Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:22:22.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Soup, Harmony, and Disagreement

Part of: Non-Western Philosophies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2020

DAVID B. WONG
DAVID B. WONG*
Affiliation:
DUKE [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is the ancient Confucian ideal of he 和, ‘harmony,’ a viable ideal in pluralistic societies composed of people and groups who subscribe to different ideals of the good and moral life? Is harmony compatible with accepting, even encouraging, difference and the freedom to think differently? I start with seminal characterizations of harmony in Confucian texts and then aim to chart ways harmony and freedom can be compatible and even mutually supportive while recognizing the constant possibility of conflict between them. I shall point out how the Confucian notion of harmony resonates with the Indian King Asoka's project of promoting religious pluralism. Along the way, I will make some comments of a ‘meta’ nature about the kind of interpretation I am offering of harmony in the Confucian texts and the use to which I am putting this interpretation by setting it in the context of societies that in important respects are quite different from the ones from which concepts of harmony originally emerged.

Keywords

Confucianismharmonydisagreementaccommodationritualethicspolitical philosophy
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 2020 , pp. 139 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This article is the fifth in a special series of commissioned articles on non-Western philosophies. The fourth article article ‘“Following the Way of Heaven”: Exemplarism, Emulation, and Daoism', by Ian James Kidd, appeared in Volume 6, Issue 1, pp. 1–15.

I gratefully acknowledge the Berggruen Institute's Philosophy and Culture Center and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University for support of my work on this essay. My thanks go to Fellows of CASBS for the year 2015–2016 for their feedback and suggestions in response to portions of this paper, especially Chengyang Li and Daniel Rogers. I am grateful to audiences at Creighton University, Muhlenberg College, the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia at Vancouver, Santa Clara University, the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, and to Rajeev Bhargava for helping me to see the resonance between Indian and Chinese conceptions of harmony.

References

Ames, Roger T., and Rosemont, Henry Jr. (1998) The Analects: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine.Google Scholar
Analects 論語. In the Chinese Text Project. Available at: https://ctext.org/analects.Google Scholar
Bhargava, Rajeev. (2016) ‘Asoka's Dhamma as Civic Religion: Toleration, Civility, Communal Harmony’. Paper presented at the workshop on Freedom and Harmony organized by Berggruen Institute of Philosophy and Culture at CASBS, Stanford University, March 13–14.Google Scholar
Birdwhistell, Joanne. (2007) Mencius and Masculinities. New York: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, Diane. (2002) An Unlikely Friendship. Film. New York: Filmmakers Library.Google Scholar
Bloom, Irene. (2009) Mencius. Edited by Ivanhoe, Philip J.. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bretherton, Luke. (2017) ‘Taking a Knee Has Always Been a Sign of Reverence, Not Disrespect’. Washington Post, September 29. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/taking-a-knee-has-always-been-a-sign-of-reverence-not-disrespect/2017/09/28/8e91981e-a3c9-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html?utm_term=.9f69f043bd12.Google Scholar
Choi, Incheol, Nisbett, Richard E., and Norenzayan, Ara. (1999) ‘Causal Attribution across Cultures: Variation and Universality’. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 47–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Osha Gray. (2007) Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Hall, David L., and Ames, Roger T.. (1998) Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Jenco, Leigh. (2015) Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones-Correa, Michael, Marrow, Helen, Okamoto, Dina, and Tropp, Linda R.. (2015) ‘Leaning In or Hunkering Down? Contact, Trust, and Civic Engagement among Immigrant and the Native Born’. Presentation at Tisch College Faculty Fellow Meeting, Tufts University, January 29. Available at: http://philadelphia-atlanta.weebly.com/preliminary-findings.html.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr.. (2000) ‘My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence’. In Carson, C., Carson, S., Clay, A., Shadron, V., and Taylor, K. (eds.), The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958 (Berkeley: University of California Press), 473–81. Available at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/my-pilgrimage-nonviolence.Google Scholar
Li, Chenyang. (2014) The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Markus, Hazel Rose, and Conner, Alana. (2013) Clash! 8 Cultural Conflicts That Make Us Who We Are. New York: Hudson Street Press.Google Scholar
Markus, Hazel R., and Kitayama, Shinobu. (1991) ‘Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation’. Psychological Review, 98, 224–53. Available at: http://content.apa.org/journals/rev/98/2/224.html.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mengzi. Available at: https://ctext.org/mengzi.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R. S. (1998) ‘Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises’. Review of General Psychology, 2 175–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olberding, Amy. (2012) Moral Exemplars in the Analects: The Good Person is That. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. (2007) ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture’. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30, 137–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (1996) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (2011) Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, Eric. (2017) ‘Why Colin Kapernick and I Decided to Take a Knee’. New York Times, September 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin-kaepernick-football-protests.html.Google Scholar
Shweder, Richard A., and Bourne, Edmund A.. (1982) ‘Does the Concept of the Person Vary?’ In Marsella, A. J. and White, G. M. (eds.), Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy (Dordrecht, NL: D. Reidel), 97–137.10.1007/978-94-010-9220-3_4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skitka, Linda J. (2010) ‘The Psychology of Moral Conviction’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 267–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srvluga, Susan. (2015) ‘Former Ole Miss Student Sentenced to Six Months for Putting Noose around Statue’. Washington Post, September 17. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/09/17/former-ole-miss-student-sentenced-to-six-months-for-putting-noose-around-statue/?tid=a_inl.Google Scholar
Tan, Sor-hoon. (2004) Confucian Democracy: A Deweyian Reconstruction. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Terkel, Studs. (2005) ‘Interview with C. P. Ellis’. In Terkel, American Dreams: Lost and Found (New York: New Press), 200–211.Google Scholar
Tropp, Linda R., Okamoto, Dina G., Marrow, Helen B., and Jones-Correa, Michael. (2018) ‘How Contact Experiences Shape Welcoming: Perspectives from US-Born and Immigrant Groups’. Social Psychology Quarterly, 81, 23–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, David B. (2006) Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Jennifer, Cullum, Jerry, and Schwab, Nicholas. (2008) ‘The Cognitive and Affective Dimensions of Moral Conviction: Implications for Tolerance and Interpersonal Behaviors’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1461–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuǒzhuán 左傳. Commentary of Zuo. Chinese Text Project. Available at: https://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan.Google Scholar