Title: Early Confucianism as Humanistic Cultivation
Abstract: To evaluate Confucius and early Confucianism in the epistemological perspective, or to infer the concepts of science and democracy from Confucianism, or even to interpret Confucius as the forerunner of revolution, is to deviate from Confucius' original intention of initiating a new school. The o-riginal intention of Confucius and early Confucianism is humanistic cultivation, or the training of aristocratic personality. This cultivation, on the one hand, aimed at shaping the personality and morality of the gentlemen; on the other hand, it is concerned with faith so that one would not sink into the mire of utilitarianism. Confucianism reveres both li (ceremony or propriety) and music and takes joy and emotion asheaven (nature). This indicates that Confucius was not a man of politics but a cultivated man who valued emotions. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the social structure dominated by aristocrats was transformed into the one dominated by common people. Along with this transition, the repulsion of faith by reason, which was now directed merely by passion, led to a flurry of revolutions. A tension was thus formed between the sublimity of humanistic cultivation and the legitimacy of historical evolution.
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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