An Discussion On Weber's "The Religion Of China"

This paper, taking the Weber's discussion in"The Religion of China"as a starting point and background, studied and examined several important Chinese cultural phenomena. The paper had four chapters. The first chapter summarized Weber's main theory of religion as the main theoretical background of his studies of China for clarifying his basic purpose and main method in his studies of Chinese religion. There were two sections in the chapter. Section I dicussed Weber's theorization of the relationship between protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Section II explored Weber's main theorizing way(or basic logic) in his study of Chinese religion by analyzing the concept "world image" in his the sociology of religion.The second chapter inspected Weber's discussion on the city civil communities, politics and Confusion's education of Chinese traditional society in "the Religion of China ", and analyzed Weber's acute mind on the issues with supplements. The analyse of Chinese traditional society by sociology of religion is an part of Weber's research on world religion by sociology, which tries to manifest that the elective affinity between the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism is particular all over the world through analyzing each religional culture's relation to capital.The third chapter interpreted Weber's analyse of religious faith of China. Through the analyses of the status of Buddhism, Taoism, witchcraft and Confucianism in China together with the relationship between each religious faith form mentioned above, Weber summarized the character of the religion of China. Then pointed out the reason why the Confucian ethic could not bring about the capitalism through comparing the Confucianism and protestant.The four chapter tried to comment on the theoratical gain and loss of Weber's'The Religion of China'.