The political ideal of liberalism is to construct a stable society on the assumption that there are different and contradicting views about a good life. Presumably a liberal society tolerates and even celebrates differences and diversity. But is there a limit on liberal toleration? It seems obvious that in order to accomplish a stable and tolerating society, liberal state has to ensure all of its members acquire some virtues (especially toleration) necessary for the health and proper operation of the society. Therefore, itseems civic education for all members is inevitable. However, within a liberal society there are illiberal (religious) minorities who neither celebrate toleration, nor do they favor diversity. As a matter of fact, any form of civic education sponsored by the liberal state will undermine their ways of life and threaten their survival. Can they, therefore, refuse the kind of civic education imposed on them by the state? Various answers to this question are examined and evaluated in this article, and Jeff Spinner's idea of “partial citizen" is introduced as an adequate solution to this practical Issue.

Virtue and principle are two important subjects in Mencius's ethics. This paper deals with them from viewpoint of ethics of virtue and of principle. The author indicates that Mencius' four virtues, i.e. hearts of compassion, of shame, of courtesy and modesty, and of right and wrong are universal human endowments and essential to human life. There are four “principles" derived from them. That is ， “jin" ， “yi" ， li" and “ chu." The first two are essential ethical virtues while the others enabling ones. The author contends that Menciusian ethics is consequentialistic. Mencius believes his principles have universal and objective validity. But they are overridable. Moral agent has to choose a correct principle in the particular moral or political context by the principle of utility. This is a kind of utilitarian moral reasoning that is ignored by most of interpreters.Moreover, Mencius is a naturalistic and realistic moral philosopher. “The good" is defined by “that is desired." But he conceives that good is a kind of property in thing itself being perceived by human being. In fact, what the good is is not an issue in his philosophy. But it is important to moral reasoning since it is dependent up the principle of utility.

While it is generally reckoned that religious beliefs can reinforce or purify our intentions in moral respect, some religious critics believe the opposite. According to them, religious people do good deeds not just for the sake of the good but also, if not more so, for the reward they may have in the future. Associated with the idea of deserts, religion seems to encourage heteronomous rather than autonomous motivations behind good actions. Whether this criticism is justifiable in the Judeo-Christian context is the main issue of this article. The article is divided into four parts. Firstly, the ideas of autonomy and heteronomy are introduced as a basis for further discussions. Secondly, the opinions and arguments of significant religious critics are presented and examined as we tackle with the question whether or not and to what extent Judeo-Christian religion is heteronomous. In the following part, it is shown that Judeo-Christian religion has a long tradition of respecting motivational autonomy even though it affirms the idea of deserts in the eschatological sense of paradise or hell in afterlife. The last partof the article deals with the possibility of integrating selfand other-regarding interests, or, integrating motivational autonomy and heteronomy, in thedomain of religious ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the following main theses of Almeder's blind realism: (TI) Even if we abandon the correspondence theory of truth, we would still know that there is an external world. (T2) At any time, some of our presently completely authorized beliefs about the external world must correctly describe the external world. (T3) We cannot justifiably pick out which of our presently completely authorized beliefs do correctly describe the external world. I try to show that Almeder's argument for T1 is based upon his misunderstanding of Peirce's well-known Harvard experiment and it also fails to support T1. Moreover, T2 is not well elaborated and, even worse, incoherent with T3.

我們的心智如何掌握世界?最近之相關哲學論述的主要關 懷是要指出事實、經驗和判斷之間具有某種證成之關係。本論文 檢視三個經驗證成之理論:推演論、概念論及社會踐行論。此三 理論不同於傳統之基礎論、融貫論及可靠論，在於它們不企圖對 知識論概念(如「知識」和「理據J )提供抽象之分析;這些新 興理論深受維根斯坦之影響，強調知識概念與「語言踐行」之密 切關連。本文首先說明推演論與概念論之間的論爭，釐清其主要 論證和反駁，最後展述社會踐行論，並指出其對推演論與概念論 之修正及補強。

The goal of this essay is to give a textual interpretation and a comprehensive system-inherent analysis of the basic principle of the theoretical core from Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, that is, to explore the historicity of understanding of “Dasein ", especially the first crucial element of this hermeneutical theory, the hermeneutical circle. The central part of Truth and Method, “Rudiments of a Theory of Hermeneutical Experience", is the core of the theoretical exposition of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. He begins this part by transforming his fIrst theoretical element, the “hermeneutical circle", from Heidegger's “circle of understanding", and then develops this to the basic thought pattern of his hermeneutical thinking. This essay examines the following main points from this part of Truth and Method:1. The primary ground-presupposition of the philosophical hermeneutics; that is the historicality of understanding, Heidegger's “hermeneutics of facticity" and Gadamers presuppositional absorption of it. First, this essay looks over the system-inherent context of Gadamer's ontological adoption of Heidegger's historicity of understanding of Dasein as the first presupposition of philosophical hermeneutics.2. The “hermeneutical circle" as the “forest ructure" of understanding, i.e., Gadamer's philosophical-hermeneutical transformation of Heidegger's “circle of understanding". On the basis of Heidegger's historicity of understanding as the primary Presupposition of philosophical hermeneutics, Gadamer introduces the “circle of understanding" from Heidegger's Being and Time, and transforms it to his own theory of a “hermeneutical circle" as the “forestructure" of understanding. This circle concentrates no longer on the existential depth-structure of the Dasein's understanding of itself in its Being, but first picks out the understanding of text in the ordinary “lifeworld" or academic activity on the horizon of human science as a central theme. Although there are some implied theoretical problems in Gadamer's exposition, he describes the ever-present hermeneutical circle in the phenomenon of understanding as the concrete context of experience of “text-reading" . He points out the quasi-circular process that starts from the fore-projection of the text-reader to the penetration into the meaning of matter-of-factness in text, and leads to this new understanding, which finally repulses the fore-projection and corrects it. With this, he discloses the orienting pattern of his philosophical hermeneutics: first the awareness of the forestrucuture of understanding, and then the revelation of the matter-of-factness of the subject of understanding itself.3. The hermeneutical circle as the starting point of the exposition of philosophical hermeneutics. From this Gadamer develops the essential features of his hermeneutical thought, i.e. the description of the experience of “text-understanding" as the theoretical language and approach for the fundamental phenomenon of hermeneutics.

本文旨在探討舒茲的「純粹我們關係」概念，本文的出發點 在於認識到此概念往往被當作「具體我們關係」而導致其涵義未 能被適切的理解。本文指出，舒茲將「純粹我們關係」奠定在「對 你態度」之上，並視之為「極限概念J '亦即將它當作無任何具 體內容的抽象概念，而且主張它是任何社會關係的最終基礎。此 一論述導致理念化與自我中心化的批評。本文指出，舒茲此一觀 點在晚期的生活世界論述中依然保留，並試著指出此一概念所導 致的批評或許可以藉由「相互準備投入關係」來加以化解。