The Evolution of Chinese Filiality: Insights from the Neurosciences

This book explores the evolution of filial piety in ancient Chinese culture, tracing it back to a Neolithic mindset and the emotional conditions experienced by early farmers. It demonstrates how filial piety evolved as a mental structure shaped by specific emotional conditions and inherited from the ancestral past. The book also highlights the urgency of ecological grief in understanding the development of the filial structure.

Format: Paperback / softback
Publication date: 24 February 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This groundbreaking book offers a novel interdisciplinary perspective on ancient Chinese history, providing a historical framework for understanding the emergence of cultural pillars through the application of recent dramatic discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and cultural evolution. The profound reverence for the lives of preceding generations, known as filial piety, has long been a central aspect of Chinese culture, traditionally attributed to Confucius (551-479 B.C.), who viewed hierarchical family relations as the cornerstone of social order. However, in this book, Porter challenges this conventional understanding by arguing that Confucian conceptions of filiality themselves evolved from a systematic set of behaviors and thoughts, a mental structure, which originated from a specific Neolithic mindset, and which was shaped by particular emotional experiences endured by China's earliest farmers.

To illustrate this evolution, the book employs a case study analysis, spanning from Neolithic sky observers to the dynastic cultures of the Shang and Western Zhou. Through this comprehensive approach, Porter demonstrates how filial piety gradually emerged as a structured emotional framework, a legacy of a cultural predisposition towards specific moods and emotions inherited from the ancestral past. Moreover, the book raises new urgency to the topic of ecological grief, linking the distress central to the evolution of the filial structure to its catalyst in an environmental crisis.

By blending social neuroscience, cultural evolution, cognitive archaeology, and historical analysis, this book offers a comprehensive and insightful exploration of ancient Chinese history. It is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in neuropsychology, religion, Chinese culture, and history, providing a fresh and innovative perspective on this rich and complex civilization.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032103969