The Book of Mencius and Its Reception in China and Beyond

Download or read book The Book of Mencius and Its Reception in China and Beyond written by Junjie Huang and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2008 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mencius, attributed to the philosopher Mengzi (Lat. Mencius, ca. 370-290 BC), the "second Sage" of the Confucian school after its founder, is one of the most prominent of all Chinese classics, with a great impact on the historical development of Confucianism. Today, it serves as one of the determinants for positioning Confucianism in the modern world, and it is the most discussed Chinese philosophical text in the context of the search for universally valid ethical norms and democracy. The essays collected in this volume by scholars from Taiwan, Japan and Germany focus on various aspect of the reception of the work in East Asia from the Song-Dynasty to the present day. They call into mind the signifance of a thinker who according to Albert Schweitzer is "the most modern one of all thinkers of antiquity".