Spanning the 19th and 20th centuries and identifying multiple waves of modernization, this book illustrates how principles originating in Chinese Confucianism have impacted the modernization of East Asia, especially in Korea. It also analyzes how such principles are exercised at personal, interpersonal and organizational levels. As modernization unfolds in East Asia, there is a rising interest in tradition of Confucianism and reconsider the relevance of Confucianism to global development. This book considers the actual historical significance of Confucianism in (...) the modernization of the three nations in this region, China, Korea, and Japan through the nineteenth century and early twentieth century to the aftermath of the end of World War II. Examining the existing literature dealing with how Confucianism has been viewed in connection with modernization, it provides insight into western attitudes towards Confucianism and the changes in perceptions relative to Asia in the very process of modernization itself. (shrink)

동아시아 근대 전환기 도덕 개념의 의미 변화를 드러내는 지표 가운데 하나로 공덕ㆍ사덕 담론을 들 수 있다. 덕의 의미망을 통시적으로 고찰해보면 그 범위를 사적 영역과 공적 영역으로 분리한 용례는 19세기말에 이르러 나타나는 근대적 현상이다. 종래 사덕은 사사로운 정이나 은혜를 가리켰으며, 공덕은 어떤 인물의 덕이나 공적의 의미로 쓰였기 때문이다. 한국 근대 공덕과 사덕 담론은 량치차오의 『신민설』에서 영향 받은 바 크다. 그런데 「논공덕」과 「논사덕」은 메이지 일본에서 국가ㆍ제도적으로 진행된 공덕 양성 운동에서 모티프를 따온 것으로 판단된다. 일본은 만세일계의 천황제를 공고히 하고 국가에 충성하는 국민의 자질로 (...) 공덕을 강조했다. 량치차오는 중국의 유교가 사덕에 치우치고 공덕은 결여되었다고 진단하면서 신민이 지녀야할 정신의 핵심으로 애국심을 꼽았다. 「논사덕」에서는 중국의 고유한 문화적 자산의 효용과 사덕이 공덕의 기반이 된다는 점을 들어 유교에 관한 입장을 선회하였지만, 국가 이익에 복무해야한다는 도덕 효용성의 관점을 폐기한 것은 아니었다. 대한제국기 신문과 잡지의 논설은 일본과 양계초의 논조를 수용하여 근대 국가 수립의 장애물로 공덕의 결핍을 지목하였다. 이때 공덕은 개인의 영역을 넘어 선 ‘대아’, ‘신국민’이 지녀야할 국가사상과 국민정신을 가리켰다. 한편으로 공덕은 개인과 가족, 국가 사이의 ‘사회’라는 공적 영역의 탄생과 맞물려 있으나 20세기 초반 동아시아 공덕 담론은 민족과 국가에 대한 충성과 애국심으로 수렴되는 양상을 보였다. 동아시아 근대 공덕ㆍ사덕 담론은 도덕 개념의 근대적 의미 변화를 확인할 수 있는 중요한 지표로써 효용성을 앞세운 타산적 근대성에 대한 성찰을 요청한다. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

In this paper I have examined the Saibaba phenomenon which originated in India and now has a global influence. Through fieldwork, I build on the life and works of three faith teachers (gurus) who have contributed to the Sai movement to forward my thesis that sociality and hence tangible social service is an important means to gain legitimacy, social standing and as a response to late modernity. I begin by giving an overview of the Sai phenomena and its peculiarities (...) in terms of syncretism, bricolage and aspects of global proliferation. I then discuss how sociality is a strategy for this genre of faith movement and its implications. Finally I propose that sociality has become a metaphor of Sai sacrality. (shrink)

Peace, compared to war, receives scant attention. Comprised of nine essays drawn from a 2009 conference, the essays collected in Visions of Peace: Asia and the West, edited by Takashi Shogimen and Vicki A. Spencer, reach wide and far to push against that neglect. The essays focus on different conceptions of and plans for political peace. Even more impressively, they generally avoid well-trodden paths like Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace and instead draw upon Asian traditions and more obscure Western traditions. (...) The first essay, for instance, discusses the Greek goddess of peace and, contra various modern scholars, how peace was in fact an ideal for the Greeks and thought to be achievable. The final essay is on Jeremy... (shrink)

