Theoretical Dialogues in Practice

In three chapters, Tong Shijun takes us through universalism, overlapping consensus and confucianism. Theoretical Dialogues in Practice argues, in chapter 1, that the key to avoid West-centrist universalism while upholding universalism is to make a distinction between essentialist universalism and constructivist universalism. The second chapter discusses different understandings of John Rawls idea of overlapping consensus, or the ´overlapping consensus´ on the idea of ´overlapping consensus´.

Finally, the third chapter outlines the role of confucianism in China today as an important major course of the curriculum of general education in Chinese college students; an important type of commodity in the cultural market in China; an important cultural base of the official version of Marxism that has been adapted to conditions in China, and major source of the spiritual life of the general public of China.