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[watertank]

...when Confucius, the most famous and revered East Asian teacher, was asked by his students to tell them the meaning of athoritative personhood or jen - the conceptual pivot of his entire philosophy - he refrained from ever giving them a a definition. In diametric opposition to the Platonic insistence on defining essences, Confucius related paradigmatic stories. Knowing what a word means is not knowing what it signifies, but how to conduct oneself in situations where it is used.

Reinventing the Wheel: A Buddhist Response to the Information Age. By Peter D. Hershock .p. 6

see also Eleanor Rosch, http://psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/erosch2007.pdf

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[watertank.livejournal.com]

...we have dedicated ourselves and much of hour life-energies to extending, generation-by-generation, the range of our choices in shaping our circumstances. To this end, we have managed to take control over that with which Satan once tried bribing us - good crops, better health, the easing of pain and suffering, the longevity of our offspring. p.17