In:
Laval théologique et philosophique, Consortium Erudit, Vol. 78, No. 3 ( 2023-03-24), p. 461-476
Abstract:
In this article, after an attempt at defining “rites” as they were evoked in the first normative treatises, will be described the subsequent evolution leading to the constitution of a “ritual system” conceived as a totality. However, the ritualists’ search for “the perfect order” gave rise to infinite debates and has not succeed to build a structure as solid as they had awaited. For the anthropologist Philippe Descola, this combination of a fascination for a quasi-totalitarian system and an inability to agree on its real physiognomy is characteristic of the analogistic ontology, that was prevalent at the time those texts were written (the end of the Warring States period). This is the first, logical, frailty, of a system characterized by Yuri Pines as “the Universal Panacea”. The second frailty is rather psychological. It originates in the doubt and anxiety provoked by the injunction to recreate within oneself an ideal order that is always already lost. This last section builds on recent publications by Mark Csikzentmihalyi and Michael David Kaulana Ing, showing, from a detailed analysis of two normative treatises : the Wuxing 五行 ( The Five Types of Virtual Actions ) and the Liji 禮記 ( Book of Rites ), how the issues of ritual failure and human fallibility were examined, leading to a possible way out of the fantasy of the perfect order.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1703-8804
,
0023-9054
Language:
French
Publisher:
Consortium Erudit
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2113907-6
SSG:
1
SSG:
5,1
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