SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
Textual Authority, Modern Confucianism, and the Politics of Antitradition in Republican China
- 288 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
Textual Authority, Modern Confucianism, and the Politics of Antitradition in Republican China
About This Book
Confucian Iconoclasm proposes a novel account of the emergence of modern Confucian philosophy in Republican China (1912â1949), challenging the historiographical paradigm that modern (or New) Confucianism sought to preserve traditions against the iconoclasm of the May Fourth Movement. Through close textual analyses of Liang Shuming's Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (1921) and Xiong Shili's New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness (1932), Philippe Major argues that the most successful modern Confucian texts of the Republican period were nearly as iconoclastic as the most radical of May Fourth intellectuals. Questioning the strict dichotomy between radicalism and conservatism that underscores most historical accounts of the period, Major shows that May Fourth and Confucian iconoclasts were engaged in a politics of antitradition aimed at the monopolization of intellectual commodities associated with universality, autonomy, and liberty. Understood as a counter-hegemonic strategy, Confucian iconoclasm emerges as an alternative iconoclastic project to that of May Fourth.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Reviving the Spirit of Confucius
- Chapter 2 Returning to the Origin
- Interlude Contextualizing Teleological History and Individual Autonomy
- Chapter 3 Performing Sagely Authority
- Chapter 4 Subsuming the Truth of Former Masters and Sages
- Conclusion Hegemony and the Politics of Antitradition
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Back Cover