The Foundations of Confucian Political Thought: History, Law, and the Political Community

FAIN: FA-252150-17

Loubna El Amine
Georgetown University (Washington, DC 20057-0001)

A book-length study of the foundations of Confucian political thought.

My proposed book project, provisionally titled 'The Foundations of Confucian Political Thought: History, Law, and the Political Community,' will focus on the intersection of the concepts of time and space in Classical Confucian thought. More specifically, the project aims to delineate the Confucian conception of the political community by asking such questions as: What are the criteria for membership in it? Is territory important, why, and how? What explains the Confucian concern for the past? Can this concern with the past be considered sacred? Can history (as opposed to religion or metaphysics more broadly) be the normative foundation of Confucian political thought? The project aims to contribute to the expansion of the study of political philosophy and the history of political thought beyond the Western tradition.

Associated Products

Women, Rituals, and the Domestic-Political Distinction in the Confucian Classics (Article)
Title: Women, Rituals, and the Domestic-Political Distinction in the Confucian Classics
Author: Loubna El Amine
Abstract: In this article, I show that women are depicted in the early Confucian texts not primarily as undertaking household duties or nurturing children but rather as partaking in rituals of mourning and ancestor worship. To make the argument, I analyze, besides the more philosophical texts like the Analects and the Mencius, texts known as the “Five Classics,” which describe women in their social roles in much more detail than the former. What women’s participation in rituals reveals, I contend, is that the domestic-political distinction does little to illuminate the philosophical vision offered by the early Confucian texts. Relatedly, while women’s involvement in communal religious rituals has also been noted about early Greece, the political import of such participation is even more pronounced in the Confucian case. Specifically, I show that, by embodying intergenerational continuity, the mourning and ancestor rituals that women partake in are foundational to the Confucian state.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231191464
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Political Theory
Publisher: Sage

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