1.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
Simplified Chinese characters
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Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
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The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
2.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
Traditional Chinese characters
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Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
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Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
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A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
3.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Pinyin
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A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
4.
Chinese philosophy
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Early Shang Dynasty thought was based upon cycles. Thus, this notion, which remained relevant throughout Chinese history, in juxtaposition, it also marks a fundamental distinction from western philosophy, in which the dominant view of time is a linear progression. During the Shang, fate could be manipulated by great deities, ancestor worship was present and universally recognized. There was also human and animal sacrifice, when the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou, a new political, religious and philosophical concept was introduced called the Mandate of Heaven. This mandate was said to be taken when rulers became unworthy of their position, Confucianism developed during the Spring and Autumn period from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who considered himself a retransmitter of Zhou values. His philosophy concerns the fields of ethics and politics, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, traditionalism, Confucianism was and continues to be a major influence in Chinese culture, the state of China and the surrounding areas of Southeast Asia. Before the Han dynasty the largest rivals to Confucianism were Chinese Legalism, Confucianism largely became the dominant philosophical school of China during the early Han Dynasty following the replacement of its contemporary, the more Taoistic Huang-Lao. The Six Dynasties era saw the rise of the Xuanxue philosophical school and the maturation of Chinese Buddhism, by the time of the Tang dynasty five-hundred years after Buddhisms arrival into China, it had transformed into a thoroughly Chinese religious philosophy dominated by the school of Zen Buddhism. Neo-Confucianism became highly popular during the Song dynasty and Ming Dynasty due in part to the eventual combination of Confucian. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese philosophy integrated concepts from Western philosophy, the most notable examples are Sun Yat-Sens Three Principles of the People ideology and Mao Zedongs Maoism, a variant of Marxism–Leninism. In the modern Peoples Republic of China, the ideology is Deng Xiaopings market economy socialism. Although the Peoples Republic of China has been hostile to the philosophy of ancient China. In the post-Chinese economic reform era, modern Chinese philosophy has reappeared in forms such as the New Confucianism, as in Japan, philosophy in China has become a melting pot of ideas. It accepts new concepts, while attempting also to accord old beliefs their due, Chinese philosophy still carries profound influence amongst the people of East Asia, and even Southeast Asia. Around 500 BCE, after the Zhou state weakened and China moved into the Spring and Autumn period and this is known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. This period is considered the age of Chinese philosophy. Of the many schools founded at this time and during the subsequent Warring States period and it is a system of moral, social, political, and religious thought that has had tremendous influence on Chinese history, thought, and culture down to the 20th century. Some Westerners have considered it to have been the religion of imperial China because of its lasting influence on Asian culture
Chinese philosophy
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Yin and Yang symbol with the
bagua symbols paved in a clearing outside of Nanning City,
Guangxi province,
China.
Chinese philosophy
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Kong Fuzi (
Latin:
Confucius)
Chinese philosophy
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Chinese
glazed stoneware statue of a
Daoist deity, from the
Ming Dynasty, 16th century.
Chinese philosophy
–
The
Sakyamuni Buddha, by artist Zhang Shengwen, 1173-1176 CE,
Song dynasty.
5.
Confucianism
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Confucianism, also known as Ruism, is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. In the Han dynasty, Confucian approaches edged out the proto-Taoist Huang-Lao, the disintegration of the Han political order in the second century CE opened the way for the doctrines of Buddhism and Neo-Taoism, which offered spiritual explanations lacking in Confucianism. A Confucian revival began during the Tang dynasty of 618-907, in the late Tang, Confucianism developed in response to Buddhism and Taoism and was reformulated as Neo-Confucianism. This reinvigorated form was adopted as the basis of the imperial exams, the abolition of the examination system in 1905 marked the end of official Confucianism. The New Culture intellectuals of the twentieth century blamed Confucianism for Chinas weaknesses. In the late twentieth century Confucian work ethic has been credited with the rise of the East Asian economy, with particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic. While Tiān has some characteristics that overlap the category of deity, it is primarily an impersonal absolute principle, Confucianism focuses on the practical order that is given by a this-worldly awareness of the Tiān. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, Some of the basic Confucian ethical concepts and practices include rén, yì, and lǐ, and zhì. Rén is the essence of the human being which manifests as compassion and it is the virtue-form of Heaven. Yì is the upholding of righteousness and the disposition to do good. Lǐ is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act in everyday life according to the law of Heaven. Zhì is the ability to see what is right and fair, or the converse, Confucianism holds one in contempt, either passively or actively, for failure to uphold the cardinal moral values of rén and yì. In the 20th century Confucianisms influence diminished greatly, in the last decades there have been talks of a Confucian Revival in the academic and the scholarly community and there has been a grassroots proliferation of various types of Confucian churches. In late 2015 many Confucian personalities formally established a national Holy Confucian Church in China to unify the many Confucian congregations, strictly speaking, there is no term in Chinese which directly corresponds to Confucianism. In the Chinese language, the character rú 儒 meaning scholar or learned man is used both in the past and the present to refer to things related to Confucianism. The character rú in ancient China has diverse meanings, Some examples include, weak, soft, to tame, to comfort and to educate or to refine. Rújiā contains the character jiā, which means family. Rújiào and Kǒngjiào contain the Chinese character jiào, the teaching or transmission, used in such terms as education
Confucianism
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Temple of Confucius of
Jiangyin,
Wuxi,
Jiangsu. This is a wénmiào (文庙), that is to say a temple where
Confucius is worshipped as Wéndì (文帝), "God of Culture".
Confucianism
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Gates of the wenmiao of
Datong,
Shanxi.
Confucianism
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Confucius, circa 1770.
Confucianism
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Confucius and disciples, statues of the
Ashikaga Gakko, a Confucian school and oldest academy of
Japan.
6.
