This volume tells the story of the importance of the Confucian traditions and why and how Confucian texts were reinterpreted within the different ambiances and contexts around East Asia. The vitality of East Asian Confucianisms stems from the desire of Confucian thinkers to interpret the core values of the Confucian classics in line with conditions and changes in their own times and location. Although all the interpretations that were advanced in China, Korea and Japan were specific to their own era, they do still share some themes in common. This book reveals that “East Asian Confucianisms” forms an intellectual community that is transnational and multi-lingual and has evolved in interaction between Confucian “universal values” and the local conditions present in each East Asian country.
Preface
Prologue
Part Ⅰ New Perspectives on East Asian Confucianisms
Introduction
Chapter One: On the Relationship between Interpretations of the Confucian Classics and Political Power in East Asia: An Inquiry into the Analects and Mencius
Chapter Two: On the “Contextual Turn” in the Tokugawa Japanese Interpretation of the Confucian Classics: Types and Problems
Chapter Three: East Asian Conceptions of the Public and Private Realms
Chapter Four: The Role of Dasan Learning in the Making of East Asian Confucianisms: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective
Part II Confucian Texts in East Asian Contexts
Introduction
Chapter Five: Zhu Xi’s Comments on Analects 4.15 and 15.3, and His Critics: A Historical Perspective
Chapter Six: The Reception and Reinterpretation of Zhu Xi’s Treatise on Humanity in Tokugawa Japan
Chapter Seven: The Confucian World of Thought in Eighteenth-Century East Asia: A Comparative Perspective
Chapter Eight: Itō Jinsai on the Analects
Chapter Nine: Shibusawa Ēichi on the Analects
Chapter Ten: What is Ignored in Itō Jinsai’s Interpretation of Mencius?
Chapter Eleven: Yamada Hōkoku on Mencius’ Theory of Nurturing Qi: A Historical Perspective
Chapter Twelve: The Idea of Zhongguo and Its Transformation in the Contexts of Early Modern Japan and Contemporary Taiwan
Epilogue
Appendix: Some Observations on the Study of the History of Cultural Interactions in East Asia
Indexes
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Terms