Kirjahaku

Chinese philosophy has long recognized the importance of the body and emotions in extensive and diverse self-cultivation traditions. Philosophical debates about the relationship between mind and body are often described in terms of mind-body dualism and its opposite, monism or some kind of "holism." Monist or holist views agree on the unity of mind and body, whereas mind-body dualists take body and mind as essentially different. Debates about mind-body dualism have become important in Chinese and comparative philosophy because of claims that there was no mind-body dualism in early China, in contrast to Western traditions. This book argues that there was an important divergence in early China between two views of the self. In one, mind and spirit are closely aligned, and are understood to rule the body as a ruler rules a state. But in the other, the person is tripartite, and mind and spirit are independent entities that cannot be reduced to a material-non-material binary. In some cases, body and spirit are even aligned in opposition to mind. A Tripartite Self addresses both philosophical and technical literatures (including evidence from Chinese excavated texts) to broaden a type of inquiry that frequently is applied only to philosophical texts. Lisa Raphals surveys this divergence and argues for the importance of a tripartite model of the person or self in early Chinese texts through the Han dynasty. The book will shed light on not only important contemporary debates of mind-body dualism within Chinese philosophy but also within East-West comparative approaches to understanding the self.

This Element describes early Chinese views of the heart-mind (xin ?) and its relation to the psychology of a whole person, including the body, affective and cognitive faculties, and the spirit (shén ?). It argues for a divergence in Warring States thought between 'mind-centered' and 'spirit-centered' approaches to self-cultivation. It surveys the Analects, Mengzi, Guanzi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Huainanzi, the Huangdi neijing, and excavated medical manuscripts from Mawangdui, as well as a brief comparative perspective to ancient Greek views of these topics. It argues for a contrast between post-Cartesian dualism and Chinese and Greek psycho-physicalism.

This Element describes early Chinese views of the heart-mind (xin ?) and its relation to the psychology of a whole person, including the body, affective and cognitive faculties, and the spirit (shén ?). It argues for a divergence in Warring States thought between 'mind-centered' and 'spirit-centered' approaches to self-cultivation. It surveys the Analects, Mengzi, Guanzi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Huainanzi, the Huangdi neijing, and excavated medical manuscripts from Mawangdui, as well as a brief comparative perspective to ancient Greek views of these topics. It argues for a contrast between post-Cartesian dualism and Chinese and Greek psycho-physicalism.

Divination was an important and distinctive aspect of religion in both ancient China and ancient Greece, and this book will provide the first systematic account and analysis of the two side by side. Who practised divination in these cultures and who consulted it? What kind of questions did they ask, and what methods were used to answer those questions? As well as these practical aspects, Lisa Raphals also examines divination as a subject of rhetorical and political narratives, and its role in the development of systematic philosophical and scientific inquiry. She explores too the important similarities, differences and synergies between Greek and Chinese divinatory systems, providing important comparative evidence to reassess Greek oracular divination.