Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation

Barry C. Keenan

Barry C. Keenan

Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation

In: Dimensions of Asian Spirituality, 19

Edited by: Henry Rosemont

University of Hawaii Press | 2011

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824860233

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About this book

Approximately fifteen hundred years after Confucius, his ideas reasserted themselves in the formulation of a sophisticated program of personal self-cultivation. Neo-Confucians argued that humans are endowed with empathy and goodness at birth, an assumption now confirmed by evolutionary biologists. By following the Great Learning—eight steps in the process of personal development—Neo-Confucians showed how this innate endowment could provide the foundation for living morally. Neo-Confucian students did not follow a single manual elaborating each step of the Great Learning; instead they were exposed to age-appropriate texts, commentaries, and anthologies of Neo-Confucian thinkers, which gradually made clear the sequential process of personal development and its connection to social order. Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation opens up in accessible prose the content of the eight-step process for today’s reader as it examines the source of mainstream Neo-Confucian self-cultivation and its major crosscurrents from 1000 to 1900.

Author information

RosemontHenry:

Henry Rosemont, Jr. is currently a visiting scholar in the Religious Studies Department at Brown University.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	vii
Editor’s Preface Free access PDF PDF	ix
Dynastic Periods in Chinese History Free access PDF PDF	xv
Preface Free access PDF PDF	xvii
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	xix
Introduction Free access PDF PDF	xxi
Part I. Neo-Confucianism, 1000–1400
CHAPTER 1. Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	3
CHAPTER 2. Neo-Confucian Education Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	20
Part II. The Great Learning and the Eight Steps to Personal Cultivation
CHAPTER 3. The First Five Steps of Personal Cultivation Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	37
CHAPTER 4. The Three Steps of Social Development Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	61
Part III. Self-Cultivation Upgrades: The Fifteenth Century through the Nineteenth Century
CHAPTER 5. Reforms in Neo-Confucianism: The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	75
CHAPTER 6. The Nineteenth-Century Synthesis in Confucian Learning Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	87
Legacies Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	109
Appendix: Chronology of Works and Thinkers with the Sequence for Reading the Four Books Indicated Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	113
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	115
Further Readings Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	119
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	125
About the Author Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	133

Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation

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