Max Weber's Analysis of the Confucian Tradition A Critique

Max Weber’s analysis of the Confucian tradition is a work of genius and has been highly influential, but how useful is his interpretation today in the light of current scholarship? There is no easy answer, partly because it is difficult even to understand and set forth his argument in all its complexity, as has been made clear by Stephen Molloy and others.’ At the very least, Weber’s argument combines theoretical guidelines for analyzing any society; the formulation of key questions regarding the nature of historical civilizations; and substantive views about cultural and institutional patterns in imperial China. At the same time, different Sinological schools have different views about these various aspects of his argument, and to some extent the Problematik of contemporary Sinology has shifted outside the scope of Weber’s discussion. In this paper, I will try to sum up some of Weber’s points as I understand them, discuss some of the current views regarding them, and then focus on a central question which was brilliantly raised but not successfully answered by Weber, that of the presence or absence of “tension” in Confucian thought.