What And Whose Confucianism? Sinophone Communities And Dialogical Geopolitics, Quan Gao, Justin K. H. Tse, Orlando Woods
May 2021
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.
Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2018
Human Rights In Chinese Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
This chapter in Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig, eds., Handbook on human rights in China (Edward Elgar, 2019) -- examines three different approaches: the Chinese tradition is (1) an obstacle to human rights, (2) an alternative to human rights, or (3) a source of human rights. While some scholars have insisted on one or another of these approaches, I will argue here that there is truth in all of them. Nothing about the Chinese tradition determines, once-and-for-all, what modern Chinese must think about human rights, but there is no question that it has had, and will continue to have, varying …
Deliberate One-Sidedness As A Method Of Doing Philosophy: Reflections On Rosemont’S View Of The Person, Peimin Ni
Jan 2018
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
Jan 2018
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
Jun 2017
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
Aug 2016
Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Kim Sungmoon’s Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice makes many important contributions to our understanding of what is at stake in thinking of Confucianism as a viable political theory in the modern world. One of the book’s most interesting features is its grounding in the on-going practice of Confucianism in South Korea, on the one hand, and yet its emphasis on pluralism within Korean society, on the other.[1] Kim thus aims to describe and defend a polity that, while not relying on its citizens’ unanimous acceptance of Confucianism as comprehensive doctrine, nonetheless can legitimately maintain a distinctively …
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
May 2016
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
At first glance, readers might be critical of the tasteless malapropisms that comprise this review’s title. On one hand, I have liberally borrowed from Alasdair MacIntyre’s book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? which among several of his other works calcified the current notion of traditions popular in contemporary philosophical practice. On the other, I have “warmed” Confucius’s aphorism, “They who warm the old to know the new are worthy of becoming teachers.”46, 47 Both these phrases, however, do capture certain intuitions of mine regarding Lee Ming-Huei’s (Ü) 1990 book, Confucianism and Kant #3;"QÊ\e#4;. I find Lee’s thoughts certainly relevant to contemporary …
Confucian Thought And Care Ethics: An Amicable Split?, Andrew Lambert
Jan 2016
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 …
Buddhism, Confucianism, And Western Conceptions Of Personal Autonomy, Joshua Sias
Jan 2015
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
Dec 2014
Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is a provocative coincidence that 1958 saw the publication of both Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy,” an essay widely seen as initiating the revival of Western philosophical interest in virtue ethics, and the “Manifesto to the World’s People on Behalf of Chinese Culture,” a jointly-authored argument that Confucianism was still alive and had much to offer to the world. A great deal of research and debate has flowed from each of these sources over the last half-century, but so far there has been very little dialogue between modern Western virtue ethics and modern Confucianism.1 Scholars of ancient Confucianism …
Becoming Confucian In America Today, Pamela Herron
Dec 2013
Becoming Confucian In America Today, Pamela Herron
Pamela Herron
Is Confucianism relevant to students in America in the twenty-first century? Does a 2,500 year old philosophy have anything to offer contemporary society? This paper examines the methodology behind teaching Confucianism and Daoism to students at the University of Texas at El Paso where this course has been taught successfully for the past two years. Using translations of the Daodejing (Roger T. Ames and David Hall) and The Analects of Confucius (Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr.) students are asked to examine and analyze these ancient texts with the intention of determining their relevance to today’s people and culture. …
Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
A central goal of my 2009 book Sagehood was to demonstrate the value of putting Neo-Confucian thinkers like Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and Wang Yangming (1472-1529) into dialogue with contemporary Western philosophers. I argued there that on a range of topics—from the scope and motivation for ethics, to understanding and responding to moral conflicts, to moral perception, to ethical education—Western philosophers could learn from Zhu and Wang, and the contemporary heirs of the Neo-Confucians could learn from their Western counterparts. In Sagehood I also dipped into some recent psychological literature on the lives and psychology of moral exemplars, which I used …
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many thanks to Joseph Chan for his insightful review, and to the editors of this journal for allowing me this brief response. By the time this exchange appears in print, Joseph’s important book Confucian Perfectionism will have been published, and readers will be able to see all the more clearly the many ways in which Joseph’s and my visions of broadly democratic Confucian political philosophy overlap and, I think, reinforce one another. Still, there are places where we see things differently, and so dialogue like the present exchange—and the prior workshop on my book that Joseph generously arranged at his university …
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2013
Sages And Self-Restriction: A Response To Joseph Chan, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Many thanks to Joseph Chan for his insightful review, and to the editors of this journal for allowing me this brief response. By the time this exchange appears in print, Joseph’s important book Confucian Perfectionism will have been published, and readers will be able to see all the more clearly the many ways in which Joseph’s and my visions of broadly democratic Confucian political philosophy overlap and, I think, reinforce one another. Still, there are places where we see things differently, and so dialogue like the present exchange—and the prior workshop on my book that Joseph generously arranged at his university …
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2012
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2012
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2012
The Analects And Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Over the last century, scholars both within China and without have considered how the Analects relates to modern, Western philosophy. Should we think of the Analects—or the early Confucian tradition more broadly—as “philosophy,” and if so, should we seek to analyze its contents in terms of Western philosophical categories? With regard to the ethical teachings in the text, a more specific concern has also been raised: does it make sense to think of the Analects as engaging in “moral” theory, or is its framework adequately different from modern Western moral philosophy that a different set of categories are necessary?1 …
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2012
Is Conscientiousness A Virtue? Confucian Responses, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Among contemporary philosophers sympathetic to the theoretical centrality of virtue, there is little agreement on the status of conscientiousness. Indeed, there is little agreement even on what the word “conscientiousness” means; for the time being, let us take it to mean consciously ensuring that one does one’s duty. Adams and Wallace both take conscientiousness to be a virtue, whereas Roberts calls it a “quasi-virtue” and Slote argues that it is both different from and inferior to virtue.The landscape becomes still more complicated when we add in the vexed concept of “continence,” which we can initially gloss as forcing oneself to …
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2010
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is common for recent authors on the topic of “civility” to spend some time sketching
the history of their subject.1 One narrative goes like this: civility emerges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is part of a larger trend toward disciplining bodily appetites that enables a new kind of cooperation among individuals. Civility interweaves politeness and political respect; it undergirds modern notions of republicanism, civil society, and the public good. In more recent decades—some writers point to World War I as a turning point, but for others, it is the 1960s—civility has declined or at least changed …
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2010
Neither Morality Nor Law: Ritual Propriety As Confucian Civility, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
It is common for recent authors on the topic of “civility” to spend some time sketching
the history of their subject.1 One narrative goes like this: civility emerges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is part of a larger trend toward disciplining bodily appetites that enables a new kind of cooperation among individuals. Civility interweaves politeness and political respect; it undergirds modern notions of republicanism, civil society, and the public good. In more recent decades—some writers point to World War I as a turning point, but for others, it is the 1960s—civility has declined or at least changed …
Sagely Ease And Moral Perception, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2004
Sagely Ease And Moral Perception, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
In what is probably the most famous description of a sage in all of Chinese philosophy, the Analects tells us that when Confucius reached the age of seventy, he was able to “follow his heart’s desire without overstepping the bounds” (Analects 2.4). It seems that Confucius came to be able to act properly without even trying. Now one might well suspect that at least some of the time, acting properly is easy for most of us. When not faced with a difficult choice or temptation, perhaps we get along fine. The Analects is nonetheless making a very strong claim, even …
Sagely Ease And Moral Perception, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2004
Sagely Ease And Moral Perception, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
In what is probably the most famous description of a sage in all of Chinese philosophy, the Analects tells us that when Confucius reached the age of seventy, he was able to “follow his heart’s desire without overstepping the bounds” (Analects 2.4). It seems that Confucius came to be able to act properly without even trying. Now one might well suspect that at least some of the time, acting properly is easy for most of us. When not faced with a difficult choice or temptation, perhaps we get along fine. The Analects is nonetheless making a very strong claim, even …
Review Of Cua - Moral Vision And Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Dec 2000
Review Of Cua - Moral Vision And Tradition, Stephen C. Angle
Stephen C. Angle
Antonio Cua is a prolific author, with four books and some fifty articles to his credit. For all that, he is not as widely cited, nor as widely read, as several of his contemporaries or juniors in the field of Chinese philosophy. There are at least two reasons for this comparative neglect. First, his writing is often dense and technical, and his essays weighed down by references to others of his writings wherein, one is told, concepts relied on in the current essay are more carefully explained. Second, Cua’s methodology may be off-putting to some. He is upfront about working …
