
Sor-Hoon TanSingapore Management University | smu · School of Social Sciences
Sor-Hoon Tan
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (107)
This article engages the views of PRC Confucian scholars who responded to the United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's citing of Confucius in his majority opinion on same-sex marriage in 2015. It questions their separation of tolerance for homosexuality from legalization of same-sex marriage and argue that tolerance is not enough. The...
This article considers Quentin Skinner's critique and methodology in his seminal essay “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” vis‐à‐vis the current methodological debates in Chinese and comparative philosophy. It surveys the different ways in which philosophers who work with ancient Chinese texts in those related fields deal with the t...
By bringing together philosophers whose work on political philosophy, intellectual history, and world philosophies pushes the boundaries of conventional scholarship, this collaborative collection opens up space in political philosophy for new approaches.
Garrick Cooper, Sudipta Kaviraj, Charles W. Mills, and Sor-hoon Tan respond to the challenges J...
In the current crisis of liberal democracy, Confucianism has been cited as offering superior alternative models of government. With the resources from Dewey’s Pragmatism, this paper defends democracy, which should not be equated to de facto liberal democracies, as desirable for Confucian societies. It examines the affinities between Confucian and D...
Beginning with David Hall and Roger Ames’s critique of Mou Zongsan’s concept of “immanent transcendence,” this paper examines the meaning and importance of this concept in Mou’s assertion that Chinese philosophy is unique and superior, through his engagement with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and his comparisons of Chinese and Western philosophic...
The development and use of AI assumes the importance of autonomy and rationality, which are not central to Confucian conception of the human person. This paper offers some preliminary reflections on questions raised by the replacement of inter-human interactions with AI-human interactions for the Confucian emphasis on relationality in its conceptio...
Focusing on early Chinese ethical and political thought across multiple schools and thinkers, this book presents a comprehensive overview of the research being done in Chinese comparative ethics and political philosophy.
In addition to chapters on Chinese comparative and interpretative thought, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethi...
Confucianism has been viewed as a crucial or even definitive part of Chinese culture, but Confucian philosophy also offers alternative ethical and political ideals to Western models of government and society, applicable beyond Chinese societies. Is Confucianism poised to become the new Universalism? Would its spread be the equivalent of sinicizatio...
Philosophy departments of universities in East Asia regularly teach courses in Western philosophy, such as Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, Modern philosophy, Rationalism and Empiricism, German Idealism, Analytic Philosophy. Pragmatism is not among their core curricula, even if Pragmatist works might occasionally be included in ›special sub...
Over the past few decades, philosophers and political theorists have proposed a variety of theories on the relationship between Confucianism and democracy: from Confucian democracy being an oxymoron; arguments that democratic elements could be found in Confucian texts themselves; acknowledgements that Confucianism is at best nondemocratic and perha...
Sungmoon Kim : Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xi, 276.) - Volume 79 Issue 3 - Sor-hoon Tan
In their responses to James Tully’s article “Deparochializing Political Theory and Beyond,” Garrick Cooper, Charles
W. Mills, Sudipta Kaviraj and Sor-hoon Tan engage with different aspects of Tully’s “genuine dialogue.” While they
seem to concur with Tully on the urgency of deparochializing political theory, their responses bring to light salient i...
This article challenges the conventional view that Confucianism has no place for the value of equality by shifting the focus from direct justification of equality (Why equality?) to concerns about actual social and political problems (Which inequalities are objectionable?). From this perspective, early Confucian texts endorse some inequalities, in...
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies presents a new understanding of the changing methods used to study Chinese philosophy. By identifying the various different approaches and discussing the role, and significance of philosophical methods in the Chinese tradition, this collection identifies difficulties and exciting...
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies presents a new understanding of the changing methods used to study Chinese philosophy. By identifying the various different approaches and discussing the role, and significance of philosophical methods in the Chinese tradition, this collection identifies difficulties and exciting...
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies presents a new understanding of the changing methods used to study Chinese philosophy. By identifying the various different approaches and discussing the role, and significance of philosophical methods in the Chinese tradition, this collection identifies difficulties and exciting...
Is the success of the Chinese in so many domains all over the world evidence that they are cosmopolitan “citizens of the world,” at home in different environments, able to negotiate all the cultural complexities of a globalizing world? Have Confucian cultures become “cosmopolitan cultures”? The revival of Confucianism in the People’s Republic of Ch...
This book makes an important contribution to the current scholarship with its thorough textual research on the role of harmony in the Confucian classics, its reconstructive arguments for its significance in Confucianism at different levels, and its extension of the concept for application to contemporary problems. It serves to expose the most commo...
The ascendency of science in modern times makes it commonplace to accept that science presents the only true and correct image of reality. This has led to naturalization attempts in various domains, from epistemology, metaphysics, to philosophy of mind, and ethics. Naturalistic ethics may mean different things depending on what we consider natural....
While many consider Confucianism a conservative philosophy, others have argued that Confucius himself was innovative and even revolutionary. This chapter examines the conservative and innovative elements in the Analects within the hermeneutical context of understanding Confucius’ teachings as a pragmatic project of solving real problems of his time...
This paper examines attempts to find a conception of justice in early Confucian contexts, focusing on the concept of Yi (translated as ‘appropriateness’, ‘right’, ‘rightness’, even ‘justice’) in the Mencius. It argues against the approach of deriving principles of dividing burdens and benefits from the discussions of concrete cases employing the co...
Contributors to the debates about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy and its implications for China's democratization often adopt definitions of democracy that theories of deliberative democracy are critical of. Attention to deliberative democracy is timely given its importance in democratic discourses and recent experiments in "delibe...
Many readers of Philosophy East and West will find this collection of three essays by Chinese foreign policy analyst and international relations theorist Yan Xuetong 阎学通, accompanied by three corresponding commentaries by other Chinese scholars and followed by Yan's response, interesting for a number of reasons. Despite the different perspectives a...
This paper explores the Confucian veneration of the past and its commitment to transmitting the tradition of the sages. It does so by placing it in the context of the historical trajectory from the May Fourth attacks on Confucianism and its scientistic, iconoclastic approach to "saving China," to similar approaches to China's modernization in later...
This guide accompanies the following article(s): Sor-hoon Tan, “Democracy in Confucianism,”Philosophy Compass 7.5 (May 2012): 293–303, DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2012.00481.x
Debates about the relation between democracy and Confucianism have seen views that range from attempts to show that some form, or at least the seeds, of democracy could be found...
Ritual (li) is central to Confucian ethics and political philosophy. Robert Neville believes that Chinese Philosophy has an important role to play in our times by bringing ritual theory to the analysis of global moral and political issues. In a recent work, Neville maintains that ritual ‘needs a contemporary metaphysical expression if its importanc...
Confucianism’s long historical association with despotism has cast doubts on its compatibility with democracy, and raise questions about its relevance in contemporary societies increasingly dominated by democratic aspirations. “Confucian democracy” has been described as a “contradiction in terms” and Asian politicians have appropriated Confucianism...
The twelve elegant essays in this slim volume by Robert Cummings Neville, Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context, originating in lectures and projects of varying purposes, crystallize Neville’s “Confucian program” of comparative philosophy, which has been taking shape in his earlier works. More accessible than h...
This response to Zongjie Wu’s ‘Interpretation, autonomy, and interpretation’ focuses on the ‘battle between East and West’ which contextualizes Wu’s proposal to counter the current Western domination of Chinese pedagogic discourse with an ‘authentic language’ recovered from the Chinese classics. It points out that it is impossible and undesirable t...
Within the larger context of reconciling Confucianism with democracy, this paper examines some early texts of the Confucian tradition for evidence of deliberative politics in ancient China. It questions the role and value of such deliberative politics in the Confucian ideal of good government, and to what extent it already approximates or could be...
In the history of Chinese thought, Confucianism is often contrasted with Legalism in terms of the former's emphasis on li (ritual or rite) and the latter's emphasis on fa (laws). However, others have argued that the Confucian li have served some of the same purposes as laws in the Western world. This article shows that through an overlap between De...
Early in the last century, some of John Dewey’s Chinese students had a chance to influence the fate of the first Chinese Republic. These individuals, Hu Shih being the most prominent example, were identified as Chinese liberals in the political spectrum of that time and advocated education reforms as the chief means of “saving China.†Despite...
Polishing the Chinese Mirror, edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn, is a collection celebrating the scholarship of Henry Rosemont, Jr. The list of c ontributors—including Roger Ames, Fred Dallmayr, Herbert Fingarette, P. J. Ivanhoe, Michael Nylan, Tu Wei-ming, and David Wong—reads like a veritable who’s who of Chinese and Comparative Phi...
Since Deng Xiaoping came into power, China has been described as pragmatic in its approach to politics and development, and in the nineties there has been a revival of interest in Chinese cultural tradition. What is the relation between these two phenomena? Do they coexist, separately in mutual indifference, or in tension? Has there been constructi...
Employing the distinction between the authoritarian (based on coercion) and the authoritative (based on excellence), this
study of the understanding of authority in the Analects argues against interpretations of Confucianism which cast Confucius himself as advocating authoritarianism. Passages with
key notions such as shang 上 and xia 下; fu 服 and co...
