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For my purposes, the vague term “western civilization” incorporates any tradition that read Plato or the Bible. “Eastern civilization” is anyone who read the Yijing. That’s a rough standard, and misses entire continents of thought and the sub-altern in every corner of the globe. As well, there are surely great divisions within each of these artificial designations. Nonetheless, they carry some meaning as initial generalizations since there are textual, terminological, and cultural commonalities that form shared foundations.
In this paper I don’t expressly compare the western conceptions of humility with the Confucian conception. Sara Rushing, “What is Confucian Humility,” in Stephen Angle and Michael Slote, eds., Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, (New York: Routledge, 2013a), pp. 173-181, does that kind of comparative work on general humility, contrasting Confucianism with Christianity and contemporary Anglophone projects. Here I am only pointing to the centrality of intellectually humble figures in both traditions.
Jin Li, “Humility in Learning: A Confucian Perspective,” Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 45, No. 2, (2016), p. 159.
Sara Rushing, “Comparative Humilities: Christian, Contemporary, and Confucian Conceptions of a Political Virtue,” Polity, Vol. 45, No. 2, (2013b), p. 173.
While we don’t have an easy analog for “humility,” we have various was of conceiving its opposite, as Li (2016, p. 153) points out: “self-fullness (自满), along with its later variations of self-conceit (自大), hubris (自負), arrogance (傲慢) and complacence (自以為是/洋洋得意).”
Cheryl Cottine, “Role Modeling in an Early Confucian Context,” Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 50, (2016), pp. 797-819.
Linda Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
Amy Olberding, Moral Exemplars in the Analects: The Good Person is That (New York: Routledge, 2012).
John Templeton Foundation, “Character Virtue Development: Intellectual Humility,” (2020), https://www.templeton.org/discoveries/intellectual-humility.
More narrow and technical definitions have been proposed. For instance, Whitcomb et al., “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 94 (2015), pp. 509-539, https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12228, identifies previous attempts to define IH as 1) a disposition to proper belief in line with evidence, or 2) an underestimation of one’s intellect, or 3) low concern for status. (6) These authors then propose that IH is “proper attentiveness to, and owning of, one’s intellectual limitations” (12). I do think Confucius’s example fulfils the criteria of any of these tightly defined conceptions and others in the literature, but I do not think we should be constrained by them at this point.
Rushing (2013a; 2013b).
Rushing (2013a), p. 176.
Li (2016).
Cottine (2016).
Analects 5.28. Passages from Analects will be noted by chapter and passage number, such that (5.28) means Chapter 5 Passage 28. Translations are my own unless noted.
.7.20.
2.4.
Ibid.
3.15.
Ibid.
Liji, “Tangong xia.”
7.22.
8.17.
1.1.
This is similar to what Whitcomb et al. call the “No-Concern” approach to IH.
1.16.
Confucius has transformed the meaning of this word, junzi, into his ideal of a noble or excellent or consummate person. It is one notch below the greatness of a true sage, and so the qualities that characterize it are worthy and attainable aspirations.
1.1.
4.14.
11.25.
15.11.
17.13.
5.5.
5.22. Translation of Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr., The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, (New York: Ballantine Books 1998). Hereafter “A&R.”
Li (2016) p. 157 shows how Confucian students practice humility to maintain relationships among classmates, demonstrating the kind of relational virtuosity that Rushing promotes (2013a, pp. 174-175).
Mencius 5A8.
1.14.
Awareness of one’s own capacity for error is reminiscent of the what Whitcomb et al. call the “Limitation Owning” conception of IH (2015, p.8), and Rushing’s focus on “human limitations” (2013a, p. 178).
12.3.
4.24.
12.3.
4.22.
This is likely not the origin of the character, but it is still a simple visual metaphor to everyone who reads it. See Ames and Rosemont’s “Introduction” in The Analects of Confucius, 53.
2.13.
5.10.
9.1.
5.13.
7.21.
11.12.
3.11.
Mencius 2A2.
A&R 17.19.
4.13.
1.12.
Rushing (2013a, p. 174) takes shu to be the conceptual analog of deference, engaging with an early translation by Hall and Ames. Most commentators now emphasize a kind of empathetic perspective taking suggested by shu. Ames and Rosemont (1998, p.92), translate shu as “putting oneself in the other’s place.” I would suggest that the ethics of zhong (忠) and shu referred to in 4.15 is wrapped up with humility, but that our conversations about “deference” should center on rang.
4.15; 15.24.
A&R 5.3.
6.11.
A&R 5.9.
A&R 9.23.
A&R 3.14.
15.22.
A&R 2.14.
4.10.
14.32.
2.15.
5.15.
Here we might see his humility in the aspect that Rushing calls, “realistic self-assessment” (2013a, p. 176), and that Whitcomb et al. call “accurate estimation” (2015, n. 15, p.7).
2.15.
1.10.
3.15.
5.9.
2.9.
A&R 9.11.
Li (2016), p. 153.
7.1.
See Ames and Rosemont (1998), note 104, p. 241.
1.11.
A&R 12.13.
A&R 2.3.
A&R 8.2.
Rushing also makes the case against seeing Confucian humility as timid or weak, saying “humility demands the proper expression of indignation” (2013a, p. 80).
A&R 5.20.
7.3. Translation of Charles Muller, “The Analects of Confucius,” (2020), http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html.
Jason Baehr, “The Four Dimensions of an Intellectual Virtue,” in Michael Slote, et al. eds., Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy: The Turn Toward Virtue, (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015), pp. 86-98.
Baehr (2015), p. 87.
Ibid., p. 89.
A&R 6.20.
Baehr (2015), p.91.
A&R 9.4.
Mencius 2A2.
Baehr (2015), p.92.
2.17.
At least with regard to IH. Olberding (2012, pp. 121-135) points to several place where Confucius does go overboard, arguing that these serve to humanize him and reveal his particular style of virtuosity.
7.24.
A&R 8.5.
Rushing points to this as key comparative benefit: “the Confucian conception may problematize or supplement Western notions, by bringing to bear a certain kind of thinking about history, relationality and self-cultivation within specific familial and social orders” (2013a, p. 173-174).
7.17.
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Mason, J. Confucius as an Exemplar of Intellectual Humility. J Value Inquiry 57, 89–109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09806-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09806-0