04 | Unsteady State | Confucianism and crisis

With liberal democracy in crisis around the world, we're talking about Confucianism and how Confucian political theory addresses such problems as economic inequality and rampant individualism. This week's guest is interested in developing a reconstructed Confucianism that incorporates aspects of American pragmatist philosophy — in particular the work of John Dewey, who visited China in the 1920s and made a huge intellectual and cultural impact there.

This episode is fourth in a five-part series.

Guest: Sor-hoon Tan, Professor of Philosophy at Singapore Management University

Producer: David Rutledge

Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction of Confucianism by Sor-hoon Tan (SUNY Press 2004)

The crisis of liberal democracy and the Confucian challenge: a pragmatist response by Sor-hoon Tan in Journal of Social and Political Philosophy (2022)

Toward Confucian economic democracy: a relational alternative to possessive individualism by Sor-hoon Tan in Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2026)

01 | Unsteady State | Politics and the good life - The Philosopher's Zone, October 4 2026

02 | Unsteady State | Who owns Antarctica? - The Philosopher's Zone, October 11 2026

03 | Unsteady State | What the Right gets wrong about Nietzsche - The Philosopher's Zone, October 18 2026

05 | Unsteady State | Politics for the future and the past - The Philosopher's Zone, November 1 2026