This paper argues that Confucianism had an antiessentialist conception of selfhood. This understanding of self means that they did not have, and could not have had, a concept of “race” in the sense that one's essence determines one's becoming. In the Confucian canon, the embodiment of cultural norms/performance of culturally appropriate actions defines one's human-ness. This account of human agency in becoming human can be seen in the Confucian explanation of moral failure. This assumption of human agency also means that (...) the Confucian understanding of hierarchy is social as opposed to ontological and that differences between peoples are understood to be a result of culture–custom variation. (shrink)

Many scholars argue that there is no epistemology in Chinese philosophy, or that an epistemological sensibility was not fully developed in Chinese thinking. This leads western audiences to mistakenly think that Chinese philosophy is not properly ?philosophical?. This paper argues that there is a great deal of discourse about understanding the world as a whole in ancient Chinese philosophy. Taking Song-ming Neo-Confucianism as an example, the author shows that most researchers do not uncover its philosophical advancement as it developed throughout (...) history. The author reconstructs a real philosophical breakthrough in Neo-Confucianism and argues that Chinese philosophy should be recognized as fully ?philosophical??not just ethical, but also epistemological. Through the clarification about epistemological progress in Song-ming Neo-Confucianism, the author argues that there is a coherent development of epistemology in Chinese philosophical history. In short, this article formalizes a systematic view of Chinese Neo-Confucian epistemology by demonstrating that epistemological theory developed step by step in Song-ming Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

This paper analyses the connection between knowing Dao and ethical transformation in Xunzi’s thought. While there have been many discussions concerning what Dao is and how one may come to Dao, there has not been sufficient attention on how knowing Dao leads to ethical transformation. In Section 2, I explicate Xunzi’s concept of bi 蔽 and suggests that one’s not knowing Dao has to do with a certain problematic state of the heart/mind. In Section 3, I analyse xu虛, yi 一, (...) and jing 靜, which are remedial practices for knowing Dao, and bring out the importance of discerning li 理 for Xunzi. In Sections 4 and 5, I propose an interpretation of the relation between li 理 and qing 情 in the process of ethical transformation. In Section 6, I highlight some remaining ambiguities that can be further investigated to deepen our understanding of Xunzi’s thought. (shrink)

This paper reports part of a longitudinal research project, which sought to capture students’ conceptualization of caring practice as they progressed to different levels of study in a nursing diploma programme in Hong Kong. Model emulation was found to be an effective means of focusing students’ learning processes on the moral aspects of nursing practice. The theory of model emulation from a Chinese perspective and how it is applied to create a learning context to allow students to acquire a moral (...) sense of nursing are discussed. The participating students are invited to be sincere enquirers in the pursuit of the good embedded in practice through introspective self-examination and dialogue. They are asked to describe and share their experience of positive and negative examples of nursing in written accounts. Van Kaam’s phenomenological method was adopted to explicate the good and bad constituents of nursing from these examples, with the students assuming an active role in the explication process. The explication reveals that the students were able to articulate the good and bad practices in a variety of patient care situations. (shrink)

The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners, are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior. The 2 types of cognitive processes are embedded in different naive metaphysical systems and tacit epistemologies. The authors speculate that the (...) origin of these differences is traceable to markedly different social systems. The theory and the evidence presented call into question long-held assumptions about basic cognitive processes and even about the appropriateness of the process–content distinction. (shrink)

Xunzi’s 荀子 advocacy for moral education is well-documented; precisely how his program bolsters moral development, and why a program touting study of ritual could be effective, remain subjects of debate. I argue that these matters can be clarified by appealing to the theory of learning and development offered by Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky posited that development depends primarily on social interactions mediated by sociocultural tools that modify learners’ cognitive architecture, enabling increasingly sophisticated thought. Vygotsky’s theory is remarkably similar to Xunzi’s account (...) of how studying and practicing ritual restructures learners’ moral psychology. Specifically, both Vygotsky and Xunzi offer nonnativist accounts of psychosocial development that emphasize the centrality of sociocultural tools for learning. This comparison yields a more nuanced and empirically supported interpretation of Xunzi’s account of moral education, as well as an account that has applications in contemporary work in moral education and development. (shrink)

