Confucian political philosophy has recently emerged as a vibrant area of thought both in China and around the globe. This book provides an accessible introduction to the main perspectives and topics being debated today, and shows why Progressive Confucianism is a particularly promising approach. Students of political theory or contemporary politics will learn that far from being confined to a museum, contemporary Confucianism is both responding to current challenges and offering insights from which we can all learn. The Progressive (...) Confucianism defended here takes key ideas of the twentieth-century Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan as its point of departure for exploring issues like political authority and legitimacy, the rule of law, human rights, civility, and social justice. The result is anti-authoritarian without abandoning the ideas of virtue and harmony; it preserves the key values Confucians find in ritual and hierarchy without giving in to oppression or domination. A central goal of the book is to present Progressive Confucianism in such a way as to make its insights manifest to non-Confucians, be they philosophers or simply citizens interested in the potential contributions of Chinese thinking to our emerging, shared world. (shrink)

Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, Joseph Chan argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception (...) of the right.Confucian Perfectionism examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. Chan decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, he grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. Then he explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice.Confucian Perfectionism critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era. (shrink)

Harmony is a concept essential to Confucianism and to the way of life of past and present people in East Asia. Integrating methods of textual exegesis, historical investigation, comparative analysis, and philosophical argumentation, this book presents a comprehensive treatment of the Confucian philosophy of harmony. The book traces the roots of the concept to antiquity, examines its subsequent development, and explicates its theoretical and practical significance for the contemporary world. It argues that, contrary to a common view in the (...) West, Confucian harmony is not mere agreement but has to be achieved and maintained with creative tension. Under the influence of a Weberian reading of Confucianism as "adjustment" to a world with an underlying fixed cosmic order, Confucian harmony has been systematically misinterpreted in the West as presupposing an invariable grand scheme of things that pre-exists in the world to which humanity has to conform. The book shows that Confucian harmony is a dynamic, generative process, which seeks to balance and reconcile differences and conflicts through creativity. Illuminating one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, this book is of interest to students of Chinese studies, history and philosophy in general and eastern philosophy in particular. (shrink)

In _Tang Junyi: Confucian Philosophy and the Challenge of Modernity_, Thomas Fröhlich examines Tang Junyi’s philosophical oeuvre which stands as one of the most ambitious Chinese projects to come to terms with modernity in 20th century.

In Chinese tradition Confucianism has been always both a philosophy of moral self-cultivation for the human individual and an ideological guide for political institutional policy and governmental action. After the May 4th Movement of 1919 (WusiYundong ), Confucianism lost much of its moral appeal and political authority and entered a kind of limbo, bearing blame for the backwardness and weakening of China. Now that China has asserted its political rights among world nations, it seems natural to ask whether Confucianism as (...) a philosophy has a modern or even postmodern role to play for building modern China and for enlightening the world. This question is even more meaningful in light of the fact that there is a genuine need felt in China for a return to its Confucian heritage and vision for purposes of sustaining societal harmonization and reconstructing cultural identity in the modern world. (shrink)

