Humanity And Self Cultivation

This first paperback edition of a renowned collection of essays by noted scholar of Chinese history and philosophy Tu Wei-ming includes a new introductory essay by Robert Cummings Neville, Dean of

Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation is a collection of Tu's seminal essays. It is a sustained deliberation on the substance and worth of the Confucian conception of personhood. This analysis complements Tu's highly acclaimed Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought as a continued expression of his deepening understanding of Confucianism voiced through various perennial human concerns. Tu weaves philosophic, historical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological perspectives into a coherent discussion of the Confucian themes that continue to inspire the modern intellectual mind. His is a vital contribution to Chinese thought and religion.

A concise and accessible introduction to the evolution of the concept of moral self-cultivation in the Chinese Confucian tradition, this volume begins with an explanation of the pre-philosophical development of ideas central to this concept, followed by an examination of the specific treatment of self cultivation in the philosophy of Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi (Mencius), Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Yan Yuan and Dai Zhen. In addition to providing a survey of the views of some of the most influential Confucian thinkers on an issue of fundamental importance to the tradition, Ivanhoe also relates their concern with moral self-cultivation to a number of topics in the Western ethical tradition. Bibliography and index are included.

All kinds of problems in the world, in the final analysis, are human problems which originate from the evil, selfishness and ignorance of human nature. The book "Self-cultivation of Human Beings" reflects on the crises and contradictions faced by the world today with the Oriental scholars’ lofty ideals of "self-cultivation, family regulation, state governance and maintaining world peace". It consists of five chapters of "Spiritual Beliefs, Self-cultivation of Human Life, The State and the Society, Wisdom and Reason, Human Destiny",discussing the topics that we must face in life: how to deal with suffering and trouble, how to distinguish between good and evil, and how to improve fate and pursue happiness, as well as people's spiritual beliefs and the meaning of life. The author attaches great importance to family construction, advocates love and tolerance, benevolence and morality, holds in high esteem of angels, heroes and sages, discusses the great role of education, science, rule of law, criticism, struggle and communication in human progress, and has profound thinking about the road of national rejuvenation and prosperity, as well as military principles in the hope of enlightening people’s way of thinking.

Educational philosophies of self-cultivation as the cultural foundation and philosophical ethos for education have strong and historically effective traditions stretching back to antiquity in the classical ‘cradle’ civilizations of China and East Asia, India and Pakistan, Greece and Anatolia, focused on the cultural traditions in Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in the East and Hellenistic philosophy in the West. This volume in East-West dialogues in philosophy of education examines both Confucian and Western classical traditions revealing that although each provides its own distinct figure of the virtuous person, they are remarkably similar in their conception and emphasis on moral self-cultivation as a practical answer to how humans become virtuous. The collection also examines self-cultivation in Japanese traditions and also the nature of Michel Foucault’s work in relation to ethical and aesthetic ideals of Hellenistic self-cultivation.

Approximately fifteen hundred years after Confucius, his ideas reasserted themselves in the formulation of a sophisticated program of personal self-cultivation. Neo-Confucians argued that humans are endowed with empathy and goodness at birth, an assumption now confirmed by evolutionary biologists. By following the Great Learning—eight steps in the process of personal development—Neo-Confucians showed how this innate endowment could provide the foundation for living morally. Neo-Confucian students did not follow a single manual elaborating each step of the Great Learning; instead they were exposed to age-appropriate texts, commentaries, and anthologies of Neo-Confucian thinkers, which gradually made clear the sequential process of personal development and its connection to social order. Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation opens up in accessible prose the content of the eight-step process for today’s reader as it examines the source of mainstream Neo-Confucian self-cultivation and its major crosscurrents from 1000 to 1900.

A concise and accessible introduction to the evolution of the concept of moral self-cultivation in the Chinese Confucian tradition, this volume begins with an explanation of the pre-philosophical development of ideas central to this concept, followed by an examination of the specific treatment of self cultivation in the philosophy of Kongzi ("Confucius"), Mengzi ("Mencius"), Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Yan Yuan and Dai Zhen. In addition to providing a survey of the views of some of the most influential Confucian thinkers on an issue of fundamental importance to the tradition, Ivanhoe also relates their concern with moral self-cultivation to a number of topics in the Western ethical tradition. Bibliography and index are included.

Tu (Chinese history and philosophy, Harvard U.) offers a panoramic view of the core values of Confucian intellectual thought that have kept it vital for more than two millennia, and underlie the recent resurgence in eastern Asia. Of interest to students of either China or religion and ethics. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR