Search Results (460)

The eastward transmission of Catholicism and Western learning during the late Ming and early Qing, and its subsequent epistemic friction with indigenous Chinese philosophies, engendered a highly dynamic intellectual space for cross-cultural ontological discourse. As a prominent representative of Jiangnan Confucian Christians in the early Qing dynasty, Zhang Xingyao (张星曜, 1633–post 1715) articulated a perspective on the relationship between Catholicism and Buddhism (Ye-Fo) that transcended superficial anti-heterodox polemics, penetrating instead into the core reconstruction of soteriology, theodicy, and political philosophy. Relying on primary historical manuscripts—namely Zhang’s Pi lueshuo tiaobo 辟略说条驳 [Refutations and Counter-Arguments against the Brief Treatise] and Lidai tongjian jishi benmo buhoubian 历代通鉴纪事本末补后编 [Supplements to the History of the Comprehensive Mirror Topically Arranged]—this paper investigates his ontological critique of Buddhism from the perspective of comparative theology and through the analytical lens of “meaning systems”. It reveals how Zhang utilized an exclusionary anti-Buddhist framework, marked by inherent historical limitations, to reshape the ultimate concerns and moral order of the Chinese literati. This research demonstrates that Zhang not only established the absolute transcendent authority of Catholicism over the afterlife and hell through rigorous logical argumentation in the Pi lueshuo tiaobo, but also pioneered the “topical arrangement of religious history” (zongjiao jishi benmo ti) in his Buhoubian. This historiographical innovation seamlessly synthesized his apologetic mission to “refute Buddhism and Daoism” (pi Fo Dao) with his statecraft ambition to “assist state administration” (zi guo zheng), effectively achieving a historical “disenchantment” of the enduring religious mysticism embedded within traditional Chinese politics. Full article

This article examines how Chinese Muslim scholars in the Han Kitab tradition reinterpreted Chinese concepts to articulate Islamic thought within the Chinese intellectual world. Drawing on close readings of the writings of Wang Daiyu (c.1584–1660 CE), Liu Zhi (c.1670–1724 CE), Ma Zhu (c.1640–1711 CE), and Ma Dexin (c.1794–1874 CE), it analyzes three sets of concepts: Tian; Taiji and Wuji; and sagehood, the Great Mandate, Xin, and Xing. The analysis shows that Han Kitab scholars did not simply translate Islamic ideas into Chinese terms. Rather, they modified the meanings of established Chinese concepts, repositioned them in relation to other concepts, and assigned them new explanatory roles within an Islamic theological framework. These reinterpretations allowed concepts relating to divine transcendence, cosmological order, human perfection, and moral cultivation to take on new functions within Islamic thought. This article argues that such conceptual reconfiguration offers a useful way of understanding Sino-Islamic intellectual engagement. Full article

Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie 天主降生出像经解 was published to justify the “complementing Confucianism and replacing Buddhism” strategy and to establish illustrative Christian storytelling that preserves the design and art style of Nadal’s Evangelica historiae imagines, thus marking an important step in Sinicizing and disseminating these Christian narratives to Chinese audiences during the Late Ming period. From this perspective, this article explores Giulio Aleni’s decisions when writing Jingjie, particularly focusing on compilation by replication, re-compositing, and re-design to preserve Western Christian storytelling while incorporating necessary Chinese elements. It further clarifies Evangelica historiae imagines and Vita D.N. lesu Christi as the primary visual and storytelling references, respectively. A map of Jerusalem was included as it relates to Chinese historical documentation. Moreover, through this exploration, Jingjie is further compared with Evangelica historiae imagines and Song Nianzhu Guicheng 诵念珠规程 to examine the transformation of Christian stories through Chinese and Western imagery, thus distinguishing two different transformation approaches to Chinese Christian storytelling (i.e., the retelling of Christian stories for Chinese audiences), serving as a complement to prior related studies. Full article

“Immanent Transcendence” is a landmark concept put forward by modern New Confucian scholars including Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan, which delineates the fundamental ideological character of Confucianism as a religious system. Today, this concept has transcended the intellectual context of modern New Confucianism and become a prevalent paradigm for characterizing the features of Confucianism and even traditional Chinese culture. Nevertheless, this widely accepted notion has sustained persistent and in-depth critiques. Three major critical approaches have taken shape in academic circles revolving around the theory of immanent transcendence, all centering on the relationship between Heaven and humanity. This paper intends to respond to these critiques. By reviewing the main debates, it focuses on the Heaven–human relationship—the central theme of the theory of immanent transcendence—and, by introducing Zhu Xi’s mode of thinking, offers a theoretical defense of the legitimacy of the concept of “immanent transcendence”, pointing out that it is a signature concept that can be used to describe the basic intellectual character formed in the development of Confucianism by the Song–Ming period. Full article

