The Individual And Community In The Confucian Horizon

Tang Junyi tries to succeed and upgrade the traditional philosophy on the basis of uniting the western and Chinese philosophy. Tang Junyi insists that absorbing the western theory should base on Chinese culture spirit and set up the moral subject, political subject and epistemic subject from the theory of mind and human nature. The political theory of Tang's is connected with his metaphysics, humanity and moral theories. Mr. Tang tries to transplant the western democracy to his philosophy in all his life.Chapter I: Moral SelfThis chapter expatiates on the individual thinking of Mr. Tang. This chapter expounds that the individual of Tang's is a moral man and moral reason is the basis of human culture activity.The philosophy of Mr. Tang surrounds a central conception of moral self. Man is a moral being transcendentally in the horizon of Tang Junyi. The essence of moral life is to govern self consciously and exceed self. The transcendent root of moral self is noumenon of mind which is moral and also cognition noumenon. All the culture activities are subordinate to a moral self and are the dispersive representation of the moral self. The moral is comprised in all universal cultural ideals and cultural activities. Moral is the elements and root of the cultural activity. Mind has the characteristic of exceeding continuingly. The highest mind realm is the Heaven Mind Prevailing Realm which unites perfectly the subjectivity with objectivity, the Heaven and person, others and self. Mr. Tang believes that Confucianism is the highest spirit ideal of human civilization.Chapter II: politics, organizations and stateThis chapter expatiates on the community thinking of Mr. Tang. This chapter expounds the rational basis of the social party, the origin and aim of the state and the ideal of government.Moral reason is the ultimate attribute of man and also is the root of politics. The political activities are dominated by the Moral self and represent moral value. The desire to power can't break away from the moral self and is permeated by the consciousness of moral self. Politics actualizes indirectly culture value of life by safeguarding the actualization of the life's culture value.Social political parties are the organizations which people establishes for the public aim on the common basis of spirit noumenon. The foundation of the social party is the spirit consciousness. State is superior to all kinds of social parties and unites the goals of all parties. State permeates the activities and aims of all parties, confines their antinomies and adjusts their activities. The relation between the state and the social parties is the relation of the uniform reason with the especial rational activities.The government, demos, sovereignty and glebe are the elements of the state. The demos are the foundation of the state. The government is the administration party with which the demos father the country. There is no independent government ideal. The government ideal is comprised in state ideal. Man would seek the international peace and establish the world state. People should possess not only state consciousness, but also the affection of regarding the world as home.Chapter III: democracy governmentMr. Tang upholds the democracy government. He thinks that democracy is the inevitable demand of the moral reason. Democracy can safeguard people's right and restrict the government power. The demos would be the subject of politics and be equal with the governor in the democracy. The essential basis of democracy is the moral reason.Democracy is superior to the monarchy and noble government. The desire to power of all people can be restricted mutually in the democracy. But democracy is not perfect. Democracy can be utilized by people's selfish desire. There are intrinsic contradictions and difficulties in the democratic practice. The perfect democracy is the politics that democracy combines with the Rule of Rituals, Rule of Man, Rule of Moral.Chinese culture haven't created democracy institution, but are provided with democracy spirit. Confucian freedom contains western freedom and is higher than western freedom. Chinese culture is full of moral equality spirit. The freedom and equality spirits in the Confucian humanity theory are accordant with the western democracy spirit and can be turned into the spirit basis of Chinese modern democracy. The defect of Chinese culture is that its development is simplex. Chinese culture in the future should absorb the spirit of the western culture and develop across-the-board. He thinks that it is the inevitable demand of the development of Chinese culture moral spirit to replace the monarchy by democracy.Chapter IV: The comparative analysis to the political philosophy of Tang Junyi.This chapter reviews the political theory of Tang Junyi from the holistic horizon. This chapter compares the political theory of Tang Junyi with other scholars of Modern Neo-Confucian, western liberalism and communitarianism. This chapter analyses the characters of the political theory of Tang Junyi and expounds the intrinsic problems and modern significance of it.Tang Junyi's political philosophy proves that Chinese culture is provided with humanity which democracy needs. But the theory of Tang Junyi is an introspective ethic which bases on the faith to the eternal moral reason. The politics and moral in the theory of Tang Junyi is heterogeneous. Tang Junyi neglects the pursuit of the external good when he pays attention to the internal good. The moral self is an absolute moral which can only exist in the private realm. The moral self can not be turned into the political principles. The political virtue and social justice should be bring up from the public sphere and should not be the direct embodiment of the individual internal conscience. The theory of Tang Junyi should surpass its introspective character and become the conversational ethic from soliloquy ethic.