Andrew Ka Pok Tam

Chinese Communist monocultural policies, notably the re-education camps for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, have recently been condemned for violating human rights. In response to critics, the Chinese Communist Party frequently replied that one should not impose Western concepts of democracy, liberty, and human rights on the Chinese people. Nevertheless, instead of introducing Western philosophies criticizing the current Chinese Communist monoculturalism; with the help of a modern reinterpretation of the Classic of Rites, this paper aims to construct a Confucian Multiculturalism and argues that: (1) the Classic of Rites explicitly warned against cultural assimilations of “barbarians” into the “civilized” Empire, (2) the Classic of Rites acknowledges cultural diversities, and (3) although the Classic of Rites does not explain clearly why the imperial court should tolerate cultural diversities, a Kantian reinterpretation of the Chinese concept of 敬 Jing implies the respects for minority rights. In doing so, this paper formulates Confucian Multiculturalism as a new model of the Chinese philosophy of culture which asserts cultural diversity.

The recent worsening political unrest in Hong Kong triggers international attention to the problem of Hong Kong subjectivity. Since Confucian values have already been rooted in Chinese languages and Chinese history education at secondary schools by the government early in the British Hong Kong period and Confucian values seem to be influential in the Hong Kong society dominated by the Chinese population, with the help of Tillich’s concepts of ultimate concerns and preliminary concerns, this paper aims to investigate how Confucian ultimate concern may manifest in the preliminary concerns in the contemporary Hong Kong situation, so that Confucianism may contribute to the on-going political discussions. This paper argues that under the “One Country Two Systems” of the Basic Law, democracy and autonomy become Hong Kongese’s political concerns, which can be employed by Confucians to manfiest the ultimate concern of humanness through the virtue of reverence. 近年香港政治衝突加劇，使香港的主體性問題再次受到關注。鑒於自殖民地時代起，政府已經將儒學價值植入了中學中國語文與中國歷史教育，令儒學價值在香港這華人佔大多數的社會已舉有一定影響力，本文透過田立克終極關懷與初始關懷的概念，嘗試探討儒學的終極關懷即「仁」如何能夠透過香港當前特殊的政治處境下的初始關懷去展現儒學價值，以讓儒家哲學亦可介入當前香港的政治討論。本文將指出，在《基本法》「一國兩制」的政治制度下，民主和自治成為香港的政治關懷；而透過「恭」的德性作為中介，儒學能夠使用香港人對民主和自治的政治關懷表達「仁」的價值。

This thesis aims to establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture to address the theoretical problems of modern East Asian philosophy of culture, particularly Chinese New Confucianism and the Kyoto School who try to formulate their cultural subjectivities for the sake of cultural modernisation. Both schools adopt Hegelian philosophy of culture and therefore inherit the problems of Hegelian dialectics which Kierkegaard criticises. While Kierkegaard himself does not develop a philosophy of culture, this thesis argues that his concepts of culture in terms of the manifestations of passions, community and contemporaneity are useful resources for the formulation of East Asian cultural selves. Firstly, in chapter 1, I argue that there are two tasks of modern East Asian philosophers of culture: how to understand a culture and how to establish a cultural self. Secondly, in chapter 2, I argue that there are three theoretical problems in Mou’s and Watsuji’s Hegelian philosophies of culture, namely, the impossibility of change in cultural value, the lack of empirical method and the neglect of openness of interpretation. Thirdly, in chapter 3, I argue that Kierkegaard’s definition of culture in terms of the manifestations of passions explain East Asian cultural development more consistently than Hegelian dialectics. Fourthly, in chapter 4, I establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture and argue that a cultural self is formulated by the concepts of community and contemporaneity where individuals express their passions according to their free wills. Finally, I argue that Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture fulfils both the ontological and epistemic tasks of East Asian philosophers and solves the theoretical problems they encounter when they adopt Hegelian dialectics.