Taoism
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Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is an idea in most Chinese philosophical schools, in Taoism, however. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, the Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi, is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi. By the Han dynasty, the sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations. In earlier ancient China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, Zhuangzi was the best known of these, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was part of local Chinese shamanic traditions. Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was strong in the southern state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, shamans revealed basic texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century. Institutional orders of Taoism evolved in various strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped into two main branches, Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism. After Laozi and Zhuangzi, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled in form of a canon—the Daozang—which was published at the behest of the emperor, throughout Chinese history, Taoism was nominated several times as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor, Chinese alchemy, Chinese astrology, Chan Buddhism, several martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia, Taoism also has a presence in Hong Kong, Macau, and in Southeast Asia. English speakers continue to debate the preferred romanization of the words Daoism and Taoism, the root Chinese word 道 way, path is romanized tao in the older Wade–Giles system and dào in the modern Pinyin system. In linguistic terminology, English Taoism/Daoism is formed from the Chinese loanword tao/dao 道 way, route, principle and the native suffix -ism. The debate over Taoism vs. Daoism involves sinology, phonemes, loanwords, Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/, but English speakers disagree whether Taoism should be /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/. In theory, both Wade–Giles tao and Pinyin dao are articulated identically, as are Taoism and Daoism, an investment book titled The Tao Jones Averages illustrates this /daʊ/ pronunciations widespread familiarity. In speech, Tao and Taoism are often pronounced /ˈtaʊ/ and ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/, lexicography shows American and British English differences in pronouncing Taoism. Taoist philosophy or Taology, or the mystical aspect — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and these texts were linked together as Taoist philosophy during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before. It is unlikely that Zhuangzi was familiar with the text of the Daodejing, however, the discussed distinction is rejected by the majority of Western and Japanese scholars
Taoism
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Taoist rite at the Qingyanggong (Green Goat Temple) in
Chengdu
Taoism
–
Gates of the Chunyang
gong in
Datong,
Shanxi. It's a temple dedicated to
Lü Dongbin.
Taoism
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A
daoshi (Taoist priest) in
Macau.
Taoism
–
Jintai
guan (金台观) in
Baoji,
Shaanxi.
7.
Yijing
–
The I Ching, or Classic of Changes, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Four numbers,6 to 9, are turned into a hexagram, the hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou, various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. It is possible that other systems existed at this time. The name Zhou yi literally means the changes of the Zhou dynasty, the changes involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of the numbers obtained from the divination. Feng Youlan proposed that the word for changes originally meant easy, as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones, there is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for changes as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern Sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of the sun emerging from clouds, the Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou, and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fu Xi. The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins, the Rites of Zhou, however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams. During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams. The basic unit of the Zhou yi is the hexagram, a composed of six stacked horizontal lines. Each line is broken or unbroken. The received text of the Zhou yi contains all 64 possible hexagrams, along with the name, a short hexagram statement. The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn, edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an initial receipt of an offering, beneficial for further divining. The word zhēn was also used for the divine in the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty. It also carried meanings of being or making upright or correct, the names of the hexagrams are usually words that appear in their respective line statements, but in five cases an unrelated character of unclear purpose appears. The hexagram names could have been chosen arbitrarily from the line statements, the line statements, which make up most of the book, are exceedingly cryptic. Each line begins with a word indicating the number, base,2,3,4,5, top
Yijing
–
A
Song dynasty edition of the I Ching (c. 1100)
Yijing
–
Oracle turtle shell
Yijing
–
Fifty yarrow Achillea millefolium subsp. m. var. millefolium stalks, used for I Ching divination.
Yijing
–
A diagram of I Ching hexagrams sent to
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz from
Joachim Bouvet. The Arabic numerals were added by Leibniz.
8.
Daodejing
–
The Tao Te Ching, Daodejing, Dao De Jing, or Daode jing, also simply referred to as the Laozi, is a Chinese classic text. The texts true authorship and date of composition or compilation are still debated, many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and even gardeners, have used the Daodejing as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia, and it is among the most translated works in world literature. The Tao Te Ching has a long and complex textual history, known versions and commentaries date back two millennia, including ancient bamboo, silk, and paper manuscripts discovered in the twentieth century. There are many translations of the books title, Dào/tao literally means way, or one of its synonyms. This term, which was used by other Chinese philosophers, has special meaning within the context of Taoism. Dé/te means virtue, personal character, inner strength, or integrity, jīng/ching as it is used here means canon, great book, or classic. Thus, Tao Te Ching can be translated as The Classic of the Ways Virtues or The Book of the Way of Virtue. The title Daodejing is a given by posterity, other titles include the amalgam Lǎozǐ Dàodéjīng, the honorific Daode Zhen Jing. The received Tao Te Ching is a text of around 5,000 Chinese characters in 81 brief chapters or sections. There is some evidence that the divisions were later additions—for commentary. It has two parts, the Tao Ching and the Te Ching, which may have been edited together into the received text, the written style is laconic, has few grammatical particles, and encourages varied, even contradictory interpretations. The ideas are singular, the style poetic, the rhetorical style combines two major strategies, short, declarative statements and intentional contradictions. The first of these strategies creates memorable phrases, while the second forces us to create our own reconciliations of the supposed contradictions, the Chinese characters in the original versions were probably written in zhuànshū, while later versions were written in lìshū and kǎishū styles. Daoist Chinese Characters contains a summary of these different calligraphies. The Tao Te Ching is ascribed to Lao Tzu, whose existence has been a matter of scholastic debate. His name, which means Old Master, has only fueled controversy on this issue, the first reliable reference to Laozi is his biography in Shiji, by Chinese historian Sima Qian, which combines three stories. First, Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius and his surname was Li, and his personal name was Er or Dan
Daodejing
–
ink on silk manuscript of the Tao Te Ching, 2nd century BC, unearthed from
Mawangdui
Daodejing
–
Tao Te Ching
Daodejing
–
Laozi
9.
