Daniel_Cheung
02-13-2008, 08:53 AM
（不知是書本作者抑或書評作者的了，以下那些譯名好像很陌生似的，例如儒家被譯為 ruism 。）
Bryan Van Norden
Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy
(http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=12323)
Bryan Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 412pp., $90.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780521867351.
Reviewed by Chenyang Li, Central Washington University
In this impressive book Bryan Van Norden examines the moral philosophy of Kongzi (Confucius) and Mengzi (Mencius) under the framework of virtue ethics and the philosophy of early Mohists under the framework of consequentialism. The book contains five chapters. The first chapter discusses methodological and conceptual issues, serving as a good gateway into the main body of the book. The author adopts an analytic approach, which is chiefly concerned with "finding, interpreting, and evaluating arguments in the texts; clarifying the meaning of the texts by spelling out interpretive alternatives and examining whether some make better sense of the text than others; and exploring whether each text is self-consistent" (2). The analytic approach has gained considerable ground in Chinese philosophy in the last decade. This book is yet another good demonstration of it. In interpreting ancient texts, Van Norden employs a "hermeneutic of restoration," an approach based on the belief that the text's author does not intentionally lie about what she believes. This approach is opposed to a "hermeneutic of suspicion," which attempts to find ulterior motives for the composition of the text that are unrelated to any justification of the truth claims made in the text. Van Norden also makes a clear and strong justification for his use of "virtue ethics" in interpreting Ruism (Confucianism). He understands "virtue ethics" as comprising four components: (1) an account of what a "flourishing" human life is, (2) an account of what virtues contribute to leading such a life, (3) an account of how one acquires those virtues, and (4) a philosophical anthropology that explains what humans are like, so that they can acquire the virtues that will enable them to flourish in that kind of life (33-34). According to this understanding, Ruism is unquestionably a virtue ethics, even though it offers conceptions of these aspects different from Aristotelian virtue ethics. This chapter is extraordinary; few writers on Chinese philosophy have laid out a methodology with the kind of conceptual clarity and philosophical depth that Van Norden provides here...
Bryan Van Norden
Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy
(http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=12323)
Bryan Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 412pp., $90.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780521867351.
Reviewed by Chenyang Li, Central Washington University
In this impressive book Bryan Van Norden examines the moral philosophy of Kongzi (Confucius) and Mengzi (Mencius) under the framework of virtue ethics and the philosophy of early Mohists under the framework of consequentialism. The book contains five chapters. The first chapter discusses methodological and conceptual issues, serving as a good gateway into the main body of the book. The author adopts an analytic approach, which is chiefly concerned with "finding, interpreting, and evaluating arguments in the texts; clarifying the meaning of the texts by spelling out interpretive alternatives and examining whether some make better sense of the text than others; and exploring whether each text is self-consistent" (2). The analytic approach has gained considerable ground in Chinese philosophy in the last decade. This book is yet another good demonstration of it. In interpreting ancient texts, Van Norden employs a "hermeneutic of restoration," an approach based on the belief that the text's author does not intentionally lie about what she believes. This approach is opposed to a "hermeneutic of suspicion," which attempts to find ulterior motives for the composition of the text that are unrelated to any justification of the truth claims made in the text. Van Norden also makes a clear and strong justification for his use of "virtue ethics" in interpreting Ruism (Confucianism). He understands "virtue ethics" as comprising four components: (1) an account of what a "flourishing" human life is, (2) an account of what virtues contribute to leading such a life, (3) an account of how one acquires those virtues, and (4) a philosophical anthropology that explains what humans are like, so that they can acquire the virtues that will enable them to flourish in that kind of life (33-34). According to this understanding, Ruism is unquestionably a virtue ethics, even though it offers conceptions of these aspects different from Aristotelian virtue ethics. This chapter is extraordinary; few writers on Chinese philosophy have laid out a methodology with the kind of conceptual clarity and philosophical depth that Van Norden provides here...