In Chinese tradition Confucianism has been always both a philosophy of moral self-cultivation for the human individual and an ideological guide for political institutional policy and governmental action. After the May 4th Movement of 1919, Confucianism lost much of its moral appeal and political authority and entered a kind of limbo, bearing blame for the backwardness and weakening of China. Now that China has asserted its political rights among world nations, it seems natural to ask whether Confucianism as a philosophy (...) has a modern or even postmodern role to play for building modern China and for enlightening the world. This question is even more meaningful in light of the fact that there is a genuine need felt in China for a return to its Confucian heritage and vision for purposes of sustaining societal harmonization and reconstructing cultural identity in the modern world. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of a human being within the Confucian tradition as well as its interpretations from intercultural perspective. _Theoretical basis._ One of the ways to understand the deepest level of the intercultural dialogue is to reveal the interpretations of a human being in philosophical traditions, since they refer to the formation of personality and identity within a given culture including interpersonal, intergroup, and intercultural relations. Humanism based on the unity of Human and Heaven (...) runs like a red thread through the philosophical teachings of Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming defining the ideas of human nature, his/her duties, his/her place and roles in society that shaped the Chinese mentality. _Originality._ Quite often, Chinese concepts (for example, human dignity beyond the ideas of democracy and mass political participation, guanxi, mianzi) are incomprehensible to the representatives of the Western civilization, which leads to the challenges in intercultural communication. The interpretation of these ideas in the context of Confucianism allows to understand them from the perspective of Others and expand the set of patterns of cultural perception. This ultimately leads to the awareness that there are many social, political, cultural realities, which we perceive through the lens of our own concepts and attitudes. The participants of an intercultural dialogue realize that each of them has a unique experience, own way of posing a problem and resolving it, and no one is better or worse. _Conclusions._ Confucian philosophy shaped the worldview of Chinese people, defined values, goals, meanings, attitudes, communication models, which affected all spheres of Chinese life and culture. The study of the philosophical heritage of the great Chinese civilization enhances the cultural competence of the intercultural communicators and expands the field of dialogue to the level of global communication. (shrink)

This paper explores the extent to which the Confucian concept of ren (humaneness) has application in ways that are comparable tocontemporary versions of environmental virtue ethics. I argue that the accounts of self-cultivation that are developed in major texts of the Confucian tradition have important direct implications for environmental thinking that even the Neo-Confucians do not seriously entertain.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers have claimed that it is a scandal that non-Western traditions are excluded from the curriculum in Western philosophy departments. I consider the case of Confucianism and argue that the central features of Confucian discourse are different from those of philosophical discourse, that the historical conditions that gave rise to Confucian discourse sets it apart from the formation of Western philosophy, and that Western philosophers often misread Confucian discourse because they assimilate it to philosophical discourse. (...) I conclude that in order to do justice to the Confucian masters we must read their discourse in accord with its own nature and aims.The question whether there was... (shrink)

In his new work on the Kyoto School David Williams presents the first “reading” in English of the complete text of the three Chūō Kōron symposia held by members of the second generation in the early 1940s. In addition, he provides an extensive commentary that explores the inability of “liberal history” to account for the political realities of wartime Japan and the “moral worldview” of the four symposists. Adopting the empirical methodology of earlier works, Williams proposes an alternative thesis of (...) “Confucian Revolution” that takes into account the “logic and conventions” of Japan as a Confucian society. His focus on the influence of Confucianism brings to the fore a neglected aspect of modern Japanese political philosophy that yields important insight into the nature of the Kyoto School's wartime thought and their struggle against the Tōjō regime. (shrink)

Graham Priest claims that Asian philosophy is going to constitute one of the most important aspects in 21st-century philosophical research. Assuming that this statement is true, it leads to a methodological question whether the dominant comparative and contrastive approaches will be supplanted by a more unifying methodology that works across different philosophical traditions. In this article, I concentrate on the use of empirical evidence from nonphilosophical disciplines, which enjoys popularity among many Western philosophers, and examine the application of this approach (...) to early Chinese philosophy. I specifically focus on Confucian ethics and the study of altruism in experimental psychology. (shrink)

For more than a century scholars both inside and outside of China have undertaken the project of modernizing Confucianism, but few have been as successful or influential as Li Zehou (b. 1930). Since the 1950s, Li's extensive efforts in this regard have in turn exerted a profound influence on Chinese modernization and resulted in his becoming one of China's most prominent social critics. To transform Confucianism into a contemporary resource for positive change in China and elsewhere, Li has reinterpreted major (...) ideas and concepts of classical Confucianism, including a rereading of the entire Analects, replete with his own philosophical speculations derived from other Chinese and Western traditions (most notably, the ideas of Kant and Marx), and developed an aesthetical theory that has proved especially far-reaching. Although the authors of this volume hail from East Asia, North America, and Europe and a wide variety of academic backgrounds and fields of study, they are unanimous in their appreciation of Li's contributions to not only an evolving Confucian philosophy, but also world philosophy. They view Li first and foremost as a sui generis thinker with broad global interests and not one who fits neatly into any one philosophical category, Chinese or Western. This is clearly reflected in the chapters included here, which are organized into three parts: Li Zehou and the Modernization of Confucianism, Li Zehou's Reconception of Confucian Philosophy, and Li Zehou's Aesthetical Theory and Confucianism. Together they form a coherent narrative that reveals how Li has, for more than half a century, creatively studied, absorbed, and reconceptualized the Confucian ideational tradition to integrate it with Western philosophical elements and develop his own philosophical insights and original theories. At the same time, he has transformed and modernized Confucianism for the purpose of both coalescing with and reconstructing a new world cultural order. (shrink)

