This Humble Aristotelian has been consistently suprised by the level of philosophical reading that has been done by our Chinese counterparts. All the students I speak with understand the major contract theorists and have read Plato's Republic, with some exceptional students who have read the whyole Platonic corpus. The interesting thing is that there is a lack of learning, so it seems, outside of The Republic. The love of the Republic is of little suprise since it lays the ideal state out as a very centralized system with praiseworthy officials and a corrupt and weak but necessary business class. This may be what the chinese leaders have conceptualized their government to be. It would make sense considering the modernization and market economy that has developed here. It is possible that the communist party leaders surely need some justification for themselves besides the pursuit of pure power to justify the continued rule of their party in what is essentially an athoritarian capitalist society. If some individualist philosophies were to take root among the intellectuals here, existentialism, Kantianism, or even Eudaimonistic ethics this could be a significant boon for freedom of expression and loosening of the control of the CCP in China.
Anthony Cash
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