Retrospect and prospect for contemporary Chinese thought -- Resolving the tension between tradition and modernity : reflections on the May Fourth cultural tide -- The May Fourth tide and modernity -- Radicalism in the cultural movement of the twentieth century -- Modern Chinese culture and the difficulties of Confucian learning -- Liang Shuming's early view of Oriental and Western culture -- The establishment and development of Feng Youlan's view of culture -- A reflection on the new school of (...) principle and thoughts on modernity -- Confucian thought and the world of modern East Asia -- Confucian ethics and China's modernisation -- East Asian tradition according to modernisation theory -- A sense of predicament and inter-dependency -- Liang Shuming and Max Weber on Chinese culture -- Values, authority, tradition and Chinese philosophy -- The difficulty of undertaking national studies research in the nineties : the problem of the national studies fever and research into traditional culture -- The value and status of traditional Chinese culture. (shrink)

Harmony has become a major challenge for modern governance in the twenty-first century because of the multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character of our increasingly globalized societies. Governments all over the world are facing growing pressure to integrate the many diverse elements and subcultures which make up modern pluralistic societies. This book examines the idea of harmony, and its place in politics and governance, both in theory and practice, in Asia, the West and elsewhere. It explores and analyses the meanings, (...) mechanisms, dimensions and methodologies of harmony as a normative political ideal in both Western and Asian philosophical traditions. The book argues that in Western political thought - which sees politics as primarily concerned with resolving social conflicts and protecting individual rights - the concept of harmony has often been neglected. In contrast, since earliest times harmony or ‘he’ has been a profound theme in Confucian thought, and current leaders of many East Asian governments, and the Chinese government, have explicitly declared that the realisation of a harmonious society is their aim. The book also assesses how harmony is pursued, jeopardized or deformed in the real world of politics, based upon empirical analysis of a variety of different cultural, social and political contexts, including: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Denmark, Latin America and the Scandinavian countries. It shows how harmony as an organizing concept can help to promote new thinking in governance, and overcome problems of modern-day governance like distrust, adversarial conflicts, hyper-individualism, coercive state intervention, and free-market alienation. It also discusses the potential problems posed by the pursuit of harmony, in particular in the grave threat of totalitarianism, and considers how these risks could best be mitigated. (shrink)

The Confucian notion of civility has for thousands of years guided all aspects of socio-ethical life in East Asia. Confucians express their central concern for civility in their notion of li, which is commonly translated ?ritual? and refers to the conventions and courtesies through which we submit to the socio-ethical order, as we do, for example, in performing sacrifices, weddings, and funerals, and various daily acts of deference. Since the rise of China and other East Asian countries as economic (...) powers, it has been suggested that we have in East Asia a ?Confucian? ritual-based culture that is opposed to the law-based culture of the West, a culture of rites opposed to a culture of rights, and that this ritual-based culture can be carried into modernity as another way to secure social harmony. I argue that the values central to Confucian ritual ? deference, repayment, and harmony ? are incompatible with the freedom enacted in modern civility. It is unlikely, therefore, that Confucian ritual can be carried into modernity and, as some suggest, remedy the fragmentation, and indeed lack of civility, characteristic of modern societies. (shrink)

This article comprises a critical examination of some aspects of the English-language comparative literature on Heidegger and East Asian thought. It questions both its transcendental conceptual ground – the conditions of possibility for the comparative exercise – and its account of Heideggerʼs philosophy itself. For the comparative literature, I will argue, can only make its specific claims, sympathetic to the Heideggerian philosophical project, with a reading of that project that represses most of what is fundamental to Heideggerʼs conception of philosophy (...) and almost everything that we know about his politics. Furthermore, in its emphasis on the ancient it facilitates the repression of the history of Heideggerian fascism in modern East Asian, and particularly Japanese, thought. The point of this critical examination of the comparative literature is not, however, to expose a misreading of Heidegger. It is to reveal what is at stake in the mobilization of the imaginary geopolitical and geophilosophical unities of ʻthe Eastʼ and ʻthe Westʼ in relation to Heideggerʼs political-philosophical thinking of ʻthe Westʼ. Accordingly, I will look first at the claims typical in the advocatory comparative literature and then at the problematic conceptual ground of the comparison, both in terms of its immanent logic and its relation to Heideggerʼs conception of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Kagawa Tyohiko, who was a well known Christian leader and social reformer, is re-evaluated from the perspective of a public philosophy, and as an example of the possibilities for collaboration and conflict between science and the religious humanities in East Asia. His last book, Cosmic Purpose, which appears to be a kind of natural theology, is analyzed from the perspective of the hidden topic of human evil. By considering Kagawa's deep religious sensibility and conscience, the book can be interpreted (...) to reflect on the wrong directionality selected by modern Japan's leaders that resulted in the tragic war. (shrink)

