The Social Scientific Attributes of Confucianism and Its Modern Transformation

In contemporary China, Confucianism has become a shared intellectual resource in the field of the humanities and social sciences. This is because, in essence, Confucianism is a comprehensive theory of social development. It is dedicated to a comprehensive arrangement of human world order, attempting to multidimensionally regulate the relationships among the individual, the family, the society, the state, and All-under-Heaven. One of the great contributions of Confucianism as a theory of social development is its attempt to establish the social order on the basis of moral appeal, and its advocacy for “restrain oneself and conform to the rites”, which is the product of an agrarian civilization emerging from an economic foundation characterized by shortage and scarcity. Confucianism retains inestimable value in modern society, but the utilization of it must be based on its modern transformation, that is, the social scientization of it.