confucianism values essay

Friday Essay: an introduction to Confucius, his ideas and their lasting relevance

Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, The University of Western Australia

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Yu Tao does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The man widely known in the English language as Confucius was born around 551 BCE in today’s southern Shandong Province. Confucius is the phonic translation of the Chinese word Kong fuzi 孔夫子, in which Kong 孔 was his surname and fuzi is an honorific for learned men.

Widely credited for creating the system of thought we now call Confucianism, this learned man insisted he was “not a maker but a transmitter”, merely “believing in and loving the ancients”. In this, Confucius could be seen as acting modestly and humbly, virtues he thought of highly.

Or, as Kang Youwei — a leading reformer in modern China has argued — Confucius tactically framed his revolutionary ideas as lost ancient virtues so his arguments would be met with fewer criticisms and less hostility.

Confucius looked nothing like the great sage in his own time as he is widely known in ours. To his contemporaries, he was perhaps foremost an unemployed political adviser who wandered around different fiefdoms for some years, attempting to sell his political ideas to different rulers — but never able to strike a deal.

It seems Confucius would have preferred to live half a millennium earlier, when China — according to him — was united under benevolent, competent and virtuous rulers at the dawn of the Zhou dynasty. By his own time, China had become a divided land with hundreds of small fiefdoms, often ruled by greedy, cruel or mediocre lords frequently at war.

But this frustrated scholar’s ideas have profoundly shaped politics and ethics in and beyond China ever since his death in 479 BCE. The greatest and the most influential Chinese thinker, his concept of filial piety, remains highly valued among young people in China , despite rapid changes in the country’s demography.

Despite some doubts as to whether many Chinese people take his ideas seriously, the ideas of Confucius remain directly and closely relevant to contemporary China.

This situation perhaps is comparable to Christianity in Australia. Although institutional participation is in constant decline, Christian values and narratives remain influential on Australian politics and vital social matters .

The danger today is in Confucianism being considered the single reason behind China’s success or failure. The British author Martin Jacques, for example, recently asserted Confucianism was the “biggest single reason” for East Asia’s success in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, without giving any explanation or justification.

If Confucius were alive, he would probably not hesitate to call out this solitary root of triumph or disaster as being lazy, incorrect and unwise.

Political structure and mutual responsibilities

Confucius wanted to restore good political order by persuading rulers to reestablish moral standards, exemplify appropriate social relations, perform time-honoured rituals and provide social welfare.

He worked hard to promote his ideas but won few supporters. Almost every ruler saw punishment and military force as shortcuts to greater power.

It was not until 350 years later during the reign of the Emperor Wu of Han that Confucianism was installed as China’s state ideology.

But this state-sanctioned version of Confucianism was not an honest revitalisation of Confucius’ ideas. Instead, it absorbed many elements from rival schools of thought, notably legalism , which emerged in the latter half of China’s Warring States period (453–221 BCE). Legalism argued efficient governance relies on impersonal laws and regulations — rather than moral principles and rites.

Like most great thinkers of the Axial Age between the 8th and 3rd century BCE, Confucius did not believe everyone was created equal.

Similar to Plato (born over 100 years later), Confucius believed the ideal society followed a hierarchy. When asked by Duke Jing of Qi about government, Confucius famously replied:

let the ruler be a ruler; the minister, a minister; the father, a father; the son, a son.

However it would be a superficial reading of Confucius to believe he called for unconditional obedience to rulers or superiors. Confucius advised a disciple “not to deceive the ruler but to stand up to them”.

Confucius believed the legitimacy of a regime fundamentally relies on the confidence of the people. A ruler should tirelessly work hard and “lead by example”.

Like in a family, a good son listens to his father, and a good father wins respect not by imposing force or seniority but by offering heartfelt love, support, guidance and care.

In other words, Confucius saw a mutual relationship between the ruler and the ruled.

Love and respect for social harmony

To Confucius, the appropriate relations between family members are not merely metaphors for ideal political orders, but the basic fabrics of a harmonious society.

An essential family value in Confucius’ ideas is xiao 孝, or filial piety, a concept explained in at least 15 different ways in the Analects, a collection of the words from Confucius and his followers.

Read more: Can Ne Zha, the Chinese superhero with $1b at the box office, teach us how to raise good kids?

Depending on the context, Confucius defined filial piety as respecting parents, as “never diverging” from parents, as not letting parents feel unnecessary anxiety, as serving parents with etiquette when they are alive, and as burying and commemorating parents with propriety after they pass away.

Confucius expected rulers to exemplify good family values. When Ji Kang Zi, the powerful prime minister of Confucius’ home state of Lu asked for advice on keeping people loyal to the realm, Confucius responded by asking the ruler to demonstrate filial piety and benignity ( ci 慈).

Confucius viewed moral and ethical principles not merely as personal matters, but as social assets. He profoundly believed social harmony ultimately relies on virtuous citizens rather than sophisticated institutions.

In the ideas of Confucius, the most important moral principle is ren 仁, a concept that can hardly be translated into English without losing some of its meaning.

Like filial piety, ren is manifested in the love and respect one has for others. But ren is not restricted among family members and does not rely on blood or kinship. Ren guides people to follow their conscience. People with ren have strong compassion and empathy towards others.

Translators arguing for a single English equivalent for ren have attempted to interpret the concept as “benevolence”, “humanity”, “humanness” and “goodness”, none of which quite capture the full significance of the term.

The challenge in translating ren is not a linguistic one. Although the concept appears more than 100 times in the Analects, Confucius did not give one neat definition. Instead, he explained the term in many different ways.

As summarised by China historian Daniel Gardner , Confucius defined ren as:

to love others, to subdue the self and return to ritual propriety, to be respectful, tolerant, trustworthy, diligent, and kind, to be possessed of courage, to be free from worry, or to be resolute and firm.

Instead of searching for an explicit definition of ren , it is perhaps wise to view the concept as an ideal type of the highest and ultimate virtue Confucius believed good people should pursue.

Relevance in contemporary China

Confucius’ thinking hs had a profound impact on almost every great Chinese thinker since. Based upon his ideas, Mencius (372–289 BCE) and Xunzi (c310–c235 BCE) developed different schools of thought within the system of Confucianism.

Arguing against these ideas, Mohism (4th century BCE), Daoism (4th century BCE), Legalism (3rd century BCE) and many other influential systems of thought emerged in the 400 years after Confucius’ time, going on to shape many aspects of the Chinese civilisation in the last two millennia.

Modern China has a complicated relationship with Confucius and his ideas.

Since the early 20th century, many intellectuals influenced by western thought started denouncing Confucianism as the reason for China’s national humiliations since the first Opium War (1839-42).

Confucius received fierce criticism from both liberals and Marxists .

Hu Shih , a leader of China’s New Culture Movement in the 1910s and 1920s and an alumnus of Columbia University , advocated overthrowing the “House of Confucius”.

Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, also repeatedly denounced Confucius and Confucianism. Between 1973 and 1975, Mao devoted the last political campaign in his life against Confucianism.

Read more: To make sense of modern China, you simply can't ignore Marxism

Despite these fierce criticisms and harsh persecutions, Confucius’ ideas remain in the minds and hearts of many Chinese people, both in and outside China.

One prominent example is PC Chang , another Chinese alumnus of Columbia University, who was instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10 1948. Thanks to Chang’s efforts , the spirit of some most essential Confucian ideas, such as ren , was deeply embedded in the Declaration.

Today, many Chinese parents, as well as the Chinese state, are keen children be provided a more Confucian education .

In 2004, the Chinese government named its initiative of promoting language and culture overseas after Confucius, and its leadership has been enthusiastically embracing Confucius’ lessons to consolidate their legitimacy and ruling in the 21st century.

Read more: Explainer: what are Confucius Institutes and do they teach Chinese propaganda?

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Confucianism.

Confucianism is one of the most influential religious philosophies in the history of China, and it has existed for over 2,500 years. It is concerned with inner virtue, morality, and respect for the community and its values.

Religion, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Confucian Philosopher Mencius

Confucianism is an ancient Chinese belief system, which focuses on the importance of personal ethics and morality. Whether it is only or a philosophy or also a religion is debated.

Photograph by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images, taken from Myths and Legends of China

Confucianism is a philosophy and belief system from ancient China, which laid the foundation for much of Chinese culture. Confucius was a philosopher and teacher who lived from 551 to 479 B.C.E. His thoughts on ethics , good behavior, and moral character were written down by his disciples in several books, the most important being the Lunyu . Confucianism believes in ancestor worship and human-centered virtues for living a peaceful life. The golden rule of Confucianism is “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.” There is debate over if Confucianism is a religion. Confucianism is best understood as an ethical guide to life and living with strong character. Yet, Confucianism also began as a revival of an earlier religious tradition. There are no Confucian gods, and Confucius himself is worshipped as a spirit rather than a god. However, there are temples of Confucianism , which are places where important community and civic rituals happen. This debate remains unresolved and many people refer to Confucianism as both a religion and a philosophy. The main idea of Confucianism is the importance of having a good moral character, which can then affect the world around that person through the idea of “cosmic harmony.” If the emperor has moral perfection, his rule will be peaceful and benevolent. Natural disasters and conflict are the result of straying from the ancient teachings. This moral character is achieved through the virtue of ren, or “humanity,” which leads to more virtuous behaviours, such as respect, altruism , and humility. Confucius believed in the importance of education in order to create this virtuous character. He thought that people are essentially good yet may have strayed from the appropriate forms of conduct. Rituals in Confucianism were designed to bring about this respectful attitude and create a sense of community within a group. The idea of “ filial piety ,” or devotion to family, is key to Confucius thought. This devotion can take the form of ancestor worship, submission to parental authority, or the use of family metaphors, such as “son of heaven,” to describe the emperor and his government. The family was the most important group for Confucian ethics , and devotion to family could only strengthen the society surrounding it. While Confucius gave his name to Confucianism , he was not the first person to discuss many of the important concepts in Confucianism . Rather, he can be understood as someone concerned with the preservation of traditional Chinese knowledge from earlier thinkers. After Confucius’ death, several of his disciples compiled his wisdom and carried on his work. The most famous of these disciples were Mencius and Xunzi, both of whom developed Confucian thought further. Confucianism remains one of the most influential philosophies in China. During the Han Dynasty, emperor Wu Di (reigned 141–87 B.C.E.) made Confucianism the official state ideology. During this time, Confucius schools were established to teach Confucian ethics . Confucianism existed alongside Buddhism and Taoism for several centuries as one of the most important Chinese religions. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279 C.E.) the influence from Buddhism and Taoism brought about “Neo- Confucianism ,” which combined ideas from all three religions. However, in the Qing dynasty (1644–1912 C.E.), many scholars looked for a return to the older ideas of Confucianism , prompting a Confucian revival.

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17 Confucianism in Mainland China

Tongdong Bai is Professor of Philosophy and the director of an English-based MA program in Chinese philosophy at Fudan University in China. His publications in English include Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case (Princeton, 2019) and China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom (Zed Books, 2012).

• Published: 26 January 2023
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Although Confucianism has been on the defensive for much of the past 150 years, it has experienced renewal and growth in the past 40 years in mainland China. This essay will contextualize the attacks of Confucianism in the early People’s Republic of China, the beginnings of a Confucian revival in the 1980s, and the factors that have led to new modes of Confucianism in the past several decades, including works by the older generations and their students, the influence of Overseas New Confucianism, and since the new millennium, a growing minority among mainland Confucian sympathizers, the so-called Mainland New Confucians. This essay looks in particular at the Mainland New Confucianism, arguing that it may be more promising than Overseas New Confucianism in offering critical and constructive ideas relevant not only to China, but to the wider world.

Groundwork: The Republican Era

Through much of traditional Chinese history, Chinese considered themselves the center of the human civilization. There were occasional military defeats, usually by horse-riding nomads from the hinterlands, but to rule China, apparently, the conquerors had to adopt the Chinese way of politics and life. Confucianism, as the official ideology of the state for much of imperial China, was considered to contain “universal values,” values any civilized people would adopt. But this perception changed after defeats in the nineteenth century by Western powers and then the Japanese: this time, the conquerors seemed to prevail on account of better technologies, better political institutions, and even better culture. Confucianism was blamed as a root cause of a weak China, and to radicals, China needed to “smash down Confucianism” (打倒孔家店) in order to embrace democracy and science based on a new culture.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT/Kuomintang or GMD/Guomindang) that controlled China in the first half of the twentieth century was an anti-traditionalist and Leninist party. But in order to distinguish itself from the even more radical Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the KMT would sometimes present itself as the legitimate heir and a protector of the tradition, and Confucian institutions and values on the grassroots level were not intentionally attacked by the KMT. But many elites did attack the tradition. For example, though apparently a scholar of traditional subjects, Hu Shih 胡适 turned a living tradition into dead, museum objects with the slogan, “sorting out the old things of the [Chinese] nation” (整理国故). 1 This partly explains an apparently paradoxical phenomenon in the greater China: many experts on Chinese traditions are themselves often staunch anti-traditionalists.

Fu Sinian 傅斯年, a follower of Hu, was openly hostile to a philosophical approach to Confucianism. It is partly due to his legacy that Academia Sinica (moved to Taiwan after 1949) did not have an Institute of Philosophy until the late 1980s. The contemporary scholar Zheng Jiadong郑家栋 argues that Fu was once interested in philosophy, and he changed his attitude because of his disgust toward the kind of philosophy he encountered, German philosophy. 2 Those who embraced the philosophical approach to Confucianism, interestingly, often shared Fu’s misplaced identity between (Western) philosophy and German philosophy. This legacy from the Republican era would shape the approach to Confucianism in the People’s Republic.

The Cultural Desert: The First Thirty Years in the People’s Republic

In 1949 the CCP took over China, and Confucianism was openly rejected as the “dross of feudal despotism” (封建专制的糟粕). Confucian institutions and values were thoroughly attacked at every level, culminating in the Cultural Revolution. Any attempt to approach Confucianism as a live and viable tradition was completely suppressed because only Marxism could be approached as such. 3 Liang Shuming梁漱溟 was a rare exception who fared better than other Confucians due to his close ties with Mao before the Communist takeover, and the fact that his idea of “village construction” (乡村建设) resonated somewhat with CCP’s agenda. But even he soon fell out of favor due to the personal and ideological conflicts with Mao and Maoist projects. Fung Yu-lan 冯友兰 (spelled as “Feng Youlan” in pinyin), an important Confucian philosopher in the twentieth century, had been invited to stay in the United States during a visit but rejected the offer because he felt that Confucianism was regarded as a curiosity item in a museum. 4 But soon after he returned in 1947, he could only study Confucianism through the “Marxist” lens as described by the Soviet and then Chinese authorities, that is, only as a dead object in the new “Marxist/Communist museum.” Even worse, this dead object was completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and Fung himself was involved in the destruction projects, such as the notorious liang xiao 梁效 group.

Generally speaking, in the first thirty years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), any study of Chinese philosophy had to use the “two pairs of opposites” method introduced by the Soviet ideologue Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov, and as a result, the history of Chinese philosophy was analyzed and reconstructed as battles between materialism and idealism, and between dialectics and metaphysics. 5 The linguistic, classical, and historical studies of Confucianism fared a little better, because most of them already took Confucianism as a dead (and bad) object in a museum from a previous age, and these studies became a not-so-green oasis in an otherwise cultural desert. The philosophically minded could retreat to the study of German idealism, one of the few areas of philosophy the authority deemed important because of its close connection to Marxism. As mentioned earlier, “Western philosophy” was already identified with German philosophy, and this move reinforced that idea, laying ground of a biased philosophical approach to Chinese philosophy that has lasted beyond Mao.

The Return of Old Scholars and Old Traditions: The 1980s and 1990s

“I have had few achievements in my life; the only one is that I have survived.” These words were spoken by Zhang Dainian 张岱年, a relative of Fung Yu-lan and an important scholar of Chinese philosophy, in a conference celebrating his scholarly achievements. 6 The humor, the sadness, and the repressed anger is palpable, and this dry understatement vividly reflects the fate of Confucian scholarship during the Mao era. 7

After Mao’s death, universities were reopened after being almost completely shut down during the Cultural Revolution. Older scholars such as Zhang could teach the next generation of Confucian scholars and intellectuals. Many works from the Republican era were republished, such as Zhang’s An Outline of Chinese Philosophy 中国哲学大纲; some new works were written to redress what they were forced to say during the Mao era, such as Fung’s volume 7 of The New History of Chinese Philosophy 中国哲学史新编. Other scholars, such as Jin Jingfang金景芳, Pang Pu庞朴, and Li Zehou李泽厚, criticized how Confucianism was treated and “studied” in the Mao era, and suggested new methods of studies. 8

However, the dominant mood among intellectuals in the 1980s was “re-Enlightenment,” which meant re-Westernization or re-modernization and another round of attacks on Chinese traditions. 9 The latter were and still are vilified as the root cause of the Cultural Revolution, the consummation of anti-traditional movements in China, as well as other ills of contemporary China, despite the fact that these traditions have been vehemently attacked for the past 150 years!

There was, however, a dramatic shift, a highly visible revival of Confucianism in the 1990s. The Westernization movement was suppressed by the state after 1989, and many Chinese pro-Western “liberals” became disillusioned. 10 The latter once had a rosy image of a benevolent West that has no national interests and only wants to promote democracy for those suffering in authoritarian or despotic regimes, and they were shocked to see that, for example, instead of helping the ordinary Russians who were suffering, the Western nations apparently took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union, regarding only their own national interests. With Maoism challenged in the 1980s, and Western values suppressed or questioned in the 1990s, China faced a spiritual and political vacuum. At the same time, China’s economy was rising fast, and this rise, together with the economic rise of East Asia, challenged the Weberian thesis that Protestantism was crucial for capitalism and economic development, while Confucianism was an obstacle. The democratization of Taiwan and South Korea—two societies that have better preserved Confucian values than mainland China—challenged the Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations” thesis. These developments removed the stigma placed on Confucianism, and gave a new-found confidence in Chinese traditions.

A variety of events during the 1980s and 1990s also contributed to the Confucian revival, including governmental and quasi-governmental organized conferences promoting Confucianism. For example, Tang Yijie 汤一介 and others established centers sponsoring conferences and public events, and published journals that some point to as the beginning of the guo xue 国学 (national/traditional learnings) wave. 11

To those who believe that the Western way is the only way and thus any suggestion of an alternative must have a nefarious agenda, this revival is the result of governmental manipulation of a credulous public by promoting a thinly disguised nationalism after the collapse of Maoism. But this suspicion is one-sided because there are also innate factors that lead people to embrace Confucianism, as I have argued. Even in terms of manipulation, a tug of war is still going on, and the manipulators can eventually become the manipulated if governmental promotion helps scholars to present and people to embrace a kind of Confucianism that the government finds inconvenient but has to accept due to its popularity.