Zhuangzi (book)
–
The Zhuangzi is an ancient Chinese text from the late Warring States period which contains stories and anecdotes that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Daoist sage. The Zhuangzi consists of a collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables. Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world, the fables and anecdotes in the text attempt to illustrate the falseness of human distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, a masterpiece of both philosophical and literary skill, it has significantly influenced writers for more than 2000 years from the Han dynasty to the present. Almost nothing is known of Zhuangzis life. He is thought to have spent time in the state of Chu, as well as in Linzi. The American scholar and Zhuangzi translator Burton Watson has noted, Whoever Zhuang Zhou was, scholars have recognized since at least the Song dynasty that some parts of the book could not have been written by Zhuangzi himself. Since ancient times, however, the first seven chapters—the nèi piān 內篇 inner chapters—have been considered to be the work of Zhuangzi. How many, if any, of the remaining 26 chapters—the wài piān 外篇 outer chapters, all of the 33 surviving chapters are accepted as compositions from the 4th to 2nd centuries BC. Details of the Zhuangzis textual history prior to the Han dynasty are largely unknown, the Records of the Grand Historian refers to a 100, 000-word Zhuangzi work and references several chapters that are still in the text. The Book of Han, finished in AD111, lists a Zhuangzi in 52 chapters, portions of the Zhuangzi have been discovered among bamboo slip texts from Warring States period and Han dynasty tombs, particularly at the Shuanggudui and Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts sites. One of the slips from the Guodian bamboo texts, which date to around 300 BC and they collectively form about twelve chapters of Guo Xiangs version of the Zhuangzi, and are preserved mostly at the British Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Among the Japanese national treasures preserved in the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto is a Zhuangzi manuscript from the Muromachi period, almost all of the 33 surviving Zhuangzi chapters contain fables and allegories. Unlike other ancient Chinese works, whose allegories were usually based on legends and proverbs. The most famous of all Zhuangzi stories – Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly – appears at the end of the second chapter, On the Equality of Things. The well known image of Zhuangzi wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man is so striking that whole dramas have been written on its theme. In it Zhuangzi with the theme of transformation, illustrating that the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy, if distinguishes them, how can tell if is now dreaming or awake. Another well known Zhuangzi story—The Death of Wonton—illustrates the dangers Zhuangzi saw in going against the nature of things
Zhuangzi (book)
–
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi (book)
–
Tang dynasty Zhuangzi manuscript preserved in Japan (1930s replica)
Zhuangzi (book)
–
"Zhuangzi Dreaming of a Butterfly", Shibata Zeshin (1888)
10.
Lao-tzu
–
Laozi was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is known as the author of the Tao Te Ching and the founder of philosophical Taoism. A central figure in Chinese culture, Laozi is claimed by both the emperors of the Tang dynasty and modern people of the Li surname as a founder of their lineage, Laozis work has been embraced by various anti-authoritarian movements as well as Chinese legalism. In traditional accounts, Laozis personal name is given as Li Er. A prominent posthumous name was Li Dan, Laozi itself is an honorific title, 老 and 子. It is usually pronounced /ˌlaʊˈdzʌ/ in English and it has been romanized numerous ways, sometimes leading to confusion. The most common present form is Laozi or Lǎozǐ, based on the Hanyu Pinyin system adopted by Mainland China in 1958, during the 20th century, Lao-tzu was more common, based on the formerly prevalent Wade–Giles system. In the 19th century, the title was romanized as Lao-tse. Other forms include the variants Lao-tze and Lao-tsu, as a religious figure, he is worshipped under the name Supreme Old Lord and as one of the Three Pure Ones. During the Tang Dynasty, he was granted the title Supremely Mysterious, the earliest certain reference to the present figure of Laozi is found in the 1st-century BCE Records of the Grand Historian collected by the historian Sima Qian from earlier accounts. In one account, Laozi was said to be a contemporary of Confucius during the 6th or 5th century BCE and his surname was Li and his personal name was Er or Dan. He was an official in the archives and wrote a book in two parts before departing to the west. In another, Laozi was a different contemporary of Confucius titled Lao Laizi, in a third, he was the court astrologer Lao Dan who lived during the 4th century BCE reign of Duke Xian of the Qin Dynasty. The oldest text of the Tao Te Ching so far recovered was written on bamboo slips, according to traditional accounts, Laozi was a scholar who worked as the Keeper of the Archives for the royal court of Zhou. This reportedly allowed him access to the works of the Yellow Emperor. The stories assert that Laozi never opened a school but nonetheless attracted a large number of students. There are many variations of a story retelling his encounter with Confucius and he was sometimes held to have come from the village of Chu Jen in Chu. In accounts where Laozi married, he was said to have had a son named Zong who became a celebrated soldier, many clans of the Li family trace their descent to Laozi, including the emperors of the Tang dynasty
Lao-tzu
–
Laozi, depicted as
Daode Tianzun
Lao-tzu
–
According to
Chinese legend, Laozi left
China for the west on a
water buffalo.
Lao-tzu
–
Confucius meets Laozi, Shih Kang,
Yuan dynasty
Lao-tzu
–
Depiction of Laozi in
E.T.C. Werner 's Myths and Legends of China.
11.
Modern Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Modern Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Modern Standard Chinese
–
Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
12.
Daoist meditation
–
Daoist meditation refers to the traditional meditative practices associated with the Chinese philosophy and religion of Daoism, including concentration, mindfulness, contemplation, and visualization. Traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts have adapted certain Daoist meditative techniques, the Chinese language has several keywords for Daoist meditation practices, some of which are difficult to translate accurately into English. Livia Kohn distinguishes three types of Daoist meditation, concentrative, insight, and visualization. In this sense, Kohn renders ding as intent contemplation or perfect absorption, the Zuowanglun has a section called Taiding 泰定 intense concentration Guan 觀 basically means look at, watch, observe, view, scrutinize. Kohn says the word guan, intimates the role of Taoist sacred sites as places of contact with celestial beings, Guan meditators would seek to merge individual consciousness into emptiness and attain unity with the Dao. For this reason, the word is most commonly rendered to visualize or, as a noun, within the above three types of Daoist meditation, some important practices are, Zuowang 坐忘 sitting forgetting was first recorded in the Zhuangzi. Neiguan 內觀 inner observation, inner vision is visualizing inside ones body and mind, including organs, inner deities, qi movements. Four chapters of the Guanzi have descriptions of practices, Xinshu 心術 Mind techniques, Baixin 白心 Purifying the mind. Modern scholars believe the Neiye text was written in the 4th century BCE, owing to the consensus that proto-Daoist Huang-Lao philosophers at the Jixia Academy in Qi composed the core Guanzi, Neiye meditation techniques are technically Daoistic rather than Daoist. Neiye Verse 8 associates dingxin 定心 stabilizing the mind with acute hearing and clear vision, however, thought, says Roth, is considered an impediment to attaining the well-ordered mind, particularly when it becomes excessive. Verse 18 contains the earliest Chinese reference to practicing breath-control meditation, breathing is said to coil and uncoil or contract and expand, with coiling/contracting referring to exhalation and uncoiling/expanding to inhalation. Several passages in the classic Daodejing are interpreted as referring to meditation, for instance, Attain utmost emptiness, Maintain utter stillness emphasizes xu 虛 empty, void and jing 靜 still, quiet, both of which are central meditative concepts. Verse 10 gives what Roth calls probably the most important evidence for breathing meditation in the Daodejing, Three of these Daodejing phrases resonate with Neiye meditation vocabulary. Baoyi 抱一 embrace unity compares with shouyi 守一 maintain the One, zhuanqi 專氣 focus your vital breath is zhuanqi 摶氣 concentrating your vital breath. Dichu xuanjian 滌除玄覽 cleanse the mirror of mysteries and jingchu qi she 敬除其舍 diligently clean out its lodging place have the same verb chu eliminate, the Daodejing exists in two received versions, named after the commentaries. The Heshang Gong version explains textual references to Daoist meditation, Wang Bi was a scholar of Xuanxue mysterious studies, neo-Daoism, which adapted Confucianism to explain Daoism, and his version eventually became the standard Daodejing interpretation. Richard Wilhelm said Wang Bis commentary changed the Daodejing from a compendiary of magical meditation to a collection of free philosophical aperçus, the Daoist Zhuangzi refers to meditation in more specific terms than the Daodejing. Two well-known examples of disciplines are Confucius and his favorite disciple Yan Hui discussing xinzhai 心齋 heart-mind fasting and zuowang sitting forgetting
Daoist meditation
–
Daoist
Neijing Tu diagram of a neidan meditator's body as a microcosm of nature
13.
