Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese

Ritual and Deference develops Robert Cummings Neville's thesis that contemporary philosophy has much to gain by shaping itself through important themes of the Chinese philosophical traditions, especially the themes of ritual and deference. Neville here offers a broad and detailed interpretation of the relevance of Confucianism and Daoism to contemporary issues. The discussion includes analyses of classical Confucian and Daoist texts, especially those of Xunzi and Laozi, and of the current scene of English-speaking philosophy advancing Chinese themes. The book also reflects on the nature of comparative philosophy as such, and the role that comparative philosophy has in the ongoing contemporary engagement with globalization, the clash of cultures, and scientific transformations of the worldviews of diverse civilizations. Neville stresses the importance of deferring to the integrity of cultures while still submitting them to normative analysis and criticism. Book jacket.

Robert Cummings Neville is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University and the author and editor of many books, including Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World, also published by SUNY Press

Preface	p. xi
A Confucian Program	p. 1
Metaphysics	p. 2
Philosophical Cosmology	p. 5
Human Nature	p. 7
Social Theory	p. 10
The Significance of Confucian Values	p. 15
Values for the Good Life: Conventional, Yet Normative	p. 15
A Confucian Solution: Ritual	p. 18
High Civilizations: Competing Values and Global Rituals	p. 20
A Homily on Humaneness	p. 23
Ritual in Xunzi	p. 27
Initial Considerations of Ritual in Xunzi	p. 27
Ritual and Semiotics	p. 30
Ritual and Desire	p. 33
Ritual, Integration, and Religion	p. 35
Daoist Relativism, Ethical Choice, and Normative Measure	p. 41
A Metaphysical Daoism	p. 43
Normative Measure	p. 48
Daoist Ethics	p. 51
Daoism and Confucianism Compared	p. 54
Chinese Influences in English-Speaking Philosophy	p. 59
Scholarly Influences	p. 60
Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall	p. 64
Tu Weiming and Cheng Chungying	p. 66
Wu Kuangming	p. 71
Methodology, Practices, and Disciplines in Chinese and Western Philosophy	p. 75
The Problem	p. 75
Methodology as a Concern	p. 77
Philosophical Practices	p. 80
Philosophical Discipline	p. 85
Metaphysics for Contemporary Chinese Philosophy	p. 89
The Need for Metaphysics	p. 90
Themes of Chinese Philosophy	p. 92
Metaphysical Directions	p. 95
The Conscious and Unconscious Placing of Ritual and Humanity	p. 101
The Unconscious as a Problem for Confucian Virtue	p. 101
Ritual and Humaneness	p. 103
Deceptions of the Heart: Freud	p. 105
Deceptions of the Heart: Marx	p. 109
The Contemporary Mutual Development of Confucianism and Christianity	p. 113
From Reformation of the Inner Heart to Loving the World	p. 114
The Location of Ethical Analysis and Rectifying Power	p. 116
Peace, Action, and Retreat	p. 118
The Personal and the Impersonal in Conceptions of Divinity	p. 121
Popular versus Sophisticated Religion Hypothesis	p. 122
Development Hypothesis: Pre-Axial Age and Axial Age	p. 123
Semiotic Hypothesis	p. 124
Ontological-Anthropological Continuum Hypothesis	p. 125
On Comparison	p. 127
Models of Comparative Theology	p. 127
Objectivist Comparison	p. 133
Normative Comparison	p. 140
Beyond Comparative to Integrative Philosophy	p. 142
Contributions of Chinese Philosophy: A Summary Discussion	p. 149
The Happy Portability of Chinese Philosophy	p. 149
Ritual, Again	p. 153
Ethics, Again	p. 155
Orientation and the Self	p. 157
Notes	p. 163
Index	p. 187
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context

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