Modern Chinese society is certainly complex, but I think Confucianism is still very much an important influence perhaps even a key ingredient in Chinese culture even today. In this last section of the course, I would like to explore with you of course, the contemporary relevance and significance of Confucian philosophy. And I'll be speaking with a number of people to help us better understand Chinese culture today. In this session, we are privileged to have with us Professor Luo Anxian. Professor Luo is currently Professor of Chinese philosophy at Renmin University of China in Beijing. And he is also the director of the Institute for Confucian studies at Renmin University. We are truly grateful for the help of Professor Luo in allowing us to do our work at Renmin University in Beijing. Professor Roger T. Ames, one of the most influential scholars of Chinese philosophy today. Professor Ames has been the chief editor of the flagship journal Philosophy East and West, which is the most important journal in Chinese and comparative philosophy. Professor Ames is currently Chair Professor of Philosophy at Beijing University. Professor Chan was born in China, grew up in Hong Kong then ended up in Australia where she received her BA and PhD from the University of Sydney. And now she is head of Chinese studies at Macquarie University in Sydney. And Professor Dennis Schilling received his Ph.D. in Sinology a very old European tradition from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. And Dennis has taught not only in Germany but also in Taiwan and now he is professor of Chinese philosophy at Renmin University in Beijing. And now I'm very happy to introduce you to a young scholar. Her name is Dr. Li Jifen. Dr. Li came to NTU to do her PhD and after she graduated last year, she is now back at Renmin University joining the faculty of philosophy. And now we all converge in China. Thank you so much for joining us on this MOOC. "Confucianism" as a term is obviously an abstraction, in your view what does it mean? This is really important question. The word "Confucianism" comes into the English language in 1836 the second governor of Hong Kong called the Chinese invents this term "Confucianism" that is kind of like Marxism or Christianity or Healianism. It's centred around the teachings and the life of one particular person. But if we speak Chinese Ruxue is the social class. Forty generations before Confucius, you had Ruxue. There are the people who did the bronzes that aestheticise the Shang dynasty. Being a Confucian, it doesn't mean that you can recite the Lunyu. Doesn't mean that you read and write on specific Confucian cultures. Means that you belong to the intergenerational transmission of an antique culture that changes in every generation, but that persists in every generation. And so my sense of it is that you just in speaking the language of culture the culture speaks to you. I'd say that Confucianism is a kind of interpretation. It's a kind of interpretation that you can, maybe as you said is the kind of decision, but you can say this is Confucianist or you can say this is not a Confucianist. So it depends a little bit on why you use this kind of interpretation.Why you want to say that something is Confucian. You can say for example that filial piety is Confucian, but you can also say maybe it's natural in born and when you can be coming from some anthropological ideas or psychological ideas and then you would maybe interpret its behaviour of a little child from a quite different perspective. Do you think that Confucianism still has a role to play in contemporary Chinese culture? Chinese is also a very sort of complex notion as well. And Chinese in mainland China can behave very differently compared to Chinese living in Hong Kong or Chinese living in Taiwan or even within China mainland China. We don't want to force a kind of impression of homogeneity either. But then again, yes, you can probably say some characteristics of Confucianism can be observable in these areas, such as the observance of hierarchical structures and things like that. But I don't think that there is a set of values that would be shared exactly the same way in these difference. You emphasise the diversity. That diversity that is the same people. That makes sense. Like my first entrée into mainland China was 1985 in Shanghai, the tallest building was that Piece hotel. Now there's 1500 skyscrapers more than New York City, that in one generation, this world called China, this antique culture called China has been transformed utterly. But the thing that attracted me to Confucian philosophy Chinese philosophy wasn't books, it was people that when I was 18 I went to Hong Kong. It was like Alice in Wonderland. I went down a portal to a different world and these are different people with different ways of into relating to each other, different conception of family, a different classroom kind of an experience. I've spent time in mainland China. Taiwan, I went to school, Hong Kong, Singapore. This greater China and all of these people are very different and yet they have something in common and that is this kind of Chinese-ness, this Confucian set of values that is being challenged by contemporary individualism. But I think that the indigenous impulse is persistent. I think that we now is a Confucianism is so important has something to do with the power of China today. And it's also has something to do with what the Chinese government wants to do. And how the Chinese governments itself identifies its own role. If you imagine that we would have a different government, I think that Confucianism actually but maybe withdraw in a very, very specific field might be in the field of history of philosophy, and maybe also something like this. So, is there one particular concept in Confucian philosophy that you would consider to be particularly important that would help capture the essence of Confucius' thinking? Going back to the Analects to the Lunyu. I would say it's not possible to capture the Confucian thinking in one concept. I think for the political philosophy of Confucianism, Ren was very important in the complex of "Rendao" that you act not as a cruel despot, a cruel king but you are thinking about the welfare of the people. And so, I think that's what in the political field was very important and in the social field "Xiao." I think it's all so interesting to see that from a linguistic point of view, "Xiao" is the only word among these concepts that it's still living today in the modern Chinese language. People grew up, and they hear sentences like, "Buxiao!" and they can connect some situations maybe the term "Buxiao." But you don't hear any "Ren", "Yi," or "Li" as a single world in the modern language. So, what does "Ren" mean, and does "Li" mean? So you have to get some explanations. You cannot get the meaning may be from your memory from some situations, or some behaviours that you heard expressions "Xiao" or "Buxiao." Shirley, what do you think when a Chinese person is being called "Buxiao" will that elicit a deep sense of shame? It's still a term that we don't feel comfortable with when you're being criticised as "Buxiao." It means that there is something that you made your parents ashamed of. You are not doing anything properly in a way that should meet a certain expectation. I think it's at least can be considered as the root of Confucian teaching, how to become a human, a proper human. Because to be a filial son, means that you can serve your brothers, your sisters, your parents, and the whole family properly. And that's how, as Confucius would explain, that you would be able to extend this kind of virtue to the large extent to society. A trick question. But the fact because these concepts are all organic, and so you push one a little bit, and you find the other ones. But I would say that, if you asked me to which is the most important, I would say "He" harmony, it's not really like it's harmony, but it's a Confucian conception of harmony, and that is the idea of it's an aesthetic. It's optimising the ingredients that you have in any particular situation. That family is the social institution that gets the most out of your ingredients. Right. And so, the fact that family is the central metaphor of this tradition really means that the idea is to get the most out of your ingredients. And so if you talk about Chinese food, if you talk about warfare, "Sunzi Bingfa." Sunzi is all about a bad day, war. How do you minimise the cost, and optimise the opportunities that even something as bad as war presents the human being? So probably, this idea of harmony is what all of these other concepts are designed in order to optimise.
