Confucian renovation and the manifesto for a re-appraisal of sinology and reconstruction of Chinese culture

Sernelj, Tea (author)

The present chapter presents, analyses and critically evaluates the Manifesto of the sec-ond generation of Modern Confucianism. This document was published in Hong Kong in 1958 and clearly and precisely defines the contents and goals of Modern Confucianism as the new philosophical current that emerged as a response to the socio-political situa-tion in which China found itself in the first half of the 20th century. The main goal of this long essay was to present to the world public, and in particular to Western sinologists, the true value of traditional Chinese thought and culture, in order to reflect and pos-sibly eliminate the orientalist and essentialist prejudices based on misunderstandings, and above all the prevailing false interpretations of the paradigmatic foundations of the Chinese conceptual traditions that have dominated over the last few centuries. The dis-closure of these prejudices in the Manifesto is based on a more objective evaluation and re-examination of the central ideational concepts of Chinese culture, in particular the Confucian philosophy of ethics, which, according to the authors, could represent a platform for building a new ethics on a global level. The document is still an important source of information of the ideational foundations and goals of the Confucian renovation, which represents the central neo-conservative movement of today’s China and Taiwan, and partly also Korea and Vietnam. Therefore, understanding of the Manifestocan help us better comprehend the ideas and ideologies of modern East Asian societies.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Confucianism, Manifesto for re-evaluation of Chinese culture as the world heritage (document), modernization, democracy
• Typology: 1.16 - Independent Scientific Component Part or a Chapter in a Monograph
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 35-57
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-167268
• UDC: 221.7
• COBISS.SI-ID: 225859075
• Publication date in RUL: 12.02.2025

Record is a part of a monograph

• Title: Foundations and futures : East Asian intellectual, political and linguistic landscapes
• Editors: Marko Ogrizek
• Place of publishing: Ljubljana
• Publisher: Založba Univerze, = University of Ljubljana Press
• Year: 2025
• ISBN: 978-961-297-482-4
• COBISS.SI-ID: 217930499
• Collection title: Zbirka Studia Humanitatis Asiatica
• Collection ISSN: 2463-8900

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Konfucijanska prenova in Manifest za ponovno ovrednotenje kitajske kul-ture kot svetovne dediščine
• Keywords: xinxing zhi xue, konfucianizem, Manifest za ponovno ovrednotenje kitajske kulture kot svetovne dediščine (dokument), modernizacija, demokracija