Abstract

This paper is a discussion of three approaches popular in contemporary studies of Confucianism for understanding the relationship between the self and others. I argue that all three of the influential conceptions of self that are prominent in these accounts (the “universal self,” the “organic self,” and the “relational self”) still stand in the shadow of the Indo-European metaphysical traditions of self or are insufficient for going beyond that shadow. Based on the ways in which Chinese characters are generated “genealogically,” I propose an alternative understanding of the Confucian conception of self as a “genealogical self.” Finally, I shall show how this genealogical conception of self leads us to understand Confucian ethics as exemplary and communal rather than absolutely individualistic and normative.