According to her major research on death and dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposes that the final phases of a terminally ill patient may undergo such stages as denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. From our dialogue with Dr. Kubler-Ross, we come to realise that each stage IIlay prove to be an occasion for one to learn his lesson concerning the meaning of life. If a person manages to make good use of the opportunity, he may attain such an edifying transfiguration of life that reveals that dying can be a challenge for one to confront one's ultimate concern, a chance for achieving spiritual growth, and a pathway through which one may appropriate for oneself the value of love.

This essay is divided into three sections. In the first section, I point out that in Heidegger the nature of language is monologue, then I analyze the characteristics of it. In the second section, I show that in Gadamer the nature of language is dialogue, and I then analyze the concept of dialogue. In the last section, I argue that the concept of monologue contradicts the nature of language, while a dialogical concept of language is acceptable.

Since the end of 19th century, it's undoubtedly well-known between the so-called "Platonforscher" that a lot of the hermeneutic difficulties exist in various interpretations on Plato's Cratylus, especially in respect of the unsolvable contradiction between the conventionalistic - nominalistic and naturalistic - realistic interpretations. I try to reduce the discussed problems of this dialogue to the following 9:1. For what purpose does Plato write Cratylus?2. Who is Plato's antagonist?3. What does Plato claim on the correctness in name (ὀν ομάτων ὀρθότητα)?4. Is Socrates' etymology strictly meanful?5. In what chronological period does Plato write this dialogue?6. What are Cratylus' and Hermogenes' propositions for the correctness of name?7. What differences between Plato's and Aristotle's assertions about the correctness in name?8. As a younger disciple of Heraclitus, is Cratylus' stand point the same with Aristotle's report in Metaphysics?9. Does Cratylus understand Heraclitus' doctrine correctly?There are various answers to the above-mentioned problerns between the "Plaotnforscher", because they tempt to solute these problems on the basis of analytical method, which inevitably arises hermeneutic difficulties by interpreting CratyIus. By Plato, philosophizing means "dialegesthai" (διαλέ γεοθαι) and dialectic is a method of asking and answering. Platonic dialogues are the results or literal records of the to-and- fro-oration. If one wants to conceive Plato's philosophy, then he must comtemplate argumentative speculation between the partners in dialogue. If one predeterminated his studies with analytic tendence, then he should miss Plato's dialectic activity and its appearantly antinomic consequence.The problems are treated by following theoretical steps: 1. An analysis of the dialectical roles of Socrates, CratyIusand Hermogenes in this dialogue.2. An anlysis of the different assertions of the correctness in name.3. On the basis of these two analyses, I try to answer the above-mentioned problems.

Quine and Davidson advocate tile thesis that assignment of semantic contents and intentional states is underdetermined by the totality of behavioral evidence. More specifically, given all the empirical data, the decision as to how to attribute semantic and intentional content is arbitrary. Given the indeterminacy thesis and Davidson's contention that semantic and intentional content are, in principle, publicly accessible, it follows that there is no such things as unique reference, determinate meaning and definite mental content. Furthermore, since such things are not factual matters in anyone's language and mind, they are not objects for anyone, including the agent himself, to know of. However, Davidson also endorses the view that even though we sometimes are not certain about what other speakers believe and mean, we are nonethelessusually certain about what we ourselves believe and mean. This view seems to be at a conflict with the thesis of indeterminacy as it applied to the first person case. It has been argued, most pointedly by Malpas, that in Davidson's account there is no incompatibility between the indeterminacy in the first person case and the intuition that we usually have knowledge of our the content of own utterances and intentional states. In this paper, I mainly argue for two points: first, Malpas' reconciliation for Davidson is based on a seriously misunderstanding of some of Davidson's own ideas and is therefore inadequate; second, so long as we distinguish two kinds of knowledge involved in the seemingly conflict propositions, the conflict will be proved to be merely apparent.

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.

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.

The aim of this essay is to show that Dasein in Heidegger's Being and Time is not a humanistic concept. In doing this I will separate my work into three sections. In the first section I will probe the concept of humanism by an analysis on Heidegger's essay entitled “Plato's Doctrine of Truth." I will conclude that humanism, on Heidegger's view,is the claim that man, in his thinking, has forgotten Being and presupposes himself as the ultimate ground. In the second section I will show, by an analysis on the methodology and the Being of Dasein Heidegger invokes in his Being and Time, that the ground of Dasein is not itself, but facticity-that is, something beyond Dasein. With these conclusions in mind, it will be reasonable to assert that Dasein is not a humanistic concept. In the last section I will indicate that only when we presuppose that Dasein is not a humanistic concept can we coherently explain the development of Heidegger's thought.

