Qianfan Zhang - Human Dignity in Classical Chinese Philosophy: Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism
Published: 2016-08-31 | ISBN: 1137532173 | PDF | 217 pages | 2.19 MB
This book reinterprets classical Chinese philosophical tradition along the conceptual line of human dignity. Through extensive textual evidence, it illustrates that classical Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism contained rich notions of dignity, which laid the foundation for human rights and political liberty in China, even though, historically, liberal democracy failed to grow out of the authoritarian soil in China. The book critically examines the causes that might have prevented the classical schools from developing a liberal tradition, while affirming their positive contributions to the human dignity concept.