Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy [1st ed.] 9783030564735, 9783030564759

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Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15

David Elstein  Editor

Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy

Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy Volume 15 Series Editor Yong Huang Department of Philosophy The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong

While ‘‘philosophy’’ is a Western term, philosophy is not something exclusively Western. In this increasingly globalized world, the importance of non-Western philosophy is becoming more and more obvious. Among all the non-Western traditions, Chinese philosophy is certainly one of the richest. In a history of more than 2500 years, many extremely important classics, philosophers, and schools have emerged. As China is becoming an economic power today, it is only natural that more and more people are interested in learning about the cultural traditions, including the philosophical tradition, of China. The Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy series aims to provide the most comprehensive and most up-to-date introduction to various aspects of Chinese philosophy as well as philosophical traditions heavily influenced by it. Each volume in this series focuses on an individual school, text, or person. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8596

David Elstein Editor

Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy

Editor David Elstein State University of New York New Paltz, NY, USA

ISSN 2211-0275     ISSN 2542-8780 (electronic) Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy ISBN 978-3-030-56473-5    ISBN 978-3-030-56475-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

My first debt is to the contributors of this volume, particularly those who submitted their chapters on time (and then had to wait until all were ready). I thank them for their hard work and for their patience during the delays in preparing the final product. This volume would have been impossible without the contributions of these colleagues and friends. Lee Shui Chuen (Li Ruiquan) and Yang Cho-han (Zuhan) organized a conference at National Central University in 2016, during which many of the chapters herein were presented for the first time. I thank them and the staff at the School of Humanities at NCU for their efforts in making this conference possible and assembling funding, making it possible for overseas contributors to attend. Huang Yong and the editorial staff at Springer demonstrated great patience when I needed to extend deadlines, and I am grateful. The library staffs at SUNY New Paltz, Academia Sinica, and the National Central Library of Taiwan were of great assistance in locating materials. Most of the introduction was written and the final editing was completed in Taiwan while I was on a research fellowship at the Center for Chinese Studies of the National Central Library, courtesy of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would like to express my thanks for their support. Finally, I thank my wife Chen Shuyuan for reading assistance, space to work, and always taking on a little extra at home to give me a chance to finish my writing and editing.

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A Note on Language

This volume uses the pinyin Romanization for all Chinese terms and personal names, except for people who prefer an alternative spelling. In these cases, we use their preferred spelling and provide the pinyin for the first use. I have made some effort toward uniformity in translating Chinese terms, but such translation is inevitably bound up with philosophical interpretation and so some authors wished to use alternative translations or to leave some terms untranslated. I have respected these choices. The index provides cross-references to the various translations, so readers can know when a single Chinese term is translated differently.

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Contents

Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 David Elstein Part I Major Figures and Influences  Confucianism in Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century China�����������   27 Pablo Blitstein Ma Yifu’s Theory of the Virtue of (Human) Nature and the Six Arts������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 Leheng Liu Liang Shuming and His Syncretic Confucianism����������������������������������������   71 Thierry Meynard Xiong Shili’s Ontology������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   89 Qiyong Guo Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  105 Edmund S. K. Fung and Kenneth Kai-chung Yung Three Dialectical Phases in Feng Youlan’s Philosophical Journey ������������  125 Lauren F. Pfister Fang Dongmei’s Philosophy of Life and Culture������������������������������������������  159 Zemian Zheng Balanced Continuity: Qian Mu and Contemporary New Confucianism ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  175 Gad C. Isay Xu Fuguan: Realizing the Human Spirit������������������������������������������������������  199 David Elstein

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 Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978)��������������������������������������������������������������������  221 Ady Van den Stock Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism ����������������������������  255 Ming-huei Lee  Zehou: Synthesizing Kongzi, Marx, and Kant ����������������������������������������  277 Li Andrew Lambert Liu Shu-hsien and the Effort Toward a Global Philosophy������������������������  299 Yat-hung Leung Onto-Generative Hermeneutics: Cheng Chung-Ying’s Philosophy of Understanding and Truth ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  323 On-cho Ng Tu Weiming: The Global Confucian��������������������������������������������������������������  345 Ralph Weber  New Confucianism and Buddhism ����������������������������������������������������������������  367 Wing-cheuk Chan  The Influence of the German Idealists on the Contemporary New Confucians������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  385 Wen-berng Pong Part II Topics  Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory ��������������������������������������  409 Stephen C. Angle  Modern Confucian Epistemology: From Reason to Intuition—And Back ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  447 Jana S. Rošker  Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on Human Nature ��������������������������������������  469 Wai-ying Wong Contemporary Confucian Political Thought ������������������������������������������������  489 David Elstein  Defense of Chinese Sensibility: Confucian Aesthetics In in the 20th Century������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  513 Su-san Lee New Confucian Hermeneutic Thought����������������������������������������������������������  541 Wei-chieh Lin

