This article discusses what traditional Confucian political theory represents and how it is reconstructed by contemporary Confucians to cope with the various challenges that it faces in modern times. ...Specifically, I examine the school of New Confucianism in Taiwan and Hong Kong, political Confucianism and civic Confucianism in mainland China, and the theory of Confucian political meritocracy. I then analyze how the Communist Party of China attempts to promote Confucianism in order to consolidate its authoritarian rule and what damage this may cause to resurgent Confucianism. Finally, I evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and suggest some areas of interest for further exploration.
Mohism has two versions of ethics, attributed to Mozi and Yi Zhi 夷之, respectively. Mozi introduced an ethics usually described as utilitarian, emphasizing universal love as the basis of impartiality. ...However, the problem with this emphasis is that it leads to neglecting the development of rational self-interest. Accordingly, Yi Zhi's remarks are a clarification or modification of Mozi's thoughts. First, Yi Zhi alluded to the concept of undifferentiated love to explain universal love as the basis of impartiality. Second, as he understood the concept of undifferentiated love in relation to the idea that "bestowing love begins with one's parents", Yi Zhi incorporated rational self-interest. Moreover, Mencius criticized Yi Zhi and disparaged his remarks as two roots (二本 er ben), contrasting it to Confucian ethics, which he said was one root. This division between one root (一本 yi ben) and two roots has garnered significant attention. On the one hand, Zhu Xi believed that the essence of two roots is undifferentiated love, wherein he concluded that it is applicable to both Mozi and Yi Zhi. On the other hand, most later scholars interpreted two roots from an ethical perspective, arguing that Yi Zhi faced the dilemma of two conflicting moral theories. Considering the basic principles of moral philosophy, the ethics of Mozi and Mencius are one root, and only that of Yi Zhi is two roots. This article shows that Yi Zhi and Henry Sidgwick, the founder of classical utilitarianism, face the same dilemma of practical reason: the conflict between utilitarianism and the self-interest of egoism.
The Shenxian daohua ju of the Yuan dynasty closely relates to Daoism. However, the essence and boundary of these two concepts have not been clearly defined and delineated in the existing research, ...which leads to confusion in analyzing their relationship. This article provides methodologies for defining Shenxian daohua ju and Daoism. Based on the extant Yuan zaju texts and confined to the themes of seclusion, deliverance, and ascending to immortality, we enumerate the particular dramatic texts of Shenxian daohua ju. Then, we limit the objects of the concept of Daoism to specific Daoist sects in history and highlight that the criteria for determining whether a Shenxian Dao (Celestial Being Sect) belongs to Daoism are provided by the officially recognized Daozang (Daoist canon). According to the above understanding of these two concepts, we explore their relationship from the following perspectives. First, in terms of composition subjects, these include the frustrated Confucian literati, the vassal Kings, and the imperial literati; the Shenxian daohua ju written by frustrated literati in the Yuan dynasty is not the embodiment of Daoist doctrines as some of the researchers conclude. Second, in light of the “aesthetic distinction”, we can also take Shenxian daohua ju as pure literary works and interpret these dramas from their literary structures and rhythmical forms. Third, from the perspective of the literary tradition, although with the adoption of Daoist themes, the Shenxian daohua ju of the Yuan dynasty still belongs to the Confucian poetic tradition. Its negation of secular life and advocacy of the ideal world follow the Confucian poetic teachings of “criticizing those above”. Objectively speaking, due to the influence of Daoism, the Shenxian daohua ju with the Daoist themes breaks through the taboo topics prescribed in Confucian literary principles to a certain extent and enriches Chinese literature.
Confucianism imposes a great influence on Chinese ongoing educational reform. Based on Confucianism, Chinese education presented a lot of characteristics in line with the social needs and era ...characteristics. This paper reviews the development course of Chinese educational reform from the era of Confucius to new culture movement, from the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, which marked China’s entry into a new era, and summarizes the essential characteristics, achievements, and challenges in the reform. It indicates that the goal of all these educational reforms is to continuously reform and improve the education system and make it in line with the emerging conditions and lived reality, in order to build a society of truth, goodness, and hard work.