Metaphors of adorning, crafting, water flowing downward, and growing sprouts appear in the Analects , the Mencius , and the Xunzi 荀子. They express and guide thinking about what there is in human nature to cultivate and how it is to be cultivated. The craft metaphor seems to imply that our nature is of the sort that must be disciplined and reshaped to achieve goodness, while the adorning, water, and sprout metaphors imply that human nature has an inbuilt directionality toward (...) the ethical that should be protected or nurtured. I argue that all the metaphors capture different aspects of human nature and how one must work with these aspects. There is much in contemporary psychology and neuroscience to suggest that the early Confucians were on the right track. It is also argued that they point to a fruitful conception of ethical development that is relational and holistic. (shrink)

Surprisingly little is known about what ancient Confucian thinkers struggled with in their own social and political contexts and how these struggles contributed to the establishment and further development of classical Confucian political theory. Leading scholar of comparative political theory, Sungmoon Kim offers a systematic philosophical account of the political theories of Mencius and Xunzi, investigating both their agreements and disagreements as the champions of the Confucian Way against the backdrop of the prevailing realpolitik of the late (...) Warring States period. Together, they contributed to the formation of Confucian virtue politics, in which concerns about political order and stability and concerns about moral character and moral enhancement are deeply intertwined. By presenting their political philosophies in terms of constitutionalism, Kim shows how they each developed the ability to authorize the ruler's legitimate use of power in domestic and interstate politics in ways consistent with their distinctive accounts of human nature. (shrink)

Most people would not associate Confucian philosophy with contemporary education. After all, the former is an ancient Chinese tradition and the latter is a modern phenomenon. But this book shows otherwise, by explaining how millennia-old Confucian ideas and practices can inform, inspire and improve teaching and learning today. Drawing upon major Confucian texts such as the Analects and Mencius, as well as influential thinkers such as Confucius, Zhu Xi and Empress Xu, the various chapters address current educational (...) issues and challenges such as the following: How can humanity resolve the climate emergency? What (more) should schools do to promote education for girls? Is there more to lifelong learning than just skills upgrading? Is teacher-centred education really bad? What is missing in the existing frameworks on 21st century competencies? What new initiatives are needed to champion sustainable development? Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education answers the above questions and more by presenting a Confucian model of education. The author describes a Confucian school where Dao - a shared vision of human excellence - is realised through an inclusive, mindful, learning-centred and ultimately humanising form of education. This book is a useful resource for academic researchers, educators, students and general readers on Confucian philosophy and its continual relevance for present-day education. (shrink)

Contemporary proponents of Confucian political philosophy often ignore the fact that any sizeable future Confucian political order will have to accommodate many “non-Confucians.” The guiding question of this paper is therefore the following: how could a Confucian political philosophy, if it can at all, adequately take into account a plurality of comprehensive worldviews? I first turn to John Rawls and his account of these terms and of reasonable pluralism more generally. I then examine some particularly relevant developments (...) and criticism of Rawls’ account. Finally, I offer a discussion of some recent proposals for a Confucian political philosophy, and examine to what extent each recognizes the fact of pluralism, sees it as a challenge, and deals with it in a persuasive manner. The paper concludes with a depiction of two major stumbling blocks that might stand firmly in the way of such a pluralism-accommodating political Confucianism. (shrink)

Virtuous conduct is the philosophy of agency within Early Confucianism. Drawing on the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, this book characterizes Early Confucianism as a progressive philosophy due to its human-centered program for social reform, its process view of self-cultivation, and its development.

