This article suggests that reading Zhou Dunyi’s 周敦頤 Explanation to the Diagram of Supreme Polarity synchronously instead of diachronically yields a new understanding on the relatedness between infinitude and finitude, or on the One and many. Zhou’s attitude is introduced as a living riddle, in which “Non-Polar and Supreme Polarity” is understood as a new conceptual construct, and one which is issued as a call for action at the end of the text: it is a call to investigate the beginnings (...) and endings of one’s life. In this way, the text demonstrates how a person embodies the cosmological as riddle. The article follows both the diagram and text. It first refers to the riddle, then moves on to its embodiment in the ongoing processes of living as yin-yang 陰陽, the five phases, qian 乾 and kun 坤, and the myriad things, including human beings. According to the approach presented here, it is the sage who is the human embodiment of “Non-Polar and Supreme Polarity.”. (shrink)

I examine Zhu Xi's investigation thesis, the claim that a necessary condition (in ordinary cases) for one’s acting fully virtuously is one’s investigating the all-pervasive pattern in things (gewu格物). I identify four key objections that the thesis faces, which I label the rationalism, elitism, demandingness, and irrelevance worries. Zhu Xi, I argue, has resources for responding to each of these worries, and for defending a broadly intellectualist conception of fully virtuous agency.

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7–8, Aristotle defends a striking view about the good for human beings. According to Aristotle, the single happiest way of life is organized around philosophical contemplation. According to the narrowness worry, however, Aristotle's contemplative ideal is unduly Procrustean, restrictive, inflexible, and oblivious of human diversity. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle has resources for responding to the narrowness worry, and that his contemplative ideal can take due account of human diversity.

ABSTRACTIs Confucian democracy philosophically justifiable? In recent decades, prominent Confucian theorists have answered this question in the negative, arguing that the political system that is c...

ABSTRACTStudents of Ming philosophy and the thought of Wang Yangming likely know that the 1960s–1970s was a period during which many scholarships in this field of study were produced in the English language. Indeed, it has been almost half a century since a group of scholars came together at the University of Hawaii to present papers on Wang Yangming in commemoration of the fifth centenary of his birth. That group included, for example, Wing-tsit Chan, David Nivison, and Du Weiming. These (...) scholars, along with two others not present—Julia Ching and Carsun Chang—played a transformative role in introducing Wang Yangming to an English-reading audience. But, the history behind their achievement, as well as how they interpreted him for that audience, has yet to be written. This paper provides a synopsis of that history, explaining why the scholars chose to write about him and what they said about his life and ideas. (shrink)

About 60 years ago, Tang Junyi 唐君毅, Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, and Zhang Junmai 張君勱 published “A Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture.” In the Manifesto, these major representatives of contemporary New Confucianism tried to rectify Westerners’ biases and reestablish Chinese people’s cultural confidence by upholding the Confucian learning of the heart-mind as the core of Chinese culture. Following the same approach, some prominent scholars today continue the effort of bringing Confucianism to a (...) new epoch through reappropriating metaphysical theories of the heart-mind and human nature of the Zisi 子思–Mencius lineage, which flourished in the Song-Ming 宋明 period. This article critically reflects on this approach and argues that the Confucian learning of the heart-mind and human nature should not be taken so much as a mirror that reflects metaphysical reality than as a lever that directs and uplifts human vision and gongfu 功夫/工夫. In the cultural context today, revealing the gongfu nature of Confucianism can help us appreciate the real value of Confucianism as a constructive resource for global culture. (shrink)