Richard Wilhelm (sinologist)
–
Richard Wilhelm was a German sinologist, theologian, and missionary. He lived in China for 25 years, became fluent in spoken and written Chinese and he is best remembered for his translations of philosophical works from Chinese into German that in turn have been translated into other major languages of the world, including English. His son Hellmut Wilhelm was also a sinologist, and was professor of Chinese at the University of Washington, richard Wilhelm, a Sinicized German Translator. In, Alleton, Vivianne and Michael Lackner, de lun au multiple, traductions du chinois vers les langues européennes Translations from Chinese into European Languages. Éditions de la maison des sciences de lhomme,1999, Paris
Richard Wilhelm (sinologist)
–
Richard Wilhelm (c. 1925)
14.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
International Standard Book Number
–
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
15.
Philosophy
–
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
Philosophy
–
René Descartes
Philosophy
–
Thomas Aquinas
Philosophy
–
Jeremy Bentham
Philosophy
–
Thomas Hobbes
16.
Metaphysics
–
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy exploring the fundamental nature of reality. In this vein, metaphysics seeks to answer two questions, Ultimately, what is there. Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, a central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to one another. Another branch is metaphysical cosmology, which seeks to understand the origin, there are two broad conceptions about what world is studied by metaphysics. The strong, classical view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist independently of any observer, the weaker, more modern view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist inside the mind of an observer, so the subject becomes a form of introspection and conceptual analysis. Some philosophers, notably Kant, discuss both of these worlds and what can be inferred about each one, some philosophers and scientists, such as the logical positivists, reject the entire subject of metaphysics as meaningless, while others disagree and think that it is legitimate. Ontology deals with the determination whether categories of being are fundamental and it is the inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into beings insofar as they exist—and not insofar as particular facts may be obtained about them or particular properties belong to them. Most ontologies assume or assert the existence of categories including objects, properties, space, immediate questions arising from this include the nature of objects. Only properties can be observed directly, so what does it mean for an object to exist, how can we be sure that such objects exist at all. The word is has two uses in English, separated out in ontology. It can denote existence as in there is an elephant in the room, some philosophers also include sub-classing as a third form of is-ness or being, as in the elephant is a mammal. Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, between these poles of realism and nominalism, stand a variety of other positions. An ontology may give an account of which refer to entities, which do not, why. Other controversial categories of objects and properties which may be argued to exist or not include aesthetic and moral properties, stances about the status of such things may form the foundation for other branches of philosophy such as aesthetics, ethics and political philosophy. Identity is a fundamental metaphysical issue, metaphysicians investigating identity are tasked with the question of what, exactly, it means for something to be identical to itself. Other issues of identity arise in the context of time, what does it mean for something to be itself across two moments in time, how do we account for this. Another question of identity arises when we ask what our criteria ought to be for determining identity, and how does the reality of identity interface with linguistic expressions
Metaphysics
–
Plato –
Kant –
Nietzsche
17.
Ontology
–
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Although ontology as an enterprise is highly hypothetical, it also has practical application in information science and technology. Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, between these poles of realism and nominalism, stand a variety of other positions. An ontology may give an account of which refer to entities, which do not, why. Principal questions of ontology include, What can be said to exist, into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things. What are the meanings of being, what are the various modes of being of entities. Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions, one common approach involves dividing the extant subjects and predicates into groups called categories. Such an understanding of ontological categories, however, is merely taxonomic, what does it mean for a being to be. Is existence a genus or general class that is divided up by specific differences. Which entities, if any, are fundamental, how do the properties of an object relate to the object itself. What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental attributes of a given object, how many levels of existence or ontological levels are there. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an object exists. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an entity exists. What constitutes the identity of an object, when does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing. Do beings exist other than in the modes of objectivity and subjectivity, i. e. is the subject/object split of modern philosophy inevitable. e. Being, that which is, which is the present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, i. e. to be, I am, and -λογία, -logia, i. e. logical discourse. The first occurrence in English of ontology as recorded by the OED came in a work by Gideon Harvey, Archelogia philosophica nova, or, New principles of Philosophy
Ontology
–
Parmenides was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of reality.
18.
