The Ivory Tower and the Marble Citadel: Essays on Political Philosophy in Our Modern Era of Interacting Cultures

Contents

h Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter I. Introduction: Political Rationality and the Uncovering of Culturally Inherited Premises . . . 1 1. An Overview of the Book: A Chicken-and-Egg Problem 1 2. A Utilitarian Definition of Political Rationality 19 3. The Immorality of Political Rationality: Is Political Rationality Compatible with Utopianism? 24 4. Other Sources of Disagreement about the Nature of Political Rationality 31 5. Disagreeing about Disagreement: Rationalism, the GMWER, Relativistic Historicism, and Neo-Hegelianism 33 6. “Philosophical Empiricism” as the Foundation of the Neo-Hegelian Platform: Freedom and the Certainty of Uncertainty 45 7. A Political Philosophy Built on Weberian Sociology and the Concept of Discourse 57 8. Rationalistic Chinese Objections to This Neo-Hegelian, Weberian Concept of Political Philosophy: Gao Rui-quan’s Concept of “China’s Modern Spiritual-Cultural Tradition” 75 8a. Gao’s Contrast between Modern China’s Vision of Progress and the “Feudalistic” Confucian Tradition 78 8b. Gao’s Rationalism and the Importance of His Insight 87 8c. Some Problems Regarding Logicality, the Meaning of viii Table of Contents “Tradition,” Empirical Evidence, Theoretical Considerations, and Obvious Continuities 91 8d. Similarities: The Modern Chinese Idea of Progress as a Goal Partly Resembling Confucian Ideas 96 8e. “Old Wine in New Bottles”: The Problem of the Balance between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, between Vertical and Horizontal Social Organization 112 8e1. Epistemological Optimism and the Power to Control the Cosmos 116 8e2. Minimizing the Ills of Egoism as a Goal and Ontological Continuity as a Given 124 8e3. Two Tradition-rooted Premises Defining the Given World 132 9. Two Contemporary, Tradition-rooted Paradigms of the Good Society in Critical Perspective 142 10. Thinking “Outside the Box”? Feng You-lan and the Four Premises 160 Endnotes 193 Chapter II. The Problem of Factual and Normative Continuity with the Confucian Tradition in Modern Chinese Thought [paper delivered at the fiftieth anniversary conference of Harvard University’s Fairbank Center, December 9–11, 2005] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 1. The Challenge to the Original Fairbankian Paradigm 225 2. Factual Continuity with the Tradition in Modern Chinese Thought and the Problem of Context 230 3. The Problem of Normative Continuity 243 a. The Urgency of the Normative Issue 243 b. Paideia and the Importance of the Normative Issue 244 c. Epistemic Smugness 245 d. Zhang Zhi-dong’s Perspective as an “Effective Surviving Rival to Western Political Theory” 246 e. Adjudicating Rival Claims about the Problem of Normative Continuity: The Burkean Option 248 Table of Contents ix f. Beyond the Burkean Option: The Epistemological Problem of the Trustworthiness of History Relative to Critical Reflexivity 249 g. Beyond the Burkean Option: Agreeing with Some of the GMWER 252 h. The Neo-Hegelian View Growing out of the GMWER Debates 254 i. Beyond the GMWER: Jin Yue-lin’s Insight 256 j. Returning to a World of Reflection Put out of Bounds by the GMWER 261 k. Conclusion: Rethinking Normative Continuity 265 Endnotes 268 Chapter III. Selfhood and Authority in Neo-Confucian Political Culture [with the kind consent of the publisher, republication of Metzger article in Arthur Kleinman, Tsung-yi Lin, eds., Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture (Dordrecht, Boston, London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981), pp. 7–27] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 1. Autonomy and the Literature on Chinese Political Culture 275 2. Methodological Considerations 278 3. Self and Cosmos in Neo-Confucianism 281 4. Conclusion: The Question of Continuity 292 References 300 Chapter IV. Confucian Thought and the Modern Chinese Quest for Moral Autonomy [with the kind consent of the publisher, republication of article in Ren-wen ji shehui ke-xue ji-kan (Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy), I:1 (November 1988), pp. 297–358. Also published as “Das konfuzianische Denken und das Streben nach moralisher Autonomie im China der Neuzeit,” in Silke Krieger, Rolf Trauzettel, eds., Konfucianismus und die Modernisierung Chinas (v. Hase & Koehler Verlag, Mainz, 1990), pp. 307–356. Another English version in Silke Krieger, Rolf Trauzettel, eds., Confucianism and the Modernization of China (v. Hase and x Table of Contents Koehler Verlag, Mainz, 1991), pp. 266–306]. . . . . . . . . 305 1. The Problem 305 2. Unpacking the Confucian Concept of Hierarchy and Authority 319 3. Reflections about the Confucian Concept of Hierarchy and Authority 330 4. The Problem of Optimistic This-worldliness 335 5. Conclusion 337 Endnotes 342 References 343 Chapter V. Interpreting the Hermeneutic Turn: A “NeoHegelian ” Critique of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Philosophy and of Liu Xiao-gan’s Critique of...