The Religious Aspect of Hsiung Shih-li's Philosophy - From the view point of Paul Tillich

Hsiung Shih-li is one of the pioneers or founders of contemporary Neo-Confucianism. Due to some narrowly defined concepts of religion as well as Hsiung's own anti-religious standpoint, most of the studies of Hsiung focus on the philosophical significance of Hsiung's thought, without making any in-depth analysis on its religious aspect and implications. This thesis attempts to argue that it is possible to explore the religious significances of Hsiung's through adopting certain theoretical frameworks. The present study aims to expose the religiosity in Hsiung's philosophy and to demonstrate the religious richness of Confucianism. This would thus contribute to the Confucian participation in the contemporary dialogue among religions.;It is well known that the reason for Hsiung's resentment towards religion is due to his impression of the contradiction between religious belief of God and his own theory of the non-duality of substance and function. This could be found in his discontent with Buddhism as well as his own philosophy. Nevertheless, based on Tillich's understanding of religions and culture, especially his concept of ultimate concern and his theory of religious symbol, one may find that Hsiung's taking moral practice as the approach to experience "substance" and the spirituality Hsiung attained bear the subjective characteristics of what Tillich calls ultimate concern. Considering the objective aspect of ultimate concern, the "substance" in Hsiung's ontology can also be understood as an expression of what Tillich calls "God as Being-Itself" --- the proper object of ultimate concern. From the perspective of Tillich's theory of religious symbol, one may find Hsiung's characterizations of "substance" --- infinite, personal, creative, etc. --- are full of profound religious meaning.;In order to explore the religious implication in Hsiung's philosophy, it is rather necessary to reject the inadequate definitions of religion based on the theistic belief or the social, political or cultural functions of religion. A possible alternative is to adopt Paul Tillich's theories of Ultimate Concern, religious symbols, etc., which offer an in-depth understanding of religious belief and explore the profound religious dimension in human culture and spirituality. With the theoretical framework derived from Tillich's thought, this thesis attempts to explore the enigmatic religious conception in Hsiung's thought, especially his ontology.