Chinese Thought, Game Theory, and Strategic International Negotiations

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
International Negotiations ◽  
Strategic Analysis ◽  
Chinese Thought

AbstractIn this article, the insights of Chinese philosophy and economic game theory are examined with a focus on international negotiations. While Chinese philosophy texts have existed for over 2,000 years, game theory is a more recent tool of strategic analysis. We illustrate four strategic negotiation principles based on these two theories with stylized examples specifically designed to help negotiators involved in international contexts.

Brook Ziporyn’s (Chinese) Buddhist Reading of Chinese Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-267
Author(s):  
Paul J. D'Ambrosio
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Chinese Buddhism ◽  
Classroom Discussions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
Tiantai Buddhism ◽  
Early Chinese Philosophy

This review article defends Brook Ziporyn against the charge, quite common in graduate classroom discussions, if not in print, that his readings of early Chinese philosophy are ‘overly Buddhist’. These readings are found in his three most recent books: Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought, Beyond Oneness and Difference: Li and Coherence in Chinese Buddhist Thought and Its Antecedents, and Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism. His readings are clearly Buddhist-influenced, but this is not in and of itself problematic. The core issue is rather to what degree these ‘Buddhist elements’ are actually already existent in, and have subsequently been carried over from, early Chinese thought in the development of Chinese Buddhism. Indeed, some scholars of Chinese Buddhism have pointed out that much of the vocabulary, concepts, and logic used in schools such as Tiantai may owe more to Daoist influences than to Buddhist ones. Accordingly, Ziporyn’s ‘overly Buddhist’ approach might simply be an avenue of interpretation that is actually quite in line with the thinking in the early texts themselves, albeit one that is less familiar (i.e. an early Chinese Buddhist or Ziporyn’s approach). The article also aims to show how Ziporyn’s theory concerning the importance of ‘coherence’ in early and later Chinese philosophy is also quite important in his above work on Tiantai Buddhism, Emptiness and Omnipresence. While in this work Ziporyn almost entirely abstains from using the language of coherence, much of it actually rests on a strong coherence-based foundation, thereby demonstrating not Ziporyn’s own prejudice, but rather the thoroughgoing importance and versatility of his arguments on coherence. Indeed, understanding the importance of coherence in his readings of Tiantai Buddhism (despite the fact that he does not explicitly use coherence-related vocabulary) only bolsters the defense against the claims that he makes ‘overly Buddhist’ readings of early Chinese philosophy.

The “Legitimacy of Chinese Philosophy” Debate and the Global Extension of Disciplinary Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 699-717
Author(s):  
Leigh K. Jenco
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Disciplinary Knowledge ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

This chapter argues that the ongoing debate about the “legitimacy of Chinese philosophy” (Zhongguo zhexue hefaxing) raises issues relevant to the globalization of knowledge. On its surface, the debate concerns whether Chinese thought can be meaningfully understood as “philosophy”; more generally, it asks how, in the very process of enabling their translation into presumably more “modern” languages of intellectual expression, the terms of a specific academic discipline shape and constrain the development of particular forms of knowledge. The debate reveals the power inequalities that underlie attempts to include culturally marginalized bodies of thought within established disciplines and suggests the range of alternatives that are silenced or forgotten when this “inclusion” takes place. Even contemporary invocations of “Chinese philosophy” are often unable to comprehend the stakes of the debate for many of its Chinese participants, who link the debate to enduring questions about the capacity of indigenous Chinese academic terms to compete successfully with Euro-American ones. These debates may illuminate questions currently motivating comparative political theory.

The Heart Admonition of the Ancient Chinese Classic Shujing: An Episode from History of Its Interpretation in the West and Russia

2021 ◽  
pp. 194-208
Author(s):  
Lidiya V. Stezhenskaya ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Translation ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
The West ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
Chinese Classic ◽  
Better Than

Autochthonous traditional Chinese thought in its most developed form could be found in the philosophy of Neo-Confucianism, which continues to be a sig­nificant factor in the modern national consciousness of the Chinese people. At the same time, the pre-emptive attention of Western Sinology and Russian Chinese studies to early Confucianism does not fully take into account the Neo-Confucian interpretation of the ancient Chinese classics. Russian and Western translations of the so-called Sixteen-Word Heart Admonition (Shi liu zi xin chuan), a passage from Chapter III “Da Yu mo” (Councel of Yu the Great) of the ancient Chinese classic The Book of Historical Documents (Shujing) by A. Gaubil, N.Ya. Bichurin, D.P. Sivillov, W.H. Medhurst, J. Legge, S. Couvreur, and W.G. Old demonstrate the gradual assimilation of its Neo-Confucian inter­pretation by Western and Russian translators. Archimandrite Daniil (Dmitry P. Sivillov), in his unpublished Russian translation of Shujing of the early 1840s, adopted this interpretation earlier and understood it better than the others. It is assumed that rejection of the Manchu language mediation and peruse of the con­temporary Neo-Confucian commentaries played the key role in his success. The importance of Neo-Confucian hermeneutics research for the studies of tradi­tional Chinese philosophy, including ancient Chinese classics, is emphasized. The text of the previously unpublished Shujing Chapter III Da Yu mo Russian transla­tion by archimandrite Daniil is attached.