As with so many categories employed in Western intellectual discourses, applying antithetical concepts of secularism and religiosity to understand China causes all kinds of problems. Attitudes and ideas associated with religious faith are common in the politics of China from ancient times. Yet, we should not jump to the conclusion that this is anot...
This study of the revival of Confucianism in Chinese academic discourse will be welcomed by those who do not have easy access to Chinese-language materials or lack the time to keep up with that vast literature as well as the institutional developments and key events that have shaped that discourse since the 1980s. The story begins with "the Singapo...
Is Confucianism democratic or antidemocratic? Could Confucianism and democracy at least coexist in a society? Could there be more than coexistence: positive mutual transformation that brings the two closer or even effects a fruitful merger? These are questions of importance beyond the ivory tower. They have consequences for the future of many socie...
At the twenty-second World Congress of Philosophy held in Seoul, Korea, from July 29 to August 5, 2008, a panel was convened to debate the ideas for a “democracy with Confucian characteristics” in Daniel A. Bell’s Beyond Liberal Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). While all participants welcome the attempt to remedy the shortco...
It is often remarked that East Asian polities have been hierarchical and the “elite” category continues to figure prominently in works on Chinese society and politics.1 Many scholars believe that hierarchy and elitism are deeply rooted in Confucianism, which served as the state orthodoxy in imperial China and provided the “psycho-cultural construct...
A Cloud Across the Pacific: Essays on the Clash between Chinese and Western Political Theories Today, an expanded version of Thomas Metzger's 1994 Ch'ien Mu Lectures, combines intellectual history with philosophy to examine the clash between two contemporary concepts of political rationality. The comparison of Chinese and Western political theories...
For some people, Confucianism, a philosophy that looks to a mythical past as an ideal for inspiration, has become obsolete as societies historically under Confucian influence modernize. However, reports of the death of Confucianism are premature. While it has been eclipsed by Western thought and practice for significant periods, Confucianism has un...
This is a very useful collection of essays for higher undergraduate and graduate classes in Asian studies with a special interest in Chinese society and culture. Bringing together expertise in philosophy, literature, history, and the social sciences, it has both a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. It is written well enough to be int...
Learning from Chinese Philosophies explores early Confucianism and Daoism in order to engage today’s problems. By bringing into thoughtful play Confucian ideas
of self and society and Daoist understanding of situated self, the author uses the debate between the two philosophies to
argue for her understanding of Confucian moral thinking and Daoist m...
This paper argues for the pragmatic construction of Confucian democracy by showing that Chinese philosophers who wish to see Confucianism flourish again as a positive dimension of Chinese civilization need to approach it pragmatically and democratically, otherwise their love of the past is at the expense of something else Confucius held in equal es...
Despite contemporary Confucianism's aspirations to be a world philosophy, there is an ethnocentric strand within the Confucian tradition, most glaringly exemplified in Han Yu's attacks on Buddhism. This paper re-assesses Confucian ethnocentrism in the context of contrary practices that indicate a more pragmatic attitude among Confucians toward cros...
Despite contemporary Confucianism's aspirations to be a world philosophy, there is an ethnocentric strand within the Confucian tradition, most glaringly exemplified in Han Yu's attacks on Buddhism. This paper re-assesses Confucian ethnocentrism in the context of contrary practices that indicate a more pragmatic attitude among Confucians toward cros...
In the 1920s, John Dewey's followers in China, led by his student Hu Shih, attempted to put his pragmatism into practice in their quest for democracy. This essay compares Hu Shih's thought, especially his emphasis on pragmatism as method, with Dewey's philosophical positions and evaluates Hu's achievement as a pragmatist in the context of the tumul...
Developed here is a Confucian balance between two key democratic ideals, liberty and community, by focusing on the Confucian notion of li (ritual), which has often been considered hostile to liberty. By adopting a semiotic approach to li and relating it to recent studies of ritual in various Western disciplines, li's contribution to communication a...
The family could be mobilized as a political resource for economic ‘development’. What kind of family would be compatible with a knowledge-based economy? We argue that authoritarian Confucian familism is incompatible with the knowledge-based economy; but it is possible to construct a different model of the ideal Confucian family which will be compa...
This article questions the nature of the philosophical commitment to the problem of 'the public' in modernity. To what extent does the natural form of the public determine the use and value of the instruments of pragmatism in the public–private divide. In this interpretation, John Dewey's ideas about 'the public' are presented in terms of how to so...
Comparaison des conceptions respectives de l'amitie chez Confucius et Aristote. Soulevant la question de l'egalite dans l'excellence et de l'importance des relations humaines dans le developpement moral, l'A. montre que l'opposition entre le concept de justice chez Aristote et le concept d'authorite chez Conficius s'attenue au profit d'une interact...