Introduction of Overseas New Confucianism

In the Confucian revival, one group of scholars were instructed or inspired by the works of scholars from the previous generation such as Fung Yu-lan, Zhang Dainian, Jin Yuelin 金岳霖, and He Lin 贺麟. Scholars in this group include Tang Yijie 汤一介, Feng Qi 冯契, Zhang Liwen 张立文, Meng Peiyuan 蒙培元, Yu Dunkang 余敦康, Feng Dawen 冯达文, and Wang Shuren 王树人. 12 Because of the disruption of higher education during the Cultural Revolution, these scholars were part of a very small group of doctoral advisers in the 1990s, producing the majority of scholars for more than a decade. Their exposure to and engagement with wider philosophical conversations, particularly with the West, is often limited, and as a result, to anyone trained in philosophy from the West their works can appear incomprehensible or simplistic—for example, claiming that environmental issues can be solved by the Confucian idea of the unity between Heaven and the human. 13

Another group of scholars continued the earlier generations’ work in intellectual history, which was somewhat permitted in the Mao era. A leading scholar in this group is Chen Lai 陈来, whose works on the intellectual history of Confucianism, especially Neo-Confucianism, have been considered authoritative. While these works clearly contribute to the Confucian revival, they are more an intellectual history than philosophy. 14

But Confucianism is a challenging topic, particularly when it is approached as a live and still viable tradition, and isolation from the global academic community under Mao only intensified this problem. For this reason Overseas New Confucianism ( hai wai or gang tai xin ru jia 海外/港台新儒家) has played a significant role in the Confucian revival in the mainland: it was not suppressed by the Hong Kong and Taiwanese governments, and it is concerned with the issue of the relevance of Confucianism to today’s world.

The seed for the influence of Overseas New Confucianism in the PRC was planted in the 1980s. Tu Weiming 杜维明, an important Overseas New Confucian, visited China, including Peking University. 15 Around the same time, Fang Keli 方克立, an orthodox Marxist in the PRC, and some of his students and colleagues focused on criticizing Overseas New Confucianism. 16 Though often hostile to Confucianism in its contemporary iterations, 17 their works, ironically, have contributed to the Confucian revival in mainland China through their introduction and discussion of Overseas New Confucianism. Some scholars from Fang’s camp have even “converted” and become defenders of Confucian values.

During the Confucian revival in the 1990s, Overseas New Confucianism became dominant among mainland scholars of Confucianism, and it has remained influential to today. Mainland scholars such as Guo Qiyong 郭齐勇, Yan Bingang 颜秉罡, and Jing Haifeng 景海峰 have played important roles in promoting Overseas New Confucianism in the mainland. But as was stated earlier, the model of philosophy for most thinkers in the Republican era was German philosophy, and Overseas New Confucianism has preserved this biased view of philosophy. Mou Zongsan’s 牟宗三 school of Confucianism draws heavily on Kant, and Lee Ming-hue 李明辉, an important Confucian philosopher from Mou’s school, has noted that the philosophical resources and inspirations for Overseas New Confucianism are continental philosophy, especially German idealism, with little attention paid to the Anglo-American tradition. 18 The importance of German idealism as an intellectual refuge under Mao facilitated the embrace of Overseas New Confucianism by mainland scholars.

Similar to May Fourth radicals, most Overseas New Confucians and their mainland followers are committed to the universal values of democracy and science. They differ in thinking that Confucianism, as a spiritual doctrine or a moral metaphysics, is not in conflict with democracy and science. Their criticisms of Western societies are limited to Western ethics and its social and cultural applications, not at fundamental political institutions. They reject traditional Chinese political regimes as feudalistic, authoritarian, and even despotic, and they link the political dimension of Confucianism to the defense of bad politics and rulers of traditional China. 19 Following this assessment it would be little more than perverse curiosity to take seriously the political aspect of Confucianism. Overseas New Confucians and their mainland followers thus look at Confucianism primarily from a moral-metaphysical perspective, and this focus on metaphysics is reinforced by the influence of German idealism. It limits and biases their understanding and reconstruction of Confucian traditions, and it also needs to justify itself against the anti-metaphysical and pluralistic challenges raised by many philosophers in the analytic tradition.

Rise of Mainland New Confucianism

A new form of Confucianism, Mainland New Confucianism or political Confucianism, has been a fast-growing minority among mainland Confucian sympathizers since the turn of the millennium. 20 The term could refer to the ideas of any mainland scholar sympathetic to Confucianism; 21 in this essay the term is used in contrast to Overseas New Confucianism, especially in the former’s focus on the political aspect of Confucianism rather than moral metaphysics. Thus, Mainland New Confucians are also called “political Confucians.” Overseas New Confucians also pay attention to the political implication of Confucianism, but they consider the latter to be derivative from their moral metaphysics. But Mainland New Confucians consider the political aspects of Confucianism equally fundamental, and some of them even argue that the moral metaphysics is secondary to the political, or even dispensable.

Mainland New Confucians also reject the conviction that traditional Chinese regimes are simply authoritarian and defend the merits of these regimes. This stance is intertwined with a critical attitude toward Western institutions. They illustrate and develop Confucian political elements to address the failings of Western democracy and the present world order, suggesting the application of Confucian political ideas even globally.

According to Zeng Hailong, the term “Mainland New Confucianism” was introduced by Fang Keli. According to Fang, an article by Jiang Qing 蒋庆, published, ironically, in the key Overseas New Confucian journal, E Hu 鹅湖, in Taiwan, entitled “The Practical Implications of Reviving Confucianism in Mainland China and the Problems It Faces” (中国大陆复兴儒学的现实意义及其面临的问题) (1989), should be considered a Mainland New Confucian manifesto, comparable to the far more famous 1958 Overseas New Confucian one, “A Manifesto to All People in the World on Behalf of Chinese Culture” (为中国文化敬告世界人士宣言). He also noticed the important role of Yuan Dao 原道 for this newly emerging group. 22 At first, Fang didn’t distinguish between the Overseas and Mainland New Confucians: to him, both groups are culturally conservative, of which he, an “old-guard” Marxist, is highly critical. 23

In 2004, a Confucian-style symposium ( hui jiang 会讲) with four main speakers took place at a Confucian-style academy, Yang Ming Jing She 阳明精舍 in Guizhou province, an academy founded by Jiang Qing. Now Fang noted the difference between Mainland and Overseas New Confucians: the shift from xin-xing 心性 (moral-metaphysical) Confucianism to political Confucianism, and from the revival of Confucianism as a teaching ( ru xue 儒学) to the revival of Confucianism as a religion ( ru jiao 儒教). 24 This observation is incisive, but Fang still fails to make it explicit that rather than focusing on merely private moral cultivation, Mainland New Confucianism is centered on the importance of Confucianism in the public sphere.

Many Mainland New Confucians have been inspired or influenced by Jiang Qing. Jiang used a lot of the Gongyang Commentaries (春秋公羊传) in his version of Confucianism, and identified with “New Text Confucianism” ( jin wen jing xue 今文经学). 25 In this he followed Kang Youwei 康有为, a late Qing and early Republican Confucian who used the same resources. For this reason, some Mainland New Confucians are referred to as members of the New Kang Youwei School (新康有为主义者) or more jokingly, as Kang Party members (康党).

There has been a conflation of Jiang’s group with Mainland New Confucians in general. Even within the “Kang Party,” there are intellectuals with different and even mutually incompatible agendas (Kang Youwei himself had incoherent and often changing agendas). Younger scholars such as Zeng Yi 曾亦 and Chen Bisheng 陈壁生 focus more on Kang Youwei’s so-called jing xue 经学 approach—a particular and controversial kind of hermeneutic approach—to Confucian canons. Like Jiang, Zeng focuses more on its institutional implications; Chen centers on the scholarly studies of this approach to Confucianism. Gan Chunsong 干春松, a former student of Fang Keli’s, engages in the institutional and political implications of Confucianism, particularly Kang Youwei’s thought, but is far more liberal than Jiang. Together with Tang Wenming 唐文明 and Chen Ming, Gan also focuses on the issue of Confucian religion, kong jiao 孔教, another issue introduced by Kang Youwei. Gan and Chen take jiao more as jiao hua 教化 (transformation through moral and civil teachings), or “civil religion” ( gong ming zong jiao 公民宗教), whereas Tang uses the term jiao more in line with religions such as Christianity.

Other political Confucians have little to do with either Kang or Jiang. Chen Ming, one of the four speakers in the 2004 Confucian symposium and a member of the New Kang Youwei School, had his original point of contact with political Confucianism not via Jiang; he was a student of the aforementioned scholar Yu Dunkang. Two others from the 2004 symposium are even less connected with Jiang. With a background in statistics, Kang Xiaoguang 康晓光 has done works in polling and social analysis, and he has been involved with charity organizations. He brings Confucian concerns to this work and is more an activist than a theorist.

Sheng Hong 盛洪was trained as a Hayekian economist, and the executive director of the Unirule Institute of Economics, a pro-free-market think-tank that had been recently disbanded by the government. He has argued that Confucianism is in line with Hayekian free-market economy, and Confucian ideas and practices make economic sense. Pro-market Chinese intellectuals are usually critical of traditional Chinese society, and thus Sheng is quite unusual. Another important Mainland New Confucian, Yao Zhongqiu 姚中秋, also known as Qiu Feng秋风, was likewise a member of the Unirule Institute and a translator of Friedrich Hayek’s works, although he has recently become a vocal defender of the Chinese state. A student of Hayek’s who fled to Taiwan after the communist takeover, Zhou Dewei 周德伟, was also highly sympathetic to Confucianism. The Hayekian connection with Confucianism and the economic perspective on Confucianism that is brought by Sheng Hong and others is refreshing, further broadening the “Way” of Confucianism.

A minority group within Mainland New Confucianism is the “Qian Party” (钱党), a label half-jokingly coined by me in a conference that was seen as the official debut of the New Kang Youwei School. Several at the conference were not influenced by Jiang or Kang, but admired the works of the Chinese historian Qian Mu 钱穆, thus the coining of this term. In this group, Ren Feng 任锋is an expert on the Zhe Dong 浙东 School of Confucianism and other more politically and socially oriented Confucians in later imperial China. My own scholarship came to align with political Confucianism partly through my appreciation of John Rawl’s defense of pluralism, a conviction of the limit and even futility of any attempt to reconstruct moral metaphysics that is meant to have a broader appeal, and my early ideas about Confucian political institutions were inspired by the work of Daniel Bell. In spite of the different foci, both Ren and I (as well as other members of the Qian Party) found connections between our works and Qian’s analysis of and charitable attitude toward traditional Chinese political regimes.

Many Mainland New Confucians from the “Kang Party” are ultra-conservative, comparable to the religious ultra-conservatives in the West, while “Qian Party” members tend to be more liberal and less anti-Western. For example, when news spread to China that Justice Kennedy had quoted Confucius in the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion that legalized same-sex marriages, many Kang Party members were furious, calling homosexuality an “abomination.” 26 Some are also strongly nationalistic and anti-Western, and their anti-Western attitude and claims are often a mirror image of the claims of anti-traditional radicals, whom they condemn, in that they claim that “West is bad, and China is good” as frivolously as the radicals claim “China is bad, and West is good.” Some Mainland New Confucians are hostile to a philosophical approach to Confucianism. As indicated above, the “philosophy” to which they object has been heavily influenced by German idealism. It is likely that the Mainland New Confucians are, unwittingly, merely objecting to this biased version of philosophy. 27

Two more thinkers important to the Confucian revival in mainland China are difficult to categorize in the framework presented here. Li Zehou’s 1980 article, mentioned earlier, calling for a reevaluation of Confucius was quite influential at the time; he is also a very vocal critic of Overseas New Confucians’ neglect of the political dimension of Confucianism. However, his constructive works on Confucianism have drawn on intellectual resources such as Marxism and more recent developments in moral psychology and evolutionary ethics. Zhang Xianglong 张祥龙 was trained in the U.S. with a focus on Heidegger. He is not a follower of Overseas New Confucianism, but he is not as a vocal critic of it as Li. Drawing on Heidegger and continental philosophy, Zhang offers Confucianism-inspired philosophical evaluations of Chinese history and other social and political issues, and makes his own practical proposals. His sympathy to traditional Chinese culture and institutions, his critical attitude toward the West, and his effort at offering practical proposals would align him with Mainland New Confucians except for his reliance on Heideggerian metaphysics. 28

In addition to political Confucians and Confucians who are influenced by Overseas New Confucians, other Confucian sympathizers have also promoted Confucianism in society among the common people ( min jian ru xue 民间儒学). 29 The difference, if any, is that for the former, this work is important because the social is part of the political and the institutional, while for the latter, this work is important because the political situations can only be improved if we improve the morals of the individuals in a society.

In spite of the aforementioned problems it would seem that Mainland New Confucianism, including works by Li Zehou and Zhang Xianglong, is more promising than Overseas New Confucianism and its mainland followers’ ideas. The latter appears to be “cheerleading” Western political, scientific, and technological institutions, and only defending Confucianism on the moral-metaphysical ground, which is doomed to be merely one of many comprehensive doctrines in a pluralistic society. When liberal democracy and pluralism become a social reality, this version of New Confucianism has little left to address, which is perhaps why Overseas New Confucianism has little influence in already democratized and pluralistic Taiwan. In contrast, Mainland New Confucians, whatever their deficiencies, work to engage the West in the political, economic, and social fields, making it more likely to offer “universalizable” answers to globally shared issues.

Acknowledgments

The research for this chapter is supported by the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar, second term) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning.

1. Here I borrow the metaphor of the sinologist Joseph Levenson, who claimed that Confucianism has undergone a “museumization” in the past hundred or more years; Joseph R. Levenson , Confucian China and Its Modern Fate (Berkeley: University of California Press,1968), 160 .

2.   Zheng, Jiadong 郑家栋, “Writing ‘History of Chinese Philosophy’ and the Modern Dilemma of Traditional Chinese Thought” ‘中国哲学史’写作与中国思想传统的现代困境, Renmin University Journal , no. 3 (2004), 4 . Many of the works I refer to in this article are in Chinese, and I won’t list them in the Bibliography. They can be found by searching for the scholars who are mentioned in this chapter or in one of the following review articles: Cunshan Li 李存山, “Forty Years of the Studies of Chinese Philosophy” 中国哲学研究四十年, in Chinese Philosophical Almanac 中国哲学年鉴 (Beijing: China Social Science Press, 2018), 22–29 ; and Qiyong Guo 郭齐勇 and Xiaowei Liao 廖晓炜, “Confucian Studies in the Forty Years of China’s Reform and Opening-Up” 改革开放四十年儒学研究, Confucian Academy: Chinese Thought and Culture Review 孔学堂·中国思想文化评论5 (3 September 2018), 5–14 [Chinese] and 6–15 [English].

See also Li, “Forty Years.”

4.   Youlan Feng , The Complete Collections of San Song Tang 三松堂全集 (2nd ed.) (Zhengzhou: Henan Renmin 2001), vol. 1, 108 .

Li, “Forty Years.”

6. Zhang was a professor at Peking University when I studied there, and this line was reported to us by a teacher whose class I was taking. It was also mentioned in Ding Yin 殷鼎, Fung Yu-lan 冯友兰 (Taipei: Dong Da Press 东大图书公司, 1991), 5 . Yin said that it was a claim made in a conference dedicated to the sixty-year anniversary of Zhang’s teaching. According to Chen Lai陈来, Zhang started teaching in 1933 ( https://phil.pku.edu.cn/xwgg/xzxw/xzdt/491194.htm ), and the sixty-year anniversary would take place in the year of 1993, two years after the publication of Yin’s book. It is likely that Yin made a mistake here.

There are two excellent reviews (in Chinese) of the fate of Confucianism in the last forty years in China: Li, “Forty Years” and Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies.” Many of their observations resonate with mine, and they (especially Guo and Liao) contain a large number of references, including earlier reviews of similar nature (over shorter periods), in Chinese. The journal that publishes Guo and Liao includes English translations of all the articles in the same issue, so readers who don’t read Chinese can read the English version of this article. In this chapter, I use the page numbers of the Chinese version of this article. In spite of the agreements, this chapter is more critical of the role of German philosophy in the field of Chinese philosophy, Confucianism included, and of Overseas New Confucianism. I also give more space to the discussion of the so-called Mainland New Confucianism, with more charity than Guo and Liao (Li mostly ignores this trend).

See Li, “Forty Years” and Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies” for more details. Guo and Liao stated that Li Zehou’s article “Reevaluating Confucius” was the most influential in this group of articles (ibid., 6).

Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies” has a similar observation (6–7).

I put “liberals” in quotation marks because they are not liberals in the American sense, but are simply pro-democracy and pro-Western.

  Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies,” 6–8.

Interested readers can either search for their names, or see Li, “Forty Years” and Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies” for works done by these scholars.

13. For a criticism of this alleged solution, see Tongdong Bai , “Will the Idea of the Unity between Heaven and Man Solve Environmental Problems? A Chinese Philosophical Reflection on Climate Change” 天人合一能够解决环境问题么？--气候变化的政治模式反思, Exploration and Free Views 探索与争鸣, no. 12 (2015), 59–62 .

In 2014, Chen Lai published a book, Ren Xue Ben Ti Lun 仁学本体论, which marked his attempt to construct a Confucianism-based philosophical system.

See also Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies,” 7.

16.   Ibid.

Some people in his camp are hostile to Confucianism not necessarily from a Marxist perspective, but from a general pro-Western and anti-traditional “liberal” perspective.

18.   Ming-huei Lee , Political Thoughts through Confucian Lens 儒家视野下的政治思想 (Taipei: National Taiwan University’s Publication Center 国立台湾大学出版中心, 2005), vii and 35.

19. See Liu Shuxian刘述先’s criticism of the “politicized Confucians” in, for example, Shuxian Liu , On the Three Epochs of Confucian Philosophy 论儒家哲学的三大时代 (Guiyang: Guizhou People’s Press 2009), 3 and 50.

20. There have been more and more discussions of Mainland New Confucianism in Chinese, but many, if not most, of them are very biased or downright hostile (see, for example, Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies,” 10–12). For a relatively balanced and detailed review, see Hailong Zeng 曾海龙, “From Modern Confucianism to Mainland New Confucianism—with a Focus on the New Kang Youwei School” 从现代新儒家到大陆新儒家—以“新康有为主义”为中心的考察, Guo Ji Ru Xue Lun Cong 国际儒学论丛, no. 2 (2017), 19–39 (also available on https://www.rujiazg.com/article/13066 ). It is, however, focused on the “New Kang Youwei School” of Mainland New Confucianism and doesn’t offer a more comprehensive picture of this new trend.

21. This is how, for example, Guo Qiyong defines this term. See Guo , “An Overview of Contemporary New Confucian Trends” 当代新儒学思潮概览, People’s Daily (11 September 2016) .

This is a journal founded in 1994 by Chen Ming 陈明, who would be later labeled as a Mainland New Confucian.

This discussion can be found in Zeng, “From Modern Confucianism,” 23.

Zeng, “From Modern Confucianism,” 22–23. More discussion of “ ru jiao ” will be found later in this section.

25. For an overview of Jiang’s work on Confucian constitutionalism and some critical reviews (including my own), see Daniel Bell and Fan Ruiping (eds.), A Confucian Constitutional Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012) .

