Abstract

Since the end of the 19th century Chinese intellectuals struggle with the problem of how to reconcile “self-cultivation”, a fundamental motive of Confucian philosophy, and the model of government related to it, with democratic politics. By looking at the interpretations of The Great Learning given by the philosophers Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan I try to enter into the idea of democratization in contemporary Confucian thought by taking into account the perspective of a disastrous tension between cultural continuity and revolutionary break with the past in the process of Chinese modernization. Mou Zongsan’s distinction between “way of politics” and “way of governing” will serve as a starting point for critical reflections on the contemporary and transcultural significance of his political philosophy.