6th BLB Meeting, 30th May. 2017: "An investigation on the Conception of Intercourse-Respond in Han-Confucianism: from the Studies of Dong Zhongshu’s works"

Organizer: Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai)，Sun Yat-sen University

Topic: An investigation on the Conception of Intercourse-Respond in Han-Confucianism: from the Studies of Dong Zhongshu’s works

Speaker: Dr Yu (Research Associate at the Dept. of Philosophy, Zhuhai)

Moderator: Dr Rodrigues (Research fellow at the Dept. of Philosophy, Zhuhai)

Time: May 30th, 2017

Venue: Rm 114, No. 16 Building at Haibin Honglou

Abstract 

This article is an attempt to respond the question of how is Confucianism different from Christianity and Modernity with the study of the conception of Intercourse-Respond(Gan-Ying感应) in Han-Confucianism. The outcome of the investigation could be concluded with four aspects: 1. From the study of the dialogue between Liu Che and Dong Zhongshu that is represented in Three Rescripts and Three Responds, we picture the overview of the religious properties of Han-Confucianism that indicates the Han-Confucian resort his faith to the existence of “will of Heaven” whereas intellectually he knows mankind effort is ultimately he should rely on; 2. There are three approaches to justify the correlativeness between mankind and Heaven exerted in Dong’s work Chun-Qiu-Fan-Lu that they are respectively based on the physical similarity, metaphor and conception of Qi, and the speculation of generality and natural phenomena; 3. Prior to conception of Intercourse-Respond is the consciousness of duality timeline that serves to vindicate the constancy of the ideal of Confucianism and the necessity of mankind effort;4. With the religious and political perspectives, we attempt to indicate the uniqueness of Confucianism different from Western culture that is Confucianism seeks the signs of salvation in the conception of cyclic human history and dissolves the political confrontation within numinous rites.