Abstract for the Kant in Asia
International Conference
at Hong Kong Baptist
University
20-23 May 2009
Alain-Marc Rieu,
“The Kantian Model: Confucianism and the Modern Divide”
Why Kant's conception of Man became such an important philosophical and political issue in Asia? The core conception of morality in Asia finds its root in Confucianism, in its cosmology and in its conception of a social and political order grounded within a global natural order. Very early on, Neo-Confucian schools of thought developed versions of Confucian morality questioning the fusion between the cosmological and political orders. The reading of Kant's philosophy in the 1950ies and today have for goal to achieve a final transformation of Confucianism into a subjective conception of morality establishing the autonomy of the individual, the ground for a civil society and for Human Rights. But the historical conditions of validity of Kant's philosophy do not exist anymore. Referring to Kant cannot assure a ground for morality nor the unity of the self.