Images of Human Nature: A Sung Portrait

Donald J. Munro

Published by Princeton University Press 1988

Images of Human Nature

A Sung Portrait

Donald J. Munro

Volume 940 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400859740

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this volume Donald Munro, author of important studies on early and contemporary China, provides a critical analysis of the doctrines of the Sung Neo-Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi (1130-1200). For nearly six centuries Confucian orthodoxy was based on Chu Hsi's commentaries on Confucian classics. These commentaries were the core of the curriculum studied by candidates for the civil service in China until 1905 and provided guidelines both for personal behavior and for official policy. Munro finds the key to the complexities of Chu Hsi's thought in his mode of discourse: the structural images of family, stream of water, mirror, body, plant, and ruler. Furthermore, he discloses the basic framework of Chu Hsi's ethics and the theory of human nature that is provided by these illustrative images.

As revealed by Munro, Chu Hsi's thought is polarized between family duty and a broader altruism and between obedience to external authority and self-discovery of moral truth. To understand these tensions moves us toward clarifying the meaning of each idea in the sets. The interplay of these ideas, selectively emphasized over time by later Confucians, is a background for explaining modern Chinese thought. In it, among other things, Confucianism and Marxism-Leninism co-exist.

Originally published in 1988.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
ONE. BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
TWO. THE FAMILY AND THE STREAM: TRANQUIL HIERARCHY AND EQUAL WORTH Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
THREE. THE MIRROR AND THE BODY: INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE AND EXTERNAL EMBODIMENT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
FOUR. THE PLANT AND THE GARDENER: SELF-CULTIVATION AND THE CULTIVATION OF OTHERS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
FIVE. THE RULER AND THE RULED: AUTHORITARIAN TEACHERS AND PERSONAL DISCOVERY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
SIX. TWO POLARITIES AND THEIR MODERN LEGACY: THE MORAL SENSE AND ITS CONTENT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
CHARACTER GLOSSARY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311

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