Presentation and Abstracts
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Presentation Titles
| Jeffrey Riegel, ‘Knowledge of the Self and of Others in Mengzi 孟子 2A2′ |
| Helen De Cruz, ‘The unity of acting and knowing in Baruch de Spinoza and Wang Yangming: a comparative approach’ |
| Winnie Sung, ‘Cheng 诚: Making Whole One’s Mind’ |
| Justin Tiwald, ‘Epistemic Autonomy in Confucian Philosophy’ |
| Nicholas Silins, ‘No Yourself: Self-Cultivation without Self-Knowledge’ |
| Loy Hui Chieh and Daryl Ooi, ‘Conceptions of Knowledge in Classical Chinese Philosophy’ |
| Christoph Harbsmeier, ‘Modes of Knowing: Some philological and philosophical considerations’ |
| Karyn Lai, ‘Knowing Sages’ |
Presentation Abstracts
Jeffrey Riegel, ‘Knowledge of the Self and of Others in Mengzi 孟子 2A2′
Among the many things to be learned—or at least inferred—about Mengzi’s epistemology from a reading of Mengzi 2A2 is that it is possible to distinguish between Master Meng’s self-awareness and his awareness of the thought and practices of others by examining the language he uses to convey and describe these different forms of knowledge. Mengzi’s self-knowledge came from self-reflection (自反), an art that, in Mengzi 2A2 at least, he traces back to Kongzi 孔子 and Zengzi 曾子. Mengzi’s practice of this art disclosed to him the most interior and intimate of the moral processes that informed and shaped his behaviour. So recondite were these personal truths that the philosopher, by his own admission, found it difficult to put them into words (難言) and resorted to figurative language to suggest what otherwise was invisible. Mengzi’s knowledge of others, particularly the contemporary thinkers whom he regarded with more than a slight dose of antagonism, came from their language; that is, their doctrines encapsulated in the formulaic yan 言that were a primary means by which philosophy was orally conveyed to contemporaries and transmitted through the generations to successors in the tradition. Though he disagreed profoundly with the claims made by his old nemesis Gaozi 告子—not to mention the teachings of Yang Zhu 楊朱 and Master Mo 墨子—Mengzi had evidently studied them closely, indeed memorized them so well and thoroughly that he could readily quote them if only to dismiss the ideas that their words conveyed. In brief, Mengzi internalized teachings with which he deeply disagreed; quite possibly the more he opposed a rival position the more likely he was to learn it thoroughly. It might be objected that a characterization of Mengzi’s epistemology based narrowly on Mengzi 2A2—a passage that is dominated by the philosopher’s arguably marginal concerns with identifying and dismissing as inferior various ways of cultivating resoluteness—is insufficiently representative of what Mengzi said and claimed to have practiced in the remainder of the text. Perhaps. But it does serve as one starting point for grasping why Mengzi believed that his own morally-grounded technique for holding tight to ambitions was superior to that of others.
Justin Tiwald, ‘Epistemic Autonomy in Confucian Philosophy’
In this presentation, I will reconstruct competing views on epistemic autonomy in traditional Confucian philosophy. Roughly, epistemic autonomy is the sort of thing one has when one knows something on one’s own epistemic authority, rather than (say) on the basis of someone else’s reliable authority or expertise. Knowing something on one’s own epistemic authority may consist of grasping the relevant reasons for oneself or affirming a view on the basis of one’s own aptitudes of good judgment. Many present-day philosophers who work on Confucianism seem to suggest that epistemic autonomy is thematized by Confucian philosophers, and that certain evaluative claims and assumptions about epistemic autonomy help to justify their distinctive views about ethical education and cultivation. But we have yet to see a relatively clear articulation of the positions that were in contention, and of the arguments for those positions. I propose to begin the work of clarifying the positions and arguments by looking closely at two sets of discourses. One consists of the defenses of deference to tradition and expertise in the Xunzi (attributed to Xunzi 荀子, 3rd century BCE). The other set consists of the descriptions of and arguments for zide 自得 (“getting it oneself”) in the later Confucian tradition, by philosophers such as Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032-1085) and Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724-1777).
Loy Hui Chieh and Daryl Ooi, ‘Conceptions of Knowledge in Classical Chinese Philosophy’
In this paper, we discuss five conceptions of knowledge present in texts traditionally associated with the thought of such thinkers as Kongzi, Mozi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Hanfeizi. The first three maps onto conceptions of knowledge familiar to contemporary ears: skill knowledge (knowing-how), propositional knowledge (knowing-that) and objectual knowledge (knowing by acquaintance); while the next two map onto less commonly discussed conceptions of knowledge: motivational knowledge (knowing-to) and applied knowledge (knowing-how-to). Our aim is to complement existing projects in the literature that look at related issues more explicitly from the standpoint of the ‘native’ concepts. We conclude the paper by offering some comments on the early Chinese philosophical concerns with knowledge and its relation to broader conceptions of ‘philosophical’ projects.
Christoph Harbsmeier, ‘Modes of Knowing: Some philological and philosophical considerations’
This paper will consider in some detail the history and the distinct nuances and multiple meanings of Chinese words in the semantic field knowing. Detailed comparison will be made between early China and ancient Greece.
On the basis of these summary philological considerations an attempt will be made to work towards a style of philosophical epistemology that addresses the conceptual and cultural variety of epistemic discourse across cultures and across documented stages of cultural development in radically different cultures. Particular reference will be made to Ernest Sosa on Knowledge and Donald Davidson on knowability and the formal definition of truth.
Karyn Lai, ‘Knowing Sages’
To know sages is an important aspect of Confucian moral life. The ways of the sage kings provide guidance for one’s own moral life. Therefore, it is important to get it right: the Confucian needs to know sages as sages. I discuss what the targets of knowledge might be in this distinctive form of knowing. I also explore what it is that makes this type of knowing unique.