Humanism and ritualism in ancient and contemporary China

In last year's lecture (2013-2014), we asked ourselves how the term "humanism", now conventionally and routinely applied to Confucian teaching, could be justified. And, if "humanism" implies "universality", in what way can Confucian humanism lay claim to universality, as understood by universalist-type religions such as Christianity, Islam or Buddhism? Behind this question inevitably lies the question of whether Confucianism should be categorized as a "philosophy" or a "religion", a never-ending, nagging question that continues to dog us to this day. Over the last few years, we've traced the tribulations of Confucius and his teaching, which have been moved like pawns on the chessboard of modern European intellectual geography: Confucius thus passed in turn from the rationalist philosopher of the ^18th-century Enlightenment to the role of religious leader in ^19th-century Europe, once European intellectual identity had been constituted around his Greek origins and "philosophy" understood as a professional activity carried out within the new institutional framework of modern universities. A Greek origin and a category of "philosophy" from which China found itself doubly excluded, with the result that a new academic discipline, "sinology", was invented in France in the first half of the ^19th century, and that "Confucianism" was characterized as a religion by the "science of religions" that emerged in English-speaking circles in the second half of the century.