26. For some references and a Confucian endorsement of the same-sex marriage, see Tongdong Bai , “Confucianism and Same-Sex Marriage,” Politics and Religion 14, no. 1 (March 2021), 132–158, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048320000139 .

27. For a detailed analysis of the contrast between the “Kang Party” and the “Qian Party,” the criticisms of the approach of the former, and a defense of the (political) philosophical approach, see Tongdong Bai , “ Jing Xue or Zi Xue —Reflections on How to Revive Political Confucianism” 经学还是子学—对政治儒学复兴之路的一些思考 (rev. and enl.), Philosophical Review 哲学评论 22 (2019), 1–32 .

There are some other mainland Confucian intellectuals I fail to cover in this short chapter. For example, Huang Yushun 黄玉顺 was also inspired by Heidegger and has developed his own version of Confucianism, “life Confucianism” 生活儒学.

Guo Qiyong is an example of the latter. See Guo and Liao, “Confucian Studies,” 8.

Selected Bibliography

Bai, Tongdong白彤东 . “Will the Idea of the Unity between Heaven and Man Solve Environmental Problems? A Chinese Philosophical Reflection on Climate Change ” 天人合一能够解决环境问题么？--气候变化的政治模式反思, Exploration and Free Views 探索与争鸣, no. 12 ( 2015 ), 59–62.

Bai, Tongdong 白彤东. “ Jing Xue or Zi Xue —Reflections on How to Revive Political Confucianism” 经学还是子学—对政治儒学复兴之路的一些思考” (rev. and enl.), Philosophical Review 哲学评论 22 ( 2019 ), 1–32.

Bai, Tongdong 白彤东. “ Jing Xue or Zi Xue —Reflections on How to Revive Political Confucianism” 经学还是子学—政治儒学复兴应选择何种途径, Exploration and Free Views 探索与争鸣, no. 1 (2018), 67–71. [This is an earlier version of Bai (2019).]

Bai, Tongdong 白彤东. “ How Should Confucians View the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriages? ” Politics and Religion 14, no. 1 (March 2021), 132–158, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048320000139 .

Bell, Daniel and Fan Ruiping , eds. A Confucian Constitutional Order . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012 .

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Fung, Yu-lan [Feng, Youlan] 冯友兰. The Complete Collections of San Song Tang 三松堂全集 (2nd ed.). Zhengzhou: Henan Renmin Press, 2001 .

Guo, Qiyong 郭齐勇. “An Overview of Contemporary New Confucian Trends” 当代新儒学思潮概览, People’s Daily , September 11, 2016.

Guo, Qiyong 郭齐勇 and Xiaowei Liao 廖晓炜. “Confucian Studies in the Forty Years of China’s Reform and Opening-Up” 改革开放四十年儒学研究, Confucian Academy: Chinese Thought and Culture Review 《孔学堂·中国思想文化评论》 5, no. 3 (September 2018), 5–14 [Chinese] and 6–15 [English].

Levenson, Joseph R.   Confucian China and Its Modern Fate . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968 .

Li, Cunshan 李存山. “Forty Years of the Studies of Chinese Philosophy” 中国哲学研究四十年, in Chinese Philosophical Almanac 中国哲学年鉴, 22–29. Beijing: China Social Science Press, 2018 .

Li, Minghui [ Lee, Ming-huei ] 李明辉. Political Thoughts through Confucian Lens 儒家视野下的政治思想. Taipei: National Taiwan University’s Publication Center 国立台湾大学出版中心, 2005 .

Liu, Shuxian 刘述先. On the Three Epochs of Confucian Philosophy 论儒家这些的三大时代. Guiyang: Guizhou People’s Press, 2009 .

Yin, Ding 殷鼎. Fung Yu-lan 冯友兰. Taipei: Dong Da Press东大图书公司, 1991 .

Zeng, Hailong 曾海龙 . “From Modern Confucianism to Mainland New Confucianism—with a Focus on the New Kang Youwei School” 从现代新儒家到大陆新儒家—以“新康有为主义”为中心的考察, Guo Ji Ru Xue Lun Cong 国际儒学论丛, no. 2 ( 2017 ), 19–39. Also available on: https://www.rujiazg.com/article/13066 accessed on March 3, 2019.

Zheng, Jiadong 郑家栋, “ Writing ‘History of Chinese Philosophy’ and the Modern Dilemma of Traditional Chinese Thought ” 中国哲学史’写作与中国思想传统的现代困境, Renmin University Journal , no. 3 ( 2004 ), 2–11.

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• Confucianism

The Scholarly Tradition

The tradition described by the neologism “Confucianism,” first used by European scholars in the 19th century, is rooted in the “The Scholarly Tradition,” of which Confucius is the most well-known practitioner. Some scholars argue that the tradition is a humanistic system of ethics, emphasizing the purification of one’s heart and mind to actively engage in familial and societal matters. Others argue that Confucianism is indeed a humanistic religious tradition, since the completion of moral cultivation is said to lead to cosmological and spiritual transcendence. ... Read more about The Scholarly Tradition

“Confucius and Sons” in America

Confucian teaching and interpretation largely became based on four key texts called The Four Books: Analects , Book of Mencius , Great Learning , and Doctrine of the Mean . East Asian immigrant communities in the United States differ in the way they view Confucian teachings: Some deem the teachings irrelevant for scientific society and democratic governance, while others uphold the teachings as an integral component of their cultural traditions. ... Read more about “Confucius and Sons” in America

To Become a Sage

To find expressions of Confucian values in the United States one must look not so much at explicit ceremonial activities, but at underlying motives as they surface in everyday life. Confucian values are often expressed among many East Asian immigrants through an emphasis on education, family cohesiveness, and self-abnegation in support of others. ... Read more about To Become a Sage

The 21st Century: A Confucian Revival?

The late 20th century saw the rise of organizations that promote Confucianism in the United States and abroad. In 2004, for instance, the Chinese government opened the Confucius Institute, a partnership with many institutions to teach Chinese language, culture, and literature. In the United States, Boston Confucianism is a growing intellectual movement that asserts that anyone, not only East Asians, can participate and learn from the Confucian tradition. ... Read more about The 21st Century: A Confucian Revival?

Confucian figures should take part in creating peaceful election: VP

Women of the red dragon: chinese mythology as a catalyst for feminism, game changer: how mahjong helped jewish and asian americans overcome racism.

• Confucius Institute
• Boston Confucianism
• Five Classics

Confucianism Timeline

93d47c446711dda147dd775e4558d38c, confucianism timeline (text), 551 - 479 bce the life of confucius.

Confucius, also known as Kung Fuzi or Master Kong, was born in Qufu in 551 BCE. He emerged during the Warring States Period: a tumultuous time in Chinese history surrounding the collapse of the central government of the Zhou Dynasty. Confucius offered a way to help people make sense of the turmoil, by committing themselves to their local communities, families, schools, and political structures. Alongside the preservation of traditional rituals, he taught humaneness, moral and spiritual reformation, and cultivation of good virtues. Although most public leaders disregarded his teachings, Confucius taught a significant group of disciples who went on to spread his message. While Confucius today is often said to be the founder of Confucianism, he considered himself more of a transmitter or revitalizer of the original Zhou traditions, aiming to restore a just government and create a healthy, moral society. He died in 479 BCE.

479 BCE Temple of Confucius in Qufu

A Temple of Confucius was built in Confucius’ hometown, Qufu, nearly one year after his death in 479 BCE. The Temple has been expanded and re-built since then, and is today the oldest and largest Temple of Confucius.

ca. 500 BCE The Analects

The Analects was compiled around this time. It is the most-revered sacred scripture within the Confucian tradition and contains primarily Confucius’ sayings and teachings. It was likely developed as a corpus of the memory of Confucius by his disciples in the generations after his lifetime to transmit his teachings.

371- 289 BCE Mencius

Mencius, also known as Meng Tzu or Mengzi, is the second most important figure in Confucianism, hence his title “the Second Sage.” He was a moral philosopher, political activist, and social critic. His conversations with rulers, students, and other contemporaries regarding Confucian teachings are recorded in a work entitled Mencius, which was later canonized as one of the Four Books of the Confucian Canon.

ca. 300 BCE - 235 BCE The Life of Xunzi

Xunzi (Hun Kuang) is the last of the Five Great Sages of Confucianism. As a scholar, his interpretations of the Confucian philosophical system helped establish the Confucian school as a formidable political and social influence.

213 BCE Burning of the Books and Burying of Scholars

While the details of this event are uncertain, it is said that under a royal decree of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, many books opposing the Legalist school of thought (a rival of Confucianism) were confiscated and burned, and many Confucian scholars were executed. This led to a loss in the preservation of Confucian classics, which were only recovered and re-propagated several decades later during the Han Dynasty. Some believe that the sixth classic, The Book of Music, was completely lost in this event.

206 BCE - 202 CE The Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty arose amidst a flourishing of Confucian thought and practice. Han Emperor Wu (141 BCE - 87 CE) abandoned Legalism in favor of Confucianism, which he established as state philosophy. As the empire expanded into Korean and Vietnamese territory, two schools of thought emerged: the Old Text School, entailing study of the classical canon and early figures, and the New Text School, which infuses theories of yin/yang, the Five Elements, and miraculous tales in order to emphasize supernatural notions of early texts and figures.

136 BCE Emperor Wu Establishes First Confucian Academy

During the Han Dynasty, Confucian ideals became deeply embedded into the government and legal system. As part of his efforts to adopt and promote Confucian thought, the Han Emperor Wu established an imperial university based on Confucian texts for teaching future state administrators. He also introduced the civil service examination, a mandatory exam on Confucian classics for all candidates for local office. This practice of requiring that applicants for government positions pass an examination in Confucian texts persisted until the 20th century.

136 BCE Formation of the Five Classics

In 136 BCE, Emperor Han, under direction of Confucian scholar Tung Chung-shu (179-104 BCE), grouped the Five Classics together to form the earliest canon of the Confucian tradition. The Five Classics are: I Ching (Book of Changes), Classic of Poetry, Book of Rites, Book of Documents, and Spring and Autumn Annals. According to tradition, Confucius wrote or compiled the Five Classics during his lifetime. Though there is little evidence of this, Confucius’ ideas may be reflected in some of the texts.

175 CE The Five Classics Become China’s Official Scriptures

Due to the anti-Confucian policies of the Qin Dynasty, Confucian scholars during the Han Dynasty worked to recover and restore the Confucian Classics. Their efforts culminated in the Five Classics being carved on stone tablets and displayed in the capital. This event symbolized both the finalization of the orthodox Confucian Canon and its adoption as China’s official scripture.

372 CE National Confucian Academy Established in Korea

Confucianism began to spread throughout the Korean peninsula in the 3rd century CE. Goguryeo (Koguryo) was one of the three major kingdoms that ruled the Korean peninsula from the 1st century BCE to the 7th century CE. In 372 CE, King Sosurim of Goguryeo established the Tae Hak (“Great Learning”), a national academy for the study and training of elites in Confucian thought and practice.

489 CE First Northern Confucian Temple Outside of Qufu

The first northern Confucian temple outside of Confucius’ hometown (Qufu) is built by King Xiaowen of the Northern Wei in China.

604 CE The 17 Article Constitution

Though Confucianism is said to have been first introduced to Japan by Wani of Paekche (of Korea) at the end of the 3rd century CE, it did not gain wider prominence until the 6th and 7th centuries. In 604 CE, Prince Shotoku Taishi established a 17 Article Constitution for the ruling class based on Buddhist and Confucian thought, especially the Analects of Confucius. It emphasized the responsibilities of both the sovereign and the ruled for a unified and harmonious state.

618 - 906 CE The Tang Dynasty

To promote the growth of education in Confucian thought and values, the Tang Dynasty established many schools and issued versions of the Five Classics that included commentaries. In 630 CE, The Tang government decreed that all schools should have a Confucian temple, leading to a rapid spread in Confucian temples throughout China. The Dynasty also developed official liturgy for worship and sacrifices at these temples.

682 CE Confucianism and Government in Korea

A National Confucian Academy was built in the United Silla Kingdom (Korea) in 682 CE. In 788, the Kingdom introduced an exam for state administrators based on Confucianism, though the exam initially had little effect on government. In 958 CE, the exams would become more influential and systematic under King Gwangjong of the Goryeo Kingdom.

700s CE - 1130 CE Neo-Confucianism in China

Neo-Confucianism began to develop as a response to Buddhism and Daoism in China. The first formulators included Han Yu (768-824 CE), Li Ao (772-841 CE), and later Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073), as well as its most important synthesizer, Zhu Xi (1130-1200). Thanks to Zhu Xi’s work, Neo-Confucianism was later adopted as the orthodox and state religion of China. The thinkers of the Confucian revival developed a comprehensive humanist vision that meshed Confucian ideas about self-cultivation with social ethics and moral philosophy. This Neo-Confucian philosophy applied classical Confucian principles to the concerns of the time.

1100s CE Neo-Confucianism in Japan

Neo-Confucian thought commentaries were introduced in Japan in the late medieval period. However, as a form of thought, Neo-Confucianism did not become prominent in Japan until the seventeenth century CE.

Late 1200s CE Neo-Confucianism Introduced to the Korean Peninsula

As a result of the efforts of An Hyang, a leading Confucian scholar, Neo-Confucianism was introduced to the Goryeo kingdom in the Korean peninsula. With the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Confucian thought and values began to take on even greater significance in Korean culture and government.

1313 CE The Four Books in China

The Four Books (Analects, Book of Mencius, Great Learning, and Doctrine of the Mean) became state orthodoxy of China in 1313 CE, when they were designated as the basis for Chinese civil service examinations.

1392 CE Confucianism Becomes State Religion of Korea

Though the Goryeo kingdom adopted Buddhism as its state orthodoxy, the Sejong and Joseon kingdoms adopted Neo-Confucianism as state religion and the official code of practice for administrators. This largely occurred as a result of the rise of Neo-Confucianism and the efforts of its scholars. During this time, Confucian values became strongly ingrained in Korean politics, culture, legal practice, education, and activism — a tradition that persists today in South Korea.

Late 1400s CE onward Wang Yang-Ming and the Lu-Wang School

Wang Yang-Ming, born in 1472, became the leading Neo-Confucian of the Ming dynasty. He played a significant role in reviving the philosophy of Lu Jiuyuan, leading to the development of the school of the universal mind, or the Lu-Wang school. His Neo-Confucian school of thought emphasized moral education and every human’s innate knowledge of good (liangzhi). The Lu-Wang school’s influence spread beyond China, becoming especially influential in Japan.

1603 CE Government Based on Neo-Confucian Thought in Japan

Japan’s Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu established a bureaucratic government that drew inspiration from some Neo-Confucian teachings.

1644 CE - 1912 CE The Qing Dynasty and New Schools

During the Qing Dynasty, new schools of Confucianism began to emerge, including Shih Hsueh (Practical Learning), which focuses on moral learning and addressing worldly issues, and Kao Cheng (Evidential Research) which focuses on the study of the canonical texts.

1800s CE Confucianism Syncretizing with Various East Asian Traditions

The growth of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Daoism, shamanism, and Shinto in East Asia did not undermine the continuing relevance and strength of Confucianism in many aspects of life -- including government, ritual, family life, ethics, and education. Rather, Confucian values coexisted and syncretized with other East Asian traditions.

1830 - early 1900s CE First American Accounts of Confucianism

American Christian missionaries traveled to China and wrote their accounts of Confucianism. In the 1870s, institutions such as Yale University, Harvard University, and the University of California began to devote themselves to the study of Chinese history and culture and Confucianism.

1862 CE First Use of the Term "Confucianism"

First use of the term “Confucianism.” It first came into use in the West following encounters between Jesuit missionaries and Chinese scholars. However, for centuries there had been an understanding of Confucianism among East Asian intellectuals that was not directly tied to Confucius but rather to those who followed or studied his teachings.

1919 CE May 4th Movement

The May 4th Movement developed as an initiative to bring about modernization and Westernization in China. The movement targeted and denounced Chinese traditions such as Confucianism. The 1905 abandonment of the civil service examination system, as well as the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the New Culture Movement, dealt a blow to Confucianism and traditional Chinese values and practices. Many figures, however, continued to defend Confucianism, believing it could offer ways to remedy China’s problems, and many Chinese people retained Confucian modes of thought.

1961 CE Qufu Confucius Temple Listed as National Cultural Heritage Site

The Confucius Temple in Qufu was added to the National Cultural Heritage Sites list.

1966 CE - 1976 CE The Cultural Revolution

Mao Zedong came to power in 1949 and established the People’s Republic of China. He was especially hostile to the “old thought” of Confucianism, which he saw as the governing ideology of China before the Communist Revolution. This led to the Cultural Revolution, a campaign to eradicate traditional elements from Chinese life and practice, including the destruction of traditional religious sites in China.

1976 CE Renewed Tolerance and the New Confucianism Movement

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, subsequent governments were more tolerant toward Confucianism and other traditions of China. Though scores of Chinese people in this period grew up knowing little about Confucianism, the New Confucianism movement emerged aiming to adapt traditional Confucian thought and practice to the contemporary age.

1988 CE Beijing Confucius Temple Listed as National Cultural Heritage Site

The Beijing Confucius Temple was added to the National Cultural Heritage Sites list.

Late 20th Century New Emphasis on Confucian Study in the U.S.

Many Chinese scholars of Confucianism emigrated to the United States, bringing with them a renewed emphasis on Confucian study in the U.S. American interest in Confucianism and Chinese culture also continued to grow alongside various geopolitical events involving China. Many Confucian scholars in the US engaged with Western philosophy, re-interpreting classical Confucian texts in the context of contemporary crises.

The Present and Future of Confucianism

Confucian scholarship thrived during the later years of the 20th century. Confucian studies has seen a revival in universities across the world, and remains particularly strong in Japan; Confucian philosophy continues to have a significant influence in scholarship on ethics, moral philosophy, psychology, and social criticism. Though many modern geopolitical influences — particularly modern Chinese state powers — were hostile to Confucianism, the commitments, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the Confucian tradition remain vital in the consciousnesses and practices of many people in China and throughout the world.

Explore Confucianism in Greater Boston

Though there are significant Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean immigrant communities in Greater Boston, East Asian traditions such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintō are difficult to survey as there are very few religious centers. These traditions are deeply imbedded in the unique history, geography, and culture of their native countries and are often practiced in forms that are not limited to institutional or communal settings.

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously: Contemporary Theories and Applications

Kam-por Yu, Julia Tao, and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously: Contemporary Theories and Applications , SUNY Press, 2010, 225pp., $75.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781438433158.

