Prvi in najznamenitejši predstavnik moistične šole, filozof Mo Di 墨翟 (479–390 pr. n. št.), je v svojih teoretskih zasnovah prevzel ter priredil številne ideje konfucijanske dok­trine, čeprav sta bili obe šoli po letu 350 pr. n. št. zelo kritični druga do druge. Obe filozof­ski šoli sta izšli iz kulturnega in političnega konteksta države Lu, kjer je tradicija pacifizma že od samega nastanka idejnih diskurzov naprej poudarjala moralni imperativ človečnosti, empatije in obsodbe agresivnih vojn. Kljub poznejšemu razhajanju sta oba ustanovitel­ja in najpomembnejša predstavnika teh dveh šol, torej Mo Di in Konfucij, cenila etično vladanje, utemeljeno na zaslugah in moralni kompetenci; vendar pa je Mo Dijev pacifizem oblikovan veliko bolj sistematično in radikalno kot Konfucijev. Pričujoči esej preučuje njegovo idejo feigong 非攻 (»proti napadalni vojni«), ki predstavlja eno najzgodnejših in najizrecnejših zavrnitev agresivne vojaške ekspanzije v klasični kitajski filozofiji.

Eduard von Hartmann was one of the most influential public philosophers of his era, known primarily through his Philosophy of the Unconscious. A conservative nationalist in politics, he positioned himself as a cultural and religious reformer and modernist ad­vocate of a “religion of the future” of self-redemption (autosoterism), one that reconciled pessimism and a panpneumatic impersonal unconscious with rationality and individu­al responsibility. This paper traces how Buddhism served as a primary albeit imperfect exemplar in his thought, how his ethical and symbolic interpretative strategy, based on the unconscious, drew him into proximity and conflict with esoteric spiritist discourses, and how this context informed his Daodejing interpretation. German Idealism disclosed the unity of reason, will, and nature, while Buddhist teachings demonstrated the world’s fundamentally contradictory and illusory character through nothingness (emptiness), nir­vāṇa, and objective illusionism and phenomenalism. Hartmann’s secularized moral and symbolic adaptation of Buddhism entailed a resigned yet heroic embrace of suffering life rather than what he deemed ascetic and quietist acquiescence. His hermeneutics reveal his modernizing vision of Buddhism as an exemplary model (if suitably reformed to ac­centuate a heroic response to suffering and karma) for the future.

The present contribution excavates a pivotal shift in the history of European Buddhism. It outlines the conceptual-historical entanglements of “Buddhist nothingness” with nineteenth-century German philosophy from Schopenhauer to Nietzsche. While Buddhism was primarily interpreted as a philosophy and practice of nothingness (as in Hegel) and as ascetic and nihilistic (as in Nietzsche), pessimist interpretations of Buddhist nothingness, negation, nirvāṇa, and the unconscious articulated other possibilities that helped promote a more receptive, at times enthusiastic, attitude toward Buddhist thought and practice. Nietzsche’s critique of “European Buddhism” as nihilism in his late works and fragments occurs in the context of this shift. Nietzsche’s interpretation is not only a continuation of earlier European suspicions concerning Buddhist nothingness. He intentionally deployed a variety of ideas and images drawn from South Asian Buddhist sources to confront and question European modernity as well as Buddhism itself. Works attributed to the Buddha and Nāgārjuna are discussed at points to help contextualize and assess the significance of these discourses.

This is a review of Li Yong's book Moral partiality, in which he integrates Confucian and Aquinas' reflections on morality. For Li Yong, moral partiality is rationally acceptable, and Confucius was a partialist.

Early modern discussions about ancient China have largely been studied from the perspective of how images of ancient China were portrayed in missionary narratives. This article, however, attempts to investigate how interactions between China and Europe have contributed to the evolution of historical studies in early modern Europe. By analysing different studies by Jesuit authors and European savants about ancient China, this article first traces how ancient Chinese history provides a new alternative to the origin stories of humankind, undermining the dominant biblical approach to history. While defending the old origin story, missionaries changed their narratives about ancient China. Further investigation into the historical sources used by Jesuit authors shows the application of different materials across the two centuries, and these changes in materials also create a polyphony in their written accounts. By introducing various historical sources and textual traditions to Europe, missionaries, who served as intercultural agents, participated actively in the multiplication of primary sources for European historical research. The changing historical methodologies in the studies about ancient China are also examined, particularly how the transition from astronomical to linguistic methods occurred during the eighteenth century, reshaping the discourse on ancient China. This article tackles the important question of how intercultural exchanges about ancient Chinese history participated in the transformation of historical studies from a chronological study to modern historiography.