Representing the Cosmos and Transforming the Human: The Onto-hermeneutic Visions of Chung-ying Cheng’s The Primary Way: Philosophy of Yijing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
On-cho Ng
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
Principal Reason ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
Normative Criteria

Abstract The review essay critically evaluates, synoptically presents, and admiringly celebrates Chung-ying Cheng latest work, The Primary Way: Philosophy of Yijing. It sees the book’s publication as an emblem of an intellectual jubilee – a half-centenary of scholarly lucubration and achievement in Chinese and comparative philosophy by Cheng, who was trained at Harvard in American pragmatism and analytic philosophy. The essay reveals why Cheng returns to the Yijing time and again. The principal reason is that this ancient classic, to his way of thinking, offers us “the primary Way,” the anchoring normative criteria, perspectives, and values in a nutshell, whereby reality may be deciphered, discerned, and distinguished. To put it in metaphoric terms, the Yijing is the fount of Chinese philosophy. Whether interpreting Chinese thoughts in general or reading the Yijing in particular, Cheng brings western theoretical perspectives to bear on the understanding of the Chinese texts, which are, in and of themselves, replete with deep philosophical meanings. Cheng appropriates the Yijing for his own primary end, which is to disclose, via his onto-hermeneutic reading, a living, transformative ethico-moral philosophy that is onto-cosmologically alive and onto-generatively fecund: the primary Way. In doing so, he not only offers us innovative scholarship on the ancient classic but also opens up a theoretical and methodological frontier, an onto-hermeneutic one, where Chinese thought and philosophy may be explored anew.

Self, Mind and Body, Agency

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-65
Author(s):  
Alexus McLeod
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Role Based ◽  
Early Chinese Philosophy

Chapter 1 lays out the dominant views of self, agency, and moral responsibility in early Chinese philosophy. The reason for this is that these views inform the ways early Chinese thinkers approach mental illness, as well as the role they see it playing in self-cultivation as a whole (whether they view it as problematic or beneficial, for example). This chapter offers a view of a number of dominant conceptions of mind, body, and agency in early Chinese thought, through a number of philosophical and medical texts. It covers the Confucian view of personhood as role-based and communal, and the Zhuangist deconstructive view of the self. Finally, the chapter includes an argument that early Chinese thinkers recognized a distinction between mind and body, and that mind was dealt with as a separate category, thus making the topic of “mental illness” possible.

Self-cultivation in Chinese philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tu Wei-Ming
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Chinese Ethics ◽  
The Individual

Chinese philosophy may be viewed as disciplined reflections on the insights of self-cultivation. Etienne Balazs asserted that all Chinese philosophy is social philosophy and that, even if Chinese thinkers dwell upon metaphysical speculation, they will sooner or later return to the practical issues of the world here and now. This concern for the concreteness of the life-world gives the impression that the social dimension of the human condition features so prominently in the Chinese world of thought that the idea of the group takes precedence over conceptions of the individual self. The anthropological studies that contrast the Chinese sense of shame with the Western sense of guilt further enhance the impression that external social approval, rather than internal psychological sanction, defines the moral fabric of Chinese society. The prevalent sociological literature on the mechanism of ‘saving face’ as a key to understanding Chinese interpersonal relationships also stresses the centrality of external conditioning in Chinese ethics. If we follow this line of thinking, it is easy to assume that Chinese philosophers are preoccupied with neither the transcendent referent nor the inner psyche. They are not particularly interested in questions of ultimate reality such as the creator, the origin of the cosmos or the existence of God. Nor are they engrossed in problems of the mind such as consciousness, self-identity or moral choice. Indeed, Chinese philosophy as social philosophy seems exclusively immersed in issues of correct behaviour, familial harmony, political order and world peace. Even strands of thought that emphasize the aesthetic experience of the self are all intimately bound up with the highly ritualized world of human-relatedness. Actually the spirit of spontaneity, as a liberation from social constraints, should be appreciated in terms of a conscious reflection on and critique of society and thus inherently sociological. However, this widely held opinion of Chinese philosophy is seriously flawed. While it offers a common-sense picture of where the strength of Chinese thought lies, it does not address the underlying reasons or the actual processes that define the main trajectory of the Chinese modes of thinking. Wing-tsit Chan suggests a more comprehensive characterization of Chinese philosophy as humanism: ‘not the humanism that denies or slights a Supreme Power, but one that professes the unity of man and Heaven’ (Chan 1963: 3). It is crucial to note that ‘humanism’ so conceived is diametrically opposed to secular humanism as a distinctive feature of the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West. Western humanism emerged as a thorough critique of spiritualism and a radical departure from naturalism, or a sense of affinity with nature; it was the result of secularization. Chinese humanism, on the other hand, tends to incorporate the spiritual and naturalist dimensions in a comprehensive and integrated vision of the nature and function of humanity in the cosmos. The advantage of characterizing Chinese philosophy as humanistic rather than sociological is to open the possibility of allowing aesthetic, religious and metaphysical as well as ethical, historical and political perspectives to shape the contours of the Chinese reflective mind. This synthetic approach better captures the spirit of Chinese thought because it was historical and social change, rather than speculation, which was instrumental in the outgrowth of humanism as a defining characteristic of Chinese philosophy.

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