Sagehood

Stephen C. Angle is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University.

Dedication; Preface; Chronology and Dramatis Personae; ; PART I: KEYWORDS: ; 1 - Sheng/Sage; ; 1.1 "Sage" in the Confucian Tradition; ; 1.1.1 Historical Survey; ; 1.1.2 Neo-Confucianism; ; 1.1.3 Shengren versus Junzi ; 1.2 Western Ideals; ; 1.2.1 Greece; ; 1.2.2 Contemporary Saints and Heroes; ; 1.3 Concerns About Sagehood; ; 1.3.1 Is Sagehood Realistic ? ; 1.3.2 Is Sagehood Desirable? ; 2 - Li/Coherence; ; 2.1 First Steps; ; 2.2 Subjective and Objective; ; 2.2.1 Nature and Subjectivity; ; 2.2.2 Settled Coherence and Objectivity; ; 2.3 Li and Qi ; 2.4 One and Many; ; 2.5 Normativity and Creativity; ; 3 - De/Virtue; ; 3.1 Virtue as a Bridge Concept; ; 3.2 Early ; 3.3 Neo-Confucian ; 3.4 Final Thoughts; ; 4 - He/Harmony; ; 4.1 Early Classical Sources; ; 4.1.1 Complementary Differences; ; 4.1.2 Natural Patterns and Creativity; ; 4.2 The Zhongyong ("Doctrine of the Mean"); ; 4.3 Song Neo-Confucianism; ; 4.4 Wang Yangming: Summary and Initial Engagement; ; 4.4.1 Harmony, Coherence and One Body; ; 4.4.2 A Contemporary Example; ; 4.4.3 Politics; ; PART II: ETHICS AND PSYCHOLOGY; ; 5 - The Scope of Ethics: Dialogue with Slote and Murdoch; ; 5.1 Balance and Harmony in Slote's Agent-Based Ethics; ; 5.1.1 Caring, Humaneness (Ren ?), and Empathy; ; 5.1.2 Two Kinds of Balance; ; 5.1.3 The Motivation for Overall Balance; ; 5.1.4 Agent-Basing; ; 5.1.5 Reverence; ; 5.2 Murdoch on the Importance of a Transcendent Good; ; 5.2.1 Unity, Mystery, and Faith; ; 5.2.2 Selflessness; ; 5.3 Conclusion: The Scope of Ethics; ; 6 - Challenging Harmony: Consistency, Conflicts, and the Status Quo; ; 6.1 Nussbaum and Stohr Against "Harmony"; ; 6.2 Imagination; ; 6.3 Maximization; ; 6.4 Residue; ; 6.4.1 Complicating the Picture; ; 6.4.2 Grief versus Regret; ; 6.5 Dimensions of Dilemmas; ; 6.6 Emotional Vanilla?; ; 6.6.1 Myers's Challenge; ; 6.6.2 Neo-Confucians on Anger; ; 6.6.3 Conclusions; ; 7 - Sagely Ease and Ethical Perception; ; 7.1 Wang Yangming on Analects ; 2:4; the Centrality of "Commitment"; ; 7.1.1 Commitment in Classical Texts; ; 7.1.2 Commitment in Wang Yangming; ; 7.1.3 Deepening Our Commitment; ; 7.2 Connecting "Commitment" to "Unity of Knowledge and Action"; ; 7.3 Cua on commitment to realizing a harmonious world; ; 7.3.1 Active Moral Perception; ; 7.3.2 Creativity Revisited; ; 7.4 A Fuller Picture; ; 7.4.1 Murdoch on M and D; ; 7.4.2 Intrusions of the Self; ; 7.4.3 "True Vision Occasions Right Conduct"; ; PART III: EDUCATION AND POLITICS: ; 8 - Learning to Look for Harmony; ; 8.1. Stages of Ethical Education; ; 8.1.1 Lesser Learning; ; 8.1.2 Establishing a Commitment; ; 8.1.3 Matur(ing) Commitment; ; 8.2. Practices of self-improvement; ; 8.2.1 Spiritual Exercises; ; 8.2.2 Ritual; ; 8.2.3 Reading; ; 8.2.4 Attention - First Steps; ; 8.2.5 Reverence; ; 8.2.6 Further Implications; ; 8.2.7 Reverence and Coherence; ; 8.2.8 Self-Restraint and Quiet Sitting; ; 8.2.9 Conclusion; ; 9 - Engaging Practices; ; 9.1 The Nature of Commitments; ; 9.2 Stages and the Accessibility of Sagely Ideals; ; 9.3 Attention Revisited; ; 9.4 Imagination and Fantasy; ; 9.5 Dialogue; ; 9.6 Faith and Belief; ; 10 - The Political Problem; ; 10.1 Introduction: The Trouble with Sagehood; ; 10.2 Sage and Politics in Song-Qing Neo-Confucianism; ; 10.2.1 Sage-King ideal; ; 10.2.2 Limits and Guidance; ; 10.2.3 Ritual; 10.2.4 Institutions; ; 10.2.5 Vaulting Ambition: Rulers Who Think They are Sages; ; 10.3 Confucian Soft Authoritarianism; ; 10.4 Separating the Moral from the Political?; ; 10.4.1 Yu Yingshi and Xu Fuguan; ; 10.4.2 Mou Zongsan; ; 11 - Sages and Politics: A Way Forward; ; 11.1 Perfection and Fallibility; ; 11.2 Reverence and Ritual; ; 11.3 Perfectionism and Institutions; ; 11.3.1 Moderate Perfectionism; ; 11.3.2 Confucian State Perfectionism; ; 11.3.3 Specificity and Particularism; ; 11.4 Participation; ; 11.4.1 Three Arguments; ; 11.4.2 Implications and Objections; ; 11.5 Laws and Rights as a System of Second Resort; ; 11.5.1 Rule by Law; ; 11.5.2 Law and Morality; ; 11.5.3 A Confucian Approach; ; Conclusion: The Future of Contemporary Confucianisms; Bibliography; Index Locorum; General Index