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Neo-Confucianism as Philosophical System and Spiritual Practice

Neo-Confucianism as Philosophical System and Spiritual Practice. Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University. Overview. Part One: Context Historical and Socio-Cultural Context Northern Song: Emergence of Daoxue Southern Song and Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism After the Song Formal Features

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Neo-Confucianism as Philosophical System and Spiritual Practice

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  1. Neo-Confucianism as Philosophical System and Spiritual Practice Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University

  2. Overview • Part One: Context • Historical and Socio-Cultural Context • Northern Song: Emergence of Daoxue • Southern Song and Zhu Xi • Neo-Confucianism After the Song • Formal Features • Part Two: Content • Metaphysics: Li and Qi • Mind and Two Natures • Learning • Knowledge and Action • Sagehood

  3. Historical and Socio-Cultural Context • Tang great families; Song (960- 1279) literati • Civil service examinations • Buddhism: embraced and blamed • Wang Anshi (1021-86) and the New Policies

  4. Northern Song: Emergence of Daoxue • Shift of emphasis from outer to inner • “General meaning” of the Classics • Optimism and sense of mission: sagehood • Interest in cosmology—and a unified understanding of everything • Cheng brothers (cf. Two Chinese Philosophers) Guo Xi, “Early Spring”

  5. Southern Songand Zhu Xi (1130-1200) • Victory of Jurchen (Jin Dynasty) in 1127; Southern Song lasts until Mongol conquest in 1279 • Growth and controversy of Daoxue • Daoxue “middle level” institutions • Zhu Xi’s life: national scholar/teacher, local official

  6. Neo-ConfucianismAfter the Song • Yuan (1279-1368) • Ming (1368-1644) • Wang Yangming (1472-1529); Instructions for Practical Living • Korea (Choson; 1392-1910) • “Neo-Confucian revolution” • Four-Seven debate • Japan (Tokugawa; 1603-1868) • Qing (1644-1911)

  7. Formal Features • Genre: Commentaries and Yulei, Classified Conversations • Zhuzi Yulei: Gardner has translated chs. 7-13, “On Learning” • System (textual and conceptual) • Practices • Practical goal of learning • Hadot and “spiritual exercizes” • Five Classics vs. Four Books

  8. Metaphysics: Li and Qi • This “li” not central to classical Confucianism. There: • Veins in jade • Order • Here, Principle, Pattern, Coherence (G, pp. 90-2) • One and Many; Nested Levels • Descriptive and Normative • “Qi” as “psycho-physical stuff • “Below form,” changeable

  9. Heartmind and Two Natures • The “xin (heartmind) governs and unifies that nature and the feelings” • Which “nature (xing)”? • Metaphysical nature (= li) • Qi-nature (can be obscured) • How do we know what our true, metaphysical nature is? • Our deepest, unchanging and automatic reactions (“Four beginnings”) • “Nature is the state before activity begins, the feelings are the state when activity has started, and the mind includes both these states. For nature is the mind before activity has begun, while feelings are the mind after activity has started.… Desire emanates from feelings. The mind is comparable to water, nature is comparable to the tranquility of still water, feeling is comparable to the flow of the water, and desire is comparable to its waves. Just as there are good and bad waves, so there are good desires, such as when “I desire humaneness,” and bad desires which rush out like wild and violent waves.”

  10. Learning Sculpture by Wang Shugang • Lesser Learning and Greater Learning (§§1.5 - 1.7) • Rote instruction, “direct understanding,” then… • Understanding Coherence of given situation. • Reverence (Jing, Inner Mental Attentiveness) unites LL & GL • 4-Step “Reading Method”: • Recitation • Reflection • Embodying • Going beyond texts

  11. Knowledge and Action • Knowledge and action are analytically distinct, but closely related • Deep vs. superficial knowledge • Personal experience • Natural, spontaneous motivation (§§2.17, 2.72) • Commitment (zhi 志) and Reverence bring deep knowledge • Not “will”: see (§2.21)

  12. Sagehood Sudden or gradual? Neo-Confucian “enlightenment experiences” Once a sage, always a sage? The continuity problem Contemporary relevance

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