Faculty of Arts and Humanities | University of Macau

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "The Question of the Way and Errant Wandering: On the Transcultural Entanglement of Lǎozǐ and Parmenides" by Prof. Fabian Heubel, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
2025-11-12 17:30 - 19:00 UTC | E21A-3118
Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/7mnk1eav

Abstract
In his lectures on the Presocratic philosopher Parmenides from 1932, Martin Heidegger not only speaks about the “question of Being” (Seinsfrage), but also about the “question of the Way” (Wegfrage). This is understandable, because Parmenides distinguishes three ways. I would like to assume that Parmenides and Lǎozǐ ask both the “question of Being” and the “question of the Way”. In the case of Parmenides, Being can be said to take precedence, although the two attach very different, even opposite, meanings to it. For Lǎozǐ, on the other hand, the Way is in the foreground.
For Parmenides, only the first way (the way of Being) is walkable, whereas the second way (the way of Non-being) is not. The third way is a way that ordinary people take, the way of the “double-headed” (δίκρανοι). Heidegger says about them: “they have their heads here and there, and that without noticing the ambiguity and suspecting it”. They go without a way, “in errancy”: “their whole perception is a soon this way, soon that way, a going back and forth, directionless, criss-crossing – πλαγκτός – erring. […] They do not just go in errancy – they are constantly in it and cannot get out of it.”
But what is the errancy of the double-heads? And what is the relation of the three ways in Parmenides to the “Way” (道) referred to by Lǎozǐ? In this talk, I will try to argue that Lǎozǐ defends the third way between being and non-being, by transforming it into a Way that wanders between “being-without” (無/無在) and “being-with” (有/有在).

Bio
Professor Fabian Heubel is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Free University of Berlin. His main research interests include: comparative and transcultural philosophy, Classical and Modern Chinese philosophy, interpretations of Chinese philosophy in Western sinology, Critical Theory, contemporary German and French thought, aesthetics and philosophy of art.

FAH/DPHIL Work-in-progress Seminar - "Can LLMs Outputs Classify as Testimonial-based Beliefs?" by Mr. Lai Hei Wai
2025-11-19 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/rx3pei7o

Abstract
With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), scholars are starting to discuss the epistemological problems related to them. Recently, there are literatures that argue on the topic of whether LLMs’ outputs can be classified as testimony. Scholars give arguments that they cannot be classified as testimony by the reason that LLMs do not satisfy varies conditions. This paper introduces and analyize these conditions. And further argues that even if LLMs can satisfy all the said conditions in the future. However, by way they understand the content of their own outputs is fundamentally different from humans. Therefore, we still cannot classify LLMs’ outputs as testimony.

Bio
Lai Hei Wai is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau. He began his studies at Fu Jen Catholic University BA in Philosophy (2009-2014) and MA in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The University of Saint Joseph (2020-2023). His research interests focus on topics related to epistemology, particularly in the epistemology of testimony.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "Can family relationships in Ruist traditions be transformed? Reconsiderations of Ruist families from the perspective of the transformative dimension of culture" by Prof. Lauren F. Pfister, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
2025-11-26 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-G049
Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/7mnk1eav

Abstract
IFamily relationships in Ruist traditions have been regularly linked to specific virtues that distinguish the younger from the elderly, the female from the male, and have often been employed in various historical periods for promoting strongly patriarchal forms of familial relationships. Some Ruist advocates have described these virtues and their related relationships in absolute terms and have declared their eternal validity. Nevertheless, there are a number of perspectives from within Ruist classical works that suggest that there are ways in which some of these relationships might be transformed.

Bio
Lauren F. Pfister is an internationally recognized sinologist and comparative philosophy scholar. He is a Professor Emeritus from the Religion and Philosophy Department of Hong Kong Baptist University, and is currently the Rector of the Hephzibah Mountain Aster Academy, a humanities-based cross-cultural research center located in Colorado, USA. Previously he had served as an Associate Editor of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy. His studies of James Legge’s English translations of The Chinese Classics and The Sacred Books of China have received international attention. In the past decades, he has continued internationally to explore issues and dialogues related to theoretical matters dealing with traditional Chinese culture and its distinctives.

FAH/DPHIL: Philosophy Café
2025-11-27 16:00 - 17:30 | E21A-3118