Epistemology
–
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief, the term Epistemology was first used by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. However, according to Brett Warren, King James VI of Scotland had previously personified this philosophical concept as the character Epistemon in 1591 and this philosophical approach signified a Philomath seeking to obtain greater knowledge through epistemology with the use of theology. The dialogue was used by King James to educate society on various concepts including the history, the word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē meaning knowledge and the suffix -logy, meaning a logical discourse to. J. F. Ferrier coined epistemology on the model of ontology, to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the meaning of knowledge, and called it the true beginning of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the concept Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by German philosophers Johann Fichte, French philosophers then gave the term épistémologie a narrower meaning as theory of knowledge. Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality, written in 1908, in mathematics, it is known that 2 +2 =4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person, place, thing, or activity. Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between knowing that, knowing how, and acquaintance-knowledge, with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these, while these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are defined explicitly in other languages. In French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch to know is translated using connaître, conhecer, conocer, modern Greek has the verbs γνωρίζω and ξέρω. Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for knowledge are conoscenza and sapienza, German has the verbs wissen and kennen. The verb itself implies a process, you have to go from one state to another and this verb seems to be the most appropriate in terms of describing the episteme in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name Erkenntnistheorie. The theoretical interpretation and significance of linguistic issues remains controversial. In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance, gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. This position is essentially Ryles, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress and this includes the truth, and everything else we accept as true for ourselves from a cognitive point of view. Whether someones belief is true is not a prerequisite for belief, on the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself, epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer
Epistemology
–
Plato –
Kant –
Nietzsche
19.
Logic
–
Logic, originally meaning the word or what is spoken, is generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of arguments. A valid argument is one where there is a relation of logical support between the assumptions of the argument and its conclusion. Historically, logic has been studied in philosophy and mathematics, and recently logic has been studied in science, linguistics, psychology. The concept of form is central to logic. The validity of an argument is determined by its logical form, traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic are examples of formal logic. Informal logic is the study of natural language arguments, the study of fallacies is an important branch of informal logic. Since much informal argument is not strictly speaking deductive, on some conceptions of logic, formal logic is the study of inference with purely formal content. An inference possesses a purely formal content if it can be expressed as an application of a wholly abstract rule, that is. The works of Aristotle contain the earliest known study of logic. Modern formal logic follows and expands on Aristotle, in many definitions of logic, logical inference and inference with purely formal content are the same. This does not render the notion of informal logic vacuous, because no formal logic captures all of the nuances of natural language, Symbolic logic is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of logical inference. Symbolic logic is divided into two main branches, propositional logic and predicate logic. Mathematical logic is an extension of logic into other areas, in particular to the study of model theory, proof theory, set theory. Logic is generally considered formal when it analyzes and represents the form of any valid argument type, the form of an argument is displayed by representing its sentences in the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical language to make its content usable in formal inference. Simply put, formalising simply means translating English sentences into the language of logic and this is called showing the logical form of the argument. It is necessary because indicative sentences of ordinary language show a variety of form. Second, certain parts of the sentence must be replaced with schematic letters, thus, for example, the expression all Ps are Qs shows the logical form common to the sentences all men are mortals, all cats are carnivores, all Greeks are philosophers, and so on. The schema can further be condensed into the formula A, where the letter A indicates the judgement all - are -, the importance of form was recognised from ancient times
Logic
–
Aristotle, 384–322 BCE.
20.
Ethics
–
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός ethikos, the branch of philosophy axiology comprises the sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values. As a branch of philosophy, ethics investigates the questions What is the best way for people to live, and What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances. In practice, ethics seeks to resolve questions of morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice. As a field of enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics. Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as a set of concepts, the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is commonly used interchangeably with morality. And sometimes it is used narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition. Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the word ethics in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason in order to various kinds of ethical questions. As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written, Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values, Ethics can also be used to describe a particular persons own idiosyncratic principles or habits. For example, Joe has strange ethics, the English word ethics is derived from an Ancient Greek word êthikos, which means relating to ones character. The Ancient Greek adjective êthikos is itself derived from another Greek word, meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. An ethical question fixed on some particular practical question—such as, Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake. —cannot be a meta-ethical question, a meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, Is it ever possible to have knowledge of what is right. Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics, meta-ethics is also important in G. E. In it he first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy, moore was seen to reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about ethics, earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values. Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism, non-cognitivism is the claim that when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false
Ethics
–
Socrates
Ethics
–
Plato –
Kant –
Nietzsche
Ethics
–
Immanuel Kant
21.
Aesthetics
–
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgements of sentiment. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as critical reflection on art, in modern English, the term aesthetic can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory, one speaks, for example, of the Cubist aesthetic. The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός, which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι, for some, aesthetics is considered a synonym for the philosophy of art since Hegel, while others insist that there is a significant distinction between these closely related fields. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object, philosophical aesthetics has not only to speak about art and to produce judgments about art works, but has also to give a definition of what art is. Art is an entity for philosophy, because art deals with the senses. Hence, there are two different conceptions of art in aesthetics, art as knowledge or art as action, any aesthetic doctrines that guided the production and interpretation of prehistoric art are mostly unknown. Western aesthetics usually refers to Greek philosophers as the earliest source of aesthetic considerations. Plato believed in beauty as a form in which beautiful objects partake and he felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts. Similarly, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the elements of beauty were order, symmetry. From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics underwent a revolution into what is often called modernism. German and British thinkers emphasized beauty as the key component of art and of the aesthetic experience, and saw art as necessarily aiming at absolute beauty. For Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten aesthetics is the science of the experiences, a younger sister of logic. For Immanuel Kant the aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgment of a subjective but similar human truth, however, beauty cannot be reduced to any more basic set of features. For Friedrich Schiller aesthetic appreciation of beauty is the most perfect reconciliation of the sensual and rational parts of human nature, for Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, the philosophy of art is the organon of philosophy concerning the relation between man and nature. So aesthetics began now to be the name for the philosophy of art, Friedrich von Schlegel, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also gave lectures on aesthetics as philosophy of art after 1800. For Hegel, all culture is a matter of absolute spirit coming to be manifest to itself, stage by stage, Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to sense-perception, and is thus an objective rather than subjective revelation of beauty. It is thus for Schopenhauer one way to fight the suffering, the British were largely divided into intuitionist and analytic camps
Aesthetics
–
Bronze sculpture, thought to be either
Poseidon or
Zeus,
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Aesthetics
–
Cubist painting by
Georges Braque, Violin and Candlestick (1910)
Aesthetics
–
William Hogarth, self-portrait, 1745
Aesthetics
–
Example of the
Dada aesthetic,
Marcel Duchamp 's Fountain 1917
22.
