To date, there have been few attempts to compare the thought of Confucius and Kierkegaard, and these few attempts have focused on the contrast between Kierkegaard’s stress on the individual and Confucius’s emphasis on the social aspect of human existence. In this article, I point instead to substantial agreement between the analyses of ethical existence offered by Confucius and two of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous figures, Judge William of Either/Or and Johannes Climacus of The Concluding Unscientific Postscript . I seek to use (...) this parallelism to better discern the specific character of Confucius’s religious consciousness. (shrink)

The author's primary aim is to help readers discover what is distinctive in Confucius & to learn what he can teach us.

Confucius’ religious thought summarized and utilized existing historical and cultural achievements. He strove to bring problems concerning traditional religious ideas such as destiny, the spirits, ritual propriety and faith into the realm of the rational. He sought to unearth the elements of human reason contained within these and to highlight the sublime and sacred in actual human society. He established a system of religious humanism that incorporated views on edification, faith, destiny, the ghosts and spirits and self-cultivation. Using a dialectic (...) based on the mean, he established a spiritual mindset comprising rational faith, a this-worldly transcendence and a sacredness grounded in the human that led ancient Chinese religious thinking in a unique direction. (shrink)

The subtle and complex relation between Confucianism and modern democracy has long been a controversial issue, and it is now again becoming a topical issue in the process of political modernization in contemporary China. This paper argues that there are some quite basic early Confucian values and principles that are not only compatible with democracy, but also may become the theoretic foundation of modern democracy in China. Early Confucianism considers 'the people's will' as the direct representative of 'Heaven's will', with (...) which it legitimizes political power. Confucian theory of 'human nature is good' endorses equal potential good for every man. These principles can be used in reasoning towards a system of democracy. In terms of decision-making, the Confucian 'Doctrine of the Mean' accords with certain democratic principles. The independent personality and committed individualism advocated by early Confucianism is a required civic merit in a democratic society. These fundamental Confucian principles, through contemporary hermeneutics, may provide a philosophic grounding for democracy and support the construction of a democratic system with a Chinese dimension. To get democracy rooted in the spirit of traditional Chinese culture will benefit the healthy and smooth development of democracy in China. (shrink)

Using the terms "cosmology" and "cultivation," the religious nature of Confucianism is explored, beginning with a discussion of the ambiguity surrounding Confucianism and its political uses, which often obscure its religious dimensions. It is also assumed that categories of Western theology such as immanence and transcendence are not adequate to describe Confucianism as religious. In this spirit, it is suggested that beyond political distortions or theoretical interpretations, Confucianism has religious dimensions that need to be explored further. The interaction of the (...) microcosm of the self with the macrocosm of the universe is a central dialectic for establishing inner and outer harmony. Thus, cultivating oneself, responding morally to the social and political order, and resonating with the patterns in nature are at the heart of Confucian religiosity. This is illustrated by two examplars of the Japanese Neo-Confucian tradition: Yamazaki Ansai (1618-1682) and Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714). (shrink)

The aim of the essay is to demonstrate that the contact of European philosophy with Chinese thought in the second half of the 17th and 18th century influenced the rise and development of secularism, which became a distinctive feature of the Western Enlightenment. The first part examines how knowing the history of China and Confucian ethics has questioned biblical chronology and undermined faith as a necessary condition of morality. These allegations were afterwards countered by reinterpreting Confucianism as crypto-monotheism. I will (...) argue this debate has contributed to the birth of secular philosophy of history, which put an end to the Enlightenment Sinophilism. Throughout those changes in the image of China, nothing but an image was discussed: as it would be presented on a basis of the thought of Wang Fuzhi and other representatives of Chinese kaozheng考證 movement, the encounter with the contemporaries of the Westerners would have opened a real dialogue. (shrink)

Weiming’s program of overcoming the enlightenment mentality and throws a critical light on his conceptions of religious or spiritual Confucianism, of a Confucian modernity, and of the multiple modernities theory in general. It defends a unitary rather than multiple concept of modernity in terms of the realization of a morally controlled principle of free subjectivity and tries to show how Confucianism, understood as a secular ethics, could contribute to this goal.

Confucian scholars should satisfy two conditions insofar as they think their theories enable Confucianism to make contributions to liberal politics and social policy. The liberal accommodation condition stipulates that the theory in question should accommodate as many reasonable conceptions of the good and religious doctrines as possible while the intelligibility condition stipulates that the theory must have a recognizable Confucian character. By and large, Joseph Chan’s Confucian perfectionism is able to satisfy the above two conditions. However, contrary to Chan and (...) many other Confucian scholars, I argue that any active promotion of Confucianism will violate the liberal accommodation condition. I propose the “wide view of moderate perfectionism,” which enables Confucianism to shed light on a wide range of political and social issues without promoting Confucianism actively. Thus, I present a new approach to the long-standing question of how Confucianism may improve political and social development in a liberal society. (shrink)

Dasan J eong Yagyong (1762–1836) is regarded in South Korea today as one of pre-modern Korea’s best philosophers. This article examines one of the reasons he is so respected. He modified traditional Korean Confucian moral philosophy to include notions of human nature as desires rather than innate virtue, the importance of free will rather than mere determination, and the existence of a Lord Above as a necessary incentive to proper behavior. Though he supported these changes to traditional Korean Confucian philosophy (...) with references to the Classics and his own personal moral experience, observers have noticed the possibility of Western influence on his thinking. He is thus hailed by Koreans as a cross-cultural philosopher, an example of how Koreans can borrow from the West while nonetheless remaining authentically Korean. (shrink)