The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism

The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 298
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199924905
ISBN-13 : 0199924902
Rating : 4/5 (902 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism by : Michael David Kaulana Ing

Download or read book The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism written by Michael David Kaulana Ing and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism Michael Ing describes how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters of Confucianism, Ing demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure. If, as discussed in one text, Confucius builds a tomb for his parents unlike the tombs of antiquity, and rains fall causing the tomb to collapse, it is not immediately clear whether this failure was the result of random misfortune or the result of Confucius straying from the ritual script by building a tomb incongruent with those of antiquity. The Liji (Record of Ritual)--one of the most significant, yet least studied, texts of Confucianism--poses many of these situations and suggests that the line between preventable and unpreventable failures of ritual is not always clear. Ritual performance, in this view, is a performance of risk. It entails rendering oneself vulnerable to the agency of others; and resigning oneself to the need to vary from the successful rituals of past, thereby moving into untested and uncertain territory. Ing's book is the first monograph in English about the Liji--a text that purports to be the writings of Confucius's immediate disciples, and included in the earliest canon of Confucian texts called ''The Five Classics,'' several centuries before the Analects. It challenges some common assumptions of contemporary interpreters of Confucian ethics--in particular the idea that a cultivated ritual agent is able to recognize which failures are within his sphere of control to prevent and thereby render his happiness invulnerable to ritual failure.


The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism Related Books

The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism
Language: en
Pages: 298
Authors: Michael David Kaulana Ing
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-11-01 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

In The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism Michael Ing describes how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their
The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism
Language: en
Pages: 298
Authors: Michael David Kaulana Ing
Categories: Body, Mind & Spirit
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-11-15 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

GET EBOOK

Michael Ing's The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism is the first monograph in English about the Liji--a text that purports to be the writings of Confu
The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought
Language: en
Pages: 313
Authors: Michael Ing
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-07-06 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought is about the necessity and value of vulnerability in human experience. In this book, Michael Ing bring
Death Rituals and Politics in Northern Song China
Language: en
Pages: 249
Authors: Mihwa Choi
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

This study examines how political and legal disputes regarding the performance of death rituals contributed to shape a revival of Confucianism in eleventh-centu
The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought
Language: en
Pages: 313
Authors: Michael Ing
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-07-06 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought is about the necessity and value of vulnerability in human experience. In this book, Michael Ing bring