Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper compares criticisms of Singapore’s meritocracy, especially against its impact on income disparities and class divisions, with Michael Sandel’s critique of the meritocratic ethic in the United States. Despite significant differences in their history and politics, meritocracy has similar dysfunctions in both societies, allowing us to draw theoretical conclusions about meritocracy as an ideal of governance. It then contrasts Sandel’s communitarian critique of meritocracy with recent Confucian promotion of political meritocracy and meritocratic justice and argues that the Confucian principle of “promoting the virtuous and talented” is different from the contemporary conception of meritocracy. Textual evidence indicates that a …

The Asian Five Dragons: What’S The Relationship Of Confucianism And Gender Inequality?, Danny S. Craddock

Student Publications

Confucianism is not only a historically important belief system, but it also continues to be rooted in many societies today, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. The growing influence of some of these Confucian-ingrained societies on the international stage justifies expanding the limited literature present on Confucianism and its societal implications. Using a conceptualization of heavily influenced Confucian societies previously set out by earlier research, this paper evaluates the validity of the common age-old assumption that Confucianism is correlated with greater gender inequality, as determined by the World 2016 dataset. Specifically, research suggests that the opposite correlation might just as …

Confucianism And Pragmatism: Similarities In Notions Of Selfhood And Society, Zephyr Hrechdakian

Senior Projects Spring 2022

There are a number of similarities between pragmatism and early Confucianism regarding their views of the self and society. I explore these, as well as some key differences, by comparing texts associated with Confucius with the work of three notable pragmatists: William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. I find that all four thinkers view human experience as intertwined with nature which leads them to form relational understandings of the self, ultimately sparking in them a tendency to view societies as communities that should by kept harmonious through various processes of cooperative social interaction. However, I find there are …

Developmental Comparative Philosophy: Identifying Common Trends Between American Libertarian And Chinese Thoughts, Jacob Rich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

East/west comparative philosophy often focuses on the differences between philosophies as finished states which, though effective at showing differences in thought, emphasizes the otherness of foreign traditions. In order to establish meaningful similarities between the development on eastern and western traditions, I compared the development of American liberalism (1651-1776 CE) and Chinese Confucianism and Daoism (772-221 BCE), focusing on the similarities between social contract to enlightenment philosophers and the early to late Hundred Schools of Thought Confucian and Daoist philosophers. Three principals were derived from this process: a shift from external to internal justifications for the state causes increased secularism …

What And Whose Confucianism? Sinophone Communities And Dialogical Geopolitics, Quan Gao, Justin K. H. Tse, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This commentary responds to An et al.’s (2020) article, ‘Towards a Confucian geopolitics’ by re-examining ‘the political’ of Confucianism and its contribution to fostering a cosmopolitan form of Confucian geopolitics. By taking note of the differences within and between Sinophone communities, we discuss the variegated forms of Confucianism, and their various geopolitical implications. In doing so, we call for re-theorising Confucian geopolitics as dialogical geopolitics that challenges the cultural and ideological basis of statist and Sino-centric geopolitics.

Learning To Be Human: Ren 仁, Modernity, And The Philosophers Of China's Hundred Days' Reform, Lucien Mathot Monson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a period of deep political division, insurrection, opium addiction, foreign conflicts, and economic distress, three intellectuals, Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865-1898), Kang Youwei 康有爲 (1858-1927), and Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873-1929), developed philosophical systems to identify the source of China’s problems and to devise solutions. With these philosophical theories, they enacted a political movement to reform Chinese government and society known as the “Hundred Days’ Reform” (wuxubianfa 戊戌變法) of 1898. While scholars like Chang Hao, Wing Sit-chan, and Joseph R. Levenson have all written on all or some of these reformers, they have done so largely from the perspective of Chinese …

Konfusianisme Sebagai Sabuk Pengaman Rrt, R. Tuty Nur Mutia Enoch Muas

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The slogans propagated by Chinese leader Hu Jintao—namely “rise in peace”, “a harmonious socialist society”, and “a harmonious world”—reflects the country’s age-old Confucian values. Considering the fact that the PRC only recognizes communism as the state ideology and that Confucianism was subjected to harsh criticism during the Cultural Revolution era (1966–1976), the presence of Confucian values in PRC’s political propaganda becomes an interesting research topic. Both Confucianism and communism put the state as the center of power and sovereignty. This research used the historicalchronological approach by examining the attitude of the PRC government towards Confucianism from 1980 to 2012. Results …