Classical Chinese texts are important cultural materials through which adolescents encounter traditional moral values, yet the associations among perceived classical Chinese text reading ability, internalization experience, and Confucian virtue cognition and practice remain insufficiently examined. This study investigated whether junior secondary school students’ perceived classical Chinese text reading ability was associated with their moral cognition and moral practice of the Confucian five virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and integrity. It further examined whether the variables showed a statistical indirect association through internalization experience in traditional cultural learning. Participants were 304 junior secondary school students from Ningbo, China who completed self-developed measures of perceived classical Chinese text reading ability, five-virtue moral cognition, five-virtue moral practice, and internalization experience. Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses showed that perceived reading ability was positively associated with both moral cognition and moral practice after controlling for gender and grade. Cross-sectional mediation analyses identified an indirect association through internalization experience between perceived reading ability and moral cognition, as well as between perceived reading ability and moral practice. However, given the cross-sectional design, these associations cannot establish temporal or causal ordering. These findings suggest that adolescents’ perceived competence in classical Chinese reading is positively associated with Confucian virtue cognition and practice, with internalization experience serving as a plausible intervening process—one that requires longitudinal or experimental evidence to confirm. Full article

This article examines how Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals organizes ritual objects into a relational material system. Focusing on ritual vessels, attire, documents, offerings, ancestral tablets, and domestic spaces, it analyzes how their prescribed positions, uses, relations, and trajectories structure ritual practice. Rather than treating these objects as passive accessories or isolated symbols, the article argues that their significance emerges from their coordination with bodies, spaces, kinship positions, and sequences of action. Through this coordination, distinctions of kinship, status, obligation, and ritual role become materially perceptible and practically enforceable. The article further argues that the material organization prescribed in Family Rituals was not merely an expression or representation of Confucian ritual order, but one of the mechanisms through which that order was produced, enacted, and reproduced. By reading these heterogeneous objects as an interconnected system, the study shifts attention from the symbolic meaning of individual things to the material relations that made Confucian ethical and ritual order practicable in domestic life. Full article

This study investigates the historical and ideological foundations underlying the emergence of the diademed Bodhisattva-type Rocana iconography, a form unique to Joseon Buddhism, through three analytical perspectives. First, this iconographic development reflects a doctrinal shift in Mahāyāna, a thought that reconceptualizes Buddha’s corporeality as nirmāṇakāya (emanation body), responding to the expanded notion of Buddha’s rūpakāya articulated within the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition during the Kushan period. Second, the enduring influence of the Huayan (Avataṃsaka) Sutra and Huayan philosophy—dominant across Unified Silla, Goryeo, and subsequently reconfigured Seon-centered Joseon Buddhism—provided a critical hermeneutic framework. The Huayan Sutra’s authority in codifying the aṣṭamahāprātihārya (eight great events of Buddha’s life) significantly shaped the visual standardization and symbolic reinterpretation of these narrative cycles. Third, within the socio-political context of Joseon, characterized by institutionalized suppression of Buddhism under Neo-Confucian hegemony, the diademed Rocana image functioned as an ideologically strategic and visually adaptive construct. It enhanced Buddhism’s discursive legitimacy by emphasizing soteriological themes of compassion and universal salvation. The late Joseon reinterpretation of Buddha’s biography thus reflects a conscious effort by Buddhist communities to negotiate cultural resilience and social sustainability, necessitating a reassessment of emergent Buddha imagery within this transformative historical milieu. Full article

Contemporary debates over whether Confucianism should be regarded as a religion are often constrained by the Western binary opposition between philosophy and religion. Rather than remaining within this classificatory framework, this article shifts attention to the question of how the religious dimension of Confucianism is concretely grounded and sustained. By comparing the “li (理)–mind/nature (心/性)” paradigm of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism with Wang Fuzhi’s “qi (气)–history (史)” paradigm, the article argues that the former relies primarily on inward moral experience and the self-cultivation of mind and nature, a mode that can effectively uphold a meaningful order under relatively stable historical conditions. By contrast, in response to the rupture of the Ming-Qing transition, Wang Fuzhi relocates ultimate normativity within the dynamic process of qi (气) transformation and historical practice. Through four interrelated formulations—“li (理) resides in qi (气),” “nature (性) is the principle of life,” “principle is to be pursued in concrete affairs,” and “historical reflection as verification”—he provides moral and value judgments with a stronger grounding in lived reality and historical testing. In this way, Wang effects a significant transformation in the religious dimension of Confucianism, shifting it from a mode of inward justification to one of worldly verification. His thought thus offers a more historically resilient account of how Confucian meaning can endure amid times of profound upheaval. Full article

