All chapters in this collection have been previously published. Revised, they are now assembled i... more All chapters in this collection have been previously published. Revised, they are now assembled in this anthology to show "the abiding relevance of Classical Confucian Theory in the contemporary world" (p. x). Those interested in Confucianism will welcome having these resources in one convenient volume. The four-page preface highlights the importance of such discussions in view of the political revival of Confucianism in mainland China and the need for anyone who wishes to engage with East Asian societies to "understand the Confucian ethical thinking that informs social and political practices in the region" (p. xi). The collection would have benefited from a more substantial introduction examining the idea of "political ethics" within the Confucian context, beyond merely noting and assuming a mere conjunction or overlap of politics and ethics, as well as some clearer demonstration of how the four parts of "Civil Society," "Boundaries and Justice," "Ethical Pluralism," "Contemporary Feminism," and "War and Peace" are related to one another within the framework of such distinctive political ethics. Joseph Chan's contribution, "Territorial Boundaries and Confucianism" (chapter 4), most effectively brings out the distinctive relation between ethics and politics in Confucianism. He suggests that the irrelevance of territorial boundaries to the Chinese conception of ideal political order, tian xia ("the world under Heaven"), is rooted in the Confucian conception of moral order in which the scope of ren and human relationships are "potentially unbounded," and "the elastic nature of human relationship" means that "friends can be regarded as the very members of one's family" (p. 66). Chan criticized Liang Qichao's characterization of tian xia in terms of "transnationalism" and "cosmopolitanism," as the suggestion of equality between nations and cultures is misleading, to the extent that the traditional Chinese view holds the central regions of China (zhu xia) to be superior to barbarians inhabiting the surrounding regions. Nor is the Chinese world order neutral to different cultures. Instead, it has the responsibility of transmitting the superior culture to the rest of the world, which should be ruled by the most wise and ethical men. This seems more like "imperialism" than "cosmopolitanism" to Chan,
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Confucian Political Ethics. By Daniel A. Bell. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. xiv, 273 Pp. Hardcover, ISBN 978-0-691-13004-0; Paperback, ISBN 978-0-691-13005-7.)
Philosophy departments of universities in East Asia regularly teach courses in Western philosophy... more Philosophy departments of universities in East Asia regularly teach courses in Western philosophy, such as Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, Modern philosophy, Rationalism and Empiricism, German Idealism, Analytic Philosophy. Pragmatism is not among their core curricula, even if Pragmatist works might occasionally be included in ›special subjects‹, depending on the interests of the faculty members teaching the courses. While there are philosophers in the People's Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea who count Pragmatism among their research interests, it is still very much a minority interest in academic philosophy in the region, despite the fact that Pragmatism was introduced to East Asia as early as 1888, when Yūjirō Motora introduced Dewey's psychology and James's Pragmatism in the journal Rikugō zasshi. Dewey, who visited Japan and China between 1919 and 1921, remains the most influential early Pragmatist philosopher in the region. Through Dewey, Pragmatism's influence in the region is much more salient in the area of education than in academic philosophy.
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