It seems that the early Jesuits misinterpreted the key Neo-Confucian terms taiji/li from an Aristotelian perspective in the seventeenth century, thereby leading to a dialogical failure in their ...initial encounter with Neo-Confucian tradition. What necessitates interreligious dialogue today is a pluralistic stance that deems all religious quests worthy in their own context. Therefore, this paper renews the dialogue between two spiritual traditions, long overdue, by reading two representative texts, side by side, from each tradition on self-cultivation: Reflections on Things at Hand (twelfth century) and The Spiritual Exercises (sixteenth century). The comparison showcases that the notion of “wanwuyiti ”, a concomitant of the Confucian ren, is tantamount to a religious imperative for human ethical engagements, and the Ignatian axiom “Finding God in All Things ” energizes a spiritual self-transformation to forge an intimate bond with God and the world. While Neo-Confucian cultivation focuses on the removal of desires, seeking to maintain “equilibrium” and “centrality”, the Ignatian exercises foreground commitment to “discernment” and “indifference”. The Neo-Confucians address human and worldly affairs in a procedural manner, with ever-broadening horizons, to establish an orderly society. In contrast, the Ignatian self is directed toward an orderly life to serve, love, and bring ever more to God’s Divine Majesty.
Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout ...China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion.
The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedrich Max Müller and James Legge classified Confucianism as a world religion in the new discourse of "world religions" and the emerging discipline of comparative religion. Anna Sun shows how that decisive moment continues to influence the understanding of Confucianism in the contemporary world, not only in the West but also in China, where the politics of Confucianism has become important to the present regime in a time of transition. Contested histories of Confucianism are vital signs of social and political change.
Sun also examines the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China and the social significance of the ritual practice of Confucian temples. While the Chinese government turns to Confucianism to justify its political agenda, Confucian activists have started a movement to turn Confucianism into a religion. Confucianism as a world religion might have begun as a scholarly construction, but are we witnessing its transformation into a social and political reality?
With historical analysis, extensive research, and thoughtful reflection,Confucianism as a World Religionwill engage all those interested in religion and global politics at the beginning of the Chinese century.
Under the Ancestors’ Eyes presents a new approach to Korean social history by focusing on the origin and development of the indigenous descent group. Martina Deuchler maintains that the surprising ...continuity of the descent-group model gave the ruling elite cohesion and stability and enabled it to retain power from the early Silla (fifth century) to the late nineteenth century. This argument, underpinned by a fresh interpretation of the late-fourteenth-century Koryŏ-Chosŏn transition, illuminates the role of Neo-Confucianism as an ideological and political device through which the elite regained and maintained dominance during the Chosŏn period. Neo-Confucianism as espoused in Korea did not level the social hierarchy but instead tended to sustain the status system. In the late Chosŏn, it also provided ritual models for the lineage-building with which local elites sustained their preeminence vis-à-vis an intrusive state. Though Neo-Confucianism has often been blamed for the rigidity of late Chosŏn society, it was actually the enduring native kinship ideology that preserved the strict social-status system. By utilizing historical and social anthropological methodology and analyzing a wealth of diverse materials, Deuchler highlights Korea’s distinctive elevation of the social over the political.
Confucianism is reviving in China and spreading in America. This multidisciplinary volume includes philosophical and theological articulations of Confucianism and other spiritual traditions for the ...modern and globalizing world, and empirical studies of and analytical reflections on Confucianism and other traditions in Chinese societies by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists.
The main goals of this essay are to describe and make clear the philosophical implications of self-cultivation concerning the concept of inwardness and examine how it contributes to the formation of ...the Confucian identity. In two representative Korean Neo-Confucian debates, the Debate on Supreme Polarity between Yi Ǒnjŏk and Cho Hanbo and one of the issues in the Horak Debate about the original substance of the tranquil state (mibal) of the mind, we can see that self-cultivation plays a crucial role in establishing the Confucian identity. For example, the debate between Yi and Cho shows how to teach people to achieve an ideal Confucian character by interpreting “learning human affairs below (hahag-insa)” and “reaching the heavenly principle above (sangdal-chŏlli)” differently. The concept of inwardness is significant as well as problematic in understanding the sense of rivalry against Buddhism earlier and the Yangming School later in the intellectual history of Korean neo-Confucianism. Those who think of themselves as true followers of Confucius and Zhu Xi criticize that a subjective way of experiencing inwardness is close to Buddhism and misleads one in the pursuit of some lofty metaphysical entity without any practical concerns. Despite such a criticism, some Neo-Confucian scholars have emphasized that the original substance of the mind is the tranquility of inwardness. In this vein, we will investigate what kind of philosophical identity most Korean Neo-Confucians have embraced as their own. Their consistent argument for keeping the balance between honoring the virtues and inquiring about learning leads to the claim that the achievement of self-cultivation should contribute to making the world peaceful. Thus, the matter of inwardness often described as deliberate solitude is not so much a subjective realm like religious confession, but vivid experiences of daily life that have never been separated from the manifestation of the Way (dao). In conclusion, the core issue of the Neo-Confucian identity having a sense of rivalry against heresy aims at the matter of practice, i.e., how actively and properly one participates in transforming the world.
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