Consciousness - Chinese Thought - Cosmological Consciousness, Consciousness Of Human Self, Political Consciousness, Conclusion, Bibliography
world layers layer action
Human consciousness in Chinese thought may be seen in three layers, each of which requires the other two for both development and understanding. While these three layers of consciousness are constructed for analytical purposes, in reality they are interconnected. Psychologically, they represent different frames of reference, but they are also different dimensions of the same individual and/or collective human consciousness. The first layer, cosmological consciousness, defines the objective world of being and becoming for the human person. The second layer, consciousness of the human self, provides a world of human distinction based on the self-reflection of the human mind and heart in which a human self can be uniquely identified in the life-world of humanity. The third layer, political consciousness, is where the human self projects or reconstructs an ideal political and practical world of reality in which the human self could realize its desires for power, creativity, and freedom of action. Hence we may regard the three layers as forming an integral part of each other so that any human action and human language could impart and receive meaning relative to these three layers.
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The Chinese metaphysical tradition is distinguished from the Western tradition by a dialectical understanding of reality as a dynamic presentation of events and things in a context of universal and profound interconnectedness. The central idea is creative change (yi, shengsheng), which manifests itself in the generation of life, in the transformation of states of being, and in the two modes of bec…
The development of morality in Confucianism and Mohism heightened the development of human consciousness of humanity as both individual and community. We can explain this first in terms of the formation of the li (ritual) as an institution that links the human individual development to the development of a society or community and to the state. Li serves to maintain a social order founded on famil…
This set of norms, based on Confucian virtues and a vision of a grand unity and harmony among different groups of people, worked in Chinese society for the next 2,000 years but collapsed confronting the demands for openness, equality, and individual freedom in the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, the rejection of the three norms did not lead to the rejection of the five virtuous relationsh…
We have dealt with the mainstream schools of Chinese philosophy in the classical period and their contributions to human consciousness in a threefold structure. In the development of these schools a fundamental consciousness of reality emerges as the leading force of influence, namely the consciousness of the ultimate reality that is the incessant source and foundation for the building of a system…
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