Reviewed by Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University

The philosophical world is changing. By fits and starts, non-Western traditions are beginning to be taken seriously as philosophy. This is not just a feature of Anglophone philosophical discourse. As recently as 2008, John Makeham described Sinophone scholarship on Confucianism as lacking philosophical creativity. [1] The Spring of 2011, in contrast, will see the first issue of a Chinese journal devoted exclusively to the contemporary philosophical development of Confucianism ( Research on Contemporary Confucianism , edited by Huang Yushun), and there are other signs that Confucianism may once again become a vibrant tradition capable of self-criticism and growth. A critical aspect of this vibrancy is the openness of Confucian philosophers to stimuli of all kinds from outside the tradition. The book that is here under review represents an equally important flip-side to these Sinophone developments: Professors Yu, Tao, and Ivanhoe ask us, Anglophone philosophers, to see what good can come from taking Confucian ethics seriously. These goods are, for the most part, to be measured from within the discourses of contemporary Western thought: by taking Confucian ethics seriously, the book's readers will be learning new things on subjects they already care about, or perhaps experience a broadening of their sense of what matters in moral, political, or other areas of philosophy. At the same time, insofar as projects like the present book are successful, we may find the category of "Western philosophy" increasingly irrelevant. Philosophy will probably remain highly pluralist, but on both sides of the Pacific it promises to be less firmly unified by pre-existing linguistic-cultural traditions.

This is an exciting future, but its plausibility depends on whether projects like the present book actually work. Is it, in fact, fruitful for Anglophone philosophers to take Confucian ethics seriously? Must great violence be done to the works of the Chinese masters in order to make them relevant to "contemporary theories and applications"? Happily, I find that the essays collected in the volume collectively represent a significant step forward toward a future in which Confucian ethics is indeed taken seriously, and they make this case through detailed and focused argument on a range of specific topics. In the balance of the review, I will discuss each essay briefly, then conclude with consideration of a theme that emerges across many of the essays: the relation between Confucian ethics and Western moral theories (especially Kantianism and virtue ethics).

Heiner Roetz's opening essay is the only one in the volume that focuses primarily on methodology. He argues for an approach to the Chinese texts based upon an ethical "eye-level principle" (15) of striving to come to an understanding with the author -- to express respect for the author -- rather than adopting a more objective, distant, scientific approach. Roetz wants us to engage in dialogue with the Chinese texts and their authors, i.e., to take seriously their truth claims and be ready both to criticize and learn. He explains that the authors of the texts in question were themselves concerned with "public reasoning": they were addressing a significant audience and doing so with ("exceptions notwithstanding") arguments (22). With two caveats, I find myself in agreement with Roetz. One hesitation concerns the details of his analysis of the analogical reasoning found in texts like Mengzi ( Mencius ) and Han Feizi . I find Roetz's reading to be a bit flat-footed, attributing flawed (from our perspective) reasoning when a better alternative is available. "Respect" seems to demand that we make the texts out to be as plausible as possible, subject to other interpretive constraints. [2] Second, Roetz's analysis is consistent with the observation that the various authors or authorial groups responsible for the texts were interested in other goals in addition to -- and perhaps with priority over -- public justification.

"The Handling of Multiple Values in Confucian Ethics" is Kam-por Yu's fascinating analysis of what he calls "a line of thinking" within Confucian ethics. Yu builds his analysis around the notion of zhongyong , especially as found in the first half of the text by that name (commonly translated "Doctrine of the Mean"), but he clearly believes that this approach to moral reasoning is widespread in early Confucianism. In any event, the pluralist approach to reasoning that he explicates is significant both for the ways it helps us understand various Confucian texts, and -- more importantly from the perspective of the volume's explicit goal -- for its fruitfulness as a contemporary approach to ethical thinking and practice. Yu argues both that the general model of striving to balance or harmonize multiple values is important (indeed, superior to single-value theories) and that the Confucian texts shed important light on how to deliberate well in the face of multiple values (see esp. 43-6).

In the volume's third essay, Qianfan Zhang argues that there is a key difference between the way that the central value of ren is realized by early Confucians in ethical as versus political contexts. Zhang maintains that as an ethical ideal, ren should be understood as "humanity" in the Kantian sense of respecting human dignity, but ren -politics has the more limited sense of "benevolence" in government. In other words, Zhang sees an inconsistency in the ways that ren is understood in the two different spheres, which he attributes to negative assumptions about the common people's moral and intellectual capacities. His goal is to expose the weaknesses of the "benevolent" approach to politics and argue for a reconstructed Confucianism that takes ren -as-humanity seriously in politics as well as ethics. I agree with Zhang that there is a tension in early Confucian writings roughly along the lines that he sketches, though my own development of this theme differs from Zhang in two ways. [3] First, I believe that Zhang significantly overstates the resonances between ren (as an ethical virtue) and Kantian ethics; I will say a bit more on this near the end of the review. Second, and relatedly, Zhang is too sanguine about the prospects for finding a "demand for implementing and adhering to a list of basic rights and freedoms" in ren . Nonetheless, I applaud his effort to take Confucianism seriously by challenging us to think creatively about Confucianism's future.

Chun-chieh Huang's contribution to the volume is similar to Zhang's in that it identifies an on-going challenge to Confucianism that has not yet been adequately resolved. The challenge, too, is similar: Huang says that Confucians must find a better way to "ease the conflict between human beings as ethical agents and human beings as political agents" (92). His analysis of this problem focuses on the concepts of " gong " and " si ," which he translates as "public" and "private," and he illustrates the problem in two ways. First, Huang enumerates various conflicts between putatively private values (like filial devotion) and public ones (like loyalty to the state or ruler). Second, he argues that efforts to solve these dilemmas have foundered in part because politically powerful actors simply conflate their own private interest with allegedly public concerns. Huang does not offer us much by way of a solution, though he at least hints that democratic politics might make it easier to resist conflation of gong and si . My main reaction to Huang's historically rich essay is to suggest that Yu's notion of balancing multiple values may be relevant to how at least some Confucians would have approached Huang's dilemmas and, in any event, offers a resource for contemporary Confucians. In fact I think that Huang's main case (a conflict of values from Mengzi 7A35) is intended by Mengzi to express precisely the kind of balancing that Yu discusses. [4] For some Confucians, to be sure, gong and si were understood in the dichotomous terms that Huang uses. In general, though, I believe we find one field of values rather than two distinct realms, with relatively personal ( si ) concerns on one side and more general ( gong ) concerns on the other.

Julia Tao's "Trust Within Democracy" is the third essay in a row to focus significantly on the relations between ethical and political values. She sketches two contemporary Western views concerning whether trust is essential to successful governance, from Hardin and from Uslaner, and then proposes to enrich the latter's positive answer with additional resources from Confucianism: Tao says that Confucianism can fill a lacuna in Uslaner's account by offering a philosophical justification for the necessity of trust. The key to this justification is the idea that trust as a virtue -- applicable to familial, civic, and political contexts -- is critical to providing the best environment for humans to thrive (108). Interestingly, Tao offers a much more robust reading of "benevolent ( ren ) government" than Zhang, arguing that its final goal is "aiding the people to develop their moral character and to achieve their full humanity" and, furthermore, that for this to happen (which includes the development of both familial and civic trust), rulers must "honor the political virtue of trust by instituting fair laws, clear rules, and the practice of [benevolent] government" (115). I am afraid that this section of the essay moved too quickly for me to find it completely convincing, either as a balanced reading of the relevant texts (in addition to material cited by Zhang, what about the well-known Confucian concern about laws and regulations?) or as a philosophical answer to the question of how moral values relate to political values and institutions. Still, I do agree with Tao about the final goal of Confucian politics, and so it may be that a persuasive case can yet be made for seeing trust and the other virtues as central to flourishing familial, civic, and political lives.

Let me now turn to two essays that deal explicitly with contemporary virtue ethics: Shirong Luo's defense of a " ren -based" interpretation of Confucian ethics and Eirik Harris's exploration of the nature of virtues. Both are responding to prominent contributions to contemporary Western virtue ethics: Luo's touchstone is Michael Slote's idea of agent-based ethics, and Harris is reacting to the idea that virtues are "correctives," as argued in a famous paper by Philippa Foot. [5] Agent-basing is a strong form of virtue ethics, according to which the value of good actions is directly and exclusively derived from admirable qualities of the agent. Luo's argument is two-fold: first, that we should understand early Confucian texts as advocating a specific kind of agent-basing (namely, ren -basing); and second, that several challenges to the possibility of ren -basing are mistaken. In particular, Luo aims to rebut D.C. Lau's prominent view, according to which "no moral system can be solely based on moral virtues" (129). The specifics of Luo's detailed argument against Lau (and his quicker dismissals of other alternatives to ­ren -basing) are beyond our scope here, but suffice to say that I find them quite successful. This means that Luo has provided us with a firmer case for the plausibility of agent-based virtue ethics and made headway against at least one version of the criticism that virtue ethics is necessarily "incomplete." [6]

Harris sees much that is attractive about Foot's contention that virtues are fundamentally distinguished by being "correctives" but argues on several grounds that this cannot, ultimately, be the best way to understand the nature of virtues. He suggests that we would still think of a sage as being virtuous, even if the sage suffered from no temptations and thus was in no need of correction. He also has a nice argument to the effect that: (1) self-love is an important, if implicit, Confucian virtue; and (2) the importance of self-love is not that it is corrective. He shows convincingly that for Mengzi, one must have "a certain conception of the self as having ethical potential if one is to be able to even engage in the moral life" (170); this is what Harris means by self-love. He ends with the claim that we can find in Confucian texts a distinctive type of "inclinational" virtue that has little to do with correction. I found this to be less convincing. Harris seems to slide back and forth between speaking of certain basic reactions (the four duan of passage 2A:6 in Mengzi ) and the full-blown virtues (of ren , etc.) to which Mengzi also refers in the passage. Ultimately, though, there is enough here to put the tie between virtue and corrective into serious question.

Unlike virtually all the other contributions, Justin Tiwald draws on a markedly post-classical Confucian thinker, the eighteenth-century giant Dai Zhen, to develop his account of a "non-naïve" version of "sympathetic understanding" and its role in ethical deliberation. Sympathetic understanding ( shu ) has a place in the theories of most Confucian ethicists of any period, but Tiwald argues both that its exact meaning and role changes and that it is particularly central for Dai. Furthermore, Dai's version contains insights from which contemporary philosophers can learn. The core idea is that for Dai, shu does not just mean to put oneself in someone else's shoes, but to do so in a way that has built-in to it a concern for both one's own and the other's humanity. The very motivation to reflect on another's good through one's own eyes comes (at least in part) from one's felt attachment to the value of human "life fulfillment," which helps Dai and Tiwald gain a needed critical distance from the mere fulfillment of occurrent desires. Tiwald's account is sophisticated and based on a very careful reading of Dai's texts. It is sometimes a bit difficult to tell whether all of Tiwald's precise distinctions truly have a grounding in Dai, but even if we were to conclude that Tiwald is operating as a Confucian philosopher "in the spirit of Dai's project" (148) at least as much as he is operating as an interpreter, this would not detract at all from the degree to which he is taking Dai's Confucian ethics seriously -- and giving us a reason to do so, as well.

The volume's last essay is "The Values of Spontaneity" by Philip Ivanhoe. The essay's goal is subtle. Neither a direct interpretation of a given text nor a direct engagement with a current controversy, it seeks instead to draw out of a range of early texts two "ideal types" of spontaneity, to show why they are valuable, and thereby to suggest that philosophers today should think about these values. By retrieving (and reconstructing, insofar as these are ideal types) these twin notions of spontaneity and displaying their value, Ivanhoe seeks to nudge Western philosophers to broaden or shift their ethics. This is a nice example of the goods that can come from taking Confucian (and, in this case, Daoist) ethics seriously. As a supplement, let me note a type of value for spontaneity that Ivanhoe does not discuss: what we can think of as its instrumental value in ethical practice. In addition to valuing spontaneity for the reasons Ivanhoe canvasses, Confucians were impressed with the ease and reliability of spontaneous ethical responses, which thus provides another kind of reason to aim at spontaneity. On this score, some Western philosophers have made related observations, e.g., when it is observed that moral exemplars tend to find it easy, automatic, or necessary to make moral choices with which others of us would struggle. [7] Even here, I suspect that there is more that contemporary philosophers have to learn from the Confucians.

All of the volume's essays agree that it is valuable to take Confucian ethics seriously. I have noted a few disagreements above: Zhang and Tao offer different assessments of what ren -government has meant, though their recommendations for what it should mean in the future are much closer; we can also see some difference of opinion between Yu and Huang over whether Confucians should adopt balancing or dichotomous approaches to handling value conflicts. The deepest divide, though, may be over the relation between Confucian ethics and competing contemporary Western approaches to ethics. Roughly, is Confucianism more similar to Kantianism or to virtue ethics? [8] Zhang and Tao both stress ideas like the equal humanity, moral worth, or human dignity of all. Huang says that the ways in which value conflicts were determined shows a priority for deontological ethics over utilitarian ethics (80), and Yu suggests that Confucian ethics have both deontological and teleological levels, with the picture looking something like Kant's schema of perfect and imperfect duties (45-6). On the other hand, as discussed above, Luo argues explicitly that Confucian ethics is a strong kind of virtue ethics, and Harris largely adopts this framework as well, even though he notes that such a reading of Confucianism "is not universally accepted" (177, n. 2).

If we were to step outside the bounds of the present volume, we would observe three general views. One group, mostly made up of Chinese scholars writing in Chinese, many of them influenced by the great twentieth-century Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan (1909-1995), find the parallels between Confucianism and Kantianism to be striking and central. A second group, mostly made up of scholars in the U.S. writing in English, sees Confucianism as encompassing one or more forms of virtue ethics. A third group, comprising both Chinese and Western scholars and much less unified than either of the other two groups, tends to see Confucian ethics as sui generis and fitting poorly into any existing Western classifications. At the same time, scholars both East and West have already been pointing out that talk of rules, respect, and even deontological constraints need not bring with it the whole Kantian framework and can even fit within a virtue ethics. Others have been making the point that having an important place for virtues and character is not, on its own, sufficient to qualify a theory as a virtue ethic. I believe that one result of taking Confucian ethics seriously -- by which I mean both this excellent book and the reactions it is sure to inspire -- will be to help us clarify what is at stake between these various approaches to ethics and then help us move forward constructively toward a pluralist and open future in which philosophers versed in a variety of traditions are ready to challenge and learn from one another.

[1] John Makeham, Lost Soul: "Confucianism" in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse . Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008.

[2] For an alternative reading of the reasoning in Mencius 6A, see Bryan Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 278-301.

[3] For my own argument, see Stephen C. Angle, "Rethinking Confucian Authority and Rejecting Confucian Authoritarianism." Chinese Philosophy and Culture 8 (2010): pp. 27-56.

[4] See my discussion in Stephen C. Angle, Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy . New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 100-101.

[5] See Michael Slote, Morals from Motives . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; and Philipa Foot, "Virtues and Vices," in Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

[6] Many authors discuss the alleged incompleteness of virtue ethics; see, for example, Robert Johnson, "Virtue and Right." Ethics 113 (2003): pp. 810-34.

[7] See, for instance, Iris Murdoch, "The Idea of Perfection." In The Sovereignty of the Good . New York: Routledge, 1970, pp. 1-45; and Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There . New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

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'Our Shared Values' in Singapore: A Confucian perspective

In this essay Charlene Tan offers a philosophical analysis of the Singapore state's vision of shared citizenship by examining it from a Confucian perspective. The state's vision, known formally as “Our Shared Values,” consists of communitarian values that reflect the official ideology of multiculturalism. This initiative included a White Paper, entitled Shared Values, which presented pejorative assessments of the ideals of “individual rights” and “individual interests” as antithetical to national interests. Rejecting this characterization, Tan argues that a dominant Confucian perspective recognizes the correlative rights of all human beings that are premised on the inherent right to human dignity, worth, and equality. Furthermore, Confucianism posits that it is in everyone's interest to attain the Confucian ethical ideal of becoming a noble person in society through self-cultivation. Tan concludes by highlighting two key implications for Singapore from a Confucian perspective on the Shared Values: first, schools in Singapore should place greater emphasis on individual moral development of their students, and second, more avenues should be provided for residents to contribute actively to the development of the vision of shared citizenship.

Related Papers

Yeow-Tong Chia

The term ‘Asian values’ became popular in the political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s. The most vocal proponents of Asian values are Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia’s Mahathir and their deputies and government officials, as well as post-Tiananmen Chinese leaders. Most notable of all these three strands of the Asian values debate is the ‘Singapore School’, which ‘comprises leaders who have articulated a defence of the Singapore regime, either in their personal or official capacities’. This article discusses the origins and philosophical underpinnings of ‘Asian values’ in the Singapore context and its relationship to civics education. First, it provides the historical context for the interest in Confucianism and Asian Values. It then looks at the role and use of Confucianism and Asian Values in Asia, before discussing the case of Singapore and Asian values. I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of the ‘Asian Values’ discourse in Singapore which underpins these curricula. At the heart of the issue was the state’s attempt to forge and articulate a Singaporean identity, and the role of citizenship/moral education in attaining this elusive nation building goal.

Charlene Tan

Values education in Asian societies is commonly underpinned by an ideology of communitarianism that seeks to promote the needs and interests of ‘others’ over the ‘self’. An example of an Asian country that promotes communitarian values through its values education curriculum is Singapore. By reviewing the moral and citizenship education curricula in Singapore, the present article points out that the accent is on ‘others’ rather than the ‘self’. Noting that communitarianism has often been linked to Confucian values in Asian societies, this article offers a Confucian viewpoint of the self and moral self-cultivation. It further argues for a form of values education that balances the ‘self’ with ‘others’ through active learning, self-reflection and self-evaluation. The Singapore experience provides a useful case study on the influence of communitarianism and the potential of Confucianism on values education in an Asian context.

Charlene Tan , Sandra Wu

This chapter explores the education of multicultural citizens in Singapore by drawing upon the teachings from Confucianism, which is a major cultural heritage of Singaporeans. A key challenge for multicultural citizenship is a superficial understanding of and limited interaction between cultural groups in a political unit. Based on two key passages from the Confucian classic Analects as expounded by Ivanhoe, this chapter suggests a Confucian notion of multicultural citizenship. This conception comprises two essential components: first, a multicultural citizen is one who subscribes to and evinces an openness to other cultures. Such a person is guided by shu (empathy) which is displayed through cross-cultural humility, interest and engagement. Second, a multicultural citizen demonstrates and promotes a shared universal family which is rooted in ren (humanity). To illustrate the application of the Confucian model to the education of multicultural citizenship in Southeast Asia, examples that foster inter-religious harmony are provided.

Nomos Publishers

Vicente Reyes

In the ASEAN Charter, all member states are committed to common political values such as human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law. These political values, as well as related political institutions and structures, are predominantly of Western origin. There is a need to recognize alternative models of organizing state and normative orders in Asia. One alternative is the political values that are derived and adapted from Asian philosophies. This paper critically discusses political values in Asia with a focus on the relevance of Confucius’ philosophy to the ASEAN political security community. The paper begins by examining the formation of ASEAN, ‘Asian values’ and ‘ASEAN Way’. This is followed by highlighting the key characteristics, challenges and future of the ASEAN political security community in the 21st century. The second part of the paper focuses on the political philosophy of Confucius and its potential contributions towards the flourishing of the ASEAN political security community.

Kwang Meng Low

This essay critically discusses Singapore’s Character and Citizenship Education syllabus (CCE). This essay points out the conflicting nature of the two underlying principles – Kohlberg and Confucian idea – in the design of the CCE, and the neglect of socio-cultural impact on individual’s moral and ethical decision can curb its effectiveness. This essay further suggests the need to take the cultural dimensions and the plurality of Singapore in order for the CCE to be effective.

