Chinese-Western Comparative Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Topical Approach

237 Pages·2020·1.231 MB·English

by  Mingjun Lu

Chinese-Western
Comparative Metaphysics
and Epistemology
STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Series Editor: Douglas Allen, University of Maine
This series explores important intersections within and between the disci-
plines of religious studies and philosophy. These original studies will empha-
size, in particular, aspects of contemporary and classical Asian philosophy
and its relationship to Western thought. We welcome a wide variety of
manuscript submissions, especially works exhibiting highly focused research
and theoretical innovation.
Recent Titles in This Series
Chinese-Western Comparative Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Topical
Approach, by Mingjun Lu
Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides, by Ilana Maymind
Gandhi’s Thought and Liberal Democracy, by Sanjay Lal
Plantingian Religious Epistemology and World Religions: Prospects and
Problems, by Erik Baldwin and Tyler Dalton McNabb
Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India: Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī
Harṣa, by Ethan Mills
Dharma and Halacha: Comparative Studies in Hindu-Jewish Philosophy and
Religion, edited by Ithamar Theodor and Yudit Kornberg Greenberg
Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time, by Alexus McLeod
Making Space for Knowing: A Capacious Approach to Comparative Episte-
mology, by Aaron B. Creller
Postmodern Ethics, Emptiness, Literature: Encounter between East and
West, by Jae-seong Lee
Chinese-Western
Comparative Metaphysics
and Epistemology
A Topical Approach
Mingjun Lu
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ISBN: 978-1-7936-2507-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
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To my parents,
with love

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
PART I: M ETAPHYSICS OF NATURE AND METAPHYSICS
OF THE MIND
1 Cosmo-Substantial Metaphysics in Aristotelian and
Chinese Philosophy 23
2 The Cogito and Onto-Being of the Mind: Philosophical Early
Modernity in Descartes’ and Wang Yangming’s Metaphysics 43
3 Leibniz and Wang Yangming on the Joining of Morals
to Metaphysics 67
PART II: T HE FOUNDATION AND SOURCE
OF KNOWLEDGE
4 Plato’s and Xunzi’s Consonant Epistemology and
Normalization of the Musico-Poetic Discourse 93
5 Mental Cloudiness and Partial Knowledge in Chinese and
Western Epistemology 115
PART III: HERMENEUTICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL
APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGE
6 The Dao and the Form: Innate Divisions and Natural
Hermeneutics in Plato and Zhuangzi 139
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viii Contents
7 Onto-Mind Reading in the Metaphysics of Leibniz and
Wang Yangming 159
8 Chinese Dialectic of Deduction and Induction:
Bo-yue 博约 and ge-wu zhi-zhi 格物 致知 181
Bibliography 205
Index 217
About the Author 225
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of two chapters in the book appear in Philosophy East and
West: “The Cogito and Onto-Being of the Mind: Philosophical Early Moder-
nity in Descartes and Wang Yangming’s Metaphysics” (69.2 [2019]: 176–96),
and “The Dao and the Form: Innate Divisions and the Natural Hermeneutics
of Plato and Zhuangzi” (68.4 [2019]: 1219–38). Revised versions of these
two articles will constitute Chapter 2 and Chapter 6 in this book. I’m grateful
to Philosophy East and West for permission to use this material.
I want to take this opportunity to thank my editors, Jana Hodges-Kluck for
her unyielding support and firm conviction in the value of this project, and
Sydney Wedbush for her admirable assistance in the review process. I am
equally grateful to Nicolette Amstutz, Holly Buchanan, and Hannah Fisher
for their great help in guiding me through the last stages of the publication.
My gratitude also goes to my series editor, Professor Douglas Allen, for his
insightful appraisal and pertinent commentary that help upgrade the project
to a new level. I am no less thankful to the anonymous reviewer for her/his
feedback that proved vital to the refining of the thesis.
I reserve my warm thanks to my husband and two sons who indulge me
this luxury passion to contemplate the sky and stars, while taking the burden
of worldly concerns upon their own shoulders.
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