Abstract
Chenyang Li responds to Yat-hung Leung by pointing out Leung draws on three distinct notions of benevolence, or ren, none of which on its own is a serious contender against harmony as the concept of central importance to Confucian philosophy. Ren cannot be all three of these at once, and no particular conception of ren in fact has all these qualities. Li further clarifies that it is not his aim to establish that harmony is of exclusively highest importance among Confucian concepts and values, but rather merely to restore its place among the various central Confucian values. He elaborates on the essential role harmony plays when one properly values the virtue of benevolence, which itself requires or implies harmony, specifically harmonious coordination, in its practice and realization. Finally, Li argues that we cannot see the Confucian conceptions of benevolence Leung champions as possessing more practical value for contemporary life than the Confucian conception of harmony, and identifies the fundamental grounds and motivation of Leung’s criticisms to lie in allegiance to Song-Ming neo-Confucian orthodoxy, which grounds itself in philosophically empty postulates.
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Notes
- 1.
It may be argued that the meaning of “love” can be too intense for translating “ai” here. Elsewhere I have argued that “care” is more appropriate to translate “ai” in these contexts. I use “love” here for simplicity.
- 2.
For a good attempt at explicating an epistemology of Confucian harmony, see chapters 2 and 5 in Mou (2018).
- 3.
Sections 60, 61 and 73 of the chapter of the Grand History (https://ctext.org/shiji/kong-zi-shi-jia/zh). Mencius 3B14 also states that Confucius wrote the Chunqiu.
- 4.
For a discussion of harmonizing various virtues in Confucianism, see Angle (2008).
- 5.
For more discussion of this matter, see Li (2019).
- 6.
For a recent comparative study of he and li, see Simionato 2020.
- 7.
For more discussion of this matter, readers can see Li (2016).
- 8.
Research for this essay was financially supported by an SSRC grant from Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE2016-SSRTG-0007). I thank students in my HY4123/7002 class for their discussion and comments on several issues addressed in this essay. I am also indebted to Yong Huang for hosting a conference at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where fruitful face-to-face discussion was held and to Robert A. Carleo III for his assistance in preparing the chapter.
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Li, C. (2021). Harmony and Ren: A Response to Leung Yat-hung’s Critique of The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony. In: Carleo III, R.A., Huang, Y. (eds) Confucian Political Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70611-1_2
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