Concept
Li (Confucianism)
Overview
In traditional Confucian philosophy, li is an ethical concept broadly translatable as 'rite'. According to Wing-tsit Chan, li originally referred to religious sacrifices, but has come to mean 'ritual' in a broad sense, with possible translations including 'ceremony', 'ritual', 'decorum', 'propriety', and 'good form'. Hu Shih notes that li has "even been equated with natural law" by some western scholars. In Chinese cosmology, li refers to rites through which human agency participates in the larger order of the universe. One of the most common definitions of 'rite' is a performance transforming the invisible into the visible: through the performance of rites at appropriate occasions, humans make the underlying order visible. Correct ritual practice focuses and orders the social world in correspondence with the terrestrial and celestial worlds, keeping all three in harmony.
Throughout the Sinosphere, li was thought of as the abstract force that made government possible—along with the Mandate of Heaven it metaphysically combined with—and it ensured "worldly authority" would bestow itself onto competent rulers. The effect of ritual has been described as "centering", and was among the duties of the emperor, who was called the 'Son of Heaven'. However, rites were performed by all those involved in the affairs of state. Rites also involve ancestral and life-cycle dimensions. Daoists who conducted the rites of local gods as a centering of the forces of exemplary history, of liturgical service, of the correct conduct of human relations, and of the arts of divination such as the earliest of all Chinese classics—the I Ching—joining textual learning to bodily practices for harmonization of exogenous and endogenous origins of energy qi for a longer healthier life.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Li (Confucianism) is discussed.
On the other hand, be this conceded: Where thou findest a Lie that is oppressing thee, extinguish it. Lies exist there only to be extinguished; they wait and cry earnestly for extinction. Think well, meanwhile, in what spirit thou wilt do it: not with hatred, with headlong selfish violence; but in clearness of heart, with holy zeal, gently, almost with pity.
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
names the idea; states what it is
At once from the Ister begins this original land of Scythia, and it lies towards the midday and the South Wind, extending as far as the city called Carkinitis. After this the part which lies on the coast of the same sea still, a country which is mountainous and runs out in the direction of the Pontus, is occupied by the Tauric race, as far as the peninsula which is called the "Rugged Chersonese"; and this extends to…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Thus too the virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest. Magnanimity, in the same manner, lies in a middle between the excess of arrogance and the defect of pusillanimity, of which the one consists in too extravagant, the other in too weak a sentiment of our own worth and…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
names the idea
The contrast of a true and of an apparent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. A world, thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth--that is to say, in order to live.... That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Will to Power
names the idea; opens on it
12. In this category should also be classed the legends of the saints and the confused mass of lies concerning miracles, pilgrimages, masses, worship of saints, indulgencies, and so on, which once dominated the pulpit. Yet these falsehoods are too gross to be called merely foolish.
Martin Luther, Epistle Sermons, Vol. 2
names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Li (Confucianism)
Related ideas
- Cosmology
- Loyalty
- Western culture
- Encyclopedia.com
- Mandate of Heaven
- Natural law
- Qi
- I Ching
- Taoism
- Spring and Autumn Annals
- Sinosphere
- Tian
- Confucianism
- Xunzi (philosopher)
- Chinese classics
- Hu Shih
- Wing-tsit Chan
Place in the tradition
Part of Confucianism.