This book attempts to deconstruct certain key clusters of Chinese characters and words, centering on themes such as war and peace, kith and kin, male and female, rites and rituals, pleasure and leisure to make them yield fascinating tales about Chinese culture and history in which these words are embedded and which they at the same time encapsulate. The Chinese language, Chinese history and culture are presented as one long woven bolt of silk (for which China has historically been noted), with the written language conceived as the warp while the history and culture the weft. In this process of linguistic exploration, the book shows in what ways the Chinese written language may be said to be unique as well as to reveal, amongst other things, certain aspects of: * ancient Chinese religion, cosmology, philosophy, political theory, law, medicine, astronomy, physics, geography; * their grasp, on the part of the ancient Chinese people, of human reproduction, biology and physiology, psychology, biochemistry, even neurology of the brain; * what constitutes Chinese identity, the core values of Chinese culture, the essential glue holding their society together; * their daily existence, such as their food and drink, the houses they lived in, the furniture they used, their chief modes of transportation, etc. A fascinating look at Chinese language and culture.

The last century saw two great revolutions in genetics; the development of classic Mendelian theory and the discovery and investigation of DNA. Each fundamental scientific discovery in turn generated its own distinctive technology. These two case studies, examined in this text, enable the author to conduct a philosophical exploration of the relationship between fundamental scientific discoveries on the one hand, and the technologies that spring from them on the other. As such it is also an exercise in the philosophy of technology.

Originally published in 1985, this book establishes that moral discourse is critical, rational and objective and challenges the ideology of value irrationalism behind contemporary liberalism. The book discusses the origins of the fact/value distinction, and calls into question the thesis that logical derivability or strict implication is the only legitimate relationship between propositions. A straightforward philosophical treatment of the subject, in the analytical tradition, it will be especially useful for undergraduate students.

Originally published in 1989 Social Philosophy and Ecological Scarcity presents a systematic study of the implications of ecological scarcity for social philosophy. The book argues for a new social philosophy based on a conception of the 'good society' and the 'good life' which makes fewer, rather than more demands on scarce ecological resources. The book shows that the two major competing social philosophies in modern philosophical thought - the bourgeois liberal and the state socialist - are both forms of capitalism. Despite their obvious differences, they both pursue the logic of capitalism, of ever-increasing accumulation, growth and consumption. This pursuit is carried out by means of modern science and its technology, which assume that Nature's resources are inexhaustible and can be exploited to meet infinite human wants or needs, ignoring ecological scarcity. The recognition of ecological scarcity would lead to a social philosophy, based on a frugal mode of socialism which has more affinities with the social visions of Fourier and Morris than with that of Marx. Their theories, far from being too 'utopian', are shown as more 'realistic' and less 'fantastic' than either bourgeois capitalism or state capitalism based on the Marxist model.

Originally published in 1985, this book establishes that moral discourse is critical, rational and objective and challenges the ideology of value irrationalism behind contemporary liberalism. The book discusses the origins of the fact/value distinction, and calls into question the thesis that logical derivability or strict implication is the only legitimate relationship between propositions. A straightforward philosophical treatment of the subject, in the analytical tradition, it will be especially useful for undergraduate students.

Originally published in 1989 Social Philosophy and Ecological Scarcity presents a systematic study of the implications of ecological scarcity for social philosophy. The book argues for a new social philosophy based on a conception of the 'good society' and the 'good life' which makes fewer, rather than more demands on scarce ecological resources. The book shows that the two major competing social philosophies in modern philosophical thought - the bourgeois liberal and the state socialist - are both forms of capitalism. Despite their obvious differences, they both pursue the logic of capitalism, of ever-increasing accumulation, growth and consumption. This pursuit is carried out by means of modern science and its technology, which assume that Nature's resources are inexhaustible and can be exploited to meet infinite human wants or needs, ignoring ecological scarcity. The recognition of ecological scarcity would lead to a social philosophy, based on a frugal mode of socialism which has more affinities with the social visions of Fourier and Morris than with that of Marx. Their theories, far from being too 'utopian', are shown as more 'realistic' and less 'fantastic' than either bourgeois capitalism or state capitalism based on the Marxist model.

This ground-breaking book explores the issues raised in the modern fields of genetic research and biotechnology. As philosophers try to make sense of the issues, the author primarily examines these from an ontological rather than an ethical/political standpoint. The book examines the two great revolutions in genetics in the last century - the development of classical Mendelian theory and the discovery of and research into DNA - and the respective technologies generated by these fundamental discoveries. It is also an exercise in the philosophy of technology. The book's ontological approach enables the author to cast light on the current, yet unresolved problems in the field of genetics and biotechnology, for example, those problems raised in connection with the patenting of biotechnological products. The book will prove fascinating for any reader with an interest in the exciting philosophical problems raised by science and technology.

This book makes Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) intelligible to those who are not familiar with the tradition, many of whom may choose to dismiss it off-hand or to assess it negatively) . Keekok Lee uses two related strategies: arguing that all science and therefore medicine cannot be understood without excavating its philosophical presuppositions and showing what those presuppositions are in the case of CCM compared with those of biomedicine. Such excavations enable Lee in turn to demonstrate the following theses: (1) the metaphysical/ontological core of a medical system entails its own methodology, how to understand, diagnose and treat an illness/disease; (2) CCM rests on process-ontology, is Wholist, its general mode of thinking is Contextual-dyadic, its implicit logic is multi-valent, its model of causality is non-linear and multi-factorial; (3) Biomedicine (in the main) rests on thing-ontology and dualism, is Reductionist, its logic is classical bi-valent, its model of causality is linear and monofactorial; (4) hence to condemn CCM as "unscientific"/"pseudo-scientific"/plain "mumbo-jumbo" while privileging Biomedicine as the Gold Standard of scientificity is as absurd as to judge a cat to be inferior to a dog, using the criteria of "goodness" embodied in a dog-show.

In this book, philosopher Keekok Lee challenges one of the central assumptions of contemporary environmentalism: that if we could reduce or eliminate pollution we could 'save' the planet without unduly disrupting our modern, industrialized societies. Lee argues instead that the process of modernization, with its attendant emphasis on technological innovation, has fundamentally transformed 'nature' into just another manmade 'artefact.' Ultimately, what needs to be determined is if nature has value above and beyond human considerations, whether aesthetic, spiritual, or biological. This provocative book attempts to reconfigure environmental ethics, positing the existence of two separate ontological categories--the 'natural' and the 'artefactual.' Natural entities, be they organisms or inert matter, are 'morally considerable' because they possess the ontological value of independence, whereas artefacts are created by humans expressly to serve their own interests and ends.