) The debate on whether human nature, or human mind, is the exemplification of this cosmic principle; 3) The analysis of the roots of human good and evil as a way to answer the question of what makes human morality possible.

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Onto-Cosmology as Onto-Morality This article is about morality and its foundation. 1 In particular, I will attempt to show that moral life is its own foundation. Confucianism is a good example for an attitude of this type; Neo-Confucianism is a renewal of it in new terminology. We are used to appreciating the Neo-Confucian project as endowing Confucian morality with its "missing link" in the form of a metaphysical foundation. In this article I claim that the so-called "metaphysical" language in Neo-Confucianism is first and foremost an affirmation of Confucian morality, in new terms receptive to the challenge of the time. These terms are metaphysical in nature, and yet very true to Confucian original spirit, as they do not endow Confucianism with an external foundation, but rather with an internal ethical one. I address the question of the significance of metaphysical terms by showing the inner bond of the Great Ultimate (taiji) and humanity (ren), suggesting that moral beings are "organs" in the one ultimate body, which is fundamentally moral. I first deal with humanity depicted as origination (yuan, as related to benti); secondly, in terms of substance (ti) and function (yong); third, as the highest good or the Great Ultimate itself. I conclude with a general remark regarding the power of foundations of this nature in a contemporary context. Generally speaking, in Confucianism, from the cosmological perspective, in the process of creation, both human and "divine" are operative. The relation between the ultimate and the myriad of things can roughly be put such that "things" exist in one organic whole; this whole is the Great Ultimate, and anything included in it is an essential characteristic or aspect of this whole. Accordingly, morality is related to the Great Ultimate as an essential characteristic of the

Emotions in Korean Philosophy and Religion

This chapter discusses the Four-Seven Debate and the Horak Debate, the two major philosophical debates of Korean Neo-Confucianism and analyzes how Korean Neo-Confucians in the Joseon dynasty understood and explained emotions in their theories of the mind, morality, and human nature. Although the Korean thinkers respected and followed the philosophical framework of the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, they also developed their own theories of emotions. The philosophical significance of Korean Neo-Confucianism lies in its unique moral psychology, the moral psychology of the emotional mind with its dedication to the moral nature of human beings and the regulative principle of the universe.

Dao, 2009

If ZHU Xi had been a western philosopher, we would say he synthesized the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus: that he took from Plato the theory of forms, from Aristotle the connection between form and empirical investigation, and from Plotinus self-differentiating holism. But because a synthesis abstracts from the incompatible elements of its members, it involves rejection as well as inclusion. Thus, ZHU Xi does not accept the dualism by which Plato opposed to the rational forms an irrational material principle, and does not share Aristotle's irreducible dualism between form and prime matter, or his teleology. Neither does he share Plotinus' indifference to the empirical world. Understanding how these similarities and differences play out against one another will help us discover what is at stake in their various commitments. Keywords Metaphysics. Plato. Aristotle. Plotinus. ZHU Xi ZHU Xi and Chinese philosophers generally, like Plato, did not compartmentalize philosophy into separate areas of metaphysics, ethics, politics, etc., but combined as many aspects of philosophy as necessary to answer the question they happened to be addressing. Even Aristotle, who first divided philosophy into its various species, made it clear how they were all related within the enterprise of philosophy as a whole. In our own study of philosophers, it is helpful to emulate Aristotle's example and gain clarity by narrowing our focus to a particular aspect of their thought; but it is also helpful to see how the aspects are connected, and to notice how the various areas of a philosopher's interest do not merely coexist in juxtaposition with each other, but mutually inform each other-that our metaphysical beliefs, for example, have consequences for our moral beliefs. The present article pursues this double objective by looking at the metaphysical, ethical, and empirical aspects of these philosophers' work with a view to seeing how the areas are connected. I bring ZHU Xi together not with Plato, Aristotle, or Plotinus alone, but with all three, because if he had been a western philosopher, we would say that he synthesized their Dao

A slightly more refined version is published at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2019.03.33. https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/neo-confucianism-metaphysics-mind-and-morality/

What is the metaphysical background to early Confucian ethics? Is there a distinctive picture of reality common to all classical Chinese thinkers that we must grasp in order to make sense of texts like the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi? Contemporary interpreters disagree on the answer to these questions, and this disagreement is reflected not just in scholarly debates but in how early Confucian texts are introduced to larger audiences. This article will begin with a discussion of some general methodological issues involved in applying the term "metaphysics" to classical Chinese thought, and then examine prominent reconstructions of the metaphysical background to early Confucian texts.

Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130-1200) is commonly and justifiably regarded as the greatest synthesizer of neo-Confucian thinking. One of the things that make neo-Confucianism new, in comparison to classical Confucianism, is its development of moral metaphysics as an onto-theological articulation of classical Confucian moral values. Of course, classical Confucians do not reject metaphysics. As a matter of fact, almost all the terms and even ideas neo-Confucians use in their project of metaphysical articulation can be found in Confucian classics. It is only that, in classical Confucianism, such terms and ideas either lack a clearly metaphysical significance or, if they do have such significance, they do not occupy a central place in their system. The main concern of classical Confucians is how to live a moral life, not to provide a metaphysical articulation of such a moral life.

COMPLEMENTARY TO OTHER POSTINGS Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between possibility and actuality. Reviewing these papers will set the scene for a REVIEW of the very popular KANTISM of Today. Metaphysics is the science of being and ask the question “What really exists?” The answer to this question has been sought for by mankind since the beginning of recorded time. In the past 2500 years there have been many answers to this question and these answers dominate our view of how physics is done. Examples of questions which were originally metaphysical are the shape of the earth, the motion of the earth, the existence of atoms, the relativity of space and time, the uncertainty principle, the renormalization of field theory and the existence of quarks and strings. we should explore our changing conception of what constitutes reality by examining the views of Aristotle, Ptolemy, St. Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Compte, Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Schwinger, Yang, Gell-Mann, Wilson and Witten ET AL https://cds.cern.ch/record/311040/files/9609160.pdf IE IS THE INTERNATIONAL DEBT SIMPLY A FIGMENT OF ALL OUR IMAGINATION? IT MAY NEVER BE REPAID IN FULL HENCE IT MAY FOLLOW THAT IN FACT IT DOES NOT EXIST THEREFORE: ""WHY WORRY?""

In Colin Marshall (ed.), Comparative Metaethics: Neglected Perspectives on the Foundations of Morality, Routledge. forthcoming., 2020