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Explores the earliest Confucian texts to find coherent structural principles linking the various facets of Confucian doctrine. Its central theme is that the coherence of early Confucianism emerges only when doctrine is viewed as a function of the unique ritual practice of the early Confucian community.
Demonstrating that the relation between practice and theory in early Confucianism is highly systematic, the author suggests that Confucianism represents a species of 'synthetic' philosophy, distinct from the analytical traditions of the West but equally rigorous in its attempt to disclose the foundations of understanding. He illustrates how theory served as an ancillary activity, expressing ethical insights derived from the systematic structure of core ritual practice, and legitimizing those insights in terms of teleological model of their efficacy in creating a divinely ordained political utopia. The central agenda of the early Confucians is pictured as the preservation and promotion of ritual skills and the aesthetic social perspectives they generate. Metaphysical and political theory serve as practical vehicles mediating between the skill-based philosophy of the early Confucian community and the changing features of the intellectual, social, and political environments in which that community had to survive.
"It looks at the Confucians as a school and at their sociological position, not simply at the ideas of the main thinkers. It proposes a conception of the school as developing their own way of conducting private life and rejects the claim (always hitherto accepted) that they were all yearning for public office and failing to get it. This is an entirely original approach." — A.C. Graham, Brown University
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I. Setting the Ritual Stage
1. Pre-Confucian Heaven
1. The Ritual Antecedents of Ruism2. Masters of the Dance1.1. the Three Pillars of the Western Chou2. T'ien as the King's Good
1.2. The Patterning of Chou Society2.1. T'ien as a Royal Adversary
2.2. The Injustice of T'ien
2.3. Creating a New T'ien
1. the Ritual Basis of Ruism3. The Sage and the Self1.1. Rationales for Ritual2. The Political Role of Ruism
1.2. The Decline of Ritual
1.3. Confucius' Career
1.4. Legitimizing Li
2.1. The Bifurcated Doctrine of Ruism3. The Community of Ru
2.2. The Missing History of the Ru
2.3. The Textual Imperative of Withdrawal
3.1. The Ruist Study Group
3.2. The Ruist Syllabus
3.3. Philosophers and Funeral Directors
1. Practical Totalism: The Ruist Doctrine of Sagehood1.1 Jen as Totalism2. Sagehood and the Self
1.2. The Single Thread
1.3. The Ritual Path2.1. The Public Self
2.2. The Social Self
II. The Confucian Creation of Heaven
4. Two Levels of Meaning: The Role of T'ien in the Analects
1. The Nature of the Text5. Tactics of Metaphysics: The Role of T'ien in Metaphysics
2. The Implicit Theory of T'ien in the Analects2.1. The Prescriptive Role of T'ien3. Confucius' Doctrinal Silence
2.2. The Descriptive Role of T'ien
1. The Nature of the Text6. Ritual as a Natural Art: The Role of T'ien in the Hsun Tzu
2. The Role of T'ien in Mencius' Political Doctrines and Career
3. The Mencian Theory of T'ien: Human Nature and Personal Decree3.1. Mencius and Li
3.2. The Mencian Theory of Human Nature
3.3.Hsing and Ming: The Interface and the Prescriptive and Descriptive Dimensions of T'ien
1. The Nature of the TextConclusion: Sagehood and Philosophy
2. The Challenge of Naturalism2.1. Late Warring States Naturalism3. The Thematic Unity of the Hsun Tzu
3.1. The World of Thing as a Taxonomy4. The Hsun Tzu's Theories of T'ien: the "Treatise on T'ien"
3.2. The Natural Logic of Social Forms
3.3. The Cardinal Valuelessness of Human Nature
3.4. Educating the Sage
3.5. Man's cosmic Role4.1. The Portrait of T'ien as Nonpurporsive Nature
4.2. T'ien as Prescriptive Psychology
4.3. Forming a Trinity with Heaven and Earth
4.4. T'ien as a Historical Force
4.5. Miscellaneous T'iens
Appendix A. The Origins of the Term "T'ien"
Appendix B. A Theory of the Origins of the Term "Ju"
Appendix C. Hsun Tzu, "Treatise on T'ien"
Notes
Glossary
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index