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 Confucian Thought and Contemporary Western Philosophy����������������������  559 Andrew Lambert  Recent Developments in Confucianism in Mainland China������������������������  587 Yong Li  Methods and Approaches in Contemporary Confucianism������������������������  609 Yiu-ming Fung Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  627

Contributors

Stephen C. Angle  Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA Pablo Blitstein  Centre des Recherches Historiques, Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France Wing-cheuk Chan  Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada David Elstein  State University of New York, New Paltz, NY, USA Edmund S. K. Fung  Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia Yiu-ming  Fung  Department of Philosophy, Taiwan Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong Qiyong Guo  School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Gad  C.  Isay  Department of East Asian Studies, Tel-Hai College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel Andrew Lambert  City University of New York, College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY, USA Ming-huei Lee  Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan Su-san  Lee  Department of History and Geography, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan Yat-hung Leung  Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau, People’s Republic of China Yong Li  Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Wei-chieh Lin  Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

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Contributors

Leheng Liu  School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Thierry Meynard  Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China On-cho Ng  Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA Lauren F. Pfister  Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong Wen-berng Pong  National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Jana S. Rošker  University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Ady  Van den Stock  Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Wai-ying Wong  Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China Ralph Weber  University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Kenneth Kai-chung Yung  University of Hong Kong, Hong, Kong, China Zemian Zheng  The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Introduction David Elstein

Contemporary Confucian philosophy remains an underappreciated field outside of Asia. Recent years have seen increasing interest, a great deal of it spurred by John Makeham’s Modern Chinese Philosophy series published by Brill, which is the first monograph series in English dedicated to recent Chinese thought. Still, a survey of North American scholars would demonstrate, I am confident, that most work primarily in pre-Qin Chinese thought, with a smaller number in Buddhism and Neo-­ Confucianism. I suspect that this is due in large part to the quest for origins common to Western humanistic scholarship, which has a tendency to see the original form of something as the most authentic. Most of the early scholars of Chinese thought had mainly historical interest in the subject, a characteristic that led four of the Confucian thinkers examined in this volume—Tang Junyi 唐君毅, Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, and Zhang Junmai 張君勱—to author “A Manifesto for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture,” in which they criticized Western scholars for treating China like a dead civilization, only interested in its ancient texts and not its living culture (C. Chang et al. 1957). In addition, language and the sheer vastness of contemporary Confucian philosophical writings present a difficulty: it can be a daunting task to sort through the quantity of publications in Chinese. The aim of the present volume is to provide a starting place for those unfamiliar with contemporary Confucian philosophy. Hence in addition to chapters on most of the pioneering figures of contemporary Confucian philosophy, the favored approach in similar volumes, I have assembled topical chapters for those who wish to explore contemporary Confucian views on specific subjects. While no one volume can hope to be comprehensive when dealing with such a large literature, I hope it will provide an outline and sufficient guidance for those who wish to pursue these topics further.

D. Elstein (*) State University of New York, New Paltz, NY, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_1

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1  Scope of Contemporary Confucianism The terms most commonly used in Chinese for the subject matter of the present collection are dangdai ruxue 當代儒學 and xiandai ruxue 現代儒學, both of which may be translated as “contemporary Confucianism.”1 Sometimes the word “new” is added, to produce dangdai xinruxue 當代新儒學, xiandai xinruxue 現代新儒學, or xiandai xinrujia 現代新儒家, “contemporary New Confucianism” or “contemporary New Confucians.” This leads to the following questions: What does “contemporary” mean? How is “New Confucianism” different than “contemporary Confucianism”? And who is a “Confucian” after all? For purposes of this volume, I follow a common trend in Chinese scholarship, where “contemporary” means the thought that took shape starting from the turn of the twentieth century. Contemporary Confucian thought was shaped by the experiences of the pressures of foreign imperialism, the collapse of the Qing dynasty and subsequent failures both to restore the imperial government and to establish democracy, and the consequent need to understand the place of Confucianism when it no longer had its position at the head of traditional education in preparation for the civil service exams. Some of the early figures of contemporary Confucian thought, including Xiong Shili 熊十力 and Liang Shuming 梁漱溟, were involved in the revolutionary efforts that led to the end of the Qing dynasty.2 At the same time, particularly around the May Fourth movement, Confucianism was increasingly under attack by proponents of modernization and Westernization such as Hu Shi 胡適 and Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀, who made it out to be the cause of China’s backwardness. Contemporary Confucianism may be defined as Confucian thought that developed in reaction to these pressures, defending the relevance and significance of Confucianism under radically changing social and political circumstances. The definition of “contemporary Confucianism” here is expansive, including most of the significant figures who were active in the twentieth century.3 “New Confucianism” is often used in a more restrictive way, to denote one particular lineage and style of contemporary Confucian philosophy, namely the intuitive form pioneered by Xiong Shili, and so is something of a sectarian term. Concern with lineage and orthodoxy has long been a part of Confucian thought, with competing assertions of the orthodox lineage (daotong 道統, sometimes rendered as “transmission of the Way”).4 The determination of New Confucian orthodoxy also has a political element, as it has primarily been defined around scholars who left China in 1949 and settled in Hong Kong and Taiwan. From the 1950s until the

