Abstract
This reconsideration of the descriptive and normative components of my earlier comparisons of Mencius and Aquinas suggests that the strengths of Aquinas’s account were highlighted while some of his shortcomings and the corresponding strengths in Mencius were missing. This is made clear by considering the treatment of their respective ideas about optimal human fulfillment and even clearer by considering their understanding of the relationship between theoretical and literary accounts of that fulfillment. The third subject, their different treatments of people’s failure to attain fulfillment, is more complicated, however, and involves a set of truly vexing issues.
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Notes
- 1.
My use of references reflects the distinctive characters of this opportunity, and I will only refer to especially relevant passages in the Mencius and in my book—cited in the English version not the Chinese translation (Yearley 1990). No references, then, are given to my own extensive later work on related subjects or to especially relevant works on either the philosophic subjects treated here or the two specific figures.
References
Yearley, Lee H. 1990. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtues and Conceptions of Courage, SUNY Series, Toward a Comparative Philosophy of Religions. New York: State University of New York Press.
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Yearley, L.H. (2023). Mencius and Aquinas. In: Xiao, Y., Chong, Kc. (eds) Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27620-0_32
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