Western‐style modernization and economic development have devastated the once fertile lands of Southeast Asia and impoverished and demoralized its people. Recently, however, indigenous movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia suggest a return to a notion of development based on core values of Hinduism, classical and Zen Buddhism, and Taoism. These traditions preserve an alternative understanding of the relation between humanity and nature and promote a simpler but dignified economy and lifestyle in harmony with the environment—notions which (...) Western nations must begin to take seriously if the “global village” is to have any real future. (shrink)

Wei-Bin Zhang offers an authoritative guide to the philosophy of Confucian regions, covering mainland China Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore. All, except Singapore, employed Confucianism as the state ideology before the West came to East Asia. The differences and similarities between the variety of Confucian schools are examined. The author concludes that the philosophical and ethical principles of Confucianism will assist in the industrialization and democratization of the region.

In the past thirty years, monumental archaeological discoveries related to the oldest temple complexes in Asia and Europe have emerged on the global cultural stage. In 1995, the ancient temple complex of Göbekli Tepe, dating to the 9th millennium BC, was discovered in southeastern Türkiye. Seventeen years after the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, in 2012, an Eneolithic temple of the Trypillia culture, the Nebelivka Temple, was excavated in present-day Ukraine, dating to the 4th millennium BC. Today, both temple complexes (...) are recognized as the oldest religious centers in Asia and Europe, respectively. The findings from Göbekli Tepe and the Nebelivka Temple, along with accompanying materials, extend far beyond archaeology. They shed light on the history, culture, and religion of prehistoric times. It is the ancient religion that establishes connections between the two temple complexes, allowing us, as this study reveals, to transcend the material, seemingly disparate archaeological facts to understand the general characteristics of an organized religious system of the early agricultural type. This paper explores some specific similarities between the two temple complexes and their cultures overall. Both temples exhibit a shared spatial arrangement of key structural elements, and there is ideological affinity in the iconographic themes, symbols, and artifacts that were not used in other world cultures. This comparative analysis reveals patterns of religious interactions and parallels across different regions and even subcontinents over a significant period. In this study, the author comprehensively highlights the features of the oldest forms of religiosity, providing valuable information on the genesis and evolution of beliefs inherent to organized early agricultural communities. Such a specification of “Neolithic religion,” demonstrating signs of a global phenomenon in the ancient world, is a highly promising direction for modern science, relevant both for research in the Near East and European civilization. This research enriches our understanding of ancient cultures and provides valuable material for contemplating the role of religion in the development of human society as a whole, opening new perspectives for further scientific inquiry in this field. (shrink)

Asian diplomatic practices consistently frustrate western policymakers. This, I argue, is due in large part to cultural factors and the differences in interpreting political modernization. I will identify the features that contribute to a ‘diplomacy of encounter’ by, firstly, performing a historical reading of early indigenous annals that treat diplomacy in Asia, as well as of Jesuit and Portuguese encounters with Asia in the 1500s and 1600s; secondly, by reading a sample of nationalist tracts from Asia between (...) the late 1800s and 1960s; and, thirdly, by reading the practices of ASEAN and wider Asia-Pacific regionalism between the 1990s and 2000s. It is only through discourse analysis of the Foucaultian variety that one can tease out the cultural and modernization-related road bumps in so-called ‘modern Asian diplomacy’. This study hopes to contribute to enhancing appreciation of the ongoing procedural and substantive tensions between Asian states and their western, and mostly developed, dialogue partners. (shrink)

I suggest that the representation of cities in Indian cinema — the effects and affects of modernities as well as of ambiguous, multiplicitous sexualities — mark significant change in engagement with modernity ever since independence in 1947. The city in the Indian imaginary has occupied an ambivalent, confrontational as well as contemplative space that signifies ‘modernity’ and its concurrent promise as well as ills. Non-normative sexualities have always occupied a liminal space in socio-political configurations, a site both of (...) empowerment through transgression and containment through regulation. The urban space — newly freed up and as yet un-proscribed — assumes the metonymic equivalence of available sexual freedom (particularly for women), its powers and its dangers. The cinema as a text is especially well-suited to play with the dynamics of this fraught space: often, a film’s contexts and narratives identify the film text itself as a signifier of the liminal spaces that it proposes to explore, enacting both their limitations and their possibilities. (shrink)

