Guo Wu

An Anthropological Inquiry into Confucianism (eBook, PDF)

Ritual, Emotion, and Rational Principle

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

An Anthropological Inquiry into Confucianism provides a chronological, historicized reappraisal of Confucianism as a belief system and a way of life that revolves around three key concepts: ritual (Li), emotion (qing), and rational principle (li). Instead of examining all pertinent concepts of Confucianism, the book focuses on how Confucian thinkers grappled with these three words and tried to balance them throughout multiple dynasties and by polemics an practice performing rites in daily life. Informed by the theory and perspectives of anthropology, Guo Wu revisits the origin of Confucianism and treats it as part of the legacy of pre-textual worshipping and funerary rites which are incorporated, recorded, and interpreted by Confucians. An anthropological angle continues to flesh out the extant Confucian classics by reinterpreting the parts concerning the human-human, human-animal, and human-sacred objects relations. Modern anthropological studies are referenced to showed how Confucian ritualism permeated to the lifeworld of Chinese villages since the Song dynasty and revived in Ming-Qing dynasties along with a resurgent interest in the expression of human emotions, which had an inherent tension with (Heavenly) rational principle. The book concludes that the Confucian balancing of the triad continues into the 21st century along with its revival in China.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 166
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. März 2022
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781978799240
• Artikelnr.: 74397152

Autorenporträt

Guo Wu is associate professor of history at Allegheny College.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: Confucianism through Anthropological Lenses
Chapter 1: Li and Qing: Sacrifice, Ritual, and Emotion Before Confucius
Chapter 2: Ritualism and Emotion in Pre-Qin Confucianism and the Zhuangzi
Chapter 3: The Rise of Rational Principle and Diffusion of Rites in the
Tang and Song Dynasties
Chapter 4: Rediscovering Qing and Li in the Ming and Qing
Conclusion: Reinventing Confucian Ritualism and the Modern Fate of the
Triad