Category Archives: Contemporary Confucianism

Nishan Forum and Rise of Chinese Culture

Last week I attended the first Nishan Forum on World Civilizations (尼山论坛). Nishan is the reputed birthplace of Confucius, near Qufu (in Shandong province) where the Kong family has lived for many generations. The Forum was an interesting event, heavily supported by various levels of government (notice the orchestra, playing pieces specially written for the event), and clearly designed to contribute to the increasing visibility of Confucianism, both domestically and internationally. There is a lot one could say about the event, both in terms of its content and in terms of the way it was framed (e.g., why was Robert Schuller chosen as the most prominent representative of Christianity at this “dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity”?). There is no simple conclusion, positive or negative, that one can draw from a complex event such as this, but I thought I would share some concerns that crystallized in my mind when thinking about a question that a journalist at the Forum asked me. He said, “Do you think Americans should be worried about the rise of Chinese culture?” Continue reading →

Zhao Tingyang on "Rethinking China"

Manyul’s post about Chinese “philosophy” relates in an interesting way to some reading I’ve been doing lately of the work of contemporary Chinese philosopher Zhao Tingyang 赵汀阳. Zhao first gained attention for his 1993 book 《论可能生活：一种关于幸福和公正的理论》[On possible lives : a theory of happiness and justice]. He vaulted into super-stardom with his 2005 book, 《天下体系：世界制度哲学导论》[The All-Under-Heaven System: An Introduction to the Philosophy of a World Institution]. This appropriation of the “tianxia” idea has been widely discussed, positively and negatively, both within philosophy and IR circles. Some of Zhao’s work is available in English translation; I’ll cite this at the end of this post. What I want to focus on, though, is Zhao’s insistence on the need to “rethink China (重思中国)” [Zhao 2005, 6]. Continue reading →

How Many Confucianisms?

Confucianisms seem to be proliferating. Most of us these days have heard of “(Contemporary) New Confucianism” (sometimes also rendered as “Contemporary Neo-Confucianism; in Chinese typically 当代新儒学). The ideas of Mou and Tang et al are also called “The Learning of the Heartmind and Nature (心性之学).” Jiang Qing and others have contrasted this inner, morality-focused Confucianism with their own preferred external, institution-focused variety that Jiang calls “Political Confucianism 政治儒学.” In English, Daniel Bell has sometimes spoken as a proponent of “Left Confucianism,” and in a new book, Fan Ruiping advocates what he calls “Reconstructionist Confucianism.” As I finish up a review of this latter book and settle in to write an essay on “contemporary Confucian conceptions of social justice,” I find myself wondering: how many Confucianisms are there, or should there be? As many Confucianisms as Confucian authors? Does some authority — perhaps community-based — get to decide? In my review of Professor Fan’s book, I prepare to launch into an engagement with Fan’s arguments with the following words:

The contemporary, globally informed philosophical development of Confucianism is still in its infancy. We need to encourage multiple voices and then to engage with them both charitably and critically: this is the best way to seek the Confucianism — or perhaps Confucianisms — that can contribute the most to our various communities around the globe.

You can see that I’m unsure of whether in the end, we should all agree on a single best or true version, or whether different communities — to say nothing of different times — might appropriately have different Confucianisms. What do you think?

Confucius Institutes

Ronggui, one of our long time blog followers, writes:

I’m interested in other’s thoughts on the role that Confucius Institutes might play in the (future) development of the field.

I know, for instance, that some of them have been inviting scholars to speak on issues related to Chinese philosophy. (I believe Eric Schwitzgebel recently spoke at the Confucius Institute of Scotland and Zhang Longxi will be speaking there later this month.)

More importantly, I recently came across this job ad http://chronicle.com/jobs/0000626659-01 , which is a search for an endowed chair (Chinese poetry) at the Confucius Institute at Stanford (I didn’t even realize there was an Institute there. And where’s the funding coming from for this position?).

Having heard the government official partially responsible for the Confucius Institutes speak on the topic, it’s quite obvious that these institutes have little to do directly with Confucius (let alone Chinese philosophy); but does anyone else get the sense that there could be something significant going on with these Institutes as far as the future of the field is concerned? Could we, for instance, see an endowed chair of Chinese philosophy at the University of Michigan, or at least research fellowships and conferences sponsored by these institutes?

I’m sure some here have more direct exposure to a Confucius Institute, and so could perhaps shed some light on this, but I’m interested to know what others have heard and/or think.

Comments welcome!

Rethinking Confucian Sovereignty

Starting next week, I’m going to be giving a series of lectures, collectively titled “Contemporary Confucian Virtue Politics,” at the University of Michigan. In case any reader might be in Ann Arbor, you’re more than welcome to come; information is here. I thought I would sketch out one of the ideas here and see what y’all think.

One of the thoughts motivating the third lecture (with the same title as this post) is that there is a tension within one prominent way in which sovereignty is articulated in classical Confucianism. My eventual claim is that resolving this tension requires making some significant changes to Confucianism, but that these changes have the effect of allowing the revised system to better realize its core commitments than did the original configuration. In other words, the argument that I end up making for what we can loosely call Confucian democracy is not a claim that democracy is compatible with Confucianism, but rather than it is required by Confucian commitments themselves. In making this argument, I take myself to be building on ideas of Mou Zongsan, and at certain points draw explicitly on some of his arguments.

For now, I wanted to see what folks thought about the “tension” claim. I am focused on Mencius. Roughly, the idea is this: Continue reading →