Journal of Curriculum Studies

Li-Ching Ho

This paper uses the concept of stories of peoplehood to examine how the Singapore government has constructed a story of harmony and to consider how this story has influenced two important school subjects focused on civic education: Social Studies and Citizenship and Character Education. Stories of peoplehood, including constitutive, economic, and political power stories, play a central role in people-making. The political project of people-making involves defining the nature of membership in a political community and promoting a collective political identity. This study provides an alternative way of conceptualizing the goals and curriculum content of civic education and it also offers an example of how a nation-state with a strong Confucian tradition has chosen to address the educational goal of living together through the promotion of values such as social cohesion and community relationships within a story of harmony. The study also shows how Singapore political leaders construct a narrow and limited discourse of harmony within the curricula and use it to legitimize policies that privilege particular groups, limit political freedoms, marginalize groups with less power or status, and circumscribe the kinds of actions a citizen can legitimately take.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Citizenship

Canglong Wang

This chapter has sorted out the complicated relationships between Confucianism and citizenship in terms of three aspects. First, based on the philosophical literature, I have unpacked the relational diversities of Confucianism and citizenship. By classifying Confucianism into the illiberal and liberal types, and citizenship into the thin and thick ones, this chapter has problematized the oversimplified dual framework that dominates the understanding of Confucianism and its relevance to citizenship. By examining each of the types, I have clarified three theoretical camps of their relationships: incompatibility, compatibility and reconstruction. The second aspect involves the comparison of two subjects— junzi that is the Confucian ideal personality, and citizen that plays the fundamental role in modern politics. While I follow the aforementioned classification of thin and thick citizens, I continue to categorize junzi into two types— one as the moral subject and one as the governing subject. Following the framework established by two axes— the political/ legal and the moral/ ethical, I compare the pairs of junzi and citizen. It is found that, despite the moral compatibility for junzi and citizen, the two subjects lack consistency in terms of status equality and individual rights. Finally, this chapter has discussed the possibility and feasibility to construct a new subject of gentle citizen in present- day China. To cultivate a gentle citizen requires making the core elements of citizenship the subjective foundation, also supplemented by the Confucian attributes of junzi, so as to transform the individual to someone featured with both Confucian virtues and civic ethics. I propose that this is a realistic approach in terms of combining the two subject attributes, considering that contemporary China has established a citizenship regime for all entitled individuals, that the awareness of citizenship rights has been intensified, and that the moral landscape shift has caused spiritual and ethical contradictions in Chinese people’s subjective domain and public life. Establishing a Confucian- style citizenship education would be a meaningful project for China today.

Neil Englehart

Nation Building

Niejay Llagas

Theorizing Chinese Citizenship

This article has reviewed the range of critical debates on the role of Confucianism in developing East Asian citizenship. The conceptualization of citizenship as either thin or thick and the conceptualization of Confucianism as either liberal or illiberal have spurred three interpretations. The incompatibility interpretation construes citizenship thinly and Confucian traditions as illiberal. It posits that obligation-oriented, hierarchical and authoritarian Confucians directly oppose rights-oriented, equal and democratic citizenship. The compatibility interpretation construes citizenship as thin and Confucian traditions as liberal. It posits that modern Confucian societies hold values that are compatible with thin citizenship. Among these values are citizenship rights, individualism and equality, and democracy and constitutionalism. Lastly, the reconstruction interpretation encompasses both conceptualizations of Confucianism and thick citizenship. It suggests that the reformulation of liberal and illiberal Confucianism and thick citizenship can yield junzi citizens, ethical society, and tianxia citizenship, which are more appropriate for East Asian countries. I coin the term junzi citizens to show how thick citizenship is fused with Confucianism to create a new type of modern subject. Junzi citizens are communitarian active citizens who have both responsibilities for the community and initiative for civic participations.

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Korean Confucianism

Koreans have been key players in Asian intellectual history and have historically been great propagators of intercultural adaptation. The “Three Teachings” of China, in the form of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism (sometimes written “Taoism”), had all made their way into Korea by the fifth century CE, blending with the pre-existing institutions and culture there. Korean Confucians had used Confucian ideas, especially those advocating hierarchy and moral leadership, to bolster a powerful state bureaucracy in order to provide society with a rigidly structured and organised modus vivendi . In this context, philosophical thought was linked with action, and with concrete implications for oneself, one’s family, and one’s state (indeed, the world). Confucians, who were not particularly concerned with the spiritual life of individuals, sought an organised pathway to create an ethical and socially guiding discourse. Inevitably, confrontations arose between different groups, and intellectually, they gave rise to a series of philosophical debates that have shaped Korean Confucianism, especially during its phase of maturation during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), when its recalibrated form, Neo-Confucianism, displaced Buddhism as a rival intellectual and philosophical system.

The sections below will trace the main ideas and themes of Korean Confucianism, with in depth examinations of several philosophical debates and key philosophical ideas, while underscoring one of the more salient features of Korean Confucianism, sagehood, which has potential for our lives now in the twenty-first century.

1. Initial Observations

• 2.1 Principle , Human Nature and Material Force

2.2 Neo-Confucianism and Social Transformation

3.1 early criticisms of buddhism, 3.2 chŏng tojŏn’s neo-confucian critique of buddhism, 4. sage learning and the four-seven debate, 5. the horak debate, 6.1 matteo ricci and reactions to western theology, 6.2 confucian-catholics, tasan and moral priorities, 7. emergence of modernisation and confucian challenges, other internet resources, related entries.

The tradition that is known as Confucianism in the West is known as Yuhak in Korean (儒學; C. Ruxue ) [the study of the “Ru” scholars], or Yugyo 儒敎, C. Rujiao ) [the teachings of the scholars]. Korean Confucians have contributed greatly to complex metaphysical discussions relating to the moral psychology of Confucian philosophy and its teachings. The goal of such teachings is to become a sage (聖人, C. Shengren , K. Sŏngin ), and this is a salient feature of Korean Confucianism, referring to someone who studies, and who morally transforms themselves through concerted effort. In this sense, one’s moral cultivation, known in the Confucian texts as “self-cultivation” (修己, C. xiuji , K. sugi ), meant that humans should depend on themselves and their own inherent abilities to solve their own problems (social and personal), ruling out the need for help from gods or deities. This becomes evident when we read the Korean philosophical texts on sagehood discussed below.

The classical texts of Confucianism, which were later edited and probably re-organised by Confucius himself, are known as the Five Classics (五經, C. Wujing , K. Ogyŏng ):

• Yijing (易經) [Classic of Changes],
• Shujing (書經) [Classic of History],
• Shijing (詩經) [Classic of Poetry],
• Liji (禮記) [Records of Rites], and
• Chunqiu (春秋) [Spring and Autumn Annals].

Later, a new body of work would be grouped into a new set of texts collectively known as The Four Books (四書, C. Sishu , K. Sasŏ), by the great Southern Song dynasty (1126–1271) scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200):

• Lunyu (論語) [The Analects],
• Daxue (大學) [The Great Learning],
• Zhongyong (中庸) [The Doctrine of the Mean], and
• Mengzi (孟子) [The Mencius].
• (The Daxue and Zhongyong were originally separate chapters in the Liji —Record of Rites. See also Other Internet Resources for more information.)

Zhu, a harsh critique of Buddhism, synthesised the later metaphysical developments of Confucianism, known as Neo-Confucianism, and his ideas shaped the trajectory of Korean Neo-Confucianism. Additionally, his commentaries on the Four Books (and his re-organisation and re-wording in some cases) were considered “orthodox”, while other interpretations were considered heterodox. Meanwhile, Korean Confucians clearly debated received ideas differently than Confucian scholars in China, and this gives the Korean contribution to Confucianism even greater significance.

One’s social obligations calibrated through a distinct set of relationships has been extremely important for Koreans, in the past as well as in the present. The “Five Cardinal Relationships” (五倫, C. wulun , K. oryun ) of Confucianism, where each relationship was related to a particular virtue, are emphasised in Mencius :

between father and son there should be affection; between ruler and minister there should be righteousness; between husband and wife there should be attention to their separate functions; between old and young there should be proper order; and between friends there should be faithfulness. (3A:4; translated SB-Chan: 69–70)

In the Korean Confucian tradition, social position and age have important implications for maintaining social hierarchies, and women were particularly disadvantaged through interpretations of these relationships, expected always to be subordinate to men: fathers, husbands and sons (see Cawley 2018). Adhering to these clearly delineated relationships was associated with a well-functioning “harmonious” society, whereby harmony was achieved through fulfilling one’s specific role. Nevertheless, the “superior” person in these relationships should be a morally and socially responsible individual, especially the king, who also has obligations to the population he governs, a theme that is recurrent in the literature on “Sage Learning” (聖學, C. shengxue, K. sŏnghak ), that shapes and defines Korean Neo-Confucianism. The other relationship, emphasised much more in Korea than in China, is the idea of filial piety (孝, C. xiao , K. hyo ). Hyo remains one of the defining features of Korean Confucianism, where respect for one’s parents and elders is still emphasised. The eldest male is the most respected person in the family, which also highlights the gender bias that Confucianism has facilitated on the peninsula, something that is contentious today in a Korea that is heavily debating this gender imbalance, gaining traction thanks to the #MeToo movement.

Ritual propriety (禮, C. li , K. ye ), or the use of rituals a mechanism for ordering society, is something still prevalent in rituals related towards ancestors, known as chesa (祭祀, C. jisi ) in Korea, which are still conducted by many Korean families. They, however, further reinforce other social norms related to patrilineality and the place of privilege for the eldest son, while preventing women from performing these rituals. Naoaki Hiraishi (2003: 187) underscores the important function of rituals in society, noting their refining influence, and how they have

the advantage of inculcating people with social norms rather than […] social ordering with criminal law and other physical punishment.

The refining nature of moral education is another important feature of Korean Confucianism, something scholars asserted and accentuated, and even the king was indoctrinated with formal Confucian training with lectures on conformist Confucian morality (see Sohn 2000: ch. 1). Korean Confucians agreed with the Mencian tradition of education, shaped by the view of “human nature” (性, C. xing, K. sŏng ) as something inherently good, whereby education was a vehicle to refine and promote one’s virtuous nature. In relation to Korean Confucianism, it is not an understatement to say that Mencius’ ideas became responsible for a great deal of Chosŏn’s metaphysical stimulation and recalibration, while also ultimately leading to its philosophical debates.

2. Neo-Confucian Metaphysical Recalibration

2.1 principle , human nature, and material force.

Earlier Confucian scholars lacked a sophisticated metaphysical and cosmological basis for their ethical codes, and so were motivated to “offer a cosmology that could compete with the Buddhists” (Creel 1971: 205). This would eventually lead to the development of Neo-Confucianism, which had already permeated Korea by the end of the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392), when discussions on human nature (K. sŏng ) were starting to be discussed in great detail. The Chinese scholar Han Yu (768–824) initiated the resurgence of interest in Confucianism, especially the ideas of Mencius, evident in An Inquiry on Human Nature, while at the same time rejecting Buddhism. These ideas that would make their way into Korean diatribes against Buddhism, also propelling them towards debates about human nature (SB-Chan: 452–455; SB-BB: 583–585). One of Han Yu’s disciples, Li Ao (died ca. 844), also wrote on Mencian ideas in Returning to the Nature , focusing on how to become a sage: a theme that would be developed by Koreans to a much more sophisticated degree during the Chosŏn dynasty (see Fung 1937 [1983: 413–415]). However, his writings are indebted to Buddhist ideas about the recovery of one’s inherent good nature or Buddha Nature (佛性, C. foxing , K. bulsŏng ), influential at that time, although he reorients them to advocate Confucian sagehood, especially important for Korean Confucianism.

Neo-Confucianism can be traced to the writings of “The Five Sages of Song”: Shao Yong (1011–1077), Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), Zhang Zai (1020–1077), and two brothers, Cheng Hao (1032–1085) and Cheng Yi (1033–1107). However, their main ideas were recognised and appreciated

only later when their various contributions were synthesised by the impressive scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200),

particularly the ideas of the Cheng brothers (Fairbank & Goldman 1999: 98). Ames and Rosemont (1998: 17) highlight how

Zhu Xi’s commentaries […] became the definitive of the [Neo-Confucian] tradition from the early fourteenth century through the twentieth centuries,

and this influence also extended to Korea, becoming deeply rooted there. Zhu’s compendium on Neo-Confucian thought, Jinsilu (近思錄) [Reflections on Things at Hand], written with Lu Zu-qian (1137–1181), became the handbook on this great philosophical synthesis, and was integral to the Korean development of those ideas. Zhu focused on self-cultivation, a necessary ingredient in Confucian sagehood that became central to Korean’s interpretation of those ideas (Chan 1987: 122–124; Tillman 1992: 114–118).

However, it was Zhu’s adaptation of the Cheng brother’s ideas on Principle (理, C. li, K. i ) that governed its reception in Korea (where Principle in italics is used to distinguish this key Neo-Confucian term from Western interpretations of the word). Principle was considered to be an original ideal governing source of all principles of reality in the world, where everything has its own individual principle that is a part of this greater immaterial and universally organising Principle. Cheng Yi even insisted that Principle is one but its manifestations (or sub-principles) are many, while underscoring that it reached its zenith in humans, especially in the human mind, which was endowed with its “good” human nature (SB-Chan: 544). In Korea, Neo-Confucianism is generally referred to as the School of Principle (理學, K. ihak ), or School of the Principle and Human Nature (性理學, K. sŏngnihak ), highlighting the interest in metaphysics that was examined by the Korean scholars to a whole new microcosmic level (Keum 1980 [2000]; Kang 2003 [2006]).

While Zhu had given primacy to Principle , at the same time he recognised it as intertwined with the material force:

Fundamentally [ Principle ] and material force cannot be spoken of as prior or posterior. But if we trace their origin, we are obliged to say that [ Principle ] is prior. (SB-Chan: 634)

This stance was initially adapted by the majority of Neo-Confucian scholars in Korea, and developed by Kwŏn Kŭn (1352–1409), who “had the most sophisticated understanding of Neo-Confucian metaphysics” in the fourteenth century, especially his Diagrammatic Treatises for the Commencement of Learning (入學圖說, K. Iphak tosŏl ), which consisted of some

forty diagrams and explanations designed to help beginners grasp the fundamentals of [Human] Nature and Principle Learning. (SB-Lee: 449–450)

These diagrammatic expositions reflect an important dimension of the Korean Neo-Confucian tradition, to use diagrams to explain complex metaphysical ideas and how they related to moral psychology embedded within the mind. Kwŏn wrote that

[ Principle ] is the fundamental basis of the mind and material force. Therefore, [ Principle ] precedes Material Force,

which allows him to uphold the idea that human nature is good, because Principle is good, and that what is not good is due to the material force (see Choi M.-H. 1980: 37–38; slightly adapted translation). Furthermore, he was the first Neo-Confucian scholar in Korea to discuss Principle and material force in relation to the human mind linked with the “four beginnings”, and the “seven feelings”: The “four beginnings” are referred to by Mencius (2A:6; see SB-Chan: 65): the feeling [(情, C. qing , K. chŏng )] of commiseration, shame and dislike, deference and compliance, and the feeling of right and wrong, which when developed lead to the cardinal virtues of Confucianism (humanity, righteousness, propriety and wisdom). Humanity (仁, C. ren (sometimes jen ), K. in ) was seen as the greatest Confucian virtue, often translated as benevolence or kind-heartedness. The “seven feelings” are referred to in the ninth chapter of the Book of Rites : joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, dislike and liking. Kwŏn linked the four beginnings (which were always good) with Principle, and the seven feelings (which could be potentially bad) with the material force, starting a veritable meta-psychological chain reaction that continues until today. These ideas were consolidated in his “ Diagram of the Unity and Oneness of Heaven , Human Beings, Mind, and Human Nature” (天人心性合一之圖, K. Ch’ŏnin simsŏng habil-to ), and in Kwŏn’s view “Heaven” referred to the working of Principle in all things, including the human mind, and so (wo)man’s mind was linked to the moral Principle of the universe, embodied by the sage (see Halla Kim 2017: 1–23).

Further complicating the intellectual impetus of Korean Confucianism was its reaction to (or rather against) Sinitic Chan meditational developments that shaped the Sŏn school in Korea. Korean Sŏn ideas had arguably reached their maturity in the teachings of the Koryŏ monk Chinul (1158–1210), especially his text On Cultivating the Mind (修心訣, K. Susim kyŏl ). Chinul’s approach recognises the mind as the essence (體, K. che ) of one’s Buddha Nature, which requires continual practice and cultivation aids to refine its function (用 K. yong ), bringing together the important essence-function ( che-yong ) feature of Korea’s Buddhist tradition, which would deeply influence the Neo-Confucian thought of Chosŏn. The Sŏn practice of seated meditation would also shape Neo-Confucianism’s own mind-focused concept of “quiet-sitting” (靜坐; C. jingzuo , K. chŏngjwa ), also known as chŏngjwa chonsim (靜坐存心): to sit quietly and preserve the mind (Palais 1996: 181).

An Hyang (1243–1306) was one of the most important Korean scholars responsible for introducing Neo-Confucian ideas into the Korean peninsula, he “copied [Confucian Classics] by hand, drew (Zhu Xi’s) likeness and brought them back home” (Deuchler 1992: 17). Paek I-jŏng (1247–1323) and other Korean scholars also helped transmit the new philosophy to Korea as they became acquainted with many Chinese Neo-Confucian scholars, including the direct successors of the Cheng-Zhu tradition, who met at the Man’gwŏndang library (the hall of ten thousand scrolls) founded by King Ch’ungsŏn (1308–1313) in the Mongol capital of the Yuan empire (Deuchler 1992: 19). Furthermore, Yi Che-hyŏn (1287–1367) endorsed the printing of The Four Books and believed that a king should indeed be a “sage” and interpreted the relationship between government and Neo-Confucianism as essential. Yi Saek (1328–1396), son of Yi Che-hyŏn, was responsible for the dissemination of the texts in Korea where Neo-Confucian prestige was increasing rapidly, and he was “appointed educational intendant for the Yuan in Korea” (De Bary & Haboush 1985b: 41). Hence, Neo-Confucianism was linked to education and governing the state, while shaped by a moral code of ethics.

These revitalised Confucian ethics would redefine the moral guiding discourse of the emerging Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Chŏng Tojŏn (1342–1398), who helped to validate the new kingship, instigated a rejuvenation of Confucian morality, that would culminate in a renewal of society through the use of propriety, manifest in specific rites (K. ye ) (Deuchler 2004: 46). Lee Sang-wha (2005) draws attention to the remodeling of patriarchal patterns of behaviour, validated through the metaphysics of the Yin, or Ŭm in Korean (as weak) and Yang (as strong), linked to the social functions of women (as passive) and men (as active), also inculcated through the study of detailed ritual sourcebooks, especially Zhuzi jiali (朱子家禮) [Zhu Xi’s Family Rites], which linked personal self-discipline with the cultivation of the mind through the rigid application of propriety. In the Korean context, propriety was embodied by four specific rites that were to be put into practice to reorganise society: coming of age (also known as capping), wedding, mourning, and most importantly, ancestral rites (Deuchler 1992: 108–111). In Korea, rites were made a legal requirement and even encoded into the national “Grand Code for State Administration”, known as the Kyŏngguk taejŏn (經國大典), first promulgated in the late fifteenth century. Failure to perform the prescribed rituals could lead to physical punishment, imprisonment, and even death (as would be the case for thousands of Catholics during the nineteenth century). These laws asserted and ingrained a newly prescribed Neo-Confucian cultural order into the social matrix, that suppressed and repressed any challenges to its authority, including Buddhism.

