This collection of essays explores the development of the New Confucianism movement during the twentieth-century and questions whether it is, in fact, a distinctly new intellectual movement or one that has been mostly retrospectively created. The questions that contributors to this book seek to answer about this neo-conservative philosophical movement include: 'What has been the cross-fertilization between Chinese scholars in China and overseas made possible by the shared discourse of Confucianism?'; 'To what extent does this discourse transcend geographical, political, cultural, (...) and ideological divides?'; 'Why do so many Chinese intellectuals equate Confucianism with Chinese cultural identity?'; and 'Does the Confucian revival of the 1990s in China and Taiwan represent a genuine philosophical renaissance or a resurgence in interest based on political and cultural factors?'. (shrink)

This Source Book is devoted to the purpose of providing such a basis for genuine understanding of Chinese thought (and thereby of Chinese life and culture, ...

Promoting multiculturalism through renewed East-West and Confucian-Christian dialogue, Neville (philosophy, religion, and theology, Boston U.) fosters the idea ...

In modern scholarship, Confucianism has only with some difficulty been placed among the religious traditions of the world, being viewed as more a form of humanism than religion. The question is revisited here whether Confucianism can be described as a religion by employing a definition of religion that focuses on both the identification of an Absolute and the transformation of the individual toward the Absolute. Arguing that the religious basis for the tradition can be found in the identification of an (...) Absolute, T'ien, Heaven, or T'ien-li, Principle of Heaven, this essay identifies sagehood as the transformative process that leads the individual toward the realization of its Absolute. (shrink)

The man or woman of faith living in today's pluralist world must have a theology that will do justice to his or her own faith, and also to the neighbours' - and to the differences between them. Similarly, humanists must have a theory that does justice to their own vision and also to the fact that for most of their fellows on earth the proper way of being human has been one or another of various `religious' ways. Any interpretation of (...) human history, both past and present, must take into serious account the self-consciousness of each major part, as well as the diversity and the dynamic of the whole. This exciting book, first published in 1981 and now also available in paperback, is perhaps our world's first serious endeavour towards a theology in global perspective. Here is a wrestling with the demands of an authentic theology of the comparative history of religion. (shrink)

Using the terms "cosmology" and "cultivation," the religious nature of Confucianism is explored, beginning with a discussion of the ambiguity surrounding Confucianism and its political uses, which often obscure its religious dimensions. It is also assumed that categories of Western theology such as immanence and transcendence are not adequate to describe Confucianism as religious. In this spirit, it is suggested that beyond political distortions or theoretical interpretations, Confucianism has religious dimensions that need to be explored further. The interaction of the (...) microcosm of the self with the macrocosm of the universe is a central dialectic for establishing inner and outer harmony. Thus, cultivating oneself, responding morally to the social and political order, and resonating with the patterns in nature are at the heart of Confucian religiosity. This is illustrated by two examplars of the Japanese Neo-Confucian tradition: Yamazaki Ansai (1618-1682) and Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714). (shrink)

Definitions of the nature of Confucian piety and the religious dimension of the Japanese Confucian tradition are sought. The general religious dimension of Confucianism is defined both by the nature of its canon, the Thirteen Classics, and its transcendent referent, the root metaphor of ultimate concern. The Japanese Confucians inherited this pan-East Asian philosophic and religious tradition and modified it to suit their own cultural and religious sensibilities. If we recognize, as Herbert Fingarette has shown, that for Confucians the secular (...) is truly the sacred, then it is easy to distinguish the religious dimension of the Confucian Way in a distinctive Japanese guise. (shrink)