Conception of the person in early confucian thought

Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 183-200

  Shun, Kwong Loi ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

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EID: 84928930021     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511606960.010     Document Type: Chapter

References (33)

1. Herbert Fingarette argues against using the notion of “self” or “selfcultivation” in discussing Confucius’ thinking in “The Problem of the Self in the Analects”, Philosophy East and West, vol. 29 (1979); 129-40.
2. A. C. Graham discusses the applicability of a mind-body or mind-matter dichotomy in Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Early China (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989), pp. 25-7
3. Commenting on Fingarette’s Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), Graham cites and endorses Fingarette’s opposition to employing such a dichotomy in discussing Confucius’ thinking.
4. Henry Rosemont, Jr., defends such a position in “Why Take Rights Seriously? A Confucian Critique” in Leroy S. Rouner ed., Human Rights and the World’s Religions (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), pp. 167-82.
5. He argues that the concept of rights is linked to the view of human beings as freely choosing autonomous individuals, and that it has no counterpart in Confucian thought (p. 167).
6. Indeed, for the early Confucians, “there can be no me in isolation”, and “I am the totality of the roles I live in relation to specific others” (p. 177).
7. Herbert Fingarette to some extent acknowledges the terminological nature of questions about the applicability of the notion of self in his “Response to Roger T. Ames” in Mary I. Bockover ed., Rules, Rituals and Responsibilities (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991).
8. According to him, the notion of self that he regards as inapplicable to Confucius’ thinking is the notion of some “individualistic, egoistic, particularistic grounds for action” or “a private self, a private willfulness” (p. 197).
9. He claims this to be the normal English meaning of the word “self” but allows for other possible usage (pp. 198-9).
10. The discussion in this chapter will assume the results of the textual studies I conducted in Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997) and The Development of Confucian-Mencian Thought (in progress), which contain the appropriate textual references to the primary sources. In this chapter, I will not cite such references except in relation to specific passages.
11. Analects, 9.26;
12. Mencius, 2A:2. All references to the Analects are to book and passage numbers in Yang Bojun, Lunyu Yichu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuchu, 1980).
13. All references to the Mencius are to book and passage numbers (with book numbers 1A-7B substituted for numbers 1-14) in Yang Bojun, Mengzi Yichu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuchu, 1984).
14. Xunzi, 17/11-12, 21/44-6. All references to the Xunzi are to chapter and line numbers in the Concordance to the Xunzi, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series.
15. Xunzi, 3/26-34;
16. Zhongyong, Chapter 1;
17. Daxue, Chapter 6.
18. All references to the Zhongyong and the Daxue are to chapter numbers (following Zhu Xi’s division of the texts) in James Legge trans., Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893).
19. A point emphasized in Mencius, 2A:2.
20. Mencius, 7A:21;
21. Daxue, Chapter 6
22. I elaborated on this aspect of Mencius’ thinking in Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, pp. 158-63.
23. Analects, 18.5, 18.6.
24. Mencius, 4A:17, 4A:26;
25. see also the idea of coping with changes in Xunzi, 17/46-8.
26. Xunzi, 5/23-8
27. Xunzi 9/69-73.
28. Mencius, 3B:9, 6A:8.
29. I argue for this interpretation of the Yangist position in Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, pp. 44-7.
30. for example, Xunzi, 3/26-34
31. Zhongyong, Chapters 20-3 (Mencius, 4A:12).
32. I elaborate on this idea in “Ideas of the Good in Chinese Philosophy” in Eliot Deutsch andRonBontekoe eds., ACompanion toWorld Philosophy (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997).
33. Ideas in this eassy were presented at the International Symposium on Bioethics and the Concept of Personhood, Baptist University (Hong Kong; May 11-12, 1998) and the International Conference on Chinese Philosophy and Culture: Contemporary Interpretations, Foundation for the Study of Chinese Philosophy and Culture (Stanford, CA, August 20-22, 1999).