Transformation since the 19th century

At the time of the first Opium War (1839–42), East Asian societies had been Confucianized for centuries. The continuous growth of Mahayana Buddhism throughout Asia and the presence of Daoism in China, shamanism in Korea, and Shintōism in Japan did not undermine the power of Confucianism in government, education, family rituals, and social ethics. In fact, Buddhist monks were often messengers of Confucian values, and the coexistence of Confucianism with Daoism, shamanism, and Shintōism actually characterized the syncretic East Asian religious life. The impact of the West, however, so fundamentally challenged the Confucian roots in East Asia that for some time it was widely debated whether Confucianism could remain a viable tradition in modern times.

Beginning in the 19th century, Chinese intellectuals’ faith in the ability of Confucian culture to withstand the impact of the West became gradually eroded. That loss of faith may be perceived in Lin Zexu’s (1785–1850) moral indignation against the British, followed by Zeng Guofan’s (1811–72) pragmatic acceptance of the superiority of Western technology, Kang Youwei’s (1858–1927) sweeping recommendation for political reform, and Zhang Zhidong’s (1837–1909) desperate eclectic attempt to save the essence of Confucian learning, which, however, eventually led to the anti-Confucian iconoclasm of the so-called May Fourth Movement in 1919. The triumph of Marxism-Leninism as the official ideology of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 relegated Confucian rhetoric to the background. The modern Chinese intelligentsia, however, maintained unacknowledged, sometimes unconscious, continuities with the Confucian tradition at every level of life—behaviour, attitude, belief, and commitment. Indeed, Confucianism remains an integral part of the psychocultural construct of the contemporary Chinese intellectual as well as of the Chinese farmer.

The emergence of Japan and other newly industrialized Asian countries (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) as the most-dynamic region of economic development since World War II has generated much scholarly interest. Labeled the “Sinitic World in Perspective,” “The Second Case of Industrial Capitalism,” the “Eastasia Edge,” or “the Challenge of the Post-Confucian States,” that phenomenon has raised questions about how the typical East Asian institutions, still suffused with Confucian values—such as a paternalistic government, an educational system based on competitive examinations, the family with emphasis on loyalty and cooperation, and local organizations informed by consensus—have adapted themselves to the imperatives of modernization.

Some of the most creative and influential intellectuals in contemporary China have continued to think from Confucian roots. Xiong Shili’s ontological reflection, Liang Shuming’s cultural analysis, Feng Youlan’s reconstruction of the learning of the principle, He Lin’s new interpretation of the learning of the mind, Tang Junyi’s philosophy of culture, Xu Fuguan’s social criticism, and Mou Zongsan’s moral metaphysics are noteworthy examples. Although some of the most-articulate intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China criticize their Confucian heritage as the embodiment of authoritarianism, bureaucratism, nepotism, conservatism, and male chauvinism, others in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and North America have imaginatively established the relevance of Confucian humanism to China’s modernization. The revival of Confucian studies in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore has been under way for more than a generation, though Confucian scholarship in Japan remains unrivaled. Confucian thinkers in the West, inspired by religious pluralism and liberal democratic ideas, have explored the possibility of a third epoch of Confucian humanism. They uphold that its modern transformation, as a creative response to the challenge of the West, is a continuation of its classical formulation and its medieval elaboration. Scholars in mainland China have also explored the possibility of a fruitful interaction between Confucian humanism and democratic liberalism in a socialist context.

Scholars on both sides of the Pacific have explored with greater frequency since the late 20th century the possible contributions that Confucianism may make to increasingly specialized subfields of philosophy, particularly ethics. The cardinal virtue of humaneness, when conceived as a sentiment of benevolence or as a conscientious concern, has played a key role in scholarly discussions within environmental philosophy, bioethics, and the ethics of care (particularly in medical ethics). Also, Confucianism’s stress upon the cultivation of humane characteristics and the development of virtuous dispositions has inspired some scholars to interpret the Confucian Way as a sophisticated mode of virtue ethics that developed independently of the Western tradition. Confucianism’s emphases on human nature and on the primacy of interpersonal relationships in human life arguably make it amenable to feminism, according to some scholars. The strength exhibited by economic markets not only in mainland China but in East Asia more broadly has promoted scholarship on how Confucian values may inform business ethics. Finally, the Confucian tradition’s emphasis upon the heart-and-mind (considered to be one organ in the classical Chinese worldview) and upon the emotional basis of human cognition and action have influenced Western scholars in cognitive science, neuropsychology, and evolutionary and developmental psychology.