Confucianism and the Continuation of Anti-Enlightenment

In 18th-century Europe, before the Counter-Enlightenment, two coexisting perspectives emerged within the Enlightenment: the first was the belief that humans were endowed with the capacity to think independently, which led to the possibility of egalitarianism; the second was the restriction of the facultys scope of application, which argued that the people must rely on intellectuals as their new shepherds. The latter is Anti-Enlightenment and anti-egalitarian. The book argues that Neo-Confucianism showed these two Enlightenment trends after the 11th century. The imperial examination reform allowed commoners to rise to the bureaucratic elite, thereby achieving top-down enlightenment. Despite the emerging elites claims of caring for the people, this benevolence does not expect the people to become self-sufficient adults, which brings up the books second theme of comparing French Revolution Fraternity with Confucian Benevolence. Taking Enlightenment and Fraternity as clues, the author analyses the intellectual history in four countries (China, Japan, Germany, and France), revealing not only the inherent Anti-Enlightenment mentality within the European Enlightenment, but also the process of Enlightenment commenced as early as the 11th century in China. The book will appeal to scholars of Enlightenment, intellectual history, and comparative study of East-West thought.