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Online Workshop on Modern Confucianism
“Modern Confucianism Between Philosophy and Sociology” was the topic of an online workshop that centered on the research of the Institute for European Global Studies’ SNSF-funded research project “The Exterior of Philosophy.” The event was organized by the Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy at the City University of Hong Kong and took place on December 10, 2020, 9-12am, via zoom.
Four members of the research project presented papers on their research during the workshop. Initially, Ralph Weber provided a sociological reading of the social and political thought of Tu Weiming. Philippe Major then explored philosophical textuality as social praxis in modern Confucianism. Afterwards, Milan Matthiesen focused on the politics of anti-Confucianism and philosophical argument in the debates between Confucians and Liberals during the 1950s. Ultimately, Yim Fong Chan spoke about Liang Shuming and Feng Youlan in the PRC (1949-1976) as “twisted souls in Confucianism.”
The event took place on December 10, 2020, 9-12am, via zoom. For more information, please contact Dr. David Chung (City University of Hong Kong) via email.
About the Organizers and the Research Project
The Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy (CEACOP) is a research center at the City University of Hong Kong that brings together core faculty members within the university’s Department of Public Policy and from around the world. All of them have active research programs in East Asian and Comparative Ethics, Political Philosophy, Law, Religion, the Ethical Status of Non-human Animals, and Environmental Ethics.
The Exterior of Philosophy: On the Practice of Modern Confucianism is a research project that studies twentieth-and twenty-first-century Confucian philosophy by deploying Sociology of Philosophy perspectives. Building on the work of Sociologists of Philosophy, the project seeks to highlight the sociological entanglements of modern Confucian philosophy at two levels: first, at the meso-level of a philosophical field (departments, journals, associations, etc.) whose doxa is informed by global requirements and local needs, and second, at the macro-level of the local and global socio-political settings that bear on the philosophical field but also directly inform the philosophical production of modern Confucians.
About the Speakers
Prof. Dr. Ralph Weber is Associate Professor of European Global Studies at the Institute for European Global Studies. He specializes in Political Theory, Chinese Politics, and modern Confucianism. Currently, he is the President of the European Association for Chinese Philosophy and the Chair of the Section on Political Theory in the Swiss Political Science Association.
Dr. Philippe Major is a postdoctoral researcher in the SNSF-funded project The Exterior of Philosophy at the Institute for European Global Studies. His research interests include Modern Chinese Philosophy, Modern Chinese Intellectual History, New Confucianism, Sociology of Philosophy, The Relationship between Modernity and Tradition, as well as Textual Authority.
Milan Matthiesen is an SNSF-fellow in the SNSF-funded project The Exterior of Philosophy at the Institute for European Global Studies. In his research, he is interested in New Confucianism in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the development of modernity in the 19th and early 20th century in Europe and Asia, the history of philosophy, conceptual history and the Sociology of Philosophy, as well as contemporary political theory.
Yim Fong Chan is an SNSF-fellow in the SNSF-funded project The Exterior of Philosophy at the Institute for European Global Studies. Her research interests include New Confucianism and Chinese intellectual history.