New Confucianism

New Confucianism is a twentieth-century movement that reinterprets Confucian thought and argues for its relevance to modern philosophy, society, and politics.

Xiong Shili: A Chinese philosopher whose metaphysical reinterpretation of Confucianism helped establish modern New Confucian thought. His account of the mind and reality became a major source for the movement’s later philosophers.
May Fourth Movement: A 1919 Chinese protest movement that grew into a wider campaign for cultural and political reform. Its attacks on inherited culture challenged Confucianism and set the terms of the movement’s response.
Confucianism: A Chinese ethical and philosophical tradition rooted in the teachings associated with Confucius. New Confucians reinterpret this inherited tradition rather than simply reproduce its classical forms.
Chinese Marxism: Marxist political and social theory as developed within the Chinese revolutionary and state traditions. Its materialist account of history and revolutionary politics opposed the movement’s moral-metaphysical emphasis.
Confucian democracy: Political theories that seek to reconcile Confucian ethical principles with democratic institutions and practices. It is one direct political outcome of New Confucian efforts to make the tradition relevant to modern governance.
Mou Zongsan: A Chinese philosopher who developed a modern Confucian metaphysics drawing on Kant and Buddhist thought. He argued that Confucian moral cultivation could support a distinctive account of intellectual and political freedom.
Chinese New Culture Movement: An early twentieth-century intellectual movement advocating cultural and social reform in China. Its embrace of science and new cultural forms formed the modernist pressure New Confucians addressed.
Four Books: A collection of four foundational Confucian texts central to the tradition’s later education and scholarship. New Confucian arguments repeatedly draw on the moral and metaphysical ideas these texts transmit.
Liberal democracy: A political system combining representative government, civil liberties, and legal limits on state power. New Confucians debated whether Confucian ethics could ground or supplement democratic institutions.
Asian values: A political and cultural discourse emphasizing values presented as distinctive to Asian societies. New Confucian ideas influenced debates over whether Confucian heritage shapes modern Asian political cultures.

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