The Philosophy Of Mencius As A Way Of Life: A Rapport Between Mencian Confucianism And Pierre Hadot’S Conception Of Philosophy, Joseph Emmanuel D. Sta. Maria

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

This article shows how Pierre Hadot’s idea of philosophy as a way of life can be applied to Confucian philosophy. Specifically I will show how the philosophy of the Confucian thinker Mencius has two characteristics that are indicative of a philosophy that is a way of life. For Hadot, Ancient Greco-Roman philosophical schools were mainly concerned, not with philosophical discourse, but with changing their students’ way of living. Based on Mencius’ own words, it can be inferred that he also believed that his philosophizing was mainly about transforming people, and that he treated philosophical discourse as ancillary to this. Furthermore, …

Applying Gadamer: An Evaluation Of Interpretations Of The Confucian Analects By Different Schools Under The Light Of Gadamerian Hermeneutics, Yifeng Xu

Senior Independent Study Theses

This thesis attempts to analyse and evaluate several interpretations of the Confucian Analects under the light of Gadamerian hermeneutics. In chapter 1, I explicate Gadamerian hermeneutics and analyse Gadamer’s hermeneutical view. In chapter 2, I introduce a challenge to Gadamer’s theory regarding the problem of objectivity, give Gadamer a limited defence, and then reconstruct Gadamerian hermeneutics in order to answer the challenge. Chapter 3 deals with some further concerns about the application of Gadamerian hermeneutics in terms of evaluating interpretations. Chapter 4 and 5 are spent on analysing two groups of interpretations of the Confucian Analects as well as the …

Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Deliberate One-Sidedness As A Method Of Doing Philosophy: Reflections On Rosemont’S View Of The Person, Peimin Ni

Comparative Philosophy

As one of the most influential comparative philosophers of our time, Henry Rosemont, Jr. is known for his unrelenting criticisms against Western libertarian ideas, and for advocating ideas derived from classic Confucian thought. One of the criticisms against him is that his views are one-sided, and hence unfair to Western libertarian ideas. In this paper, I argue that Rosemont’s one-sidedness is deliberate. His theory is not intended to be a balanced account. I will illustrate that Rosemont’s way of conceiving the human self is not peculiar to him, but characteristic of those who take philosophy as a way of life, …

Self And Social Roles As Chimeras, Mary I. Bockover

Comparative Philosophy

In Against Individualism, Henry Rosemont argues against a contemporary Western concept of self that takes rational autonomy to be the “core” of what it means to be a person. Rational autonomy is thought to be the only essential feature of this core self, endowing us with an independent existence and moral framework to act accordingly—as independent, rational, autonomous individuals. In marked contrast, and drawing from the Analects of Confucius, Rosemont defines personhood as consisting of social roles and their correlative responsibilities. We are persons relationally, only in virtue of the roles that interdependently connect us to each other. Rosemont …

Whose Traditions? Which Practices?, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

My response to Tully’s article, “Deparochializing Political Theory and Beyond,” suggests that before introducing students in Asia to comparative political thought, including texts from Asian traditions in Political Theory or Philosophy courses, their education needs to first engage in the critical practice of questioning their own “background horizon of disclosure.” The background horizon of disclosure that needs questioning certainly is not simply constituted by Asian traditions; despite westernized education, it is also not entirely western, insofar as the society they live in continues to be Asian in various ways, and the adopted western institutions and modes of thought have been …

Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Warming Which Olds To Know Whose New 溫何故，知誰新？ 回應李明輝之《儒家與康德》, Max Fong

Max Fong

The Principle Of Dong Zhongshu's Omen Discourse And Wang Chong's Criticism Of Heaven's Reprimand In The Chapter “Qian Gao”, Xun Yang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Omen discourse, the investigation of aberrant natural disasters and miraculous celestial phenomena, provided a sophisticated ideological model that could be exploited to expostulate with the sovereign for his transgressions, and to denounce the misgovernment of the imperial bureaucracy. The first of this political model is the personification of the supreme Heaven and the elevation of Heaven’s status. From the perspective of ru 儒 (Confucians) scholars, the establishment of Heaven’s supreme authority upon the human realm and the restriction of the sovereign in power guarantee the rectification of political mistakes as well as an applicable way for ru scholars to actively …