3. Korea’s Neo-Confucian Confrontation with Buddhism

One of the first Confucian texts critical of the Buddhists was that of Paek Munbo (1303–1374), Ch’ŏkpulso (斥佛疏) [ In Rejection of Buddhism ], which used Shao Yong’s Daoist-inspired cyclical cosmological philosophy to ratiocinate that it was again time for restoration of the “way” of the sage Confucian rulers Yao and Shun (Deuchler 1992: 23). Kang (2003 [2006: 158–164]) outlines the opposition to Buddhism towards the end of the Koryŏ period, especially among Confucian scholars such as Chŏng Mongju (1337–1392) and Chŏng Tojŏn. Chŏng Mongju emphasised the practical “everyday life” of the Confucians who fulfilled social and sexual relations unlike the Buddhists who

part with relatives, denounce the relationship between man and woman […] and revere the search for emptiness and Nirvana. (Kang 2003 [2006: 160–161])

He also was noted for his loyalty to last king of the Koryŏ, which would cost him his life: this was how seriously Confucian philosophers were dedicated to the moral principles they wrote about—ideas they were expected to practice in their lives. It was Chŏng Tojŏn, the “godfather” of early Chosŏn Neo-Confucianism, who had helped General Yi Sŏnggye (1335–1408) to form a military alliance with other powerful Neo-Confucian scholars following Yi’s decision to oust the last Koryŏ king from power in 1388, soon establishing the Chosŏn dynasty. Neo-Confucianism became the guiding socio-political ideology of Chosŏn with Chŏng Tojŏn at the helm as its chief architect, benefiting from military support and royal authority to carry out his grand scheme (E. Chung 1995: 59). From the point of view of intellectual history, Chŏng played a major role in the attempt to discredit and marginalise Buddhism, and Kwŏn Kŭn (quoted in Deuchler 1992: 101 [ Sambong-jib : 286]), commented on how Chŏng aspired to make

the elucidation of the Learning of the Way [Neo-Confucianism] and the repulsion of heterodox teachings [i.e., Buddhism] his own responsibility.

Confucian philosophy was then used to undermine Buddhism during this early stage of its development in Korea.

Chŏng Tojŏn’s arguments against Buddhism are encapsulated in his final treatise Pulssi Chappyŏn (佛氏雜辨) [ Array of Critiques of Mr. Buddha ], while his shorter text, Simgiri p’yŏn (心氣理篇) [On Mind, Material Force and Principle], also critiques the Buddhists and Daoists. Both texts have been translated and annotated along with the original Chinese characters by A. Charles Muller (2015) in Korea’s Great Buddhist-Confucian Debate , as well as the rebuttal of Hamhǒ Kihwa (1376–1433), an erudite Confucian trained Buddhist, in his treatise entitled Hyǒnjǒng-non (顯正論) [ The Exposition of the Correct ].

Chŏng, while investigating the phenomenological issues concerning human nature and their ethical implications, was completely unwilling to acknowledge any conceptual dependence on Buddhist doctrines, while reinforcing the staunch position of Neo-Confucians in Korea to link philosophical principles to one’s social reality (see Muller 2015: introduction). For Confucians, Buddhists had cut themselves off from both social and filial obligations. His ideas, therefore, “provide grounded guidelines for individuals as social beings who faced daily challenges” and this is exemplified by the recent translation of his writings as Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age (Robinson (trans.) 2016: here 5). These writings reflect the need to help the people, as well as the need to rectify the mind of the ruler, but also the obligation to rectify oneself before trying to rectify others (Robinson (trans.) 2016: 128–129). They also recount the practical reasons behind his philosophical attack of Buddhism:

the bulk of the Finance Commission is spent on Buddhism and deities. There is no greater waste of fiscal resources. (trans. in Robinson 2016: 53)

These are ideas that later scholars might refer to as “practical learning” or Sirhak , often described as a trend that emerged after the Hideyoshi invasions of the late sixteenth century, yet here we have very practical guidance from Chŏng at the start of the Chosŏn dynasty, or rather the beginnings of a practical form of “sage” learning applied to issues directly related to daily life.

Chŏng’s shorter rebuttal of Buddhism, On Mind, Material Force and Principle ( Simgiri p’yŏn : 45–53), already highlights this intellectual nexus which dominates Neo-Confucianism in Korea. It introduces the main metaphysical issues that were of great importance in Korea at this time, namely, the mind (心; also referred to in literature as the heart-and-mind), the material force (氣), and of course Principle (理), which he describes as “the inherent virtue of the mind and that through which material force is produced”, and clearly states that “only after there is principle is there material force” ( Simgiri p’yŏn : 50). He discusses what he considers to be the misinterpretation and application of ideas in the teachings of the Buddhists and Daoists, vindicating his rebuttal with quotes from the Mencius , the Analects , and the writings of Zhu Xi, as well as the Book of Rites . Chŏng’s arguments culminate in a radical espousal of Confucianism as an exclusivistic discourse, and he lauds the practical and direct social implications of these metaphysical ideas, juxtaposed to Buddhist and Daoist emphasis on emptiness and vacuity, which he considers to be devoid of meaning when related to matters of the mundane world ( Simgiri p’yŏn : 53). The philosophical implications of Chŏng’s ideas are related to this-worldly affairs and not speculative spiritual proclivities of other traditions, which he suggests depended on deities who could then reward or punish. Chŏng asserts the need to investigate one’s human nature and the mind for oneself, and not to rely on teachings that call upon spirits to do so, advocating the Confucian practice of preserving what is good in the mind and nourishing the material force to control bodily desires through proper Confucian education ( Simgiri p’yŏn : 51). This bifocal approach would become greatly elucidated by later Neo-Confucian philosophers who would advocate an approach to fully develop the humanity (K. in ) that our minds were “naturally” endowed with by Principle .

Chŏng’s Pulssi Chappyŏn is translated by Muller (2015) under the title An Array of Critiques of Buddhism . The text lists 19 critiques, which Chŏng systematically treats in turn, including important Buddhist doctrines, such as transmigration and karma. The goal of Confucianism, being firmly focused on this life, was not interested in idle speculation about an afterlife. Initially, Chŏng ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 59–61) sets out to critique the Buddhists interpretations of the mind (K. sim ), and human nature (K. sŏng ), and criticises the Koryŏ monk Chinul of “nebulous supposition”, lacking “hard facts”, accusing Buddhists of “word play”, while lacking a definitive doctrine. Chŏng explains that the Confucians consider the mind to be made of the material force that “one takes from heaven at birth”, while the mind itself is endowed by one’s human nature through Principle at birth ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 59). He reinforces the “concrete” aspect of the “function” of Confucianism in reality, which the Buddhists consider completely illusory, and refers to Cheng Yi’s dictum,

The study of the Buddhists includes reverence to correct the internal, but does not include justice to straighten the external. ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 63)

Cheng Hao had similarly added that “The Buddhist way of internal and external life is incomplete” (SB-Chan: 538). This Confucian rationale underpins Chŏng’s arguments in his “Critique of the Buddhists’ Abandonment of the Basic Human Relationships” and the “Buddhist Notion of Compassion”, initiating his discourse ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 64–67) on the Confucian virtue of humanity (K. in ), which functions through social interactions, manifested through “The Five Relationships”. Furthermore, Chŏng denounces Buddhists for rejecting filial piety, adding that they “regard their most intimate family members like passers-by on the street”, despite having inherited their material force from their parents, illustrating how Neo-Confucians now used metaphysics to validate their moral “reality” ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 66).

As Buddhists could take refuge in the Buddha, thereby rely on something external, the point is excoriated by Chǒng in his critique of Sŏn Buddhists and their teachings ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 72–73), who he insinuates,

took nothingness [空, K. kong ; this was the translation of the Sanskrit term Śūnyatā] as their cardinal teaching and abandoned the obligations of society,

contrasting it greatly with the practical “way” of Confucianism, further emphasised in his, “Critique of the Equivalence and Differences between Confucianism and Buddhism” ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 73–77). Chŏng accuses Buddhists of being “masters of glibness, lewdness, trickiness, and evasiveness” ( Pulssi Chappyŏn : 77). In contrast, the role of the Confucian “sage” is also acutely heralded as a pragmatic pathway that has use for governing, to plan for the welfare of the people and to “avoid activities that would bring harm to [them]”, ideas that are also emphasised in his practical handbook for governance, Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age , discussed above (Robinson (trans.) 2016: 81).

Chŏng’s text draws together multiple quotes by renowned Confucian scholars to fuel his arguments and support his overall view that Buddhism had no practical social worth. As Muller (1999: 185) underscores, such ideas were closely linked to the Confucian understanding that “Buddhists regarded existence as illusory and that only mind was real”, hence they “scorned human relationships”, while “only quiet meditative inner cultivation was valued”. The most important retort to this diatribe would come from the monk Hamhǒ Kihwa, who skillfully counter-charges Chŏng’s caustic attack using Confucian ideas and texts, while encouraging a much more inclusivistic, hence less divisive, approach. Kihwa ( Hyǒnjǒng-non : 110–111), argued for the “unity of the Three Teachings”, giving a valid piece of advice about what not to do that is useful for us to hear today:

Holding stubbornly onto one’s own opinion while ignoring the positions of others, arbitrarily affirming this and rejecting that.

Two of the most preeminent scholars of the first half of the Chosŏn dynasty, Yi Hwang (1501–1570), well known by his pen name T’oegye, and Yi I (1536–1584), known by the pen name Yulgok, are responsible for the deep level of metaphysical debates that would mark Neo-Confucianism in Korea. Both would engage in attempts to analyse the macrocosmic Principle and its microcosmic interactions with material force (K. ki ). More importantly, they would initiate an intricate debate about what these interactions meant for our minds and human nature, as actualised through our thoughts and actions, linked with a sense of psychological and social urgency. Korea’s Neo-Confucian scholars propounded a social guiding discourse that is humanistic in essence (drawing on the Confucian in ), reflected in how we are linked externally (through conduct) and internally (through thought). Sagehood itself is achieved through learning, or rather, “Sage Learning”, a term underscored by Oh Kangnam (1993: 313) as “one of the essential components, if not the essence, of Korean Confucianism […]”, adding that “Neo-Confucianism’s hallmark was its emphasis on sage-learning”.

Both T’oegye and Yulgok both wrote very specific texts on Sagehood. In 1568, T’oegye wrote Sŏnghak sipto 聖學十圖 (The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning), and in 1575 Yulgok wrote Sŏnghak chipyo 聖學輯要 (Essentials of the Learning of the Sages). According to Keum Jang-tae (1980 [2000: 40]), author of Confucianism and Korean Thoughts , these texts (the Ten Diagrams and the Essentials ) reflect “the two main classical works epitomizing Neo-Confucian learning in the Chosŏn era”. They also embody the development of Korea’s Neo-Confucian tradition. Kim Yung Sik (2017: 25) suggests that

the full understanding of [Zhu’s thought] seems to have come quite late, only after Yi Hwang […] launched an all-out effort to come to grips with the entire scope of the Zhu Xi Learning.

In fact, Japanese Neo-Confucian scholars, such as Yamazaki Ansai (1618–82), considered T’oegye to be “the greatest Confucian in Korea”, even suggesting he was on a par with Zhu Xi himself (Pak 1983: 69).

T’oegye’s Ten Diagrams represents the finest synthesis of this Neo-Confucian thought current in Korea at that time, and it was one of the most reproduced texts of the entire Chosŏn dynasty, overshadowing Yulgok’s text. T’oegye’s text consists of a collection of diagrams by Neo-Confucian scholars from China and Korea, including three by T’oegye himself, that elucidate Zhu Xi’s main teachings, as well as T’oegye’s own synthesis and analysis of them, especially through his focus on the mind (K. sim ), though guided by a methodological approach that focuses on Kyŏng (敬). Kyŏng is often translated as seriousness, but T’oegye has reoriented this term’s use, underscoring the mind’s mastery over one’s thoughts and actions, leading Michael Kalton (1985: 212–214) to translate it as “mindfulness”, while Kim Hyoungchan (2018: 27–32) uses the term “reverent mindfulness”. Mindfulness, in this very Confucian re-appropriation of a Buddhist concept, reflects T’oegye’s approach to sagehood: the daily practice of constantly being aware of the mind, controlling its impulses so that good thoughts can lead to good actions.

The first two diagrams reflect the underpinnings of Neo-Confucian ontologico-cosmology:

• Zhou Dunyi’s Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (太極之圖, K. T’aegŭk chido ), and
• Zhang Zai’s Western Inscription (西銘圖, K. Sŏmyŏngdo )
• (see Kalton’s translations online ).

They provide us with a clear outline of the interconnected Neo-Confucian vision of a morally interconnected universe. While the first diagram identifies the Supreme Ultimate ( T’aegŭk ) as Principle , which generates yin and yang, which then materialise through the Five Elements, the second diagram further concretises this organising aspect of the greater originating Principle in the material world, showing its inherent order that inscribes itself hierarchically. Principle is reflected in all things, and therefore used to validate human social relations and the distinctions that exist between ruler and subjects, older and younger for example. The next three diagrams are all concerned with the basic underpinnings of Confucian moral humanistic education: The Diagram of Elementary Learning , the Diagram of the Great Learning , and the Diagram of Rules of the White Deer Hollow Academy , the latter being the rules of Zhu Xi’s own retreat centre for learning. This education embodies Confucian morality which is the basis for understanding more complex issues of the mind and human nature. The Elementary Learning is an original diagram by T’oegye himself based on Zhu Xi’s text of the same name, which was widely studied in Korea in its own right. Meanwhile, the Diagram of the Great Learning was by Kwŏn Kŭn, appearing in his collection of diagrams mentioned above, bolstering the importance of moral education within the Korean Neo-Confucian tradition.

It is the sixth diagram in T’oegye’s collection where we find his view of the “Four-Seven” issue that was first mentioned by Kwŏn Kŭn, but which really addressed the questions: if human nature is completely good—why do people do things that are “not good” and how/why are there negative feelings? Is this due to Principle or the material force? This was a conundrum for Neo-Confucians just as good and evil was for the Scholastics in Europe trying to explain why there was evil if their God was good. Michael Kalton (1985: 119) describes the subsequent debate, outlined below, as “the single most important intellectual controversy of the Yi dynasty”, ultimately related to the different roles of Principle and material force, their interactions and significance in regard to one’s human nature and the mind. T’oegye’s sixth diagram is actually divided into three parts, relating to the saying The Mind Combines and Governs the Nature and the Feelings (心統性情圖) and they describe different but interrelated aspects of the mind:

• “the not yet aroused state” (未發, K. mibal ), linked to the four beginnings, and pure Principle , and
• the seven feelings linked to “the aroused state” (已發, K. ibal ) when Principle interacts with the material force.

In this instance, both Principle and material force interpenetrate each other, but this was not T’oegye’s initial interpretation, which had changed due to his “Four-Seven” debate with another scholar.

The “Four-Seven” debate (which was clearly deeply related to Principle and material force) originated from a series of correspondences between T’oegye and Kobong, penname of Ki Taesŭng (1527–1572), and later it was continued on between Yulgok and Ugye, penname of Sŏng Hon (1536–1598). T’oegye originally suggested that the four beginnings and seven feelings had different origins, and this instigated the original debate with Kobong, who did not agree with T’oegye’s dualistic approach: that Principle ( i ) was the source of the four beginnings, while the material force was the source of the seven feelings. Kobong was more interested in ki ’s moral and activating function, and considered i and ki as inseparable, especially when it came to “their presence in actual things” (Kalton 1994: 6). The issue at hand was how could the morally good Principle , manifested to its highest form in (wo)mankind, be corrupt, or led astray, in the sense that people clearly do not always conduct themselves in a kind-hearted manner towards others. Though T’oegye revised his view, he still gave primacy to Principle and maintained that it always initially preceded ki when we act morally, or rather that Principle guided ki , like a rider guiding a horse. Hence, T’oegye upheld the moralistic perfection and integrity of Principle by suggesting that things could be less than perfect, and human behaviour sometimes not good, as a result of the interaction with the material force, which could be affected/corrupted depending on the concrete circumstances of its actualisation in concrete form/action.

For T’oegye Principle had been equated with the Supreme Ultimate, and thus represented the source of the possibility for all existence, whereby the very Principle (or potential) of a thing preceded its actual realisation, which would then interact with ki . In this sense, the potential for life in the universe predated the actualisation of that life. T’oegye suggests something quite idealistic: that Principle leads with what I describe as the “ possibility for actualisation ”, while its interaction with ki enables the “ actualisation of the possibility ”. The possibility for actualisation was always “perfect”, but the individual ki , in his opinion, could fluctuate and so does not always “function” to the optimum level of its inherent Principle (or potential). Let us consider this in terms of sexual reproduction to clarify this point: when a man and woman mate (or using other medical techniques), there is the potential that an egg will be fertilised by a sperm, and if so, given that the physical conditions are optimum, a woman will carry a baby to term. However, sometimes there can be biological (material) issues that may prevent the woman from even getting pregnant (due to fertility issues with the man or woman) or from carrying the baby to term. Additionally, the baby may not always develop as healthily as theoretically expected, which is not related to the Principle (i.e., that the fertilisation process itself produces a healthy baby), but rather the actualisation of potential genetic codes that can determine physical and biological outcomes: hence, it is ki that we inherit from our parents, and not their Principle . In relation to the mind, T’oegye referred to the mind of Dao, a pure form, as well as the human mind, where less than perfect thoughts could lead to less than perfect actions. However, one could use mindfulness as a way to guide our inner good nature to reflect the mind of Dao where Principle took control to divert us from desires and negative feelings.

Contrary to T’oegye and Ugye, Yulgok posited that ki was both the activating factor of the seven feelings and four beginnings, and in this sense was less idealistic in relation to Principle . He argued that Principle needed somewhere to settle before it could guide or affect things, and that was ki , the material force. How can we relate this to daily life in some way? The man and woman needed to exist and to mate before the “principle” for fertilisation could take place, which is perhaps a more practical way of looking at things. This then had implications for more important moral matters. Yulgok concluded that while the seven feelings included the four beginnings, the four beginnings did not contain the seven feelings—in order to maintain human nature “innately” good and intact. Bongrae Seok (2019: 24) clarifies that Yulgok (and Kobong, for that matter) did not believe that

the goodness of the Four is a distinct moral property explained exclusively by [ i ] but a common property shared by the Seven explained by both [ i ] and qi [ ki ],

hence, in a sense “smoothening the sharp distinction between the Four and the Seven” as argued by T’oegye and rearticulated by Ugye. Seok (2019: 19) also notes how Ugye interpreted the four beginnings and the seven feelings as separate sets of emotions, with the “seven” having the potential for evil, drawing on T’oegye who clearly viewed Principle as the essence of the mind and ki as the function (on which Principle mounts), again using the interrelationship between essence-function, or che-yong, discussed above in relation to Chinul. For the Korean Neo-Confucians, this only reinforced the need for proper moral education and the incessant need for self-cultivations to guide one from falling prey of the shortcomings of one’s physical, material and environmental existence as it related to the mind and one’s human nature (see E. Chung 1995; Ro 1989; Cawley 2019: 84–89). Though Yulgok was interested in the metaphysical aspects of Neo-Confucianism, Ro Young-Chan (2017: 74) underscores his interest in the practical side of “sagely learning”.

Both T’oegye’s Diagrams and Yulgok’s Essentials advocate pathways towards sagehood and promote the concept of self-cultivation. Both scholars also emphasised the special role of the king who was expected to be a paragon of Confucian morality and humanity ( ren ), the living embodiment of the ideals of “sagehood”. T’oegye and Yulgok elucidate our place in a morally directed universe, where one is expected to act responsibly towards other members of the family and the larger society, or rather “practice” a social vision of morality in our daily lives. For both scholars, sagehood represented a noble savoir vivre , the goal of which was to benefit others, and this in itself was the key to becoming a sage . T’oegye and Yulgok provide us with archetypes of a sort of East Asian Neo-Confucian “Social Contract”, to draw on Jean Jacques Rousseau’s (1712–1778) major work published in 1762. Both Korean scholars stress the moral and social responsibility of those in power, but also the moral responsibility of individuals to each other as members of an interconnected society—and this is something the world can appreciate now more than ever, as we face a global pandemic in 2020/21, where through socially responsible distancing, we both respect and protect others.

The “Ho-rak” debate, literally refers to the general “Provincial-Capital” divide among the different sub-factions of the “Noron” (Old Doctrine) Faction, which had been initiated by scholars who had followed the metaphysical stance of Yulgok for the most part. As Kang (2003 [2006: 300]) points out,

The problem was that differences in academic opinions were associated with antagonism between factions or regions.

Therefore, scholars aligned themselves with either T’oegye or Yulgok’s interpretations depending on their factional affiliation, and if one disagreed with the faction in power it could have serious consequences (think Republicans/Democrats in the U.S.). In this instance, like the Four-Seven Debate, it relates to a series of arguments raised in correspondence between two primary scholars of this time, who were tightly aligned with different factions: Han Wŏn-jin (1682–1751) from Ch’ungch’ŏng province and Yi Kan (1677–1727) from Kyŏnggi province where Seoul is located. Seoh (1977:47) notes that both scholars are

particularly important because it was their debate over the definition of nature that precipitated a resurgence of the ki school.

Though Yi Kan underscored the central role of Principle , Han posited the operation of the human mind as dependent on ki —both original ki , and corrupted ki . These ideas were related, not only to the emotions and how they affect the actualised mind (thoughts/actions), but led to other speculative questions:

• How should one describe the unaroused mind ( mibal ), in terms of ki or Principle , or a mixture?
• Whether sages and ordinary people have the same nature?, and
• Is the nature of human beings and nonhuman animals identical? (Richard Kim 2017: 90; Choi Y. 2011)

Richard Kim (2017: 90) notes that such questions became the debates’ “foundational issue”, thought it also brought up some of issues related to the previous debate, in regard to the effects of the emotions on the mind, and whether minds of sages and normal people were originally the same.

The notion of the unaroused mind appears in the Doctrine of the Mean , one of the Four Books :

Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy are aroused it is called equilibrium ( chung [中], centrality, mean). When these feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony. (SB-Chan: 98)

Choi Young-jin (2011: 9) describes this as “a state of moderation […] bent neither one way or another […] the state of balance”. This actual state of mind had never been analysed in such minute detail before, nor had it been considered in such detail in relation to the sage, normal humans, and other animals: were they the same, or not, at the microcosmic level of their mind in terms of ki or Principle ? Han Wŏn-jin’s essay on the “Explanation of the Original Nature and the Psycho-Physical Nature”, sowed the seeds of the debate. In this essay he suggested that the original nature, even before being aroused in the mind ( mibal , as argued by T’oegye), was already interacting with ki , in other words, energised by material force, or as Richard Kim (2017: 92) puts it, Han viewed “ gi [ ki ] as constitutive of the inactivated mind”. For Han, Principle required ki , so ki already had to exist in the mind and this ki had to be originally good or in equilibrium, balanced and unmotivated by desires. Clearly Han was “adhering more strictly to the materialist core of the ki school”, while claiming that “nature is not an abstract [undifferentiated] entity”, and that Principle “is nothing but a law of the dynamics of ki, ” in other words, Principle had no concrete existence of any sort (Seoh 1977: 48). He ultimately saw the nature of a human and other animals as different even in their unaroused or mibal state where ki was inactive, and used their different psycho-physical make-up (due to the variant manifestations of material force when activated) as the basis for his thesis. Han ultimately considered the sage to possess a pure form of ki , already balanced and pure even in an unaroused state, unlike other beings (which for him also included women and children) and in this sense he is more hierarchically inclined in his approach, with a more idealistic vision of the sage—something usually linked with proponents of Principle .

Yi Kan advocated the primacy of Principle in all living things, and therefore the immanence of goodness embedded within the Confucian virtues. The idea of the immanence of Principle in all things is also addressed in a more macrocosmic sense in Zhang Zai’s Diagram of the Western Inscription , which appears in T’oegye’s Diagrams, though here again, in the Korean context these ideas are analysed in a more microcosmic manner. Yi asserted that human and nonhuman animals had the potential to manifest the universal “original mind” (本心, K. bonsim ). This, according to Yi, was not always manifest by humans because their “physical nature” and, thereby, their psycho-physical preponderances varied: some humans were good, but some acted badly, just as was the case for nonhuman animals. He rather suggested that the apparent differences, were actually nothing other than differences in temperaments due to the turbidity of ki after feelings were aroused, but that the underlying Principle meant that they were morally unified in an unaroused state (R. Kim 2017). This also meant that theoretically, women too, even children, could aspire to be sages because their “original mind”, which was “the foundation of for human morality” was no different from that of a sage, what mattered was that one controlled one’s desires because “sages are those who maintain their moral self”: those who develop themselves to the optimum level of humanity (Lee 2011: 108). As Lee (2011: 111) asserts, Yi

went so far as to say that the original mind-heart [ sim ] is clearly present in anyone at any time, and the mind-hearts of sages and commoners are alike when aroused.

For Yi, what made one a sage was the fact that they “acted” morally—being aware of what is good but not acting on it at all times was what made one a “common” person.

Seoh (1977: 43) summarises the debate as follows:

Yi Kan equated the nature of man with other creatures and stressed its universality, while Han maintained the uniqueness of the nature of man in contrast with other creatures.

One interesting contribution in regard to this debate, came from one of the few women of the Chosŏn period to write on Neo-Confucianism (hence trained in Classical Chinese), Im Yunjidang (1721–1793). She disagreed with Yulgok’s interpretation of ki , whom her own brothers had agreed with, and instead claimed “that each thing [or species] in the universe possesses a particularised and embodied nature”, while ultimately convinced of the role of “Heaven endowed” Principle (Kim Sungmoon 2017: 190–191). Im also wrote about the moral equality of both sexes, something highlighted by the early Catholics in Korea. Kang Chŏngiltang (1772–1832), another female Confucian scholar from this period, emphasised that human nature is good, as well as the importance of putting Confucian ideals into practice. Her short poem on “Concentrating on Mindfulness” [or reverence] manages to capture with exquisite conciseness the main themes and the ultimate goal of Neo-Confucian learning in Chosŏn, namely, sagehood (Kim Youngmin 2007: 226, slightly altered translation):

Myriad Patterns [principles] originate from Heaven-and-Earth. One mind unites nature and emotions. Without concentrating on mindfulness, How can you manage the long trip to sagehood?

Interestingly, by this stage it is important to note that Catholicism, considered as part of “Western Learning” (西學, K. Sŏhak ), had already attracted the interest of some Neo-Confucian scholars, directing them away from an unemotional Principle , towards a belief in an anthropomorphic caring deity.

6. Confucian Reactions to Early Catholicism

The time frame of the Horak debate also coincided with Catholic texts being read by Korean Neo-Confucian philosophers. The most important text from this period was Tianzhu shiyi (天主實義; K. Chŏnju sirŭi ) [The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven], which had a great impact in Korea after being read by scholars there (see Ricci 1985). It was actually written by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), an Italian Jesuit missionary who had lived for many years (and died) in China. Ricci weaved in the mediaeval Scholastic philosophy of his European tradition into a newly enlarged tapestry including his newly discovered Confucian ideas. He retraced the trajectory of Neo-Confucianism, revealing its Buddhist and Daoist legacy that has been carefully coloured over by Zhu Xi, whose ideas also dictated how Koreans received the Confucian canon, something that clearly irked the Korean scholars. These ideas and messages had serious repercussions in Korea, where, as Seoh Munsang (1977: 46–47) points out, the intellectual milieu had retained Zhu Xi’s orthodoxy where metaphysical speculation was “still a vital force polarising the i and ki schools”.

Yi Sugwang (1563–1628) provides a short analysis of Ricci’s text, which is of value as it is the earliest commentary on the text in Korea. He remarked that Ricci’s God, Tianzhu (pronounced Ch’ŏnju in Korean), had created the world, hence was worshiped and praised, something he criticised as he clearly understood Principle to be behind all things. He incorrectly indicates that Ricci, like Confucians, asserts that human nature is originally good: Ricci had actually suggested that the Confucians had no unanimity of position in this regard, as Mencius had said it was good, but Xunzi regarded it as evil—a point clearly avoided by Korean Neo-Confucian scholars almost entirely (Yi 2000: 61). Yi Ik (1681–1763), who headed one of Chosŏn’s many scholarly factions, the Namin (Southern) faction, in more recent times described as a proponent of Sirhak “practical” thought, also compiled a wide range of encyclopedic texts and wrote commentaries on the Confucian canon too. He engaged more intellectually with Ricci’s ideas in his critique entitled Ch’ŏnju sirŭi-bal (天主實義跋) [Reactions Against Tianzhu zhiyi ] (Kim Shin-ja [ed.] 1987: 22–23). Yi Ik, who was also a follower of T’oegye’s metaphysics and wrote treatises on the Four-Seven debate such as Sach’il sinp’yŏ, (四七新編) [New Treaty on the Four-Seven Debate], did not accept that “God” had created the world, and outright rejects the idea that this God had incarnated himself as a man. He also examined the moral teachings of another Jesuit, Diego de Pantoja (1571–1618), and in his commentary on Pantoja’s Qike (七克) [Seven Victories], which described how to overcome the seven deadly sins, he argued that if one removed what was written about God and the devil, the morals could almost be considered Confucian. This reflects the non-theistic orientation of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, but also highlights how Yi was not about to overturn his onto-cosmological inheritance from T’oegye (Yi Ik Sŏngho sasŏl : 343).

Some of Yi’s associate Namin scholars were much more critical of Western ideas in general, especially Sin Hudam (1702–1761) and An Chŏngbok (1712–1783). Sin Hudam was particularly scathing of Catholic teachings in his critique entitled Sŏhak pyŏn (西學辨) [Critique of Western Learning]. There is a sub-stratum of thought at play in Sin’s text, which hopes to dissuade others from believing in Jesus as God, or God in the form of a man who spreads teachings to the poor. This idea would disengage God from the realm of insensitive Neo-Confucian metaphysics and could potentially wreak havoc for the king and society at large if the social hierarchy inscribed universally through Principle were to be rejected.

This foreboding is much more urgent in the writings of a fellow Namin scholar An Chŏngbok, as his own son-in-law Kwŏn Ilsin (1736–1791) was among the earliest Confucian converts to Catholicism. These were the incentives behind his two critiques of Catholicism: Ch’ŏnhakko (天學考) [Thoughts on Heavenly Learning], and Ch’ŏnhak mundap (天學問答) [Questions and Answers on Heavenly Learning]. An Chŏngbok draws our attention to the importance of the figure of Jesus and his message as the focal point of these young Korean Neo-Confucian scholars who had overturned the onto-cosmology of Principle and ki , which then also had no bearing on one’s human nature and mind. In Ch’ŏnhak mundap , An upholds his traditional Neo-Confucian horizon and suggests that Catholics misused Confucian vocabulary when they discussed sagehood (in relation to Jesus), emphasising that Confucius did not discuss the supernatural and was concerned with this life (Kim Shin-ja [ed.] 1987: 28–29).

These Confucians were all toeing the line of orthodox Confucian morality, which was practical (not mystical), and where the onus for morality was on oneself, inscribed into one’s mind and human nature. For them, humans decided their own moral fate by mastering one’s desires, and neither the devil nor God had any part in this. The “this-worldliness” of the Confucian discourse was something they championed, advocating its benefits for human affairs governed by “mindfulness”, and not by any sort of interference from the spirit world. In this sense they were upholding the agnostic stance of Confucius himself in the Analects :

If we are not yet able to serve man, how can we serve spiritual beings? […] If we do not yet know about life, how can we know about death? (SB-Chan: 36)

The earliest converts to Catholicism were all Confucian-trained scholars from aristocratic ( yangban ) families. Yi Pyŏk (1754–1786), as well as Yi Sŭnghun (1756–1801), were the leaders of this group who were soon joined by other yangban scholars, such as the two Kwŏn brothers (including the son-in-law of An Chŏngbok), and the three Chŏng brothers. The youngest of the Chŏng brothers, Yagyong (1762–1836), more generally known by his penname Tasan (often written as Dasan), is one of the most widely acclaimed philosophers in Korea’s intellectual history, discussed below. His early Confucian mentor, Yi Pyŏk, wrote the first lengthy outline of Christian doctrine in Korea, Sŏnggyo yoji (聖敎要旨) [The Essence of the Divine Doctrine] in Classical Chinese for his “Confucian” entourage. However, his hymn, Ch’ŏnju konggyŏng-ga (천주공경가) [Hymn in Adoration of God], is considered one of the first hymns written in Han’gŭl, the vernacular script, which was first promulgated in the fifteenth century, though generally associated with women and men from the poorer classes. In fact, so poorly was this simplified script esteemed in elite circles that it was referred to as Ŏnmun (諺文), meaning the vulgar script. But Yi’s hymn was also deeply Confucian, advocating loyalty to the king, emphasising filial piety, and even encouraging adherence to the “Five Relationships”. This Confucian aspect of early Catholicism reflects an interesting transcultural interaction between both traditions, highlighting their moral priorities. Chŏng Yakchŏn (1758–1816) and Chŏng Yakchong (1760–1801), also wrote Catholic texts in Han’gŭl, which also exhort Confucian morality: loyalty to the king, as well as filial piety, tropes already found in Yi’s hymn. In fact, in Chŏng Yakchŏn’s Sipkyemyŏng-ga (십계명가) [Hymn in Praise of the Ten Commandments], he writes that “Among all the things in the world, filial piety is the most important”, which also clarifies the singular importance of filial piety in Korean Confucianism (Ha (ed.) 2000: 334). Chŏng Yakchong wrote a much longer treatise on Catholicism in Han’gŭl , called Chugyo yoji (주교요지) [The Essence of The Lord’s Teachings], obviously directed at a growing audience who were not yangban scholars. In fact, many were women and members of the lower classes, overturning and destabilising entrenched hierarchical Confucian social norms, while at the same time advocating Confucian morality, but supplemented with egalitarian Christian ideas (Cawley 2015).

Tasan, like many others, renounced the religion after witnessing close relations and friends brutally executed, and as a result his authorial control had been clearly compromised through the fear of his own execution, as well as the fact that his wife and children could have been sold as slaves (Cawley 2014b). Some scholars, such as Kim Shin-ja (2006 [2010: 92–102]), comment on the philosophical inclinations in Tasan’s writings, and consider him as having returned to the “original theory of Confucius”, known as Susahak (洙泗學). However, Tasan’s commentaries are full of references to “The Sovereign on High”, Sangje (which is the Korean pronunciation of Shangdi ), despite the fact that the Analects never mention this term, not even a single time. It appears only five times in the entire Four Books ! This term was used in the Five Classics , as highlighted by Matteo Ricci, and was of great importance to the early Catholics in Korea, who, having read Ricci’s text, considered Sangje to be God. Why might this be important? Seen in this light, Tasan’s interest in “original” Confucianism ( Susahak ), may have been merely a ploy to detract from his religious affiliation with Catholicism. The Sangje one encounters in Tasan’s writings is a personal, monotheistic, creator deity, and not an impersonal Principle. Indeed, Tasan’s “dis-assembling” of Neo-Confucianism, extracting the Zhu-Cheng influenced metaphysical discourse, and reorienting it towards Sangje, resembles the strategy of Matteo Ricci, though supplemented with a sense of active social morality (see Cawley 2014a). Keum (1980 [2000: 189]) insists that

Catholic Doctrine not only provided a bridge to a new understanding of the universe, it also became a spring-board for the development of his [Tasan’s] Neo-Confucianism,

leading to a creative synthesis, which can also be described as “Post-Confucian” as it moves beyond the metaphysical parameters of Ihak (School of Principle ) or Sŏngnihak (School of Nature and Principle) . It might even be described as a sort of cryptic “Christo-Confucianology”, whereby Christian motifs inform his discourse on morality, which is guided by an anthropomorphic Sangje (discussed in detail in Cawley 2014b).

