Critiquing Heavily Normative Conceptions of Harmony

Thoughts from the Han Feizi

Bibliographic Data

ID22322945
AuthorsEirik Lang Harris (0000-0003-3548-1783, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume33
Issue0
Pages155-179
Publication date2020-02-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1598-267X • E-ISSN: 2734-1356
PublisherInstitute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.22916/jcpc.2020..33.155
OpenAlexW3044601891
LanguageEN
References cited13

The idea of harmony is valued in a wide variety of ways by a wide variety of thinkers in early China. It is certainly most prominent in Confucian texts, for which it is a clear and distinctive good both morally and politically. However, texts like the Laozi and the Zhuangzi also have normative visions that can be conceptualized in terms of harmony. Furthermore, harmony has an important role to play even in much more “realist” texts such as the Han Feizi. This paper will argue that it is possible to think through Han Fei’s political system from the perspective of a broader concept of harmony, and that in doing so, several important points may be revealed. First, insofar as harmony has a positive role to play, it must be systematized and turned into an objective standard. Second, this objective standard must be hooked up to the overarching cosmic dao, and third, this conception of harmony is necessarily stripped of any moral normativity. Thinking through harmony in this way may have a range of benefits not only for understanding the concept in its original historical context, but also in thinking through ways in which it may be of value today. It will perhaps force us to realize that there are a range of incompatible conceptions of harmony. As such, there may be a need to evaluate the disputations over these various conceptions of harmony as we try to ascertain what, if anything, from them may profitably be brought into conversation with contemporary political philosophy

Aesthetics · Conversation · Epistemology · Linguistics · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Vision · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy

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