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Confucianism as canonic culture
Author(s) -
Xie Tian,
Su Dechao,
Zhong Nian
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/ajsp.12175
Subject(s) - epistemology , argument (complex analysis) , interpretation (philosophy) , hermeneutics , function (biology) , indigenous , focus (optics) , philosophy , sociology , experiential learning , diversity (politics) , psychology , linguistics , ecology , pedagogy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , evolutionary biology , anthropology , optics , biology
The present article is inspired by Liu's ([Liu, J. H., 2017]) idea on how Asian philosophy can, in general, and Confucianism, in particular, contribute to psychological science and practice. We first clarify potential misunderstandings of Liu's ([Liu, J. H., 2017]) paper as a theoretical argument for indigenous psychology or as a debate on philosophy or the philosophy of science. To interpret and develop Liu's idea, we then conceptualize the concept of culture as canonic (abstract, philosophical and as it appears in classical books or articles) vs. popular (concrete, experiential and as it appears in people's daily lives). Further, since Liu's main point is about canonic rather than popular culture, we focus on canonic culture and propose three principles of it, namely the principle of diversity, the principle of hermeneutics and the principle of inspiration. These principles respectively reveal the characteristics, the interpretation process and the beneficial function of a canonic culture like Confucianism.