TAKE-HOME MID-TERM EXAM

Your questions are #3 (you can do either one), #5, #6, and #7. The exam is due on March 14 at 3:30.  No late exams will be accepted.

Concise, well-developed essays are required. Maximum writing time is three hours. You may do the exam at any tempo you wish--taking one question at a time or doing it all at once. You may use any resource material you want during your preparations and the writing of the exam itself. The typing time is outside of the actual writing time.

1. Please write a concise essay on the major elements of Chinese humanism, starting with Chan's selections from the Classics (3-13) and including Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. Does Xunzi’s position on human nature mitigate the strength of his humanism?

2. Compare and contrast Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi on the basic questions of human nature, the attainment of the virtues, the role of Tian, and other issues that you deem important.

3. Assess both of the analogical arguments in Mencius 6a4 and 6a5. You should formulate the arguments and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Who do you think has the strongest position? Note: if yi is "external" that means that it depends exclusively on what is external for its value.

4. Using the example of the child falling into the well (2a6) and his argument from the correlation of the senses (6a6), assess the validity of Mencius' doctrine of the "Four Sprouts." Do you think Mencius has demonstrated that all human beings have a potential for goodness and virtue? Has he explained sufficiently the fact that some people are wicked and incorrigible?

5. What is dialectic? What is the dialectic of each of the Confucians we studied so far?

6. Chan believes that aspects of the Mencius and The Doctrine of the Mean are mystical. Using the definitions given here, what do you think of this claim?

7. Give your own interpretation of the Doctrine of the Mean, indicating where it differs from Confucius and Mencius. Focus on cosmology, human nature, and ethics. How would you respond to critics who say that the doctrine of "sincerity" (cheng) commits the pathetic fallacy, i.e., gives human qualities to nonhuman things?

8.  Assess Xunzi's use of analogical argument in chapter 23.