1  A brief web search shows that the former term is somewhat more common in Taiwan and the latter in China, though there is no systematic distinction. 2  See their respective chapters in this volume. 3  Regrettably, it proved impossible to find contributors to write on certain others in a timely manner. In particular, I would have liked to include a chapter on He Lin 賀麟 (1902–1992). There is a chapter dedicated to him in (Cheng and Bunnin 2002). 4  See (Makeham 2003) for more on the daotong in New Confucianism.

Introduction

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1980s, they and their students were keeping Confucian thought alive while it was subject to attack in China. It is not accidental that their conception of Confucian orthodoxy centers around this overseas community of scholars that was developed through the efforts of Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Fang Dongmei 方東美, and Xu Fuguan.5 This understanding of New Confucianism includes Xiong Shili, identified as the teacher of Tang, Mou, and Xu, even though he never left China. It usually excludes Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (who stayed in China) and Qian Mu 錢穆 (who left). This branch of Confucian thought is typically democratic, open to science but opposes making science the model of all knowledge, and privileges the Wang Yangming 王陽明 style of Neo-Confucian thought over Zhu Xi 朱熹. It favors practical and intuitive knowledge of morality over empirical or theoretical knowledge. While I would not minimize the importance or philosophical achievements of the New Confucians, I have opted for a more inclusive approach and thus use “contemporary Confucianism” to signal this. While New Confucian philosophy was developing in the Chinese philosophical community outside the PRC, within it was largely forbidden. The philosophers who stayed in the PRC, such as Feng Youlan, Liang Shuming, and Xiong Shili, were limited in what they could publish. In Liang and Xiong’s cases, they published little that developed their philosophical views beyond their pre-1949 publications. Under pressure during the Cultural Revolution, Feng wrote several works attacking Kongzi and repudiating much of his earlier philosophy.6 Beginning in the late 1980s, mainland scholars began to be able to publish more freely on Confucian thought, and in the 1990s some started to develop new philosophical interpretations based on their identification with Confucianism, work which continues.7 Whether there is a distinctive “mainland” form of contemporary Confucianism remains controversial.8 It certainly does not have the duration of philosophical development that Hong Kong and Taiwan have, and even now there are more restrictions in what can be published (in print especially). However, we may expect that Confucian philosophy will continue to develop and find unique directions in mainland China. Another preoccupation of scholarship on contemporary Confucianism, in addition to who is truly “Confucian,” is the assignment of generations. Many historical accounts divide the various figures into the first generation (typically Liang Shuming, Feng Youlan, Xiong Shili, Ma Yifu 馬一浮, and He Lin), second generation (Fang Dongmei, Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan), and third generation (Cheng Chung-ying 成中英, Liu Shuxian, and Tu Wei-ming 杜維明).9 5  I identify Tang and Mou as the especially pivotal figures: Tang for his role in establishing New Asia College (now part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong), which became the academic center of New Confucianism, and Mou for being the most influential teacher of that group. 6  See chapter “Three Dialectical Phases in Feng Youlan’s Philosophical Journey.” 7  For more detail see (Makeham 2008). 8  See (Angle 2018) as well as the other articles collected in Contemporary Chinese Thought 49.2, and chapter “Recent Developments in Confucianism in Mainland China” in this volume. 9  This is the generational scheme in (Bresciani 2001), who based his on the mainland scholar Fang Keli (Fang 1995: 3–4).