In Chungyong kangŭibo (中庸講義補) [Supplement to Lectures on the Doctrine of the Mean ], Tasan ( Kugyŏk yŏyudang chŏnsŏ : vol. 1: 390) queries the link between the “Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate” (which had provided the foundation for T’oegye’s onto-cosmology) and original Confucian ideas, noting that, “it was written over a thousand years after Confucius”, hence not found in “original” Confucianism at all. In another text, Maengja yoŭi (孟子要義) [The Essentials of The Mencius ] Tasan notes that

the circle in this diagram which represents the Supreme Ultimate does not appear anywhere in the [Five] Classics. ( Maengja yoŭi : 383)

Tasan, similar to Matteo Ricci, reorients his ideas away from these widely accepted Neo-Confucian metaphysical norms towards an all-seeing Sangje to provide an alternative foundation for his moral framework. It is Sangje who re-stabilises Tasan’s re-conceptualised ontotheological-cosmology, disentangling it from Principle , the Supreme Ultimate, yin and yang, as well as the five elements. It is Sangje who makes Tasan’s philosophy theistic-oriented. In Ch’unch’u kojing (春秋考徵) [Evidential Analysis of the Spring and Summer Annals ] written circa 1812, he asks, “Who is Sangje ?”, answering that

Sangje is a being that creates , governs and maintains heaven, earth, spirits, humans and all things, but also transcends them. ( Ch’unch’u kojing , a283_363a)

Furthermore, this quote echoes the full title of Ricci’s first chapter in the True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven :

A Discussion on the creation of Heaven, Earth, and all things by the Lord of Heaven and on the way he governs and sustains them. (Ricci 1985:65)

Earlier scholars such as Yun Hyu (1617–1680) and Pak Sedang (1629–1703) had dared to be critical of Zhu Xi’s interpretations of texts and rituals, but Mark Setton (1997: 102–103) notes how Tasan took this to another level, arguing that even his conception of Confucian virtue was “diametrically opposed” to Zhu Xi’s. Setton also notes how Tasan even rejected the introspective aspects of self-cultivation, advocating an outward ethical practice based on our moral priorities. This then is contingent upon free will, a radical idea in Tasan’s work, where good and evil are not aspects of one’s material force, but rather, related to the psychological level, and only exist “in the context of concrete human relations” (Setton 1989: 380). Free will is then the defining feature of the human being because

This ability to make moral choices, and consequently to shape his own moral destiny, places man in an entirely different category from the animals. (1989: 380)

This also shapes Tasan’s other writings that highlight his profound interest in reforming his society: Kyŏngse yup’yo (經世遺表) [Design for Good Government], Mongmin simsǒ (牧民心書) [Admonitions on Governing the People], and Hŭmhŭm sinsǒ (欽欽新書) [Toward a New Jurisprudence]. These three texts are generally considered to embody Tasan’s practical Sirhak ideology, though they too draw on commentaries and examples from Confucian literature. However, Tasan’s writings do not necessarily eulogise Confucianism and its laws, rather, we often find a harsh critique of it, which moves away from metaphysical debates to deal with the actual matters at hand—a society in decay, and poor people suffering from harsh punishments and taxes (see B. Choi (trans.) 2010 [ Mongmin simsǒ ]). Justice, in Tasan’s writings, becomes a call for moral responsibility, a gesture of “Humane” government actively involved in loving the people, where we can again possibly find Christian undertones.

The nineteenth century was a time of transformation in East Asia, particularly in Korea, and Confucian scholars were still eager to validate their discourse, even if it meant persecuting rivals: between 1866 and 1871, between 8,000 and 10,000 Catholics, men, women and children were tortured and executed by Confucian authorities. Choi Min-Hong (1980:191–217) notes the re-emergence of philosophers interested in Principle in the nineteenth century, many who had been linked with the Namin faction, hence, proponents of the T’oegye’s metaphysical ideas. This included Ki Chŏngjin (1798–1876) and Yi Hangno (1792–1868), the latter who considered Principle to be the basic substance of the universe, and “something spiritual” (1980: 194). Ki Chŏngjin, who again returned to study the writings of Zhu Xi, also re-engaged with studying sage learning and “researching the Classics”. He regarded Principle as a sort of spiritual Supreme Ultimate, which then produced yin and yang (and the material force)—in other words, Principle preceded ki, and this Principle was reflected differently in men and animals (Choi M.-H. 1980: 196–198). Yi Chin-sang (1818–1885) also considered Principle as preceding ki , but also as that which generated it, therefore, self-cultivation lay in the study of the mind and not in knowing external things due to man’s “Heaven-bestowed cognitive powers” which depended on “transcendental Li [ Principle ]”. Such idealistic ideas were hardly needed at a time when society was in such a state of disarray, already foreboded in the writings of Tasan.

At the same time, another branch emerged championing ki , such as Ch’oe Han-ki (1803–1879), who was weary of being governed by prejudices. Ch’oe’s work has been re-evaluated in more recent times. Scholars underscore his empiricist philosophy that investigated the role of experience in a methodologically sophisticated manner, reminiscent of John Locke (1632–1704), but used in Ch’oe’s work to undermine the idea of a naturally good mind before learning from accumulated experiences (Park 2004). He was very well acquainted with European science and observes a more practical interest in the material force. One can notice his ontology based on a “One-Dimensional ki theory”, which, in his opinion, was what shaped all things, even preceding all forms, while at the same time “denying the [Zhu Xi’s school’s] world of innate reasoning power” (Choi M.-H. 1980: 205). He was also influenced by the changing times, critical of the class system and the inhumane treatment of the population, issues raised by Tasan earlier in the century.

Park Chong-hong (2004: 396) critiques the trend of the (later-called) Sirhak [Practical] scholars, who “made the mistake of arranging encyclopedic knowledge” and other “trivial matters”, clearly unable to fathom what was coming, and unable to provide Chosŏn with the tools it needed to survive the “modernisation” that would soon be thrust upon the peninsula, leading to Japan’s eventual colonial rule over the peninsula (1910–1945). As the situation on the peninsula disintegrated, Koreans sought alternatives to Confucianism to deal with social issues and inequality. The first of these New Religious Movements (NRMs) was known as Tonghak (東學), or Eastern Learning, to contrast directly with the foreign “Western Learning”, and it attempted to help hopeless poor peasants whose lives were getting progressively worse, especially in the southern regions far from the capital. Tonghak was founded by Ch’oe Che-u (1824–1864), known by his followers as Su-un, and while providing an alternative to Confucianism, it used the name of the “Sovereign on High” ( Sangje ) from the Confucian Classics to refer to its deity, while also using the Catholic term “Lord of Heaven” ( Ch’ŏnju ) as well. There were splinter groups formed out of this NRM such as Chŭngsando (more commonly written Jeungsando), and Daesoon Jinrihoe, both worshipping different iterations of Sangje —a monotheistic Korean deity with Confucian origins (see Cawley 2019: ch. 5).

As the end of the Chosŏn dynasty drew nearer, and Korea opened up to Western countries, many Protestant missionaries would enter Korea by the late 1880s to make their mark on its religious culture. This motivated some Confucian scholars to attempt to revitalise Confucianism, emphasising its religious aspects, while others sought to reform Confucianism to counter the attempts by the Japanese government to “Japanize” the peninsula. Interestingly, Keum (1980 [2000: 219]) comments that “It goes without saying that the idea of Confucian Religion was prompted by the Christian concept of a transcendent God”, as well as the idea of “the organisation of a religious community [and] their own religious institutions”. However, this did not really take off, likely due to the elitism associated with Confucianism, and the way it had been responsible for the unfair treatment of people from different classes, and in particular, women, who were increasingly embracing Protestantism, which had facilitated their education in “modern” schools.

Han Hyong-jo (2016) articulates that more recent understandings of Korean Confucianism “has mirrored its chief nemesis, modernity” and outlines three stages:

• Denial (1890s–1930s), where Confucianism was blamed for the loss of Korea’s sovereignty;
• Excuse (1930s–1980s): Sirhak , whereby “practical” ideas were “fished” out of the tradition as a sort of retrospective consolation had things gone differently;
• Rehabilitation (1980s–1997): suggesting that Confucianism is behind of the economic rise of Korea and linked to the emergence of its democracy, despite the fact that Confucians were against industry and labour, and they supported unelected rulers from a royal clan.

Indeed, rulers’ challengers were easily disposed of—even if they should be senior members of their own family—contravening teachings on filial piety. Confucianism has also been linked with a resurgence of “Asian” values, or recalibrated (yet again) to permit a feminist turn, and possibly even found in some of the Juche ideas of North Korea’s state ideology, which commands undisputed loyalty ( chung ) to its Dear Leader.

Confucianism is currently at a crossroads as it interacts with other traditions in the twenty-first century, nestling between them and insinuating itself throughout them (Min 2016). In a sense, one might look to recovering what Han Hyoung-jo (2016) describes as a lost art of Confucian ihak , a form of cultivation of the mind, whereby reengaging with it might just draw us closer to how it was understood for centuries, and bring us closer to its goal, which is not democracy, but something more noble, sagehood. Han (2016) suggests that this has the potential to cure us from “self-oblivion and self-centredness”, the deficiencies and flaws of our culture today, by helping us to rediscover our innate potential for humane co-existence, irrespective of our political or religious views. Korean Confucianism and its emphasis on sage learning, rather than being outmoded, may be the agnostic moral approach that has the potential to reconnect us to ourselves and each other, at a time when psychological distress is on the rise in all modern “developed” democracies.

See the supplementary document (Figures and their Works) for a list of figures and works discussed in the entry.

Primary Literature

• Book of Rites, Li Yun 禮運, [ Book of Rites available online ].
• Chan, Wing-Tsit (trans.), [SB-Chan], 1963, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy , Wing-Tsit Chan (trans./ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1967, Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology compiled by Chu Hsi and Lü Tsu-Ch’ien , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Chŏng Tojŏn (Sambong), Sambong-jib (三峯集) [Collected Works of Sambong], Seoul: Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1961.
• –––, Pulssi Chappyŏn (佛氏雜辨) [ Array of Critiques of Mr. Buddha ]. Translated to Muller 2015: 54–81.
• –––, Simgiri p’yŏn (心氣理篇) [On Mind, Material Force and Principle]. Translated to English in Muller 2015: 45–53.
• [SB-BB] De Bary, Wm Theodore and Irene Bloom (eds), 1999, Sources of Chinese Tradition , volume 1, New York: Columbia University Press.
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• Chinese Text Project , searchable Confucian texts online (original with English translation).
• Lunyu (論語) [The Analects]
• Daxue (大學) [The Great Learning]
• Zhongyong (中庸) [The Doctrine of the Mean]
• Mengzi (孟子) [The Mencius]

Chinese Philosophy: Song-Ming Confucianism | Confucius | Mencius | Xunzi | Zhu Xi

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Religious Communities in the Virtual Age: Practices, Values, Technologies, Boundaries

Call for Papers

Religious Communities in the Virtual Age:

Practices, Values, Technologies, Boundaries

28 October 2024, Manchester, England

Keynote Speaker: Prof Linda Woodhead, King’s College London.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, religious communities across Europe and the world have engaged with the

digital world and specific digital technologies in a wide variety of ways. Some have embraced online

worship and gathering as a tool for widening or enriching a sense of community. Others have used social

media to re-think the boundaries of their work with their wider society around them or to connect with

their co-religionists across the world. Still others have consciously avoided digital tools, seeing a spiritual

and social potency in in-person gathering that cannot be replicated. But nearly all have had to face the new

assumptions and practices of the virtual age that the pandemic made far more universal than they were

How have these engagements with the technologies, practices and norms of the virtual age changed the

lives of religious communities? How has it affected their sense of community, their understanding of the

borders of membership, or their relationship with the wider world? What has it meant for the means and

potencies of collective worship? How has it changed patterns of authority and decision making? How have

notions of sacred place and time been affected by the virtual? How do communities navigate notions of

‘appropriate’ or ‘genuine’ in the context of the digital society?

This conference will bring together scholars investigating these questions in a range of religious

communities, from large and dominant ones to established minorities and marginalised or immigrant

groups, and from a range of national contexts. It centres around the work of the EU-CHANSE funded

project Religious Communities in the Virtual Age (recovira.org), but welcomes other scholars in dialogue

with these concerns from fields such as the study of religion, sociology, theology, performance,

anthropology, cultural studies and so on. While the focus is on the lives of religious communities in the

post-pandemic era and papers are necessarily limited to 10-15 minutes, we are interested in case studies,

comparative, and theoretical approaches.

Please note: This conference will take place in central Manchester. Conference fees, which will include a

catered lunch, will be kept to a minimum (under £20). In-person attendance will be limited by the size of

the venue. While offsite, online presentation will not be possible for this conference, it will be streamed for

those who wish to watch. Online viewing will require pre-booking, which will be free.

Abstract submissions are due 10th May 2024

We hope to notify applicants by 31st May 2024

Please submit abstracts via this form: https://forms.office.com/e/ppidGy9jUr

With any questions, please contact the project team at [email protected]

This conference is sponsored by the Performance Research Group, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Modern Views on Confucian Values: “The King of Masks” Essay (Movie Review)

The introduction, the conclusion, works cited, some fundamentals on the movie.

The movie I want to discuss is created by a Chinese film director Wu Tianming. It is a kind of mythic movie, which principal themes are considered to be the subordinate position of women to men and the Confucian value of filiality.

The director of the movie reflects some interesting facts from China’s history and criticizes a well-known system of ethics. Generally, it must be noted that the director of The King of Masks highlights important philosophical issues.

The thesis statement

Wu Tianming provides viewers with an opportunity to consider the basic Confucian values from the modernized point of view. Thus, keeping in mind the plot of the movie, one can state that the issues of gender inequality and filial piety are to be revalued, in order to resolve the conflict between a person’s public duty and his or her own desires.

The relationship between two genders as one of the key themes of the movie

While watching The King of Masks , it becomes evident that one of the director’s main intentions was to reveal traditional values of Confucianism in the modern China; although some new approaches concerning a well-known teaching are introduced. Thus, one can notice that Wu Tianming draws viewers’ attention to the relationship between two genders.

Generally, there is a wide range of themes the movie reflects; although the burning problems Wu Tianming depicts are a devastating underpopulation of females and a system of important philosophical and ethical teachings written by Confucius. As far as the problems are closely interdependent, one can conclude that they cannot be regarded separately.

The principal values of Confucianism

Nobody will deny the fact that in China the issue of gender in relation to Confucianism was of great importance, as political and social standards were determined by men (Jay 226). Thus, the basic principles an important philosophical teaching is based on involve the issues of humaneness, filial piety and ritual.

The director of the movie provides viewers with an opportunity to delve deeply into a prime virtue of Confucianism, which is recognized to be the root of humanity. So, the issue of filial piety can be traced back, if viewers analyze the relations between the main characters in detail.

The protagonist of the movie Wang is deeply concerned about social interactions and ethical norms of Confucianism, because he understands that the society cannot approve of his relations with a little girl.

For this reason, the situation he experiences seems to be rather ambiguous: on the one hand, he realizes his greatest affection towards a girl; on the other hand, he understands that according to Confucian principles he cannot give a girl an opportunity to study his art.

The protagonist of the movie and his internal conflict

The director of the movie depicts the internal conflict, which the protagonist cannot cope with. Wang starts to cast doubt on the correctness of Confucian morality.

Of course, it is a big problem, as nobody has a right to prejudice ancient authentic principles of philosophical and ethical teachings founded by Confucius; so, the main character feels uncertainty and cannot decide what to do. Wang is worried about his moral obligations in relation to society, but his personal attitudes seem to prevent him from taking a right decision.

This moment is considered to be extremely important, as Wu Tianming suggests that traditional values of Confucianism can be regarded within a new perspective. In other words, one can probably conclude that certain aspects of Confucianism should be changed, as nothing can remain the same. If times are changing, why ancient traditions should be invariable?

Moreover, one can also suppose that the relations between genders should be reconsidered, as certain Confucian norms are too strict. Nobody is going to underestimate the importance of an ancient philosophical teaching as well as its contribution to Chinese history development, but the new perspectives on women’s position in the contemporary world cannot be ignored.

The problem of gender inequality in Confucianism

The problem of gender inequality the director of the movie represents is recognized to be rather important, as the plot of The King of Masks familiarizes viewers with significant aspects of Chinese history. Thus, one is to keep in mind that Confucianism does not support the idea of gender equality.

On the contrary, according to Confucian norms males are valued more than females. A woman’s most important role is to be obedient and help a husband. Hershatter states that “A woman’s status in the family rose with the birth of children, particularly sons, who formed the core of her affective life and old-age support – her uterine family – even as they reproduced the patriline” (22).

For this reason, it becomes evident that the husband-wife relationship is not important. It is filial piety, which highlights the importance of the father-son relations.

Confucian norms vs. the modern aspects of democracy

Keeping in mind strict Confucian norms, one can probably notice that it is not happiness, which people are to strive for. The basic aim of a well-known philosophical teaching is to reach harmony. It should be noted that Confucianism does not consider a person as a detached entity or as an individual who has certain desires.

On the contrary, a human being is just regarded as an integral element of human relationship. So, according to a system of philosophical teachings, human beings must possess not rights, but certain obligations in relation to the society.

The process of modernization of Asian societies cannot be ignored, as it also impacted on traditional Confucian values. It was noted that certain Confucian norms contradict the modern aspects of democracy.

Moreover, it was also proven that the idea of human rights is totally ignored by the system of values a well-known philosophical teaching is based on. For this reason, Wu Tianming suggests that some Confucian aspects can be also modernized.

He shows his protagonist’s hesitation and gives viewers an opportunity to notice that Confucian norms are inconsistent with the basic human rights, including the issue of gender equality. As far as Milburn states that the early Chinese historical texts neglected any issue of gender or sexuality (3), one can make a conclusion that the modern society should be deeply interested in profound investigation of the issue of gender.

This area of studies requires a new approach. Traditional philosophical teachings, which ignored gender roles, must be expanded with new contemporary themes and adapted to modern requirements. On the other hand, if such teachings are not related to the issue of gender – there is no need to follow their norms or rules.

Kevin Dodd is of the opinion that “Confucianism has always had a strongly hierarchical vision of society, but it has protected this from authoritarian ossification by stressing, inter alia, reciprocity and self cultivation” (8-9).

Wu Tianming seems to criticize the position and considers it in a different way. He points out that some Confucian norms should be accepted as outdated issues, because human beings’ existence is complicated by obsolete customs.

Confucianism vs. the modern society

The King of Masks by Wu Tianming discloses certain important aspects of Chinese history. Furthermore, while analyzing the plot of the movie, one can suppose that traditional Confucian values must be revalued, in order to resolve a conflict between persons’ moral duties and their personal attitudes towards somebody or something.

One of the main characters Wang is considered to be a victim of traditional Confucian norms; as far as he deeply respects the history of his nation, he cannot follow his heart. In other words, the director of the movie depicts the so-called philosophical conflict through the internal conflict the protagonist experiences. Thereby, Confucianism vs. the modern society is one of the key themes of a mythic production.

The King of Masks by Wu Tianming reflects complex philosophical issues. The main purpose the director of the movie wanted to achieve was to show the importance of Confucian norms reevaluation.

Keeping in mind the modernized society, it becomes obvious that one of the principal values of Confucianism – filial piety is inconsistent with some contemporary aspects of democracy.

Moreover, traditional Confucian norms seem to aggravate people’s existence and cause the internal conflicts between people’s moral obligations and their own desires. As far as Confucianism does not support the idea of gender equality, it can be regarded as an outdated philosophical teaching.

Dodd, Kevin. King of Masks: The Myth of Miao-shan and the Empowerment of Women , 2012. Web.

Hershatter, Gail. Women in China’s Long Twentieth Century, Santa Cruz: University of California Press, 2007. Print.

Jay, Jennifer. “Imagining Matriarchy: Kingdoms of Women in Tang China.” Journal of the American Oriental Society. 116.2 (1996): 220-229.

Milburn, Olivia. “Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Early China: The Changing Biographies of Lord Ling of Wei and Lady Nanzi.” Seoul National University. 12 (2010): 1-29.

• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2024, March 30). Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks". https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-king-of-masks-by-wu-tianming/

"Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks"." IvyPanda , 30 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/the-king-of-masks-by-wu-tianming/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks"'. 30 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks"." March 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-king-of-masks-by-wu-tianming/.

1. IvyPanda . "Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks"." March 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-king-of-masks-by-wu-tianming/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Modern Views on Confucian Values: "The King of Masks"." March 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-king-of-masks-by-wu-tianming/.

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