Through a detailed study of relevant concepts and theories in Confucianism and John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, this book illustrates the possibility of Confucian democracy and offers an alternative to Western liberal models. Sor-hoon Tan synthesizes the two philosophies through a comparative examination of individuals and community, democratic ideals of equality and freedom, and the nature of ethical and political order. By constructing a model of Confucian democracy that combines the strengths of both Confucianism and Deweyan pragmatism, this book explores how a premodern tradition could be put in dialogue with contemporary political and philosophical theories.
Innehållsförteckning
Acknowledgments
1. Confucian Democracy?
Divining the Future
Whose Confucianism?
Which Democracy?
Liberals and Communitarians
Dewey and Confucius
2. Social Individuals
Liberal Self and Autonomy
Unique Rather Than Autonomous Individuals
Dewey’s Social Self-in-the-Making
Constructing a Confucian Conception of Self
Tension between Distinctness and Connectedness
Choice in the Liberal-Communitarian Debate
Dewey On Willing and Choosing
Confucian Choice: Learning and Thinking
Confucian Personal Commitment
Individuality and Organic Sociality
3. Harmonious Communities
Society and Community
Nonexclusionary Community
The Art of Community: Achieving Harmony
Achieving Harmony through Confucian Ritual Practice
The Science of Community: Cooperative Inquiry
Equality and Differentiated Orders
Equality in Human Relations
4. Ethico-Political Orders
The Political Domains of Procedural Republics
Ethico-Political Ends
Dewey on Politics in Ancient China
The Sage-King: An Ideal in Question
Exemplary Persons: Ethico-Political Ends-in-View
People As Basis (minben)
The Role of the People in Tianming
Are People Good Enough for Self-Government?
Faith in People
5. Authoritative Freedom
Negative and Positive Freedoms
Freedom As Growth
Confucian Positive Freedom
Right to Speak and Right Speech
Rights or Rites?
Authoritative versus Authoritarian
Coercion and Authority in Imperfect Situations
6. Cultivating Democracy
Reconstructing Confucianism and Democracy
Democracy and the Realpolitik of Stability
Notes
References
Index
Om författaren
Sor-hoon Tan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. She is the coeditor (with K. C. Chong and C. L. Ten) of
The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Perspectives.
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