1,720,967 research outputs found
Robert E. Allinson: The Philosophical Influences of Mao Zedong. Notations, Reflections and Insights
Get PDFThis book is not merely a history of Mao’s thought, as it presents a philosophical inquest on its development. It is also a philosophical reflection on the state of contemporary Chinese society and culture employing Mao’s philosophical keys. What Allinson provides is a completely new narrative of the so-called Great Helmsman’s intellectual profile and all of 20th Chinese culture. This is the right book at the right moment for understanding China’s incredible growth and deep contradictions, but also the new Chinese diplomatic impatience towards unequal treatment on the international stage. Mao’s most unacceptable and dramatic decisions find a new coherency that, in this case, contradicts the thesis of the “banality of evil”. Allinson shows an excellent capacity to freely reflect with the thinker without lessening the tragic consequences of his political decisions. As the author states: “Mao represents a unique mixture between Plato’s philosopher king and Plato’s tyrant of the Republic” (p. 100).
Experiences of Learning, Teaching, and Investigating Chinese Philosophy in Europe
No full textIn this paper, I will present the experience gained in the two workshops—“
Teaching Chinese Philosophy in Europe” (October 13–15, 2023) and “Global
Chinese Philosophy: European Perspectives” (February 16–18, 2024)—held at Free
Berlin University and organized by Prof. Fabian Heubel and Prof. Hans Feger. The
argument will be divided, like the workshops themselves, into two directions. In
the first part, I will present the activity of the Education Network of the European
Association for Chinese Philosophy, my teaching activity with the specific perspectives,
strategies, and peculiarities. I will also present two dream courses that well
represent the peculiarities of my research path. In the second part, on the other
hand, I will illustrate a research project on the human-nature relationship that is
also an integral part of my university teaching activity. Starting from a definition
of new trends in ecological discourse, I will trace the specific Chinese contribution
of authors such as Wang Yangming, Wang Fuzhi, and Mou Zongsan to the global
debate through a comparison with the post-turn Heidegger
Introduction
Get PDFThis special issue of Asian Studies is dedicated to a relocation of Chinese thought outside of closed definitions and disciplines so as to return to this rich and varied tradition to its authentic, inclusive power. The introduction of Western systems of knowledge classifications, based on Melvil Dewey’s (1851‒1931) library system introduced in China in 1909, imposed entirely different models from the earlier imperial classifications. Moreover, the Dewey decimal model presents philosophy under nine categories (metaphysics; epistemology; parapsychology and occultism; psychology; logic; ethics; ancient, medieval, and eastern philosophy; modern Western philosophy), each with nine subcategories. Therefore the history of philosophy is split into two groups: thinking produced before the 19th century and that which followed. Eastern philosophy is actually the first subcategory of the first historical period (decimal no. 181). This view is highly conservative, and implies that Chinese and Indian philosophies are ancient but unprogressive and not rationally advanced compared to Western philosophy. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that this difference becomes irreconcilable when these Asian philosophies are compared with modern Western philosophy, as the supposedly pre-philosophical nature of non-Western philosophies is implied in the classification
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Yan Lianke and Italo Calvino on the Absurdity of Urban Life
No full textIn this chapter, we will compare the description of the absurdity of urban life as presented by Yan Lianke with the one provided by the Italian Italo Calvino. Both authors’ writing careers debuted from neorealism but gradually shifted to a surrealistic style, which is named by Yan “mythorealism” (shenshi zhuyi) and presented as the only way to look lucidly at the deepness of the contradictions present in contemporary human life. In 1972, at the peak of the Italian economic boom, Calvino wrote Invisible Cities as a narrative reflection on the utopian and dystopian aspects of urbanism. He presented fifty-five unrealistic cities, each one described by Marco Polo to the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. Each city is a reflection of humanity, culture, development, memory, and, finally, unlivableness. In a similar, but even more excessive economic and urban context of development, Yan wrote the fiction The Explosion Chronicles (Zhalie zhi, 2013). His aim was the “epic description” of the immoral beginning and despicable development of a metropolis, where economic growth and power alone constitute the unique human search at all costs, a kind of sacral faith. Opposed to this “extreme reality” of the city, Yan introduces natural elements, such as flowers, plants, insects, and clouds that always emerge as unrealistic reactions to human events. Their descriptions shed some light on human relationships with both cities and nature. However, while Calvino maintains, thanks to Polo, a detached and “light” narrative mood, Yan himself is the narrator or historian writing this tragic chronicle, and his truth-bearing act is rejected by authorities, therefore, for him, truth is always a “heavy task.
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