This paper explores the encounter between traditional Confucian thought and contemporary Anglophone philosophy. It explores the evolution in philosophical methods and heuristics employed by "Western" thinkers in the past fifty or so years, often with the aim of extracting Confucian thought from its specific social and historical roots. Unlike the disciplines of intellectual or literary history, these philosophers have a distinctive variety of aims. These include: articulate dimensions of Confucian philosophy not explicit in traditional texts, develop critiques (...) of Western modernity, derive solutions to problems in Western philosophy, and attempt to reimagine Confucian thought for an East Asian modernity. Analyzing how contemporary philosophers have engaged the Chinese tradition makes clearer the meaning of the much-debated term “Chinese philosophy,” without becoming mired in definitional disputes, while also justifying the enterprise of engaging philosophically with the Chinese tradition. (shrink)

Xu Fuguan (1904-1982) is one of the central representatives of the second generation of Taiwanese Modern Confucianism. This book focuses primarily on his fundamental contributions to the philosophy of this intellectual current, particularly his reinterpretations and reevaluations of the basic axiological concepts of the original Confucian and Daoist aesthetics. It also addresses issues related to his attempts to preserve, systematize, and modernize traditional Chinese aesthetics. Xu Fuguanâ (TM)s theory of the Chinese ideational tradition is defined by the paradigm of (...) the traditional link between ethics and aesthetics. The book highlights the importance of the complementary interaction between Confucianism and Daoism in Xuâ (TM)s theory. In his interpretation of Chinese aesthetics, Xu also incorporated a comparative perspective and contrasted it with Western aesthetics. However, the book shows that his analysis of Western aesthetics is too generalized and therefore problematic. These difficulties are also manifested in Xuâ (TM)s superficial understanding of modern Western art and culture. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the great relevance of his studies of traditional Chinese aesthetics. Xu Fuguanâ (TM)s central theoretical contributions, such as the concept of concerned consciousness, the concept of qiyun shengdong, and the systematic explanation of the axiological foundations of Chinese aesthetics presented and analyzed in this book, are among the most important philosophical innovations elaborated by Modern Confucian theory. These novel approaches are also interesting from the perspective of global theoretical discourses, as they reveal important, culturally conditioned differences between traditional Western and traditional Chinese philosophy in terms of their respective ways of perceiving and interpreting reality. (shrink)

This book debates the values and ideals of Confucian politics—harmony, virtue, freedom, justice, order—and what these ideals mean for Confucian political philosophy today. The authors deliberate these eminent topics in five debates centering on recent innovative and influential publications in the field. Challenging and building on those works, the dialogues consider the roles of benevolence, family determination, public reason, distributive justice, and social stability in Confucian political philosophy. In response, the authors defend their views and evaluate their (...) critics in turn. Taking up a broad range of crucial issues—autonomy, liberty, democracy, political legitimacy, human welfare—these author-meets-critic debates will appeal to scholars interested in political, comparative, and East Asian philosophy. Their interlaced themes weave a portrait of what is at stake in discussing Confucian values and theory. Most importantly, they engage and develop the state of the field of Confucian political philosophy today. (shrink)

Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

This essay takes as its focus Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitar? (1870?1945) and his seminal first text, An Inquiry into the Good (or in Japanese zen no kenky?). Until now scholarship has taken for granted the predominantly Buddhist orientation of this text, centered around an analysis of the central concept of ?pure experience? (junsui keiken) as something Nishdia extrapolates from his early experience of Zen meditation. However, in this paper I will present an alternative and more accurate account of the origins (...) of this important work, a text often seen as marking the beginning of Modern Japanese philosophy. I will show that while Buddhism is an important part of Nishida's early intellectual development, there is ample biographical and textual evidence to suggest that zen no kenky? is at its core a text which attempts to solve key ethical problems via a modern interpretation of concepts drawn from the Confucian tradition. This analysis thus places the concept of ?Conduct? (koi), rather than ?pure experience?, at the center of the text, suggesting that ethics, rather than metaphysics, is the core theme of the book. (shrink)

Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 68-83.