Nowadays, there is still a widely held view that the Chinese and Western modes of thought are quite distinct from each other. In particular, the Chinese mode of thought derived from Confucianism is considered as comparatively less rational than the Western one. In this article, I first argue that although the analogical mode of argumentation, which is often claimed to be in sharp contrast with the Western mode of rationalism, has played a prominent role in Confucianism, it does not make (...) Confucianism any less rational. Then, I examine the normative and communicative features of Confucian rationalism, exploring the implications of these features for critical thinking in education. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the Laozi 老子 offers a variety of cosmogenic accounts, including the one expressed by means of the artisan metaphors of “uncarved wood”, “vessels”, and “cutting”. These metaphors and the images related to them often appeared in the given context in ancient Chinese literature depicting the physical emergence of the world as a process of progressive differentiation out of the original state of “chaos.” Thus, this account ultimately served as a cosmic justification for the establishment (...) of distinctions and hierarchy within human society. However, as used in the Laozi, the artisan metaphors promulgate a type of social hierarchy that is characteristically informed by the values of ziran 自然 and wuwei 無為. My argumentation goes against the common tendency of Western scholars to regard the notions of craft appearing in the Laozi as relating exclusively to human activities, connoting “artifice,” that is, as detrimental to the “natural” run of the Way. By referring to the most prominent traditional commentaries of the work, I argue that this view was supported only marginally, if at all, in early China and that its emergence appears to be a reaction to and a rejection of the initial Western interpretation of the same terms, one that was heavily influenced by the Christian worldview. (shrink)

Li (禮) and yi (義) are two central moral concepts in the Analects. Li has a broad semantic range, referring to formal ceremonial rituals on the one hand, and basic rules of personal decorum on the other. What is similar across the range of referents is that the li comprise strictures of correct behavior. The li are a distinguishing characteristic of Confucian approaches to ethics and socio-political thought, a set of rules and protocols that were thought to constitute the wise (...) practices of ancient moral exemplars filtered down through dynasties of the past. However, even while the li were extensive and meant to be followed diligently, they were also understood as incapable of exhausting the whole range of activity that constitutes human life. There were bound to be situations in life where there would be no obvious recourse to the li for guidance. As part of their reflections on the good life, the Confucians maintained another moral concept that seemed to cover morally upright exemplary behavior in these types of situations. This concept is that of yi or rightness. In this chapter, I begin with a brief historical sketch to provide some context, and will then turn to li and yi in turn. In the end, I will suggest how li and yi were both meant to facilitate the supreme value of social harmony that pervades much of the Analects and serves as its ultimate orientation. (shrink)

An invited commentary on Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, focusing on whether early China constitutes an exception to his general theory.

In Part I, I offer a "constructivist" interpretation of Xunzi's philosophy. On the constructivist view, there is no privileged description of the world. Concepts, categories, and norms as social constructs help us effectively manage our way through the world, rather than reveal or express univocal knowledge of it. ;In the opening chapter, I argue that dao should be understood as open ended and that Xunzi's worldview allows for a plurality of legitimate daos---at least at the theoretical level. Chapter Two discusses (...) the concepts of li and lei and rejects the idea that true categories follow from a "god-like" understanding of rational patterns. Rather, patterns and categories are mutually entailing. That is, categories are not simply based on patterns, but are at the same time a precondition for patterning. Chapter Three addresses the related concept of ming , and the idea of zhengming . Attuning names is not matching them to any transcendent standard, but making them fitting given our nature and circumstances. It is constructing and maintaining a socially responsible language. I also discuss here the complex manner in which early Confucians understood names to be developed and sanctioned. In Chapter Four I discuss ritual theory and argue that Xunzi offers a this-world centered religious sensibility. Far from a matter of slavishly following a code of behaviors set down perfectly by ancient sages, the performance of li requires interpretation in every application. Further, norms associated with li may evolve in response to changing needs and conditions. In the final chapter of Part I, I turn to the issue of virtue and moral development, arguing that there is no fixed set of virtues. ;Part II shifts focus to the contemporary relevance of a constructivist way of thinking by using it to understand the cross-cultural dynamics taking place in international discourse on human rights. In short, interpreting the arguments of contemporary representatives of East-Asian countries through a constructivist lens reveals them to be more compelling than they might otherwise have seemed. (shrink)