Philosophy of culture
–
Philosophy of culture is a branch of philosophy that examines the essence and meaning of culture. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant has formulated an individualist definition of enlightenment similar to the concept of bildung and he argued that this immaturity comes not from a lack of understanding, but from a lack of courage to think independently. Against this intellectual cowardice, Kant urged, Sapere aude, Dare to be wise, moreover, Herder proposed a collective form of bildung, For Herder, Bildung was the totality of experiences that provide a coherent identity, and sense of common destiny, to a people. In 1795, the great linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kants, according to this school of thought, each ethnic group has a distinct worldview that is incommensurable with the worldviews of other groups. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between civilized and primitive or tribal cultures, in 1860, Adolf Bastian argued for the psychic unity of mankind. He proposed that a comparison of all human societies would reveal that distinct worldviews consisted of the same basic elements. According to Bastian, all human societies share a set of ideas, different cultures. This view paved the way for the understanding of culture. Franz Boas was trained in this tradition, and he brought it with him when he left Germany for the United States, in practice, culture referred to an élite ideal and was associated with such activities as art, classical music, and haute cuisine. As these forms were associated with life, culture was identified with civilization. Another facet of the Romantic movement was an interest in folklore and this distinction is often characterized as that between high culture, namely that of the ruling social group, and low culture. In other words, the idea of culture that developed in Europe during the 18th, matthew Arnold contrasted culture with anarchy, other Europeans, following philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contrasted culture with the state of nature. According to this way of thinking, one could classify some countries and nations as more civilized than others and this contrast led to Herbert Spencers theory of Social Darwinism and Lewis Henry Morgans theory of cultural evolution. These critics considered folk music to express a natural way of life, while classical music seemed superficial. Equally, this view often portrayed indigenous peoples as noble savages living authentic and unblemished lives, in 1870 the anthropologist Edward Tylor applied these ideas of higher versus lower culture to propose a theory of the evolution of religion. According to this theory, religion evolves from more polytheistic to more monotheistic forms, in the process, he redefined culture as a diverse set of activities characteristic of all human societies. This view paved the way for the understanding of culture. A Philosophy of Culture, The Scope of Holistic Pragmatism by Morton White Cultura
Philosophy of culture
–
Johann Herder called attention to national cultures.
Philosophy of culture
–
Adolf Bastian developed a universal model of culture.
Philosophy of culture
–
British poet and critic
Matthew Arnold viewed "culture" as the cultivation of the humanist ideal.
Philosophy of culture
–
British anthropologist
Edward Tylor was one of the first English-speaking scholars to use the term culture in an inclusive and universal sense.
23.
Philosophy of music
–
Philosophy of music is the study of. fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it. The philosophical study of music has many connections with philosophical questions in metaphysics and aesthetics, some basic questions in the philosophy of music are, What is the definition of music. What is the relationship between music and mind, what is the relationship between music and language. What does musical history reveal to us about the world, what is the connection between music and emotions. What is meaning in relation to music, explications of the concept of music usually begin with the idea that music is organized sound. There are many different ways of denoting the fundamental aspects of music which are more specific than sound, popular aspects include melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, however, noise music may consist mainly of noise. Musique concrète often consists only of sound samples of non-musical nature, ambient music may consist of recordings of wildlife or nature. There was intense debate over absolute music versus program music during the late Romantic Era, advocates of the absolute music perspective argued that instrumental music does not convey emotions or images to the listener. They claimed that music is not explicitly about anything and that it is non-representational. The idea of music developed at the end of the 18th century in the writings of authors of early German Romanticism, such as Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck. Adherents of the program music perspective believed that music could convey emotions, one example of program music is Berliozs Symphonie fantastique, in which the fourth movement is the composers depiction of a story about an artist who poisons himself with opium and then is executed. The majority of opposition to absolute instrumental-based music came from composer Richard Wagner, wagners works were chiefly programmatic and often used vocalization, and he said that Where music can go no further, there comes the word… the word stands higher than the tone. Nietzsche wrote many commentaries applauding the music of Wagner and was in fact a composer himself. Some expressed a spiritual connection with music, in Part IV of his chief work, The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer said that music is the answer to the mystery of life. The most profound of all the arts, it expresses the deepest thoughts of life, in The Immediate Stages of the Erotic, or Musical Erotic, a chapter of Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard examines the profundity of music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the sensual nature of Don Giovanni. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics explored the mathematical and cosmological dimensions of rhythmic and harmonic organization, in the eighteenth century, focus shifted to the experience of hearing music, and thus to questions about its beauty and human enjoyment of music. The origin of this shift is sometimes attributed to Baumgarten in the 18th century. Through their writing, the ancient term aesthetics, meaning sensory perception, in recent decades philosophers have tended to emphasize issues besides beauty and enjoyment
Philosophy of music
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Napalm Death play an extreme genre of
hardcore punk called
grindcore that uses heavily
distorted guitars, grinding
overdrive bass and incomprehensible
growls and high-pitched shrieks for vocals. While the band has been dismissed as "mindless noise", the respected BBC journalist
John Peel was an "ardent supporter" of the band and appreciated their music.
Philosophy of music
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The
symphony orchestra is not only the main large ensemble used in
classical music; one work for orchestra,
Beethoven 's
Ninth Symphony has been called the supreme masterpiece of the
Western canon.
24.
