The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many

Robert Cummings Neville

Description

Building on his long-standing work in metaphysics and Asian philosophy, Robert Cummings Neville presents a series of essays that cumulatively articulate a contemporary, progressive Confucian position as a global philosophy. Through analysis of the metaphysical and moral traditions of Confucianism, Neville brings these traditions into the twenty-first century. According to Confucianism, rituals define most of our relations with other individuals, social institutions, and nature, and while rituals make possible the positive institutions of high human civilization, they may also lead to harmful behaviors, including racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Neville argues that the amendment of rituals that institutionalize oppression is a positive task, which should be undertaken from within a skillfully ritualized life rather than in the form of external criticism. Confucianism, in Neville's hands, is a left-wing, progressive, liberal political philosophy, one that can address institutionalized oppression and suggest a path for moving forward.
Preface

1. The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many
Ultimacy and Value
Value in Form
Ethics

2. Contemporary Confucian Cosmopolitanism
Introduction
Decision-Making
Engaging Others
Attaining Wholeness
Identity and Value
Religion and Ontological Piety
Conclusion

3. Systematic Metaphysics and the Problem of Value
Systematic Metaphysics and Scientific Reductionism
Metaphysics and Our Civilization
A Contemporary Confucian Theory of Value

4. New Projects for Chinese Philosophy
Creative First-Order Issues
Re-sorting the Canon
Global Portability
Cosmogony
Cosmology
Ritual Studies
Ritual and Culture
Ritual and Politics

5. Philosophy’s Fight between Engagement and Distance: A Confucian Resolution
Philosophy and the Axial Age
Philosophy as Distance
Philosophy as Engagement
Philosophy in the Academy
Confucians in the Academy: Scholar-Officials
Philosophical Cultivation

6. William Ernest Hocking: The First Boston Confucian
Hocking as a Boston Confucian
Zhu Xi, Science, and World Philosophy
Zhu Xi’s Metaphysics
Zhu Xi and Buddhism Compared
Zhu Xi’s Lessons for Hocking
Hocking and Pragmatism

7. Cheng Chung-ying as a Constructive Philosopher
Cheng’s Contemporary Sources
Speculative Interpretation
Interpretation of Classic Texts
System
Philosophic Truth over Interpretation
Cheng’s Challenges

8. Wu Kuang-ming as One of Three Stooges
One of Three Stooges
Wu’s Daoism
Confucian Scotism
Comparison: Daoism and Confucianism

9. Spiritual Foundations of Chinese Culture
Introduction
An Ecological Model of Religion
Religion and Spirituality Defined
Chinese Culture Intact
Chinese Culture Not Intact

10. Selfhood and Value: Pragmatism, Confucianism, and Phenomenology
Experiential Frames and Phenomenology
Interactive Experience and Ritual: The Western Contribution of Confucianism
The Self

11. Individuation and Ritual
Ritual and Xunzi
Individuation
Otherness
Ritual Abuse

12. Authority in Social Institutions, Accountability, and Credibility
Sincerity in Authority
Communitarianism versus Individualism
Perceived Credibility and Sincerity
Conditions for Credibility

13. Confucianism and Toleration
What Is Confucianism?
Toleration, In-groups, and Out-groups
Toleration and Narrative
Toleration and Personal Respect
Toleration and Harmony: The Ethical Metaphysics of Principle
Some Confucian Morals of Toleration

14. Confucian Humaneness across Social Barriers
“Love with Distinctions”
Ritual Theory
Humaneness, Ritual, and Otherness

15. Confucianism and the Feminist Revolution: Ritual Definition and the Social Construction of Gender Roles
Introduction
Nature, Society, and Persons
Ritual
Gender Roles and Rituals
Observations on Transformation

Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Éthique et morale
• Ethique et morale
• Confucianism
• Gender studies
• Metaphysics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438463438
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many
ROBERT CUMMINGS NEVILLE
The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many

