Three Neo-Confucian Perspectives on Transcending Self-Boundaries

By Galia Patt-Shamir

Summary:

Persons Emerging explores the renewed idea of the Confucian person in the eleventh-century philosophies of Zhou Dunyi, Shao Yong, and Zhang Zai. Galia Patt-Shamir discusses their responses to the Confucian challenge that the Way, as perfection, can be broadened by the person who travels it. Suggesting that the three neo-Confucian philosophers undertake the classical Confucian task of “broadening the way,” each proposes to deal with it from a different angle: Zhou Dunyi offers a metaphysical emerging out of the infinitude-finitude boundary, Shao Yong emerges out of the epistemological boundary between in and out, and Zhang Zai offers a pragmatic emerging out of the boundary between life and death.

Through the lens of these three Song-period China philosophers, the idea of “transcending self-boundaries” places neo-Confucian philosophies within the global philosophical context. Patt-Shamir questions the Confucian notions of person, Way, and how they relate to human flourishing to highlight how the emergence of personhood demands transcending metaphysical, epistemological, and moral self-boundaries.

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How to Do Things with Emotions: The Morality of Anger and Shame across Cultures

By Owen Flanagan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Description:

In How to Do Things with Emotions, Owen Flanagan explains that emotions are things we do, and he reminds us that those like anger and shame involve cultural norms and scripts. The ways we do these emotions offer no guarantee of emotionally or ethically balanced lives—but still we can control and change how such emotions are done. Flanagan makes a passionate case for tuning down anger and tuning up shame, and he observes how cultures around the world can show us how to perform these emotions better.

Through comparative insights from anthropology, psychology, and cross-cultural philosophy, Flanagan reveals an incredible range in the expression of anger and shame across societies. He establishes that certain types of anger—such as those that lead to revenge or passing hurt on to others—are more destructive than we imagine. Certain forms of shame, on the other hand, can protect positive values, including courage, kindness, and honesty. Flanagan proposes that we should embrace shame as a uniquely socializing emotion, one that can promote moral progress where undisciplined anger cannot.

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Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China

By Paolo Santangelo

About:

Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China is a major new work by one of Europe’s most respected senior scholars of Chinese studies, Paolo Santangelo. In it, he questions the common premise that individualism was lacking in premodern China. It is Santangelo’s contention that not only was the concept of the individual important in traditional China, but that it existed in interesting ways that are different from modes of individualism in the West.

One of the strengths of this study is the masterful manner in which Professor Santangelo treats key terms of his discussion, terms such as xing (“human nature”), xin (“heart-mind”), ji (“self”), and uses them to analyze various texts.

Review:

“Paolo Santangelo’s Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China is a timely masterpiece on the hotly debated issue of Chinese individualism in Confucian tradition. Building on his knowledgeable survey of the secondary literature, Paolo Santangelo adeptly brings several studies with different perspectives into an insightful conversation representing the past and recent debates on the terms and cultural contexts relevant to personal autonomy and moral responsibility. His strong grasp of the literature forms a solid foundation of his own interpretation of the subject from a broad array of primary sources, such as literary, philosophical, and religious texts. A major strength of the book is its comparative perspective. Santangelo not only compares and contrasts the terms and reflections within Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist contexts, but he also expertly brings Western concepts into conversation with the East Asian constructions of self, destiny, shame, and pleasure. He also demonstrates the change and continuity of the terms and concepts throughout the time through comparisons between the Ming-Qing period and the pre-Qin period. This book is a successful ‘rediscovery’ of the individualism in Chinese culture.”

—Guotong Li, California State University, Long Beach