Belief in the benevolence of free markets has become a fundamental credo of professional experts, economists, business people and politicians. We regard this discourse as part of a new culture of markets, which has also taken root in Southeast Asia. Expanding markets and using high-tech devices of communication are interpreted as cultural systems that are used in the construction of modernity. An `unbridled romanticism of productivity' (Baudrillard) and a `romance of capitalism' are the meta-narratives underlying the culture of (...) markets. This theme is followed up on two empirical levels. The development policy of three Southeast Asian governments, namely Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, is briefly characterized as market corporatism, market socialism and high-tech developmentalism. We then focus on the emergence of the new middle classes, their actual and symbolic consumption and their lifestyles. Finally the decline of real markets, the creation of virtual markets and the state of postmodernity in Southeast Asia are discussed. We conclude that market fundamentalism and postmodern lifestyles characterize the beginning rather than the end of modernity in Southeast Asia. (shrink)

Hindu Theology in Early Modern South Asia: The Rise of Devotionalism and the Politics of Genealogy. By KiIyokazu Okita. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 284. $99.

Harmony as a basic value is neglected in internationally influential philosophical discussions about rights, power, and other facets of public policy; it is not prominent in articles that appear in widely read journals or in books published by presses with a global reach. Of particular interest, political philosophers and policy makers remain ignorant of the similarities and differences between various harmony-oriented approaches to institutional choice from around the world. In this chapter, I begin to rectify these deficiencies by critically discussing (...) the way harmony has figured into political philosophies from three major traditions in the Global South, namely, African ubuntu, East Asian Confucianism, and South American buen vivir. I point out that, although harmony is at the core of all three political philosophies, it is conceived in different ways, entailing incompatible prescriptions about things such as who should make laws and which sorts of beings have rights against the state. Such contrasting views call for rigorous cross-cultural dialogue amongst theorists of harmony, beyond mounting challenges to more individualist approaches that have been salient in modern Western political thought. (shrink)

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. (...) Using a comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism. (shrink)

본고는 동아시아의 근대화시기 ‘물리(物理)’라는 어휘의 개념적 변용 과정을 당시 일본과 조선의 문헌 자료를 통해 살펴본 것이다. 애당초 고대 중국 문헌에 그 기원을 갖는 ‘物理’는 동아시아 한자문화권에서 폭넓게 사용된 어휘였다. 특히 동아시아의 유학자들은 ‘物理’를 형이상의 불가시세계(invisible world)와 형이하의 가시세계(visible world)의 원리를 포괄하는 넓은 뜻으로 사용했다. ‘物理’가 가시적인 현상세계, 즉 자연계의 법칙을 의미하는 명칭으로, 그 개념이 한정된 것은 대략 19세기 전후 일본에서였다. 에도시대 일본인들은 서양의 물리학을 라틴어 Physica, 네덜란드어 Natuurkunde, 프랑스어 Physique, 영어 Physics 또는 Natural Philosophy라는 어휘를 통해 접했고, 그것을 ‘窮理’, ‘格物’, (...) ‘格致’, ‘理科’, ‘理學’, ‘窮物理學’, ‘窮物理之學’ 등 다양한 어휘로 번역했다. 메이지 유신(1868) 이후에도 물리학은 다양한 어휘로 번역되었다. 니시 아마네는 그것을 ‘格物學’이라고 불렀고, 후쿠자와는 ‘窮理’ 혹은 ‘窮理學’으로 번역했다. 그러나 메이지 정부의 교육 제도화는 ‘物理學’이 종래의 경쟁적 어휘들을 누르고, Physics의 주요한 어휘로 확산되는 결정적인 계기가 되었다. 일본에서 ‘物理’, ‘物理學’이라는 어휘는 1870년대 초 과거의 주자학적 개념을 탈피하여 근대 자연과학의 한 분야, 혹은 자연계에 대한 과학적 탐구의 방법을 일컫는 개념으로 새롭게 정착하기 시작했다. 서양의 물리학이 조선에 본격적으로 소개된 것은 19세기 말이었다. 유길준은 『서유견문(西遊見聞)』(1895)에서 물리학을 근대과학의 한 분야로 소개했지만, 정작 그는 그것을 ‘격물학’이라고 불렀다. 1895년 한성사범학교 관제에서 ‘물리’는 자연과학의 한 과목으로 소개되었고, 20세기 초에 이르러서는 일본의 물리 교과서들이 한국어로 번역되면서 자연과학적 의미의 ‘물리’, ‘물리학’이 한국 사회에 본격적으로 퍼져나갔다. 이후, 1910년대를 전후하여 ‘물리’, ‘물리학’은 신소설이나 잡지류를 통해 조선 사회에 대중적인 어휘로 정착되어 간 것으로 보인다. (shrink)

This paper discusses the ways in which the use of the notion of Asian bioethics since the 1990s has become a tool for building a platform of debate among East Asian countries. In many ways, the use of “Asian bioethics” is in an effort to counter what is perceived as Western bioethics and characterized by what are regarded as Western tendencies of individualism, rationalism, and modernization. I will argue, however, that, just as any notion of “Western bioethics,” the concept of (...) “Asian bioethics” offers little potential to solve issues of bioethical governance. First, although no doubt the notion of “bioethics” has been and is used hegemonically to push certain agendas, the view that bioethical issues in Asia and... (shrink)

Resumos -/- The view of historical writing as a mere objective and dispassionate recording of the past is already passé. From the outset of postmodernity, historiography was already seen as a tool either for oppression or empowerment. Integral to the role of historiography in this oppression or empowerment tendency is the construction of identity. In earlier stages of Southeast Asian scholarship, the common pattern among the historiographical materials produced (often by the intelligentsia of the colonial establishment) is the depiction of (...) Southeast Asia as an artificial buffer region that serves as a watershed of "Sinicization" from the East and "Indianization" from the West, and even "Islamization" later on. Very illustrative in this regard is George Coedes seminal work, "The Indianized States of Southeast Asia" (1968). This will in turn act as an intellectual conditioning to prepare others to passively recognize the legitimacy of Westernization and Modernization as the rightful heirs of Sinicization and Indianization. The period of decolonization will change the landscape of historiography, specifically in insular Southeast Asia, or what Zeus Salazar would call "Dunia Melayu" (1998). Post-coloniality would give birth to the indigenization of historical discourse in the region and, as a corollary, to a reactive movement that would challenge colonial identity politics. The Austronesian complex would serve as a major hermeneutical tool in asserting the nationalist agenda towards the collective Malayan past of the Maphilindian countries. This paper would attempt to survey major historical works, from colonial historiography to national historiography, with an emphasis on their roles in the identity politics of the region. (shrink)

Discussing the issues of “Asia,” Takeuchi Yoshimi’s discourse of “Overcoming Modernity” has received broad attention among the international community of scholars. Commentators try to identify the ideological elements of this discourse that, as they hope, could help to solve post-modern problems. After analysing Takeuchi’s understanding of the war and its context, this paper shows that his discourse of “overcoming modernity” has an anti-historical tendency, which stems from the ideological ambiguity of his attitude towards the question of who (...) was responsible for the war. (shrink)

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. (...) Using a comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism. (shrink)

What can remain unchanged while the Ru tradition (Confucianism) is continually passed down generationally and passed on geographically to non-Chinese Asian countries and beyond? Does the answer to this question hinted by the tradition itself, viz., the ethic of Three Guides and Five Constant Virtues, still work in contemporary society? As intrigued by these fundamental questions on Ruism, scholars have debated on the nature of the ethic and its adaptability to the contemporary world. One side of scholars condemned it as (...) an outdated, premodern ethic of power which urges unconditional obedience to hierarchy, while another side championed it as a modern ethic which aims to strengthen the autonomy of each individual in reciprocal relationships. While presenting two cases of Ru business practice, viz., Shibusawa Eiichi in Meiji Japan and Peter Drucker in the contemporary U.S., the article treats the controversial ethic as a hypothesis, and assesses it using an empirical method to reinforce views of scholars who have furnished a favorable interpretation of the ethic. (shrink)

In 1654 Zen Master Yinyuan traveled from China to Japan. Seven years later his monastery, Manpukuji, was built and he had founded his own tradition called Obaku. The sequel to Jiang Wu's 2008 book Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China, Leaving for the Rising Sun tells the story of the tremendous obstacles Yinyuan faced, drawing parallels between his experiences and the broader political and cultural context in which he lived. Yinyuan claimed to have inherited the (...) "Authentic Transmission of the Linji Sect" and, after arriving in Japan, was able to persuade the Shogun to build a new Ming-style monastery for the establishment of his Obaku school. His arrival in Japan coincided with a series of historical developments including the Ming-Qing transition, the consolidation of early Tokugawa power, the growth of Nagasaki trade, and rising Japanese interest in Chinese learning and artistic pursuits. While Yinyuan's travel has been noted, the significance of his journey within East Asian history has not yet been fully explored. Jiang Wu's thorough study of Yinyuan provides a unique opportunity to reexamine the crisis in the continent and responses from other parts of East Asia. Using Yinyuan's story to bridge China and Japan, Wu demonstrates that the monk's significance is far greater than the temporary success of a religious sect. Rather, Yinyuan imported to Japan a new discourse of authenticity that gave rise to indigenous movements that challenged a China-centered world order. Such indigenous movements, however, although appearing independent from Chinese influence, in fact largely relied on redefining the traditional Chinese discourse of authenticity. Chinese monks such as Yinyuan, though situated at the edge of the political and social arenas, actively participated in the formation of a new discourse on authenticity, which eventually led to the breakup of a China-centered world order. (shrink)

This volume explores the relevance of classical texts and thought-systems alongside contemporary philosophical consciousness. It also evaluates the absences in contemporary thought patterns and the new epistemes relevant to the Indian subcontinent. The book discusses the present lack of original philosophical discourse in the context of South Asia, especially India. Raghuramaraju investigates the reasons for the decline of traditional philosophical schools and Sanskritic studies in the subcontinent.

This text was prepared for presentation in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. Its aim was to explore a dialogue with Asians toward a cosmopolitan sociology. Beginning from the idea of entangled modernities which threaten their own foundations, Ulrich Beck advocated a complete conceptual innovation of sociology in order to better comprehend the fundamental fragility and mutability of societal dynamics shaped by the globalization of capital and risks today. More specifically, he proposed a cosmopolitan turn of sociology: first, by criticizing methodological nationalism; (...) second, by introducing the concept of cosmopolitization; third, by re-mapping social inequalities; fourth, by discussing risk society in the context of East Asian development; and fifth and finally, by proposing a cosmopolitan vision. Along this line, Beck attempted an overview of the researches done on second modern transformation in East Asia and suggested that an active dialogue may be possible when Asians begin to see the West from their perspectives rather than being caught in the Euro-centric and West-hegemonic presuppositions. (shrink)

Over 40 years ago, Daniel Bell made the provocative claim that ideological polarization was diminishing in Western democracies, but new ideologies were emerging and driving politics in developing nations. This article tests the EndofIdeology thesis with a new wave of public opinion data from the World Values Survey (WVS) that covers over 70 nations representing more than 80 per cent of the world's population. We find that polarization along the Left/Right dimension is substantially greater in the less affluent and less (...) democratic societies than in advanced industrial democracies. The correlates of Left/Right orientations also vary systematically across regions. The twin pillars of economic and religious cleavages remain important in European states; cultural values and nationalism provide stronger bases of ideology in Asia and the Middle East. As Bell suggested, social modernization does seem to transform the extent and bases of ideological polarization within contemporary societies. (shrink)

From a largely Western phenomenon, the “animal turn” has, in recent years, gone global. Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives is just such a timely product that testifies to this trend.But why Asia? The editors, in their very helpful overview essay, have from the outset justified the volume's focus on Asia and ensured that this is not simply a matter of lacuna filling. The reasons they set out include: the fact that (...) class='Hi'>Asia is the cradle of early human settlement and animal domestication; Asia encompasses an extreme diversity of closely connected ecosystems and human cultures; Asia is the place where the world's major religions originated; and, as in other parts of the world, Asia's use of animals for food and other utilitarian purposes constitutes a prominent feature of its culture. All of these factors, they argue, made Asia a unique lab for the exploration of major developments in human civilization and the complexities of human-animal interactions.Based on these premises, the book is divided into four parts, each concentrating on areas that the editors consider to have paramount significance in world history: Part I, “Hunting and Domestication”; Part II “Animals as Food”; Part III “Animals at War”; and Part IV “Animals in Culture and Religion.” As many good works on animal studies do, the volume adopts a truly cross-disciplinary approach, uniting scholars from disciplines as diverse as archaeology, history, anthropology, art, religion, literature, and cultural studies. It too takes an interregional approach and covers a vast geographical area, stretching from the western edge of Asia in the Levant to Central Asia, where once roamed the horses of the nomadic pastoral tribes, to the other end of Asia, including India, China, and Japan. Temporally impressive as well, the work takes us from the deep history of the Paleolithic period up to the contemporary world, exploring the diverse roles that a wide range of animals—horses, donkeys, camels, elephants, tigers, and so forth—have played in Asia's rich and unique past and present.Strong in archaeology, Part I, “Hunting and Domestication,” responds to the much-called for “deep” or “coevolutionary” history of human-animal relations in recent years. The three chapters discuss, respectively, the roles that proboscideans have played in the diet and culture of early societies in Paleolithic China and beyond; the ways in which animals of all sizes have been increasingly integrated into the diet, daily uses, trade, and warfare in Holocene Negev; and the diversifying roles played by donkeys in the early Bronze Age in Southern Levant as a food source, a means of transport and in ritual sacrifices. Together, they demonstrate, with reference to telling archaeological evidence how the early societies in this region have been highly dependent upon the increasingly sophisticated interactions with and uses of mega-herbivores in the protracted and by no means clear-cut transition from hunting and herding towards the agricultural way of life, affirming the co-existing and co-constituting relations between humans and other animals in the deep past of Asia.The chapters in the section on “Animals at War” equally reveal the crucial roles that animals have played in the military sphere, as either a practical war technology or a show of military power. “Elephants in Mongol History” revisits the thesis of elephant-mounted troops in South and Southeast Asia as a barrier to Mongol expansion. Through its lively account of the pivotal battles in Mongolian history, especially that against India and China, it illustrates with great success the complex interactions between animals (especially elephants, horses, and humans), technology, and the geographical environment, which jointly exercised their influence on the outcome of warfare and degree of success of political rule. Turning away from the dynamic of warfare, the following two chapters explore the biopolitical question of the management of the horse as a bio-resource in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) and early Ming Dynasty China, respectively. The first one places its focus on the breeding, procurement, and feeding of the horse subjects in question, while the latter concentrates on the human organization of various resources for the upkeep of government horses—a conventional area of study called “horse administration” in the institutional history of the government in China.The last section, “Animals in Culture and Religion,” examines the changing images of apex predators, such as lions and tigers, in Buddhist perceptions from South Asia to East Asia; the cult of the Horse King in late Imperial China; and the significance of animal signs in Mongolian historiography. They represent an established approach in animal studies that seeks to understand different aspects of human culture through symbolic or metaphorical animals. Instead of treating the animals discussed as mere abstractions, which has been a frequent criticism of works that adopt this approach, the relations between the symbolic animals and their prototype in the natural world were attentively explored. The essay on the cult of the Horse King, for example, closely links the wax and wane of the cult since late imperial China with the changing use and subsequent disuse of the actual horses in agriculture, transportation, commerce, and quotidian life. Yet, classic as these essays on symbolic animals are, one does feel slightly unsatiated when coming to the end of this section, which also marks the end of this volume. Having been reminded early in the introductory essay that Asia was “a major site for the emergence of moral teachings and ethical guidance on the treatment of animals” and how this legacy “still affects the lives of billions of humans to this very day,” one feels naturally rather let down that no article in this volume directly addresses this vital ethical dimension, especially since it belongs to a series on “animal ethics.”Indeed, regarding the task of placing either the nonhuman animals or the ethical relations between humans and other animals center stage, the essays in this volume achieve only varying levels of success. Some authors exhibit a more acute awareness of what “animal studies” or “animal ethics” might entail epistemically and methodically and experiment by paying closer attention to the species-specific characteristics, experience, and agency of nonhuman animals in order to cast off the deified anthropocentrism previously ruled in humanist scholarship. However, others have made no such attempt. For example, in Part II of “Animals as Food,” an essay on the production and consumption of milk in contemporary China, albeit alert to the issue of health hazards to consumers, omits any consideration of the subject from the dairy cows’ perspective under the modern intensive farming system. Moreover, otherwise superb research on the tuna-fishing industry in Japan, with its insightful discussion of the nexus between knowledge economies and imperial politics, too passes over any discussion of the fate of the tuna, whether collectively as a group of living organisms containing 15 species or individually as animals with an embodied experience. One does ponder whether these essays would fit better in a volume on the cultural history of food or on the entwining history of knowledge production, economics, and politics, which conventionally position human interests at the center of research.Taken as a whole, this is an impressive volume that directs our attention to the hitherto understudied world of Asia in animal studies. The long durée, with its interdisciplinary and interregional approach, also most powerfully presents a past in Asia that could not have been the same without the participation of animals at every level, from everyday life to the shaping of cultural values, the construction of belief systems, the building of a national identity, and even the rise and fall of regimes. Scholars and students interested in expanding the frontier of our understanding of the world with a more inclusive “we” should find a wealth of interesting subjects on which to build further research. Finally, the volume also presents a fitting occasion for all scholars committed to animal studies to consider the grave challenge confronting the field that arose alongside its growing respectability and rapid expansion: Should it be oriented toward the destabilization of our previously anthropocentric conception of the world? Or should no such perimeter be imposed, as in this volume? The overall breadth and limitations of this volume leave one pondering this issue. (shrink)

Tang Junyi’s modern Confucianism ranks among the most ambitious philosophical projects in 20th century China. In Tang Junyi: Confucian Philosophy and the Challenge of Modernity, Thomas Fröhlich examines Tang Junyi's intellectual reaction to a time of cataclysmic change marked by two Chinese revolutions (1911 and 1949), two world wars, the Cold War period, rapid modernization in East Asia, and the experience of exile. -/- The present study fundamentally questions widespread interpretations that depict modern Confucianism as essentially traditionalist and (...) nationalistic. Thomas Fröhlich shows that Tang Junyi actually challenges such interpretations with an insightful understanding of the modern individual’s vulnerability, as well as a groundbreaking reinterpretation of Confucianism as the civil-theological foundation for liberal democracy in China. (shrink)

The ideas contained in Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies—one of the most important tracts in political philosophy in the twentieth century—are relevant to anyone seeking to understand the recent history of the East Asian economies. Even though Popper wrote his tract to provide an explanation for both the rise and objectionable nature of totalitarian regimes in Europe in the twentieth century, many of the arguments that he advanced in this European context also explain the social, political and (...) economic relationships that are seen in modern South Eastern Asian economies. The narrative of this book is driven by a research agenda that is inter-disciplinary in nature, since to make the link between the Popperian framework and East Asian socio-economic relationships the contributing authors needed to draw upon research fields as far apart as political philosophy and East-Asian studies. With one or two exceptions, however, nearly all of the contributing authors have a background in economics, and this background is reflected in the way that they have sought to tackle the research question. This book is, in short, an inter-disciplinary exercise undertaken from an economics perspective, and hence it may best be described as an exercise in political economy rather than pure analytical economics. The novelty of juxtaposing Popperian ideas with a discussion of social, political and economic development in South East Asia makes this narrative of interest to both political philosophers and specialists in South East Asian economies. The key insight drawn from the analysis is that although Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies was a product of a European time and place, it is also relevant to anyone seeking to understand the recent history of the East Asian economies. (shrink)

This article aims at an active dialogue between Ulrich Beck and East Asia with respect to cosmopolitan imagination. Beck’s cosmopolitan sociology requires a reflective cosmopolitan publicness to cope with various kinds of global risks. We therefore extract three different layers of publicness from neo-Confucianism – survival-oriented, deliberative, and ecological – and argue that Beck’s cosmopolitan vision can be better conceptualized when properly linked to, or founded upon, the Tianxiaweigong normative potentials of neo-Confucianism. In so doing our intention is to (...) make Beck’s implicit (Asian) sensibilities and the implicit Asian (cosmopolitan) orientations explicit, as a double process of cosmopolitan self-reflection and dialogue. We also draw attention to the analysis of the cosmopolitan actor in East Asia. Finally, we note that the cosmopolitan future of East Asia still remains uncertain and that reconciling global risk politics, national interests and cosmopolitan morality presents a big challenge to second modern transformation. (shrink)