Transcendentalism and Chinese Perceptions of Western Individualism and Spirituality

Abstract

The article presents essential aspects of the intellectual debates in China over the theoretical achievement of Transcendentalism to generate a conception of individualism that bears the mark of Confucian and Daoist influences. The peculiar profile of the Transcendentalist individual avoids western dimensions that have been perceived in China as overindividualistic. Therefore, the inquiry over Transcendentalism opens up the intellectual debates on how traditional Confucian and Daoist teachings may be used also in China to bring about a renewed conception of the self and the individual’s life in social relationships that would be closer to a modern understanding of individualism. The Chinese problematization of the value of the individual in Chinese traditional culture sheds light on the non-western debates regarding cultural renewal.

Keywords

• transcendentalism
• individualism
• humanism
• Confucianism
• Daoism
• over-soul
• vast-flowing vigor
• comprehensive thinking
• cultural renewal