For Śaṅkara, the most renowned teacher of the Advaita Vedānta school of Hinduism, Brahman or Ātman as the sole ultimate reality underlying all beings is attribute-less, indivisible, unconceptualizable and unverbalizable. In other words, Brahman-Ātman is for him ineffable, well beyond the reach of human language. Yet, referring to the reality in words seems on many occasions inevitable, and the scriptures of the school do contain positive statements about the reality. How, then, should we understand the referring function of the scriptural language? How can one speak meaningfully of something that is unspeakable? In this paper I propose to expound Śaṅkara’s views on these issues.Śaṅkara, indeed, sets forth three methods by means of which one can make linguistic references to the unsayable: (1) the method of negation (netivāda), (2) the method of indication (lakṣaṇa-vṛtti), and (3) the method of imposition-cum-negation (adhyāropa-apavāda). The three methods will be closely examined in sequence with their mutual relationships exposed thereafter. The author is of the opinion that Śaṅkara’s linguistic approach toward ‘saying’ the unsayable is rather instructive and really worth our attention.

There is a important principle in the problem of free-will. This principle is called “the principle of alternate possibilities” (hereinafter : PAP) which states that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. Harry G. Frankfurt has presented a series of putative counterexamples to PAP. (“Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” Journal of Philosophy 66,1969,pp.829-39)The “Frankfurt-style” examples have evoked considerable discussion. One general form of response to the examples is in the examples there are alternative possibilities. Our aim in this paper is to discuss that whether Frankfurt –style examples undermine PAP? (1) Are there alternative possibilities in Frankfurt–style examples? (2) Is an agent moral responsible for a decision although he could not have avoided making it? Or whether Fischer on alternative possibilities and responsibility is correct? (3) And we also discuss Van Inwagen’s three principles which is established the link between ability to do otherwise and responsibility.

This essay analyzes the concept of time in the philosophy of Heidegger and Gadamer in order to show its relationship with both philosophers’ discussion on “Being”. I point out that no matter in his early or later writings, Heidegger’s concept of time is in conflict with his concept of understanding. Therefore, Heidegger’s quest for the meaning of Being cannot be accomplished. In contrast the Gadamerian concept of time makes the understanding of the meaning of Being possible.In the first part of this essay Heidegger’s concepts of time are revealed by an analysis on his two major works: Being and Time and On Time and Being. I argue that the concept of time revealed in these two books makes the understanding of Being impossible. In the second part Gadamer’s concept of time is discussed by an investigation on the following terms: contemporaneity, time in festival and fulfilled time. I show that the Gadamerian concept of time is in harmony with the understanding of Being. ThereforeGadamer’s philosophy can accomplish the task of illuminating the meaning of Being. Finally I show that it is justified to accept the Gadamerian concept of time in the interpretation of Being.

The present study examines Buddhist doctrine of "neither increase nor decrease in the realm of sentient beings" in the Anūnatvâpūrṇatva-nirdeśa in terms of a doctrinal development focusing attention on keywords from the realm of sentient beings (sattva-dhātu), dharma-dhātu, dharma-kāya, to tathā-gatagarbha. The Mahāyāna has sometimes been associated with the doctrine that there is neither increase nor decrease in the realm of sentient beings, a doctrine which is often linked to the Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtras or the Mādhyamika school. In this paper, I look into just such a doctrine, as it is found in a Chinese traslation of the Anūnatvâpūrṇatva-nirdeśa, a Buddhist scripture translated by Bodhiruci in 525. Several passages of this scripture were cited in the Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, a treatise still preserved in Sanskrit, Chineseand Tibetan, and give us textual sources for research into the Chinese translation of this scripture.In the Anūnatvâpūrṇatva-nirdeśa, the very way in which the doctrine of neither increase nor decrease in the realm of sentient beings is defined and verified through the employment of the dharma-dhātu theory, a theory which, in turn, is verified by reference to theories of dharma-kāya and tathā-gatagarbha. So in order to understand this scripture's discursive construction of the doctrine of neither increase nor decrease in the realm of sentient beings, we must explore its conception of such keywords as dharma-dhātu, dharma-kāya, and tathā-gatagarbha.It is my hope that an examination of such a scripture with the focus on the doctrine of neither increase nor decrease in the realm of sentient beings may contribute to the study of the various ways in which the contours of the Mahāyāna have been drawn from a doctrinal perspective.