Faced with the crisis of self-orientation brought about by modernity, some Chinese scholars in recent years have taken jia 家 (family/home) as a core element of Confucian thought to construct a philosophy. This outlook seeks to open a possible path out of the predicament supported by Chinese cultural tradition. In this paper, we employ philosophical anthropology as a methodological platform, using the concept of the primordial phenomenon as its primary analytical tool to demonstrate that jia is the primordial phenomenon in Confucian thought, thereby articulating the fundamental differences between Chinese and Western cultures. By comparing Heidegger’s and Levinas’s discussions of the home, this paper shows that jia as a primordial phenomenon overturns the presupposition of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) in fundamental ontology and re-conceives the human being as a non-punctiform structural being, namely Jia-sein. Moreover, the two fundamental kinds of experience within jia, intimate experience and transcendental experience, reveal jia as a unified field of tension that transcends the opposition between interiority and exteriority, whereby sheng-sheng 生生 (life begetting life) is interpreted as a principle of transcendence. The world disclosed by jia is an affective cosmos grounded in the primordial trust inherent in qinqin 亲亲 (familial love) and situated in a positive fundamental mood—thus, it is an existential space that remains open to the Other and to the co-existence of the self and Other. This paper concludes that jia is a primordial phenomenon of Chinese culture; its emphasis on integration means it has never appeared in the Western intellectual tradition, which begins with separation; therefore, jia is an untranslatable concept. Full article

This article examines Jeong Yak-yong’s reinterpretation of sindok 愼獨 as moral responsibility before Heaven. It argues that hidden intention, Heaven’s scrutiny, admonition through the moral mind, human response, sincerity, and conduct form a single structure of responsibility. Comparison with Zhu Xi shows that Jeong does not discover an inward meaning of du 獨 absent from Neo-Confucianism. His distinctiveness lies in the personal and sovereign character given to Heaven and in the way Heaven’s admonition is mediated through the moral mind. Heaven is presented not as an abstract norm but as a spiritually lucid presence that sees hidden intention, commands and cautions, and is served with reverence; yet its demand becomes known within the agent and does not determine the response. This double structure exemplifies inner transcendence: moral authority exceeds the empirical self while becoming inwardly accessible in cultivation. The article thereby distinguishes Jeong’s account from secular moral self-regulation and from a modern notion of conscience. It also acknowledges possible Christian resonances without equating Sangje 上帝 with the Christian God or reducing Jeong’s argument to Catholic influence. Full article

Jigan (寂感), derived from the Book of Changes, which states “when remaining in serene stillness without stirring, it attains universal penetration once stirred by resonance (jiran budong ganer suitong 寂然不動感而遂通).” It describes the profound subtlety of the Zhouyi. On the other hand, Jizhao (寂照) is a Sinicized Buddhist interpretation denoting the non-dual integration of true suchness and prajñā wisdom. Jigan developed into an ontological framework during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), while jizhao took shape during the Wei-Jin period. Philosophically, both manifest a non-dual substance-function structure “quiescence as resonance” and “quiescence as illumination.” They jointly serve as the foundational model for mind-nature cultivation and spiritual transcendence. From this theory of cultivation, however, divergent spiritual aspirations of Confucianism and Buddhism. Confucianism elucidates the principle of universal oneness of all things through quietude-resonance, pursuing the spiritual realm of sagehood. By contrast, Buddhism penetrates through self-attachment and dharma-attachment via quiescent illumination, thereby detaching from all karmic conditions, and manifests Prajñā. Confucianism integrates the practice of jigan into its ritual education, sacrificial ceremonies and daily disciplinary norms, rendering it a practical pathway for sustaining the cosmic-ethical order and generating ritual authority. Buddhism implements jizhao in meditation, precepts, and monastic life, constructing an enlightenment-oriented sacred community. Jigan and jizhao represent two distinct paths of religious transformation and spiritual attainment. This paper compares how both emanate from the ontological state of “serene stillness without stirring” into practical cultivation manifested as “resonance penetrating all things” or “simultaneity of illumination and function”, and ultimately shape divergent modes of sacredness and forms of social integration. While jigan and jizhao reveal a structural convergence in the cultivation theories of Confucianism and Buddhism, they also demonstrate disparate orientations in their spiritual aspirations. Full article

