Abstract:
Based on the Analects and other texts related to Confucius in classical period and taken “cosmopolitanism,” a concept with long history in the Western tradition as a counterpart for comparison, this talk aims to probe the thought and practice of Confucius as a cosmopolitan and point out the feature and significance of the Confucian “rooted cosmopolitanism” revealed in the thought and practice of Confucius. The rooted cosmopolitanism embodied by Confucius not only has the basic characteristics of all versions of cosmopolitanism, namely, going beyond the territory and ethnicity, but also keeps a dynamic balance between the one and the many, which is usually ignored by the radical cosmopolitanism. Last, a brief comparison between Confucian rooted cosmopolitanism and the rooted cosmopolitanism advocated by Appiah would be made.