Confucians and Dewey on community
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Date
2009-06-02
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Abstract
This thesis offers a comparison between liberalism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and
Confucianism on their views of community. Today, as China struggles with the
influences of modernity, the relations between its Confucian heritage and liberal
democracy have been much debated. Some scholars contend that classical Confucianism
and the communitarian critique of liberal politics converge, because they both challenge
the dominance of modern liberalism. Among the communitarian theories, John Dewey’s
theory of democratic community comports well with the Confucian doctrine of
community to argue against rights-based liberalism. For in a Confucian community, as in
a Deweyan democracy, public consensus is often achieved at the aesthetic and practical
levels rather than based on the claims of reason. For pragmatists like Dewey and
Confucians, experiencing the world aesthetically is a practical way to improve the social
functions of everyday life. In this thesis, following John Dewey, I argue that as a crucially communicative and social practice, art plays a key role on communal harmony.
When traditional Confucian China as a ritual-based community is grounded in aesthetic
practices, it is comparable and compatible with Dewey’s view of community. In addition,
the Confucian theory of community is a source for putting contemporary communitarian
ideas into practice. I conclude that by relating aesthetics to his democratic theory, Dewey
puts forth a theory of pragmatist community that suits well with the Confucian ideal.
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Keywords
Confucianism, John Dewey