On the Rationality of Li Zehou's Philosophical Viewpoint on “A Culture of Optimism”
- DOI
- 10.2991/icesem-18.2018.142How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Chinese philosophy; Li Zehou; A culture of optimism; Emotion as substance; Rationality
- Abstract
In the 20th century, in order to distinguish between “guilt culture” in the west and the “shame culture” in Japan, Chinese philosopher Li Zehou (1930) uses the “legan wenhua” to summarize Chinese culture, and translated the philosophical viewpoint into “A culture of optimism”. To prove the rationality of the naming of the cultural feature in China, this paper demonstrates the following three points, mainly comprising three meanings, that is to say, (1) the word “optimism” (spelled “le” in Chinese Pinyin) has undergone a long historical evolution in Chinese culture, mainly holding three main meanings, namely music, pleasure, and optimism; (2) “A culture of optimism” mixes various ideas of Confucianism, and (3) “emotion as substance” is the core of “A culture of optimism”. In addition, it should be noted that the English translation “A culture of optimism” of Li Zehou lacks the content of “The culture of music/pleasure”. The significance of this research is to systematically clarify the essence of the “The culture of music/optimism/pleasure”, and thus lays a foundation for a deeper and more thorough comparison between Chinese and Western cultures in the future.
- Copyright
- © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Runmei Zhang PY - 2018/08 DA - 2018/08 TI - On the Rationality of Li Zehou's Philosophical Viewpoint on “A Culture of Optimism” BT - Proceedings of the 2018 2nd International Conference on Education Science and Economic Management (ICESEM 2018) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 620 EP - 623 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/icesem-18.2018.142 DO - 10.2991/icesem-18.2018.142 ID - Zhang2018/08 ER -