This article chronicles the life of Choi Inhwan, focusing on his movements across North Korea, Hungary, Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, and Switzerland in the 1950s. Choi’s North Korean background is traced, with scant details available after his return in 1960. Born in 1934 to ordinary farmers, Choi’s early education spanned from primary school to high school in Uiju, North Pyongan Province. His academic journey continued in Hungary (1953‒1957), where he faced language challenges but excelled in Hungarian and biology at Budapest Medical University. His involvement in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution is highlighted by multiple sources, confirming his active participation and subsequent escape to Yugoslavia, followed by relocation to Switzerland as a political refugee in 1957. In Switzerland, Choi’s ideological stance fluctuated dramatically. Initially supported by local and international refugee aid organizations, he displayed anti-socialist sentiments. However, by late 1959 Choi approached both Chinese and Hungarian embassies, expressing a desire to return to North Korea via Hungary, showcasing a sudden ideological shift towards anti-capitalism. His eventual repatriation to North Korea in 1960 is documented through Hungarian diplomatic channels, marking the culmination of his complex and politically charged journey. The article underscores Choi’s multifaceted ideological evolution and his strategic navigations through the geopolitical landscapes of the Cold War era, reflecting broader patterns of defection and political realignment among North Korean students and intellectuals abroad during that period.

The term “Early Medieval China” usually refers to the Wei Jin period, also known as the Wei Jin Southern and Northern dynasties (Wei Jin Nanbei chao 魏晉南北朝). This era was characterized by extreme sociopolitical circumstances, marked by constant instability, upheavals, wars, corruption, intrigues, external invasions and the exhaustion of the population. These conditions led to significant and unprecedented social and intellectual transformations that profoundly impacted Chinese culture, especially in the fields of philosophy and art. This article explores the cultural and philosophical ideas of the period that contributed to the rise of individual personhood, which emerged as a response to the suppressive and authoritarian Han Confucianism, which was heavily influenced by Legalist doctrines. Neo-Daoism, the most important stream of thought that arose from the political turmoil of the period, provided intellectuals with a refuge during these traumatic times, allowing them to explore new ways of philosophizing and experiencing an aesthetic way of living. The article examines the philosophical inquiries of the School of Profound Learning (Xuanxue 玄學) and Pure Conversations (Qingtan 清談) movement, which gave rise to self-awareness and fostered new perspectives on individual personhood.

“Become hard!” is the supposedly “new tablet” that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has placed above us. It can hardly be denied that modernization in particular has relentlessly imposed a need to develop one’s hardness and strength. Is it even possible to imagine a form of modernization based on the commandment to “Become soft!”? While this is the old and always new instruction to which Lǎozǐ pointed in his advice to become like water, Nietzsche finds it unbearable. He asks, “Why so soft?”, and “Why so soft, so retiring, and yielding?” And Lǎozǐ answers that hardness is deadly: “The hard and strong are the followers of death.” Then Nietzsche responds, “Don’t you want to conquer and win?” And Lǎozǐ replies, “The soft and weak win over the hard and strong”. Where are the modernizers who believe in the old “tablet” Lǎozǐ has given us in the praise of softness and weakness? Where are the modernizers who know about the hard but are able to preserve the soft? Where are the modernizers who are able to philosophize not with the hammer but with the brush? The “good old authoritarian character” (Theodor W. Adorno) has been educated to (masculine) hardness. For this mode of being human (feminine) softness is nothing but a form of weakness on which the creator wants to put his stamp. As a philosophical source of criticism of the authoritarian character, the Daoist classic Lǎozǐ has a value that can hardly be overestimated. It moves toward a paradigm of self-relation or subjectivity in which the eye and light cannot claim primacy as the means by which humans can access the true and the good, but touch and breath form a pivot by which they can learn to walk a Way that wanders between hardness and softness. Therefore, at the centre of character formation and cultivation is a self-relation described in the sixth chapter of the Lǎozǐ by the paradoxical image of the “ravine” (gǔ 谷). The ravine is a natural image in which the hard stone of the mountain cliffs and the soft water flowing through them belong together. At the same time, this chapter of the Lǎozǐ has been associated with the motif of the female in commentaries since antiquity. Moreover, the analogy between the ravine and the female sex organ opens up a thought-provoking approach to the relation between the female and the soft in the Lǎozǐ. However, the ravine as a paradoxical image does not stop there. Rather, the Way it suggests leads in a direction that can be summed up in the phrase “knowing hardness and preserving softness”. In the following paper, the discussion of the female and the male in relation to the soft and the hard aims at a broader reflection on a theory and practice of breath (qì 氣) that constitutes a transcultural philosophy of the Way (dàozhéxué 道哲學).