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Life: the True, the Good and the Beautiful

A Comparative Study of Greek and Pre-Qin Philosophies

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The Origins of Life

Part of the book series: Analecta Husserliana ((ANHU,volume 67))

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Abstract

In his monograph Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man, Husserl presented a striking contrast between Greek philosophy taking a ‘theoretical’ attitude towards the world and Oriental philosophy taking a ‘practical’ one, and further inferred that there must be some sharp cleavages between the ideal images, the spiritual structures and the cultural accomplishments of Occidental and Oriental peoples’ lives.1 I have tried to show why this point of view is an ‘essential insight’ into the fundamental differences between the rational spirit of Western philosophy and the practical spirit of Chinese philosophy, and how the differences have brought about some noticeable distinctions between Western life as Logos and Chinese life as Tao.2 The purpose of this essay will be to explain how the two kinds of life are endowed with distinctive vital, moral and aesthetic senses respectively by Greek and Chinese pre-Qin philosophies through their interpretations, which were given under the guidance of two different kinds of attitudes or spirits and three basis concepts - ‘the true’, ‘the good’ and ‘the beautiful’.

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Notes

  1. Cf. Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. Quentin Lauer (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 149–192.

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  2. Cf. Qingping Liu, “Life: as Logos and Tao-On Husserl’s Ideas and the Comparative Study of Western and Chinese Philosophies,” a paper presented at The First International Congress in Philosophy, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Life held at the University of Macerata, Italy, in April, 1996. It is included in Analecta Husserliana, Vol. LII, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.

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  3. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1979), pp. 219–220; Introduction of Metaphysics, trans. R. Manhaim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 102.

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  4. Heraclitus, Fragment 112 (DK 22 B112); See Charles M. Bakewell: Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), p. 34.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan University, China

    Qingping Liu

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  1. Qingping Liu
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA

    Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (President) (President)

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Liu, Q. (2000). Life: the True, the Good and the Beautiful. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Origins of Life. Analecta Husserliana, vol 67. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4058-4_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4058-4_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5786-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4058-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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