C ONFUCIAN E SSAYS ON M ETAPHYSICS , M ORALS , R ITUALS , I NSTITUTIONS, AND G ENDERS
State University of New York Press
Published by
S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS , A LBANY
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact
S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS , A LBANY , NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Laurie D. Searl
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Neville, Robert C., author.
Title: The good is one, its manifestations many : Confucian essays on metaphysics, morals, rituals, institutions, and genders / Robert Cummings Neville.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007752 (print) | LCCN 2016035068 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438463414 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438463438 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, Confucian—21st century.
Classification: LCC B5233.C6 N46 2016 (print) | LCC B5233.C6 (ebook) | DDC 181/.112—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007752
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Roger T. Ames, Cheng Chung-ying, and Tu Wei-ming Friends, Mentors, Colleagues
The art of the cover of this volume is by Beth Neville, my wife, who has prepared art for many of my book covers. I thank her once again for doing this, with a line drawing this time. Her image is a humorous reference to me as a slightly quaint “Boston Confucian.” On the left is a stereotypical drawing of Confucius, taken from a number of sources and modified by her style. On the right is a drawing of me in a suit in which I often teach, but wearing sneakers. I’m holding my brand-new mini-laptop and seem to be taking notes from Master Kung. Let no one think, however, that I intend to channel Confucius, any more than he intended in fact to channel the great sage emperors, however much he feigned doing so tongue in cheek. My intent in this book is to nudge contemporary Confucianism in new directions. Thanks to Beth for seeing the irony in this.
Contents
Preface
C HAPTER O NE
The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many
Ultimacy and Value
Value in Form
Ethics
C HAPTER T WO
Contemporary Confucian Cosmopolitanism
Introduction
Decision-Making
Engaging Others
Attaining Wholeness
Identity and Value
Religion and Ontological Piety
Conclusion
C HAPTER T HREE
Systematic Metaphysics and the Problem of Value
Systematic Metaphysics and Scientific Reductionism
Metaphysics and Our Civilization
A Contemporary Confucian Theory of Value
C HAPTER F OUR
New Projects for Chinese Philosophy
Creative First-Order Issues
Re-sorting the Canon
Global Portability
Cosmogony
Cosmology
Ritual Studies
Ritual and Culture
Ritual and Politics
C HAPTER F IVE
Philosophy’s Fight between Engagement and Distance: A Confucian Resolution
Philosophy and the Axial Age
Philosophy as Distance
Philosophy as Engagement
Philosophy in the Academy
Confucians in the Academy: Scholar-Officials
Philosophical Cultivation
C HAPTER S IX
William Ernest Hocking: The First Boston Confucian
Hocking as a Boston Confucian
Zhu Xi, Science, and World Philosophy
Zhu Xi’s Metaphysics
Zhu Xi and Buddhism Compared
Zhu Xi’s Lessons for Hocking
Hocking and Pragmatism
C HAPTER S EVEN
Cheng Chung-ying as a Constructive Philosopher
Cheng’s Contemporary Sources
Speculative Interpretation
Interpretation of Classic Texts
System
Philosophic Truth over Interpretation
Cheng’s Challenges
C HAPTER E IGHT
Wu Kuang-ming as One of Three Stooges
One of Three Stooges
Wu’s Daoism
Confucian Scotism
Comparison: Daoism and Confucianism
C HAPTER N INE
Spiritual Foundations of Chinese Culture
Introduction
An Ecological Model of Religion
Religion and Spirituality Defined
Chinese Culture Intact
Chinese Culture Not Intact
C HAPTER T EN
Selfhood and Value: Pragmatism, Confucianism, and Phenomenology
Experiential Frames and Phenomenology
Interactive Experience and Ritual: The Western Contribution of Confucianism
The Self
C HAPTER E LEVEN
Individuation and Ritual
Ritual and Xunzi
Individuation
Otherness
Ritual Abuse
C HAPTER T WELVE
Authority in Social Institutions, Accountability, and Credibility
Sincerity in Authority
Communitarianism versus Individualism
Perceived Credibility and Sincerity
Conditions for Credibility
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
Confucianism and Toleration
What Is Confucianism?
Toleration, In-groups, and Out-groups
Toleration and Narrative
Toleration and Personal Respect
Toleration and Harmony: The Ethical Metaphysics of Principle
Some Confucian Morals of Toleration
C HAPTER F OURTEEN
Confucian Humaneness across Social Barriers
“Love with Distinctions”
Ritual Theory
Humaneness, Ritual, and Otherness
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
Confucianism and the Feminist Revolution: Ritual Definition and the Social Construction of Gender Roles
Introduction
Nature, Society, and Persons
Ritual
Gender Roles and Rituals
Observations on Transformation
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Just before our plane landed in Korea on our first visit to East Asia, my wife, Beth, told me, “Robert, I’m not going to walk eight paces behind you, and your Confucian friends will just have to cope.” Such is the reputation of Confucianism for the demeaning of women even in its contemporary expressions. For several years, I have taught courses at Boston University on theological issues of gender identity. Many of our students from China and Korea cringe at what they take to be the bigotry of their home cultures, particularly their home church cultures, and they blame the bigotry on the legacy of Confucianism (even among East Asian Christians). The feminist women’s movement and the LGBTQ revolution have been powerfully effective worldwide, particularly among intellectuals, although their practical success in combating the varieties of bigotry they oppose varies widely.
Contemporary Confucians have been slow to address this issue face-on, much to the chagrin of women studying Chinese philosophy from the perspective of feminism. Perhaps this is because of two themes that seem to be necessary default positions for Confucianism. One is the emphasis on fulfilling family responsibilities, modeling many other interpersonal relations on familial ways of showing humaneness. A second is the importance of exercising humaneness through the mature playing of rituals that define individuals in part through ritual roles. These two themes seem to set up Confucianism for devastating criticisms from those who emphasize the social construction of gender identities and roles, pointing out how unfair and hurtful many of those social constructions are.
In this collection of essays, I aim to show a way forward for contemporary Confucians, of whom I am one. Of course, I am not only a Confucian. Chapter 1 will show that I am a Platonist too. And nearly every chapter exhibits an appropriation and extension of American pragmatism. My identity as a philosopher works out of these three and many other intellectual and religion resources. Even as a Confucian, I am not every kind of Confucian, preferring an inspirational heritage from Xunzi to the ones from Mencius, preferring also Wang Yang-ming to Zhu Xi, although of course appreciating them all. Most obviously I am a Western Confucian, or more accurately a Boston Confucian, a movement I have helped to name and define as well as record. 1 Confucians working in Boston (and many other Western environments) live in cultures where some significant protections of women and sexual minorities are already written into law, even if far more still remains to be done.
To be fair historically, I doubt that Confucianism through the ages has been any worse on women and sexual minorities than most other religious or philosophical cultures. It seems that African Islam and some tribal religions today are about as hard on those groups as any culture has ever been. Most feminist and gender liberation movements in the last century or so have been directed against abusive bigotry in Christianity and Judaism. Although there have been saintly mothers in Buddhisms and Hinduisms, the lineages of authority often have been through males. I have never heard of a female Dalai Lama or Gyalwa Karmapa. Ancient Advaita Vedanta says that reincarnation is a comfort because you might have to wait many lives until you are born a male Brahmin, which is required in order to attain enlightenment and nirvana. The living heirs of all these cultures and religious traditions need to address the issues of bigotry related to gender identities. My concern here, however, is to build a Confucian response that addresses gender bigotry in all cultures, not only those in which Confucianism has been deeply formative for centuries.
Most of the time when these gender issues are raised, it is from the side of the liberationist critics who look at what Confucianism has to say about them. This inevitably brings up a reductionist vision of Confucianism, leaving out what does not pertain to gender and often expressing moral edginess regarding Confucian suppression of women. My approach here is the opposite: to attempt to develop a healthy and systematic contemporary version of Confucianism first and then to address the gender issues. Hence, the chapter devoted explicitly to the int