Abstract
AbstractDoes Confucianism concern about the ultimate reality and its meanings? This is a question whose answer may resolve a long standing issue regarding the character of Confucianism. This article discusses and analyzes a few key metaphysical concepts in the foundational text of the Analects such as Tian, Heaven, shen, spirits and Dao, the Way, to demonstrate that early Confucianism grounds its ethics on these metaphysical understandings. This interest in the questions of ultimacy is renewed in Neo‐Confucianism, which enables itself to compete successfully against the rival schools of Buddhism and Daoism.
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