China und der Konfuzianismus - Einige Aspekte ihrer Rezeptionsgeschichte in Deutschland aus Anlass der Ehrenpromotion von Helmut Schmidt durch die Philipps-Universität Marburg
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17192/mjr.2008.13.3531Abstract
In February 2007 Helmut Schmidt, the former German Chancellor, received an honorary doctorate at Marburg University. To mark the occasion he gave a lecture entitled "The Responsibility and Conscience of the Politician" in which he emphasized the importance of a system of morals and values based only on rational insights, and not on religious faith. Schmidt argues that Confucianism is a kind of philosophy which is grounded, not in religion, but in rational deliberations, and that it is therefore nowadays of high interest in a world of growing religious conflicts. The present article shows that this reception of Confucianism has a long tradition in the European, and especially the German history of philosophy. It started with Mateo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary to China at the end of the 16 th century, and reached its peak during the early Enlightenment movement with Leibniz and Wolf. After a long period of decreasing interest in Confucianism, the formation of the science of religions, sinology and sociology as academic disciplines led to a new interest in research on Confucianism and its religious roots. Max Weber’s studies on Daoism and Confucianism were more sophisticated, and open to the complexity of Chinese traditions. Schmidt’s interpretation of Confucianism as a practical philosophy represents a tradition which has not come to its end. It is the critical view of religions in general which lies behind the image of Confucianism as a rational philosophy without any religious basis, and taken in this way, it is a very Eurocentric view of an important Asian tradition.
References
● Karl-Fritz Daiber 2008, Konfuziusverehrung in Qufu: Vom Familienkult und Staatskult zum staatlich organisierten Festival - Transformationen des religiösen Konfuzianismus, in: W. König / K.-F. Daiber (Hg.), Religion und Politik in der Volksrepublik China, Würzburg: Ergon
● Lee, Ming-Huei 2001, Der Konfuzianismus im modernen China, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag
● Georg [sic] Wilhelm Leibniz, Das Neueste von China (1697), Novissima Sinica, mit ergänzenden Dokumenten herausgegeben, übersetzt, erläutert von Heinz-Günther Nesselrath und Hermann Reinbothe (Deutsche China-Gesellschaft, Schriftenreihe Nr. 2), Köln 1979
● Werner Lühmann 2003, Konfuzius –Aufgeklärter Philosoph oder reaktionärer Moralapostel?, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
● Filippo Mignini (Hg.) 2005, Matteo Ricci – Europa am Hofe der Ming, Milano: Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta (zugleich Ausstellungskatalog, Museum für Asiatische Kunst Berlin,
9.Juni – 27.August 2005)
● Nachbar China, Helmut Schmidt im Gespräch mit Frank Sieren 2006, 2.Auflage, Berlin: Econ
● Jennifer Oldstone-Moore 2002, Confucianism: origins,beliefs,practices, holy texts, sacred
places, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press
● Matteo Ricci 2005, Die Religionen Chinas, in: Filippo Mignini (Hg.), Matteo Ricci – Europa am Hofe der Ming, Milano: Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 25-35
● Wolfgang Schluchter (Hg.) 1983, Max Webers Studie über Konfuzianismus und Taoismus, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 402)
● Max Weber 1988, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen, I. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus, in: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie I, 9. Auflage 1988, Tübingen:
J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 276 – 536
● Christian Wolff 1985, Rede über die praktische Philosophie der Chinesen, Lateinisch-Deutsch, übersetzt, eingeleitet und herausgegeben von Michael Albrecht, Hamburg: Felix Meiner
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Overall copyright is assigned to Marburg Journal of Religion. Authors retain copyright for individual contributions and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.An author may give permission for an article published here to be published elsewhere, provided that the source is indicated in the form "First published in Marburg Journal of Religion, Volume 00 (year), Number 00".