Malebranche’s Influence on Leibniz’s Writings on China
Leibniz deserves the honor, frequently bestowed upon him, as the single most important early European interpreter of Chinese philosophy. Yet the story commonly told about this period of philosophical discussion of Chinese philosophy underestimates the importance of Malebranche’s brief encounter with Chinese philosophy and its influence on Leibniz’ interpretation of Chinese thought. In this article, evidence is provided of this influence by first discussing Leibniz’ writings on China prior to his encounter with Malebranche’s Dialogue between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher on the Existence and Nature of God, and then comparing that early work with the Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, which Leibniz wrote almost immediately after reading Malebranche’s Dialogue.
The Linking of Spinoza to Chinese Thought by Bayle and Malebranche
THERE IS ONE ASPECT of Spinoza's thought which has largely escaped the attention o f Spinoza scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the linkage o f his phi losophy to Chinese thought . This aspect has not been totally forgot ten; it has had a sporadic history. Bayle and Malebranche led the way in creating this link, and their opinions were echoed in the eighteenth century by Count Henr i de Boulainvillier, Jean Levesque de Burigny, An thony Collins, and Jean Baptiste de Boyer, better known as Marquis d 'Argens. 2 Earlier in this century, the linkage resurfaced in studies comparing Spinoza with the Neo-Confucian phi losopher Chu Hsi. ~ This was the work of scholars whose interests were basically focused on comparative philosophy. The parallelling o f Chu Hsi's thought with Spinoza's found favor
Rethinking Health: Healthy or Healthier than?
Theorists of health have, to this point, focused exclusively on trying to define a state—health—that an organism might be in. I argue that they have overlooked the possibility of a comparativist theory of health, which would begin by defining a relation—healthier than—that holds between two organisms or two possible states of the same organism. I show that a comparativist approach to health has a number of attractive features, and has important implications for philosophers of medicine, bioethicists, health economists, and policy makers. 1 Introduction 2 Comparative and Non-comparative Concepts 3 Traditional Theories of Health 4 An Argument for Comparativism: Intergenerational Assessments of Health 5 Another Reason to be a Comparativist: Functionalist Theories of Health 6 A Non-comparative Alternative? 7 An Objection to Comparativism? 8 Why this Matters: The Consequences of Comparativism 1 Introduction 2 Comparative and Non-comparative Concepts 3 Traditional Theories of Health 4 An Argument for Comparativism: Intergenerational Assessments of Health 5 Another Reason to be a Comparativist: Functionalist Theories of Health 6 A Non-comparative Alternative? 7 An Objection to Comparativism? 8 Why this Matters: The Consequences of Comparativism