Edward Yang's Confusion, Law Nga-Chun, Lo Chun-Cheong

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Edward Yang (in Chinese 楊德昌, 1947-2007) is one of the most renowned Taiwanese directors, whose works raise criticisms of modernity. Since the New Culture Movement in the 1910s and 1920s, Chinese literati have queried the place of traditional Chinese culture, especially Confucianism, on the road to modernization. This paper gives an account of Yang’s understanding of modernization and the Confucian tradition as illustrated in his work, A Confucian Confusion (1994). We argue that, though he despised politically endorsed Confucianism as ideology, without sufficient justification Yang nonetheless reserves the possibility of taking Confucianism as a supplement to modernity.

Confucian Thought And Care Ethics: An Amicable Split?, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

Since Chenyang Li’s (1994) groundbreaking article there has been interest in reading early Confucian ethics through the lens of care ethics. In this paper, I examine the prospects for dialogue between the two in light of recent work in both fields.

I argue that, despite some similarities, early Confucian ethics is not best understood as a form of care ethics, of the kind articulated by Nel Noddings (1984, 2002) and others. Reasons include incongruence deriving from the absence in the Chinese texts of a developed account of need, and doubts about whether the parent-child relationship in Confucian thought is best …

Does The Dao Support Individual Autonomy And Human Rights?, Caroline M. Carr

Summer Research Program

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) lists what have come to be called “first” and “second” generation rights. First generation rights are civil and political (for instance, the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble); second generation are social, economic, and cultural (protection against unemployment, universal healthcare, equal pay). However, Western and Asian nations are in disagreement about whether or not all of these generations of rights should be universal. While Western nations strongly believe that first generation rights should be universal, Asian nations insist that their unique “Asian values” require second generation rights to precede first …

It’S Not Them, It’S You: A Case Study Concerning The Exclusion Of Non-Western Philosophy, Amy Olberding

Comparative Philosophy

My purpose in this essay is to suggest, via case study, that if Anglo-American philosophy is to become more inclusive of non-western traditions, the discipline requires far greater efforts at self-scrutiny. I begin with the premise that Confucian ethical treatments of manners afford unique and distinctive arguments from which moral philosophy might profit, then seek to show why receptivity to these arguments will be low. I examine how ordinary good manners have largely fallen out of philosophical moral discourse in the west, looking specifically at three areas: conditions in the 18^th and 19^th centuries that depressed philosophical attention …

Buddhism, Confucianism, And Western Conceptions Of Personal Autonomy, Joshua Sias

The Downtown Review

The contemporary conversation surrounding personal autonomy theory is primarily concerned with discussing autonomy in relation to western liberal conceptions of individualism, society, and other elements surrounding modern understandings of personal autonomy. An outsider reviewing the modern discourse over personal autonomy theory may be led to believe that either those within the conversation are simply indifferent to the exclusion of eastern philosophical notions relevant to self-government (and self-determination), or that eastern classical models are incapable of offering much to the discussion of personal autonomy. The following paper is aimed at addressing common components of the modern discussion over personal autonomy theory …

Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Art As Person: Correlative Personhood In Aesthetic Representation, Michael Dufresne

UNF Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this paper, I argue that the metaphor of art as person should be implemented as a way to understand artistic interaction, such that the relationship between artworks and spectators should be understood as one between persons. I begin this argument by first juxtaposing Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of aesthetic representation with the values that constitute correlative person in Confucianism. This juxtaposition draws similarities between artworks and persons that make the metaphor of art as person a plausible means for understanding artistic interaction. I then appeal to Michel Foucault for two significant reasons: his subjectfication of the self solidifies the comparisons …

Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Confucian Philosophical Argumentation Skills, Minghui Xiong

OSSA Conference Archive

Becker argued Confucianism lacked of argumentation, dialogue and debate. However, Becker is wrong. First, the purpose of philosophical argumentation is to justify an arguer’s philosophical standpoints. Second, both Confucius’ Analects and Mencius’ Mencius were written in forms of dialogues. Third, the content of each book is the recorded utterance and the purpose of dialogue is to persuade its audience. Finally, after Confucius, Confucians’ works have either argued for those unjustified standpoints or re-argued about some justified viewpoints in the Analects.

Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle