Human Beings or Human Becomings?: A Conversation with Confucianism on the Concept of Person (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)

Agues that Confucianism and other East Asian philosophical traditions can be resources for understanding and addressing current global challenges such as climate change and hunger. Great transformations are reshaping human life, social institutions, and the world around us, raising profound questions about our fundamental values. We now have the knowledge and the technical expertise, for instance, to realize a world in which no child needs to go to bed hungry―and yet, hunger persists. And although the causes of planetary climate disruption are well known, action of the scale and resolution needed to address it remain elusive. In order to deepen our understanding of these transformations and the ethical responses they demand, considering how they are seen from different civilizational perspectives is imperative.Acknowledging the rise of China both geopolitically and culturally, the essays in this volume enter into critical and yet appreciative conversations with East Asian philosophical traditions―primarily Confucianism, but also Buddhism and Daoism―drawing on their conceptual resources to understand what it means to be human as irreducibly relational. The opening chapters establish a framework for seeing the resolution of global predicaments, such as persistent hunger and climate disruption, as relational challenges that cannot be addressed from within the horizons of any ethics committed to taking the individual as the basic unit of moral analysis. Subsequent chapters turn to Confucian traditions as resources for addressing these challenges, reimagining personhood as a process of responsive, humane becoming and envisioning ethics as a necessarily historical and yet open-ended process of relational refinement and evolving values. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Responding from an East-Asian Sinitic Perspective The Chapters Direction without Destiny Chapter 1 Compassionate Presence in an Era of Global Predicaments: Toward an Ethics of Human Becoming in the Face of Algorithmic Experience Predicament Resolution as Personal and Structural Transformation Distinguishing between Tools and Technologies Global Predicaments as Structural Products of Technological Irony The Case for Being Compassionately Present Buddhist Compassion The Threat of Algorithmic Experience The Predicament of Algorithmic “Karma” Relational Ethics and the Prospect of Truly Liberating Structures of Feeling Notes References Chapter 2 Confucian Role Ethics and Personal Identity Introduction: “Human Beings or “Human Becomings?” The Confucian Project: Achieved Relational Virtuosity “Culture,” “Human Flourishing,” and “Human Nature” Tang Junyi 唐君毅 on “Human Nature” (renxing 人性) as Conduct Achieving Personal Identity through Embodying (ti 體) Propriety (li 禮) Achieving Personal Identity through Realizing Propriety (li 禮) in Embodied Living (ti 體) The Focus-Field, Holographic Conception of Persons Resonances between the Confucian Focus-Field Person and Classical Pragmatism Notes References Chapter 3 Deferential Yielding: The Construction of Shared Community in Confucian Ethics Deferential Yielding as a Principle of Confucian Morality and its Relationship with Other Moral Concepts Deferential Yielding and Contending, Assuming One’s Duty The Manifestation of Deferential Yielding and Participatory Sharing in Economic Activity Competition and Deferential Yielding Notes Chapter 4 Confucian Self-Cultivation: A Developmental Perspective Need for Self-Cultivation in Human Development View of the Self Purpose of Self-Cultivation Practice of Self-Cultivation Dual Frame for Practice Four Interrelated Principles for Practice Learn to Relate to Each Person and Embody Role Responsibilities Make Everyday Effort Self-Reflect and Self-Improve Constantly Provide Unceasing Social Support Socializing Children in Learning Virtues: Mother-Child Conversations Conclusion Notes References Chapter 5 Human Beings and Human Becomings: The Creative Transformation of Confucianism by Disengaged Reason Creative Transformation Accommodation of Western Culture Contemplation for Beings Moral Topography of Self Trinity of Personality Structure Inwardness of Self-Reflection Two Types of Identity Radical Reflexivity with Disengaged Reason Epistemological Strategy for Cultural Analysis Confucian Relationalism Multiple Philosophical Paradigms Scientific Microworld and Lifeworld Chinese Wisdom versus Western Philosophy Two Types of Naturalism The Problematic Situation Critical Realism Face and Favor Model Structuralism: Elementary Forms of Social Behavior Confucian Ethics for Ordinary People Inescapable Framework and Inescapable Horizon Analytical Dualism Hermeneutics for Morphostasis Confucian Ethics Structuralism and Isomorphism Reciprocal Ethics: Five Cardinal Relationships and Differential Order Moral Topography of Confucianism Three Guiding Principles Confucian Naturalism Four Origins Cultural Interpretation Scientific Interpretation References Chapter 6 Understanding the Confucian Idea of Ethical Freedom through Chen Yinke’s Works for Mourning Wang Guowei Notes Chapter 7 Life as Aesthetic Creativity and Appreciation: The Confucian Aim of Learning I II Notes References Chapter 8 Confucianism on Human Relations: Progressive or Conservative? Introduction What Are Human Relations? Conservative Arguments Constitutive Arguments Synthesis and Conclusions Notes References Chapter 9 From Women’s Learning (fuxue 妇学) to Gender Education: Feminist Challenges to Modern Confucianism Introduction Education of Women in Confucian Texts and Historical Practice Learning from Texts and History Gender Relations in China Today Wither Feminist Encounter with Confucianism? Notes References Chapter 10 Perspectives on Human Personhood and the Self from the Zhuangzi Introduction A Playful Skepticism about Human Pretension A Constructive Skepticism Pluralism of Value and Identity Implications for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly More Good Taking Advantage of Zhuangist Insights Notes References Contributors Index Great transformations are reshaping human life, social institutions, and the world around us, raising profound questions about our fundamental values. We now have the knowledge and the technical expertise, for instance, to realize a world in which no child needs to go to bed hungry - and yet, hunger persists. And although the causes of planetary climate disruption are well known, action of the scale and resolution needed to address it remain elusive. In order to deepen our understanding of these transformations and the ethical responses they demand, considering how they are seen from different civilizational perspectives is imperative. Acknowledging the rise of China both geopolitically and culturally, the essays in this volume enter into critical and yet appreciative conversations with East Asian philosophical traditions - primarily Confucianism, but also Buddhism and Daoism - drawing on their conceptual resources to understand what it means to be human as irreducibly relational