Subcategories
Chinese (Ethical-Religious)
1 of 186 entries in Religions. Click any to see everything it connects to.
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Chinese traditions that centre on right conduct, social order and the proper performance of rites rather than on doctrine about gods, but which acquired temples, a canon and a religious life of their own. Whether such a system is a philosophy or a religion is a modern and contested question; the Atlas classes these traditions as religious because that is how they have been practised.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingChinese traditions centred on right conduct, social order and the correct performance of rites rather than on doctrine about gods, which nonetheless acquired temples, a canon, a calendar of observance and a religious life of their own. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryContested: whether this is a religion, a philosophy or an ethical system is a question the Western category itself produced, and the field has not settled it. The atlas classes it as religious because that is how it has been practised. 2 Origins
Whose Classification This IsConfucianism is a European coinage, formed in Jesuit Latin from Kong Fuzi. Chinese usage names the ru, the classicists, and has no single word for the ism the Western term supposes. 3 Learn More
Chinese Ethical-Religious Tradition
This group holds a Chinese tradition classed as ethical-religious, a tradition rooted in the Chinese cultural world that functions at once as a system of ethics and social order and as a religion with rites and reverence. Confucianism is the paradigm case, oriented to moral cultivation, ritual propriety and the ancestors.
The browser will find the tradition the atlas classes here. The entries describe it in its own terms, noting the long scholarly debate over whether it is best called a religion, a philosophy, or both at once.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.