In the last part of Ethics Spinoza introduces the doctrine of the intellectual love of God: God loves himself with an infinite intellectual love. This doctrine has raised one of the most discussed puzzles in Spinoza scholarship: How can God have intellectual love if, as Spinoza says, God is Nature itself? After examining existing.approaches to the puzzle and revealing their failures, I will propose a Neo- Confucian approach to the puzzle. I will compare Spinoza's philosophy with Neo-Confucian philosophy and argue (...) that we can develop a new approach to the puzzle by appealing to the comparison. I conclude that the intellectual love of God can be properly understood from different perspectives. From God's perspective it is understood as the creative power of God. From an individual's perspective it is understood as the essence of this very individual. Moreover, once we combine these two perspectives we can reach what I consider to be the correct interpretation of Spinoza' s view: Given that intuitive knowledge and action are one and the same the intellectual love of God should be comprehended not only as man's final fulfillment of freedom through intuitive knowledge, but also as man's self-cultivation in practice. I maintain that a free man, as Spinoza endeavors to become, is equivalent to a Neo-Confucian sage. (shrink)

The historical unity of the East Asian region - defined as made up of China, Korea and Japan - is based on three successive phases: the longue durée of the traditional Sinocentric order, the ear of imperialist conflicts from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and the post-war developmentalist turn. The idea of a Confucian tradition or region is best understood as an attempt to superimpose a more emphatic conception of cultural identity on this historical constellation, and to rebuild bridges (...) between past and present. For a critical and comparative analysis of the claims made in relation to Confucianism and its modernizing potential, it is essential to move from the issue of capitalist development to a broader civilizational framework. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘processual holism’ of Chinese metaphysics explains its characteristic attitude towards non-humans such as animals and demons. As all things are constantly in process and form a continuum, it follows that ontological distinctions between ‘species’ become impossible to delimit. The distinctions one makes are instead understood as perspectival and provisional. These metaphysical assumptions explain the lack of interest in the Chinese tradition for classifying the distinctions between humans and non-human. We see many examples of the different (...) schools of philosophy espousing the view that the distinction between humans and non-humans is tenuous, precarious and subject to change. A key implication that follows is that the Chinese worldview saw no ontological distinction between those considered as ‘Chinese’ and as ‘non-Chinese.’ The unavailability of ontological distinction as an explanation for the existence of difference means that phenomena that are perceived as anomalous, such as ghosts and spirits, are attributed to the perspective of the human agent; anomaly/difference is not understood as ontological. (shrink)

Weiming, as a leading spokesman for contemporary New Confucianism, has been reinterpreting the Confucian tradition in the face of the challenges of modernity. Tu takes selfhood as his starting point, emphasizing the importance of cultivating the human mind-and-heart as a deepening and broadening process to realize the anthropocosmic dao. He highlights the concept of a fiduciary community and advocates that, because of it, Confucianism remains a dynamic inclusive humanism. Tu’s mode of thinking tallies well with Wilfred C. Smith’s vision of (...) religion, specifically the latter’s exposition of faith as a universal human quality and proposal of corporate critical self-consciousness. This article details the theories of both scholars, highlights their similarities, and contrasts their differences. It argues that Smith’s world theology provides a heuristic framework through which one understands how Tu has advanced his Confucian humanism from a Chinese philosophical or cultural tradition to the midst of world religions. (shrink)

The present article focuses on Zhang Zai’s 張載 attitude toward death and its moral significance. It launches with the unusual link between the opening statement of the Western Inscription 西銘 regarding heaven and earth as parents and the conclusion that serving one’s cosmic parents during life, one is peaceful in death. Through the analogy of human relations with heaven and earth as filial piety (xiao 孝), Zhang Zai sets a framework for an understanding that being filial through life eliminates the (...) fear of death. The article shows that filial piety as a root for morality enables a “sense of immortality,” which is in fact a sense of morality. This moral immortality is elucidated through Zhang Zai’s discussion on vital power (qi 氣) as that which life is made of, which persists through ongoing transformation and enables a moral continuum. This continuum is manifested through filial piety, which transcends the limits between life and death, and thus makes physical death pointless as morality endures. (shrink)

A philosophical analysis of the work of one of the most iconoclastic thinkers in Chinese history, Li Zhi, whose ethics prized spontaneous expression of genuine feelings.