The I Ching has influenced thinkers and artists throughout the history of Chinese philosophy. This new, accessible translation of the entire early text brings to life the hidden meanings and importance of China's oldest classical texts. Complemented throughout by insightful commentaries, the I Ching: A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text simplifies the unique system of hexagrams lying at the centre of the text and introduces the cultural significance of key themes including yin and yang, gender and ethics. As well as depicting all possible ethical situations, this new translation shows how the hexagram figures can represent social relationships and how the order of lines can be seen as a natural metaphor for higher or lower social rank. Introduced by Hon Tze-Ki, an esteemed scholar of the text, this up-to-date translation uncovers and explains both the philosophical and political interpretations of the text. For a better understanding of the philosophical and cosmological underpinning the history of Chinese philosophy, the I Ching is an invaluable starting point.

This book, the first English translation of what many consider to be the most original work of Chinese philosophy produced in the twentieth century, draws from Buddhist and Confucian philosophy to develop a critical inquiry into the relation between the ontological and the phenomenal. This annotated edition examines Xiong Shili's complex engagement with Buddhist thought and the legacy of Xiong's thought in New Confucian philosophy. It will be an indispensable resource for students of Eastern philosophy and Chinese intellectual history, as well as for philosophers who may not be familiar with the Chinese tradition.

This thought-provoking work presents Confucianism as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance. Developing Confucian ethical ideas within a contemporary context, this book discusses the nature of virtue, the distinction between public and private, the value of spontaneity, and more.

Approximately fifteen hundred years after Confucius, his ideas reasserted themselves in the formulation of a sophisticated program of personal self-cultivation. Neo-Confucians argued that humans are endowed with empathy and goodness at birth, an assumption now confirmed by evolutionary biologists. By following the Great Learning--eight steps in the process of personal development--Neo-Confucians showed how this innate endowment could provide the foundation for living morally. Neo-Confucian students did not follow a single manual elaborating each step of the Great Learning; instead they were exposed to age-appropriate texts, commentaries, and anthologies of Neo-Confucian thinkers, which gradually made clear the sequential process of personal development and its connection to social order. Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation opens up in accessible prose the content of the eight-step process for today's reader as it examines the source of mainstream Neo-Confucian self-cultivation and its major crosscurrents from 1000 to 1900.

It is arguably Confucianism, not Communism, which lies at the core of China's deepest sense of self. Although reviled by Chinese intellectuals of the 1950s-1990s, who spoke of it as "yellow silt clotting the arteries of the country," Confucianism has defied eradication, remaining a fundamental part of the nation's soul for 2500 years. And now, as China assumes greater ascendancy on the world economic stage, it is making a strong comeback as a pragmatic philosophy of personal as well as corporate transformation, popular in both home and boardroom. What is this complex system of ideology that stems from the teachings of a remarkable man called Confucius (Kongzi), who lived in the distant sixth century BCE? Though he left no writings of his own, the oral teachings recorded by the founder's disciples in the "Analects" left a profound mark on later Chinese politics and governance. They outline a system of social cohesiveness dependent upon personal virtue and self-control. For Confucius, society's harmony relied upon the appropriate behaviour of each individual within the social hierarchy; and its emphasis on practical ethics has led many to think of Confucianism as a secular philosophy rather than a religion. In this new, comprehensive introduction, Ronnie Littlejohn argues rather that Confucianism is profoundly spiritual, and must be treated as such. He offers full coverage of the tradition's sometimes neglected metaphysics, as well as its varied manifestations in education, art, literature and culture.

El Chu-King o Shujing, "El Libro Canonico de la Historia," es el mas importante de los libros Los Cinco Clasicos de la antigua China, que durante generaciones han formado no solo la base del derecho publico chino, sino de la instruccion de los letrados de aquel pais. Traducido, prologado y anotado por Juan Bautista Bergua. Los Cinco Clasicos son producto de las tareas de estudio y recopilacion que realizo el mismo Confucio (Kung-Fu-Tse) para rescatar la sabiduria y los conocimientos acumulados por sus ancestros durante siglos. Un libro moral, practico, de ejemplos, de normas a seguir para poder ser virtuoso y por ello feliz. Una elevada idea de la divinidad preside toda la obra, y esta felicisima union entre lo metafisico y lo practico impregna sus diversos tratados de sana y acertada filosofia. El confucianismo es el conjunto de doctrinas morales y religiosas predicadas por Confucio que tiene una gran influencia sobre China, Corea, Vietnam y Japon. Fue la religion oficial de China hasta el siglo VII. Ediciones Ibericas y Clasicos Bergua fue fundada en 1927 por Juan Bautista Bergua, critico literario y celebre autor de una gran coleccion de obras de la literatura clasica. Las traducciones de Juan B. Bergua, con sus prologos, resumenes y anotaciones son fundamentales para el entendimiento de las obras mas importantes de la antiguedad. LaCriticaLiteraria.com ofrece al lector a conocer un importante fondo cultural y tener mayor conocimiento de la literatura clasica universal con experto analisis y critica.

