This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Overseas scholars of Confucianism towards a pragmatic political philosophy Leal Benavides, Rogelio Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). 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Sep. 2021 King’s College London Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy • School of Global Affairs Lau China Institute Overseas Scholars of Confucianism By Rogelio Leal Political Science & China Studies Joint Doctor of Philosophy with the National University of Singapore National University of Singapore Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences • Department of Political Science 2019 Overseas Scholars of Confucianism Towards a Pragmatic Political Philosophy Rogelio Leal Rogelio Leal Copyright © 2019 The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. - Karl Marx CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix ABSTRACT xi INTRODUCTION 13 Primary Focus 17 Theoretical Framework and Research Design 18 Methodology 23 The Argument of the Study 26 Chapters Outline 28 1. DECIPHERING CONTEMPORARY OVERSEAS CONFUCIAN DISCOURSE 31 Transmission and Adoption of Ru 33 Expanding the “Third Wave” 41 Overseas Confucianism in the Making 45 Who are the Contemporary Overseas Scholars? 47 2. DECONSTRUCTING CONTEMPORARY OVERSEAS CONFUCIAN DISCOURSE 55 Archaeology and Genealogy as Methods 61 Rhetoric and Pragmatics 67 Parrhesia in Action 70 The Realproblematik of Hermeneutics 75 3. ASSESSING THE BACKGROUNDS AND MOTIVATIONS OF THE SCHOLARS 79 Preliminary Engagements with the Confucian Tradition 79 Influences and Meaningful Experiences 87 Propagating Confucianism: Intention and Intended Audience 97 Distinguishing Discourses, Methods, and Aims 104 4. MODERN RELEVANCE AND PRAXIS OF CONFUCIANISM 123 Interpreting Confucian Texts: Challenges and Difficulties 124 Development of post-Cultural Revolution Confucian Discourse 134 Is Confucianism still Relevant? 137 Preserving the Legacy and the Teachings of Confucius 151 5. OVERSEAS CONFUCIAN DISCOURSE: TOWARDS A PRAGMATIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 159 New Modes of Governance: Confucianising Politics 160 Politicising Confucianism through Designation-neologisms 174 Internationalising the Doctrine: Mingling Western and Confucian Civilisations 185 Aiming for a xiaokang Society 194 CONCLUSION 203 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 APPENDICES 221 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Xinzhong Yao for his incisive guidance and for introducing me to the field of Confucian studies and to Professor Sor-hoon Tan for her meaningful insights, valuable suggestions, and extraordinary supervision. It was a great privilege to work with both of them. Their expertise and scholarship have inspired me to make Confucianism and Chinese philosophy a lifelong intellectual pursuit. I also want to thank Professor Nicholas Bunnin for his support in the initial stages of my PhD and for elevating my interest in philosophy during our frequent meetings in London and Oxford. Moreover, I have benefited in numerous ways from the supervision of Professor Kerry Brown, whose advice and constructive comments and recommendations have helped me finalise a quality doctoral dissertation. Additionally, I want to thank Professor Chen An for his assertive direction and for clarifying key aspects of Chinese politics to me during my academic sojourn in Singapore. This work would not have been possible without the financial support of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) of Mexico, who subsidised my entire degree programme. I also want to express my thanks to the Lau China Institute, the Centre for Doctoral Studies, the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, and the Global Mobility Office at King’s College London for their support and for fully or partially funding several of my research activities worldwide. Furthermore, the numerous staff members at King’s and at the National University of Singapore that facilitated my doctoral journey are fully deserving of my earnest regards. My most sincere thanks go to my dissertation committee, professors Qing Cao, Julia Lovell, Hui-chieh Loy, for accepting to examine this monograph. Their comments, suggestions, observations, and helpful criticisms helped me conclude my doctorate. I am deeply in debt to all the participants of this study for their cooperation and for generously agreeing to be interviewed for this research project. Finally, I cannot express in full the unconditional love, support, and encouragement from my friends and family throughout my doctoral studies—especially to my mother, whose immeasurable courage and endless kindness have guided my life towards a righteous path. ix ABSTRACT For over two and a half millennia, the philosophical teachings of Confucianism have shaped and influenced the mores and political thinking of the Chinese people, as well as other Confucian civilisations. Present-day interpretations of Confucianism theorise about the possibility of restoring certain Confucian tenets and of incorporating them into modern socio- political contexts. This study brings together the thought and opinions of a selected group of individuals identified here as “overseas scholars of Confucianism” (haiwai ruxue xuezhe 海外 儒學學者) who were specifically interviewed for this research project. The study unveils the historical development and evolution of overseas Confucian discourse, and several methods (including dialectical-hermeneutics, phenomenology, and critical discourse analysis) have been used for the purposes of providing a systematic discourse deconstruction. Taking into consideration the hermeneutical orientation of the scholarship of the interviewees—along with a detailed examination of their backgrounds and of their preliminary engagements with the tradition—their views on the contemporary relevance and praxis of Confucianism were analysed, and their thoughts on the plausibility of a modern political philosophy with Confucian characteristics were also discussed. This work demonstrates how overseas scholars of Confucianism advocate for the future importance of their discourse, and it also considers whether it can have an effect on the future of Chinese social and political affairs—and subsequently, on other nations as well. This dissertation anticipates that it is indeed possible to fashion a critical theory, based on the enterprise of the discourse of these and other scholars, in the form of a political philosophy that is both pragmatic and distinctively ethical. xi INTRODUCTION The historical development of Confucian discourse has generally depended upon the hermeneutical interpretations of scholars and intellectuals who have been devoted to understanding the significance and practicality of the Confucian tradition. Their contributions and interpretations have shaped China’s cultural identity and its social and political organisation for over two thousand years. Recently, there has been an increasingly high degree of interest in exploring, reassessing, and reconstructing Confucianism as a tool to respond to the social and political challenges currently faced by China and other countries. This study analyses the writings, ideas, and opinions of a selection of scholars from the school of contemporary overseas Confucianism.1 Their discourse is examined in light of their ability to interpret and transmit Confucianism through their verbal and written contributions. Many of their works have already become, or are in the process of becoming, texts of central importance for understanding the modern development of Confucianism as well as its impact on the current state of affairs of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China or PRC) and beyond. Several scholars argue that Confucianism should not be confined to Confucian societies; for it contains ethical, political, philosophical, and spiritual principles that are capable of being used worldwide for the purposes of establishing more efficient modes of governance and, consequently, a more harmonious global society. In modern Confucian studies, the Confucian tradition is often divided into three epochs.2 The first epoch is known as classical Confucianism. The origins of this epoch lie in the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BCE). The second epoch is Neo-Confucianism which developed during the Song-Ming period (960-1644). The third and current epoch is known