Professor Tu's commentaries upon Confucian thought quite literally open a "whole new world" to those whose thought patterns descend from Athens. The Chinese have drawn their world view from Confucian thought, and from Buddhism and Taoism. The Chinese perspective contrasts sharply with Western rationalism. Intuition is highly valued, feeling and reasoning are considered to act together, the situation at hand and, above all, personal relationships, take priority over abstract principle. Professor Tu's work is not without its "practical" significance. The US and the Western world overall need to understand the Chinese world. This is a good place to begin the attempt. It will be highly rewarding.

"Neo-Confucianism" is a term that refers to a broad range of thinkers and intellectual movements that developed in the "middle ages" in China, and then spread to Korea and Japan. Neo-Confucians sought to explicate, propogate, and defend the Confucian tradition against Buddhism and Taoism, which they saw as decadent. However, many people (including myself) think that Neo-Confucianism is itself heavily influenced by Buddhist metaphysical concepts (especially Zen Buddhist ideas). Nonetheless, Neo-Confucianism is a very interesting philosophical movement in its own right.

As this book's title indicates, the "four-seven debate" is the most famous controversy in Korean Neo-Confucianism. The topic initially seems pretty dry. The issue is how to reconcile the list of FOUR emotional reactions that the ancient Confucian Mencius identifies as the basis for human virtue (e.g., sympathy is the basis for benevolence, disdain is the basis for righteousness, etc.) with the list of SEVEN emotions that appears in texts such as the Mean. Now, before you say "Who cares?" and click on another link, let me give you an interpretation of what this is really about.

Neo-Confucians think that everything in existence is composed of LI ("principle"), an underlying metaphysical structure shared by all things, and CH'I, which is variously translated, but refers to an intrinsically unstructured "stuff." "Principle" cannot exist without CH'I to inhere in, but CH'I cannot exist without "principle" to structure it. So far so good. But in both Chinese and Korean Confucianism a question arises about how principle and CH'I are related. People in one tradition (that associated with the philosopher Chu Hsi, see Daniel Gardner's translation, Learning to Be a Sage) hold that the principle can be conceptually abstracted from its embodiment in CH'I, and that doing so makes it easier for us to be guided by principle. However, those in the other wing of Neo-Confucianism (that associated with the philosopher Wang Yang-ming, see Philip J. Ivahoe's Ethics in the Confucian Tradition) hold that it is a distortion to separate principle and CH'I even conceptually.

The importance of this debate is that the Chu Hsi wing thinks you can read the classic texts to learn the abstractions of principle, and thereby cultivate yourself ethically. The Wang Yang-ming wing insists that all right action is inherently context sensitive, so you have to rely more on your innate moral sense than classic texts.

Scholars will note that I have oversimplified a bit, but I hope I've brought out some of the reason that this book is interesting. I should also note that the translation seems very good, and that the parties to the debater wrote very clearly about this issue, so if you're willing to think carefully about philosophical issues you can follow the debate.

The author is attempting to define a form of Confucianism for non-Chinese. One of the main problems is translating the Confucian notion of ritual/etiquette into Western ideas. Neville relies on Fingarette's study, "Confucius The Secular as Sacred" to do this: basically by using a much wider concept of ritual, referring to all the *signs* in our relationships: signs of friendship, love, commitment... it goes beyond courtesy, to a definition of roles in relationships, although these can be very flexible.
Next Neville, who is a Christian, attempts to reconcile Confucianism and Christianity, and to do this he looks for some form of transcendence (an absolute beyond the perceptible phenomena) in Confucianism to match the transcendent Christian God: Hall & Ames have shown that such a transcendence does not exist in early Confucianism and I don't think that Neville succeeds in proving that they are wrong. He does point though to the Neo-Confucian concept of "principle" that is transcendent since it structures all things and man. This then could be a bridge towards Christianity.
Well the great thinkers (Neville, Hall & Ames) have given us a green light: we can be Western Confucians!
Thomas

Tu Wei-ming's brilliant essay on the sociopolitical, religious and personal dimensions of the Chinese Confucian classic "Doctrine of the Mean" is not only the perfect companion for the original text, but stands alone as a useful analytical text. Tu's treatment of the profound person, fiduciary community and the moral metaphysics as propounded by the esoteric text attributed to Confucius' grandson are enlightening. His final analysis of Confucianism as a religious system is eye-opening and convincing, and rings with his personal beliefs. Not perhaps the most easy text to follow for the uninitiated novice, but highly informative to those who would seek to understand this ancient system through a different lense.

Great material, but MY GOD, this book needed to be gone over by a copy editor! What are publishing houses spending all their money on?

Some questions we cannot explain by "Confucian Traditions"

Q1.Given that Confuciunism is not a modern invent and a culture of long duree, then why "Confucian Traditions" didnt work out in late Ch'in dynasty(that is why people initiated May Fourh movement) and only worked out after WWII?

Q2. this book cannot explain why north Korea is poor while south rich; China is poor while Taiwan, Hong kong is rich.are koreans in north and in south share DIFFERENT culture? Are Chinese in mainland china and in Taiwan, HK share different culture?

this book is sort of self-narcissism of Confuciansm and reverse-orientalism. Confuciansm contributes, but not as much as Tu and other scholars praise. (and we must not forget what his profession is).

A good book dealing with the question of to what extent the Confucian cultural traditions of the societies of the East Asian developmental states affected their growth paths. The economic successes of East Asia can no longer be attributed merely to neoliberal economic policies, and there is a growing recognition to acknowldge the part played by the cultural background from which growth emerged.