Origins of Power Struggles

In Light of Humanistic Semiotic-Ethical Epistemology

Youzheng Li (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

534 Seiten

2025 | Unabridged edition
Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-0364-4550-8 (ISBN)

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In terms of humanistic epistemology, the present book presents an empirical-positive view of historical philosophy, emphasizing that the first cause of power struggles and evil-doings in human history comes from the human nature rooted in biological substrate, while all related external factors act as the external conditions or secondary reasons. Therefore, enlightened progress of civilizations depends on the effective formation of political-legal institutions rather than on the improved morality that remains the effect of the sociopolitical circumstances. In light of this point of view, the book reinterprets the causal connections between ancient tyrannies, the Enlightenment, and utopian socialism, especially representing the paradoxical connections between classical Marxism and Lenin-Stalinism, and pointing out why 20th century Communist realism betrays rather than inherits the 19th century Socialist utopianism at the ideal level. Far from being the inheritor of socialist utopian-idealism, the modern Communist movement is a modernized restoration of the traditional tyrannies at a much enlarged and more systematic scale.

Youzheng Li was born in Peking, 1936. Currently he is an American independent scholar living in the San Francisco Bay area. As a former vice-president of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS, 2004-1014) he had been an academic visitor or visiting researcher to various philosophy departments and humanities institutions in China, USA, Germany, France, Japan, Taiwan and HK between 1982-2017, being engaged in interdisciplinary theoretical studies in cross-cultural contexts, including historical semiotics and semiotic ethics. His special intellectual position is mainly due to his uniquely long underground independent research experience during the Maoist period with a focus on the humanities in general and contemporary western philosophies in particular. In 1978, Li became a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He has published dozens of academic books of theoretical writings and translations of modern western theoretical classics, including those by Husserl, Levi-Strauss, Riceour, Barthes, Rorty and others.

Erscheinungsdatum	03.06.2025
Verlagsort	Newcastle upon Tyne
Sprache	englisch
Maße	148 x 212 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Geschichtstheorie / Historik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
ISBN-10	1-0364-4550-X / 103644550X
ISBN-13	978-1-0364-4550-8 / 9781036445508
Zustand	Neuware