The dilemma we are in when we reflect on the free power of choice in our person and our place in the causal world can be dissolved if the relationship between action and event causation is appropriately described and explained. The present study examines three approaches to the dilemma: The first is based on how to interpret freedom given event causation, the second based on having leeway given probabilistic causation, and the third based on a postulation of agent-causation. None of them is found satisfactory.By finding out and negating their common assumption, the present study proposes a way of fine-tuning our conceptualization of what it is to act, and to choose, in a world enmeshed with causality. The core idea of the proposal is that, at bottom, event causation and the ways we act and choose are inseparable from each other in our embodiedinteractions with the environment. The philosophical basis of the proposal is made explicit and defended.

Han Fei is a descendent of former aristocracy who livedduring the Warring States Period, while Wang Bi livedduring the Late Han. Although separated by six hundredyears, they have both left us with annotations dealingwith the philosophy of Lao Tzu. Han Fei wrote"Interpretation of Lao Tzu" and "Expounding Lao TzuMetaphorically," while Wang Bi is known for "Annotating onLao Tzu." In their annotations of Lao Tsu's texts theysuggested new interpretations and systems of thought. HanFei became leading legalist of Xian Qin period, and WangBi laid the foundation of metaphysics school of Wei & JinDynasty. Lao Tzu was interpreted differently by Han Feiand Wang Bi. Han relied on method of "comparing and examining," while Wang emphasized "comprehending and let aside words." Han's argument is "in the Beginning there was Universe" and then "Tao". On the other hand, Wang held that Tao comes "before the Beginning of the Universe." Han maintains that law is essential while for Wang the essential theUniverse." Han maintains that law is essential while for Wang the essential is Wu (Non being).Han believed that "inactivity activated all deeds", while Wang countered by asserting "inactivity is activation".Thus, Han's philosophy helped establish autocratic empires since the Qin and Han dynasties. Wang's interpretation of Lao Tzu helped introduce the Buddhist philosophy during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The ethical theology of Kant aims to vindicate the religious belief on the basis of human reason. Although he argues on the one hand that the knowledge of experience and the speculative reason are ineffective for making clear the statements of the immortality of soul and the existence of God, he, on the other hand, maintains on thebasis of the practical reason the immortality of soul and the existence of God. Consequently, Kant stresses that morality is bound to lead to religion. However, the afore-mentioned argumentation of Kant is not be understood as that the moral principles themselves should directly lead to religion, from Kant’s point of view, the indispensable foundation for the religious belief has to be built with the framework of moral laws as well as the human instinctive desire for happiness, that is, the Highest Good of the proper proportioning of virtue and happiness is the true basis of the religious belief. Accordingly, Kant insists that the “moral necessity” to “assume the existence of God” is “subjective, i.e., a need, and not objective, i.e. duty itself.” Therefore, the necessity of the religious belief in Kantian viewpoint means to eliminate the moral obstacles so as to aspire the moral resolutions, not on the contrary, that the necessary objectivity of moral laws is established on the basis of religious belief. With such a rationalreligious belief, what the faithful should be concerned about is to introspect oneself whether one’s virtue is worthy of happiness, and not to behave in accordance with the traditional Christian ways to rely upon praying and look to divine grace, miracles as well as redemption.Can the Kantian postulate about the subjective moral necessity be proved true? If we acknowledge the Kantian statement about the subjective moral necessity, then, we should ask further, whether the Christian belief in God is the sole choice? If not, do we still need an ethical theology? Furthermore, even taking the western Christianculture into consideration, this paper also aims to examine whether the Kantian issue that morality has to lead to religious belief is unquestionable? Or, is it possible that religious belief is bound to lead to moral behavior?This paper aims to examine first the happiness within the Kantian notion of the Highest Good still remains an uncertain idea. Secondly, in comparison with the other theories of the moral retribution (such as that of Buddhism), the immortality of soul and the existence of God can not be proved as the only two valid presumptions for the issue of the moral retribution. Thirdly, this paper will point out that the notion of moral demands is not necessary for maintaining the raison d’etre of the religious belief, and that Kant’s perception of the Christian core-doctrines is incorrect.

This article examines different forms of democracy and concludes that deliberative democracy has some merits in contrast with procedural democracy and liberal democracy. However even deliberative democracy cannot function properly without well-educated citizens. To be a good citizen, people should develop certain skills and virtues pertain to a deliberative democracy, such as the ability of critical reasoning, autonomy, mutual respect, and open-mindedness. Schools are the most important places for civic education and hence should emphasize more on their common purposes. Moreover, a healthy society also requires citizens acquire a kind of sympathetic imagination, which is an ability to put oneself in other’s shoes. With this people with diverse views can live together cooperatively and peacefully.