Lin Chao-en founded the San-yi Teaching (三一教) during the late Ming Dynasty, passing down the unique Inner Alchemy practice known as “the Nine Stages of Heart–Mind Cultivation” (九序心法), also referred to as “the Confucian System of Heart–Mind Cultivation” (孔門心法). Analysis shows that the Nine Stages of Heart–Mind Cultivation and the Confucian System of Heart–Mind Cultivation both overlap and differ, with the latter covering a broader scope. Centered on the genbei (艮背, stilling the back), the Nine Stages of Heart–Mind Cultivation and the Confucian System of Heart–Mind Cultivation present a relationship of convergence and dispersion. The cultivation method of the San-yi Teaching takes the Confucian System of Heart–Mind Cultivation as its framework and the Nine Stages of Heart–Mind Cultivation as its specific operational approach, which is a creative interpretation of the classic Confucian maxim “(the superior man) does not allow his thoughts to go beyond his position.” 思不出其位. The Nine Stages of Heart–Mind Cultivation distinctly resonates with the characteristics of Inner Alchemy in the Ming Dynasty, providing an important sample for understanding the diversity of Inner Alchemy forms during this period and a valuable reference for academic research on Ming Dynasty Inner Alchemy. Full article

Confucian ethics are widely credited with shaping Guangfu ancestral halls, yet existing scholarship approaches their façades from two disconnected ends: macro-cultural studies treat the façade as an undifferentiated emblem of lineage order, while craft studies document individual motifs without asking how the composition addresses a viewer. This study bridges the two with a transparent, auditable, and replicable semiotic-coding framework, demonstrated on the main ceremonial façade of the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall in Guangzhou [广州] (1894). A semiotic reading identifies three legibility bands: a doorway band at eye level that regulates entry, a mid-register readable from the forecourt, and a crown that frames the long view. MAXQDA-assisted coding then classifies 88 carrier items screened by explicit inclusion rules. Confucian themes dominate (59.1%) over Taoist-related (22.7%), local Guangzhou (13.6%), and foreign (4.5%) repertoires; textual carriers are confined to the doorway band, narratives concentrate in the mid-register, emblems dominate the crown, and cross-validation shows each reading band is met by its coded distribution. Theoretically, the analysis reveals the façade as a graduated moral curriculum that reserves threshold and skyline for Confucian claims while domesticating other repertoires into subordinate positions; methodologically, the framework gives every value claim a traceable carrier, rule, and audit trail; practically, it equips heritage interpretation, conservation prioritisation, and cross-site comparison of Guangfu ancestral hall façades. Full article

Through deep intertextual analysis of Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie (Explanations on the Incarnation of God, hereafter, Jingjie), a late Ming Dynasty work by Jesuit missionary Giulio Aleni, this paper explores three levels at which the text creatively interprets Confucian and Daoist thought in the inculturation of Catholic spirituality in China, also drawing implications of Aleni’s historical inculturation for the contemporary inculturation of Christianity in China today. At the Christological level, Jingjie’s opening hymn champions the “Cosmic Christ” as a universal sage-king who creates all things with benevolence, thereby establishing an ontological foundation for its spiritual theory. At the spiritual level, Jingjie’s discourse on “proclaiming benevolence for the universal edification” characterizes the “Cosmic Christ” as a sage-king or “person of ren” (仁人), thereby acculturating the moral focus of Christian “imitatio Christi” within the Chinese tradition of spiritual cultivation. And at the level of praxis, Jingjie employs the “Dao-Vessel” distinction from the Yijing (易经, Book of Changes) and the “spiritual wandering” concept from the Zhuangzi to interpret the practice of “contemplating images” (观像) as a path of “proceeding from the traces below-form to explore the spirit above-form,” transcending the pictorial medium to attain a state of “wandering with creation.” Jingjie is therefore not only a richly illustrated narrative work but also a deeply practical spiritual guide that systematically interprets Ignatius of Loyola’s Exercitia Spiritualia through the lens of Chinese heart–mind cultivation, offering a valuable historical case study for the profound integration of Catholic theology and Chinese culture in contemporary China. Full article

The self-perception of caregivers and how others perceive and treat them can profoundly impact their sense of identity, social value, and the dynamics of caregiving. This Foucauldian discourse analysis examined both explicit and implicit portrayals of caregivers in Hong Kong newspaper articles, a society structured by the Confucian ethos of filial piety and postcolonial neoliberalism. Newspaper articles (n = 27; published between 2017 and 2025) explicitly referencing caregivers were sourced from the online platform of 11 major Hong Kong news outlets. Our analysis revealed five key themes: governmentality and biopower, social support, normalization of caregivers, culturally influenced challenges, and workplace complexities. Caregivers are frequently represented as “invisible heroes,” while caregiving is naturalized as a duty, particularly for women. This narrative, while celebratory, also marginalizes their identities in policy discourse, reflecting Hong Kong’s historical preference for non-interventionist governance, alignment with neoliberal ideals of self-reliance and minimal public expenditure, and the stigmatization of social welfare. Full article