El canon de la filosofia confuciana lo componen Los Cuatro Libros de Confucio (Kung-Fu-Tse o Kung-Tse) y de su principal discipulo, Mencio (Mengtse). Traducido, prologado y anotado por Juan Bautista Bergua. Los Cuatro Libros son el conjunto de las obras escritas por los discipulos de Confucio que ilustran las principales ensenanzas del maestro sobre cuestiones politicas, morales, filosoficas y practicas. 1. El "Ta-Hio," El Gran Estudio o Gran Saber, dedicado al camino para alcanzar la virtud y la armonia. 2. El "Tchung-Yung," o Doctrina del Medio, contiene recomendaciones para alcanzar la perfeccion mediante la instruccion en las reglas morales y la ensenanza de las mismas. 3. El "Lun-Yu," o Comentarios Filosoficos, tambien conocido como las Analectas, es considerado el documento que mas autenticamente refleja el pensamiento del maestro. 4. El "Meng-Tseu" (Meng-Tse), o Libro de Mencio, es la interpretacion del Confucianismo por Mencio, quien vivio un siglo despues que Confucio, pero es considerado su mas celebre discipulo y quien mejor ha sabido explicar las maximas del Confucianismo. Ediciones Ibericas y Clasicos Bergua fue fundada en 1927 por Juan Bautista Bergua, critico literario y celebre autor de una gran coleccion de obras de la literatura clasica. Las traducciones de Juan B. Bergua, con sus prologos, resumenes y anotaciones son fundamentales para el entendimiento de las obras mas importantes de la antiguedad. LaCriticaLiteraria.com ofrece al lector a conocer un importante fondo cultural y tener mayor conocimiento de la literatura clasica universal con experto analisis y critica.

This book brings together the studies of Jeaneane Fowler in Taoism, Chinese popular religion and the broader canvas of Chinese cosmogony, and those of Merv Fowler in Confucianism, Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism. 'Chinese Religions' requires no previous knowledge and thereby serves as an introduction to the religions of China, and places it in the wider context of Chinese history and philosophy. The facets of Chinese religions are as broad, multilayered and varied as the geographical vastness of China itself, yet so many Chinese beliefs have found their way into the West -- the theory of yin and yang, the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching are good examples. One of the greatest characteristics of Chinese religions is that they encompass virtually every avenue of religious thought throughout the long span of Chinese pre-historic and historical pathways.

In Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and other parts of East and Southeast Asia, as well as China, people are asking What does Confucianism have to offer today? For some, Confucius is still the symbol of a reactionary and repressive past. For others, he is the humanist admired by generations of scholars and thinkers, East and West, for his ethical system and discipline, among other qualities. Much depends on whose Confucianism one is considering, its time and place. In the face of such complications, Theodore de Bary ventures broad answers to the question of the significance of Confucianism in today's world.

-- Wing-tsit Chan

This volume adds to our understanding of the development of Neo-Confucianism - its complexity, diversity, richness, and depth as a major component of the moral and spiritual fibre of the peoples of East Asia.

Comparative political theory has grown into a recognized discipline in its own right in the last two decades. Yet little has been done to explore how political theory engages with the actual social, legal, and political reality of a particular polity. East Asians are complexly conditioned by traditional Confucian norms and habits, despite significant social, economic, and political changes in their contemporary lives. This volume seeks to address this important issue by developing a specifically Confucian political and legal theory. The volume focuses on South Korea, whose traditional society was and remains the most Confucianized among pre-modern East Asian countries. It offers an interesting case for thinking about Confucian democracy and constitutionalism because its liberal-democratic institutions are compatible with and profoundly influenced by the Confucian habit of the heart. The book wrestles with the practical meaning of liberal rights under the Korean Confucian societal culture and illuminates a way in which traditional Confucianism can be transformed through legal and political processes into a new Confucianism relevant to democratic practices in contemporary Korea.

Of the three main teachings in Chinese culture, Confucianism has exerted the most profound and lasting influence in China.While Confucianism (a term coined by Westerners) refers to a tradition (Ruism) that predated Confucius, it is most closely associated with Confucius (551-479 BCE), who determined its later development. Confucius' ideas are reflected in his conversations with students, mostly recorded in the Analects. However, this book also brings into discussion those sayings of Confucius that are recorded in other texts, greatly expanding our perspective of the original Confucius. Scholars in the past, unsure about the authenticity of such sayings, have been reluctant to use them in discussing Confucius' view. However, recent archaeological findings have shown that at least some of them are reliable. Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear and thorough account of authentic Confucius and his ideas, underscoring his contemporary relevance, not only to Chinese people but also to people in the West.

Where does Neo-Confucianism a movement that from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries profoundly influenced the way people understood the world and responded to it fit into our story of China s history?

This interpretive, at times polemical, inquiry into the Neo-Confucian engagement with the literati as the social and political elite, local society, and the imperial state during the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties is also a reflection on the role of the middle period in China s history. The book argues that as Neo-Confucians put their philosophy of learning into practice in local society, they justified a new social ideal in which society at the local level was led by the literati with state recognition and support. The later imperial order, in which the state accepted local elite leadership as necessary to its own existence, survived even after Neo-Confucianism lost its hold on the center of intellectual culture in the seventeenth century but continued as the foundation of local education. It is the contention of this book that Neo-Confucianism made that order possible.