Philosophy of education
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As an academic field, philosophy of education is the philosophical study of education and its problems. its central subject matter is education, and its methods are those of philosophy. The philosophy of education may be either the philosophy of the process of education or the philosophy of the discipline of education. Although there is overlap, philosophy of education should not be conflated with educational theory, Philosophy of education also should not be confused with philosophy education, the practice of teaching and learning the subject of philosophy. These theories are also called educational philosophies, for example, a teacher might be said to follow a perennialist educational philosophy or to follow a perennialist philosophy of education. Date, 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC Platos educational philosophy was grounded in his vision of the ideal Republic, Education would be holistic, including facts, skills, physical discipline, and music and art, which he considered the highest form of endeavor. Plato believed that talent was distributed non-genetically and thus must be found in children born in any social class and he built on this by insisting that those suitably gifted were to be trained by the state so that they might be qualified to assume the role of a ruling class. While elementary education made the soul responsive to the environment, higher education helped the soul to search for truth which illuminated it, both boys and girls receive the same kind of education. Elementary education consisted of music and gymnastics, designed to train and blend gentle and fierce qualities in the individual, at the age of 20, a selection was made. The best students would take a course in mathematics, geometry, astronomy. The first course in the scheme of education would last for ten years. It would be for those who had a flair for science, at the age of 30 there would be another selection, those who qualified would study dialectics and metaphysics, logic and philosophy for the next five years. After accepting junior positions in the army for 15 years, a man would have completed his theoretical and practical education by the age of 50, Date, 1724–1804 Immanuel Kant believed that education differs from training in that the former involves thinking whereas the latter does not. In addition to educating reason, of importance to him was the development of character. Kant was a proponent of education and of learning by doing. Date, 1770–1831 Date,384 BC –322 BC Only fragments of Aristotles treatise On Education are still in existence and we thus know of his philosophy of education primarily through brief passages in other works. Aristotle considered human nature, habit and reason to be important forces to be cultivated in education. Thus, for example, he considered repetition to be a key tool to develop good habits, the teacher was to lead the student systematically, this differs, for example, from Socrates emphasis on questioning his listeners to bring out their own ideas. Aristotle placed great emphasis on balancing the theoretical and practical aspects of subjects taught, subjects he explicitly mentions as being important included reading, writing and mathematics, music, physical education, literature and history, and a wide range of sciences
Philosophy of education
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Inscribed
herma of
Plato. (
Berlin,
Altes Museum).
Philosophy of education
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Bust of Aristotle. Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by
Lysippos from 330 B.C.
Philosophy of education
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau by
Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Philosophy of education
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Thomas Aquinas by
Carlo Crivelli, 1476)
25.
Environmental philosophy
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Environmental philosophy is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans place within it. It asks crucial questions about human environmental relations such as What do we mean when we talk about nature, what is the value of the natural, that is non-human environment to us, or in itself. How should we respond to challenges such as environmental degradation, pollution. How can we best understand the relationship between the world and human technology and development. And What is our place in the natural world, as such, it uniquely positions itself as a field set to deal with the challenges of the 21st Century. Environmental philosophy includes environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ecofeminism, environmental hermeneutics, Environmental Philosophy re-emerged as a major social movement in the 1970s. The movement was an attempt to connect with humanitys sense of alienation from nature in a continuing fashion throughout history and this was very closely related to the development at the same time of ecofeminism, an intersecting discipline. Since then its areas of concern have expanded significantly, another debate that arose at this time was the debate over whether there really is such a thing as wilderness or not, or whether it is merely a cultural construct with colonialist implications. Since then, readings of history and discourse have become more critical. In this ongoing debate, a diversity of dissenting voices have emerged from different cultures across the globe questioning the dominance of Western assumptions and this has been alternately dubbed the postmodern, constructivist, and most recently post-naturalistic turn in environmental philosophy. Today, environmental philosophy is a burgeoning and increasingly relevant field, in 1984, George Sessions and Arne Naess articulated the principles of the new Deep Ecology Movement. These basic principles are, The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life have value, richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs, the flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease in the human population. Present human interference with the world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures, the resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality, rather adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be an awareness of the difference between big and great. Those who subscribe to the points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes
Environmental philosophy
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Marco Casagrande Sandworm, Beaufort04 Triennial of Contemporary Art, Wenduine, Belgium 2012
Environmental philosophy
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Art
26.
Philosophy of happiness
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The philosophy of happiness is the philosophical concern with the existence, nature, and attainment of happiness. Philosophically, happiness can be understood as the goal of life or as an aspect of chance, indeed. Thus, philosophers usually explicate on happiness as either a state of mind, Plato, using Socrates as the main character in his philosophical dialogues, outlined the requirements for happiness in The Republic. In The Republic, Plato asserts that those who are moral are the ones who may be truly happy. Thus, one must understand the virtues, particularly justice. Aristotle held that eudaimonia is the goal of human thought and action, eudaimonia is usually translated as happiness, but human flourishing may be a more accurate translation. Eudaimonia involves activity, exhibiting virtue in accordance with reason, within the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle points to the fact that many aims are really only intermediate aims, and are desired only because they make the achievement of higher aims possible. Therefore, things such as wealth, intelligence, and courage are valued only in relation to other things, Aristotle regarded virtue as necessary for a person to be happy and held that without virtue the most that may be attained is contentment. Aristotle has been criticized for failing to show that virtue is necessary in the way he claims it to be, Antisthenes, oft regarded as the founder of Cynicism, advocated an ascetic life lived in accordance with virtue. Xenophon testifies that Antisthenes had praised the joy that sprang out of ones soul. He maintained that virtue was sufficient in itself to ensure happiness and he, along with all following Cynics, rejected any conventional notions of happiness involving money, power, and fame, to lead entirely virtuous, and thus happy, lives. Thus, happiness can be gained through training and by living in a way which was natural for humans, rejecting all conventional desires. Diogenes of Sinope is most frequently seen as the embodiment of the philosophy. The Stoics themselves saw him as one of the few, if not only, stoicism was a school of philosophy established by Zeno of Citium. While Zeno was syncretic in thought, his influence were the Cynics. Stoics believe that virtue is sufficient for happiness, one who has attained this sense of virtue would become a sage. This would only be achieved if one was to dedicate their life studying Stoic logic, Stoic physics, the Cyrenaics were a school of philosophy established by Aristippus of Cyrene. The school asserted that the good is positive pleasure
Philosophy of happiness
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The carved busts of
Socrates,
Antisthenes,
Chrysippus, and
Epicurus.
Philosophy of happiness
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A drawing of Avicenna, 1960.
Philosophy of happiness
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Democritus by
Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1628.
Democritus is known as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness.’
27.