This volume sets out the arguments and evidence needed to explain how the _Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith_ features in the constitution of New Confucian philosophy, as evidenced in the writings of Xiong Shili, Ma Yifu, Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan.

Embodied Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy is a comprehensive and insightful book that shows how some central tenets of Confucian philosophy are supported by contemporary research in psychology. More specifically, Bongrae Seok shows “that Confucian moral philosophy is a philosophical tradition of the embodied moral mind with the potential to develop a viable theory of embodied moral psychology”. He begins part one of his book with a chapter on “What is Embodied Cognition?” saying that it generally refers (...) to “the physical mechanism of a cognitive system, in the processes of gathering, processing, storing, and accessing information”. He.. (shrink)

Hermeneutic philosophy, and Paul Ricoeur’s formulation of hermeneutics in particular, faces a serious challenge, not from external sources, but from internal proponents of the program. In what might be called the Collapse Challenge, Ricoeur’s understanding of the hermeneutic circle is criticized for making use of structuralist methods that are no longer considered viable. Rather than look to replace Ricoeur’s work with an external model, the present essay draws on his late model of translation to suggest two viable paths forward beyond (...) the Collapse Challenge. To develop these paths, the essay gives two concrete cases, one using Confucian philosophy, which is comparative, another using Aztec philosophy, which is syncretic. (shrink)

This is the first book in English to study the thoughts of Contemporary Neo-Confucian philosophers in great depth.

Abstract:Within the last few decades, scholars have uncovered remarkable similarities between Confucian and pragmatist philosophies. Given these resonances, how would a philosophy of music education founded on a synthesis of Confucian and pragmatist ideas look? How would such a philosophy compare with extant philosophies of music education? In this paper, I sketch Confucian and pragmatist metaphysics, meld ideas from the two philosophies, and proffer implications for music education. As I shall argue, a Confucian-pragmatist intercultural blend lends (...) support to three historical movements in the philosophy of music education: the cultivation of morality through music, music education as aesthetic education, and the praxial philosophy of music education. It also illumines extant philosophies of music education in fresh ways. This essay extends a line of research on the application of comparative philosophy in contemporary music education. (shrink)

The intellectual legacy of Confucianism has loomed large in efforts to understand China's past, present, and future. While Confucian ethics has been thoroughly explored, the question remains: what exactly is Confucian political thought? Classical Confucian Political Thought returns to the classical texts of the Confucian tradition to answer this vital question. Showing how Confucian ethics and politics diverge, Loubna El Amine argues that Confucian political thought is not a direct application of Confucian moral (...) philosophy. Instead, contrary to the conventional view that Confucian rule aims to instill virtue in all members of society, El Amine demonstrates that its main aim is to promote political order. El Amine analyzes key aspects of the Confucian political vision, including the relationship between the ruler and the people, the typology of rulers, and the role of ministers and government officials. She also looks at Confucianism’s account of the mechanisms through which society is to be regulated, from welfare policies to rituals. She explains that the Confucian conception of the political leaves space open for the rule of those who are not virtuous if these rulers establish and maintain political order. She also contends that Confucians defend the duty to take part in government based on the benefits that such participation can bring to society. Classical Confucian Political Thought brings a new understanding to Confucian political theory by illustrating that it is not chiefly idealistic and centered on virtue, but rather realistic and driven by political concerns. (shrink)

This book examines democracy in recent Chinese-language philosophical work. It focuses on Confucian-inspired political thought in the Chinese intellectual world from after the communist revolution in China until today. The volume analyzes six significant contemporary Confucian philosophers in China and Taiwan, describing their political thought and how they connect their thought to Confucian tradition, and critiques their political proposals and views. It illustrates how Confucianism has transformed in modern times, the divergent understandings of Confucianism today, and how (...) contemporary Chinese philosophers understand democracy, as well as their criticisms of Western political thought. (shrink)

Confucian and Stoic Perspectives on Forgiveness is a study in comparative philosophy exploring the absence of forgiveness in classical Confucianism and Roman Stoicism as well as the alternatives to forgiveness that these traditions offer.