Philosophy of healthcare
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The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as a component of human social structures. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life. The philosophy of healthcare is primarily concerned with the following elemental questions, is healthcare a fundamental right of all people. What should be the basis for calculating the cost of treatments, hospital stays, drugs, how can healthcare best be administered to the greatest number of people. What are the parameters for clinical trials and quality assurance. Who, if anybody, can decide when a patient is in need of comfort measures, however, the most important question of all is what is health. Unless this question is addressed any debate about healthcare will be vague, for example, what exactly is a health care intervention. What differentiates healthcare from engineering or teaching, for example, is health care about creating autonomy or acting in peoples best interests. A philosophy of anything requires baseline philosophical questions, as asked, for example, ultimately, the purpose, objective and meaning of healthcare philosophy is to consolidate the abundance of information regarding the ever-changing fields of biotechnology, medicine, and nursing. The ethical and/or moral premises of healthcare are complex and intricate, to consolidate such a large segment of moral philosophy, it becomes important to focus on what separates healthcare ethics from other forms of morality. And on the whole, it can be said that healthcare itself is an institution within society. With that said, healthcare ought to be treated differently from other goods in a society. It is an institution of which we are all a part whether we like it or not, at some point in every persons life, a decision has to be made regarding ones healthcare. Where should he/she go to get it, and it is this last question which poses the biggest dilemma facing a person. After weighing all of the costs and benefits of her healthcare situation, more than basic economic issues are at stake in this conundrum. In fact, a person must decide whether or not his/her life is ending or if it is worth salvaging, of course, in instances where the patient is unable to decide due to medical complications, like a coma, then the decision must come from elsewhere. And defining that elsewhere has proven to be a difficult endeavor in healthcare philosophy
Philosophy of healthcare
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President Johnson signing the
U.S. Medicare bill.
Harry Truman and his wife,
Bess, are on the far right. (1965)
Philosophy of healthcare
–
Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, considered the father of
Western medicine.
Philosophy of healthcare
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Tommy Douglas' (centre left) number one concern was the creation of
Canadian Medicare. In the summer of 1962,
Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with a doctors' strike.
Philosophy of healthcare
–
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2006)
28.
Philosophy of history
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The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history, speculative philosophy of history is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. Furthermore, it speculates as to a possible end to its development—that is, it asks if there is a design, purpose, directive principle. Part of Marxism, for example, is speculative philosophy of history, another example is historiosophy, the term coined in 1838 by August Cieszkowski to describe his understanding of history. Though there is overlap between the two aspects, they can usually be distinguished, modern professional historians tend to be skeptical about speculative philosophy of history. Sometimes critical philosophy of history is included under historiography, Philosophy of history should not be confused with the history of philosophy, which is the study of the development of philosophical ideas in their historical context. Speculative philosophy of history asks several questions, What is the proper unit for the study of the human past—the individual subject. The family, polis or sovereign territory, or the whole of the human species. Are there any broad patterns that we can discern through the study of the human past, are there, for example, patterns of progress. Or are there no patterns or cycles, and is human history regulated by irregularity, related to this is the study of individual agency and its impact in history, functioning within, or opposed to, larger trends and patterns. If history can indeed be said to progress or cycle, what is its direction or pattern. What is the force of the progress or of the cycles. What does it mean to know, explain and write history, in his Poetics, Aristotle maintained the superiority of poetry over history because poetry speaks of what must or should be true rather than merely what is true. This reflects early Axial Age concerns rather than metaphysical concerns for what is, accordingly, classical historians felt a duty to ennoble the world. In keeping with philosophy of history, it is clear that their philosophy of value imposed upon their process of writing history—philosophy influenced method and hence product. Herodotus, a 5th-century BCE contemporary of Socrates, broke from the Homeric tradition of passing narrative from generation to generation in his work Investigations, History was supposed to teach good examples for one to follow. The assumption that history should teach good examples influenced how writers produced history, from the Classical period to the Renaissance, historians alternated between focusing on subjects designed to improve mankind and on a devotion to fact. History was composed mainly of hagiographies of monarchs or of epic poetry describing heroic gestures, in the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun, who is considered one of the fathers of the philosophy of history, discussed his philosophy of history and society in detail in his Muqaddimah
Philosophy of history
–
Key concepts
29.
Philosophical anthropology
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Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person, and interpersonal relationships. Augustine has been cited by Husserl and Heidegger as one of the writers to inquire on time-consciousness. Augustine saw the human being as a unity of two substances, soul and body. He was much closer in this view to Aristotle than to Plato. Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony, after the fall of humanity they are now experiencing dramatic combat between one another. They are two different things, the body is a three-dimensional object composed of the four elements. Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body, augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, with going too much into detail in his efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It sufficed for him to admit that they were metaphysically distinct, to be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and that the soul is superior to the body. The latter statement is grounded in his classification of things into those that merely exist, those that exist and live, and those that exist, live. According to N. Blasquez, Augustines dualism of substances of the body and soul doesnt stop him seeing the unity of body. Following Aristotle and other ancient philosophers, he defined man as a rational mortal animal – animal rationale mortale, the origin of this liberation, characteristic of modernity, has been the Cartesian skepticism formulated by Descartes in the first two of his Meditations on First Philosophy. Immanuel Kant taught the first lectures on anthropology in the European academic world and he specifically developed a conception of pragmatic anthropology, according to which the human being is studied as a free agent. At the same time, he conceived of his anthropology as an empirical, both his philosophical and his anthropological work has been one of the influences in the field during the 19th and 20th century. After Kant, Ludwig Feuerbach is sometimes considered the next most important influence, during the 19th century, an important contribution came from post-kantian German idealists like Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, as well from Søren Kierkegaard. From the late 19th century till the early 20th century, influential contributors have been Friedrich Nietzsche, John Dewey and it is the attempt to unify disparate ways of understanding behaviour of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of their own values. Max Scheler, from 1900 till 1920 had been a follower of Husserls phenomenology, Scheler sought to apply Husserls phenomenological approach to different topics. From 1920 Scheler laid the foundation for philosophical anthropology as a discipline, competing with phenomenology. Scheler defined the human being not so much as a rational animal and he breaks down the traditional hylomorphic conception of the human person, and describes the personal being with a tripartite structure of lived body, soul, and spirit
Philosophical anthropology
–
Vitruvian Man or the perfect man by
Leonardo da Vinci
30.
Philosophy and literature
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Philosophy and Literature is an academic journal founded in 1977. It explores the connections between literary and philosophical studies by presenting ideas on the aesthetics of literature, critical theory, the journal is published twice a year in April and October by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Circulation is 823 and the length of an issue is 224 pages. The current editors are Denis Dutton of the University of Canterbury and Garry Hagberg of Bard College, official website Philosophy and Literature at Project MUSE Denis Dutton’s homepage
Philosophy and literature