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The chronology is peculiar; Fang was older than He, who was a year or two older than Xu. Nor was there necessarily teacher-student connections between the generations; Fang Dongmei had no particular relationships with any of the first generation. Suffice it to say that the question of generations does little to illuminate the thought of specific figures.

2  Historical Overview In most Chinese histories, the Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860) mark the beginning of the modern period. In addition to opening China to foreign trade, the defeats at the hands of European powers set off what became an extended period of attempts at modernization. The Qing government became aware of its technological disadvantage, and so the first efforts, the Self-Strengthening Movement (Ziqiang yundong 自強運動), focused in particular on military technology (Kuo and Liu 1978; Wright 1966: Chap. 9). The Chinese government began to send students abroad to study while also bringing in foreign experts. As the reform efforts continued, Chinese efforts to learn Western knowledge expanded. International law became a subject of interest to renegotiate and enforce treaties with Western powers (Svarverud 2007). Toward the later part of the nineteenth century, some Chinese reformers began to look deeper into the scientific and technological advantages of the Western countries, becoming convinced that their political and economic systems laid the groundwork for their advancements. One of the main early promulgators of Western ideas was Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1927). He received a Western education early at the Fuzhou Navy Yard School, later attending the Royal Naval College in England before returning to China. In the late nineteenth century he began publishing a series of translations into classical Chinese which served to introduce a number of important works to Chinese readers. Among these were translations of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (which introduced Darwin’s ideas on evolution to China), Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (Huang 2008: Chap. 2). Yan’s translations were one major source of Western ideas. Efforts to modernize the country drew on the importation of Western ideas, science, and technology, both through translation and from sending students overseas to study and bring their knowledge back to China. One major effort at political modernization was the Hundred Days’ Reform (Wuxu bianfa 戊戌變法), initiated by Kang Youwei 康有為 along with Liang Qichao 梁啟超 in 1898. The Guangxu Emperor adopted a number of Kang’s suggestions for educational, political, military, and economic reform aimed at making China a more modern country. As the name suggests, most of the reforms did not last long, as a conservative faction in the court was able remove the Guangxu Emperor from power and undo most of the reforms (H. Chang 1980). One that did last, however, was the establishment of the Imperial University of Peking [Beijing], now known as Peking University, which became China’s first

Introduction

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modern university (Weston 2004). Particularly when Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 became president in 1917, it developed into a center for the development of modern philosophy in China. Cai was involved in recruiting Liang Shuming, Hu Shi, and Xiong Shili, among others, to join the philosophy department, which may have been the first university department anywhere to teach Chinese, Western, and Indian thought all together. Xiong Shili in particular later became the pioneer of the particular form of modern Confucian thought commonly called New Confucianism, with his New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness 新唯識論 (Xiong 2015 [1932]). The publications by Liang, Xiong, and others also serves to illustrate one of the major ways in which contemporary Confucianism differed from the past traditions: Confucian philosophy gradually became a professional academic field (Makeham 2012), and (with some exceptions) its main representatives held university appointments and produced works of philosophical theory and history of philosophy. The scholar-official model of the dynastic period was over, and few modern Confucians have held positions in government.

3  Academic Confucianism The end of the exam system in 1905 and pressure to modernize, along with attacks on Chinese tradition generally and Confucianism specifically by proponents of modernization such as Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi, meant that Confucian thought no longer occupied an unchallenged position in Chinese education. For nearly 1000 years education had been largely geared toward the civil service exams, the primary route to government appointment and social success, and since the Yuan dynasty that meant a focus on Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Four Books. Though Confucians often complained about the effects of education that focused on exam success and there were various proposals for reform, nothing seriously threatened the preeminence of Confucian thought in education. Not every major Confucian thinker achieved success in the exams or as a government official, but it was almost unthinkable not to try. The importance of Confucian education was not questioned, even as the form of that education was debated. The great upheavals in the early twentieth century changed all that. For many intellectuals, the pressing needs in education were foreign languages and the sciences to meet the threats to China’s sovereignty and stability. As university education developed, Confucianism was displaced from the focus of the curriculum to certain delimited disciplines, chiefly history and philosophy.10 It was no longer something everyone would study, nor was it an obvious route to success without the exam system. Even the defenders of Confucian thought could no longer take its value for granted. It is no accident that many modern Confucian thinkers make an effort to show that Confucian thought represents the mainstream of Chinese culture.

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That is no longer something that can be assumed to be an obvious truth. The value of Confucianism has to be articulated, and one way that modern Confucians do that is by tying it to Chinese identity very closely. Another way in which Confucianism changed was in the definition of success, shifting from government service to prestige in academia. This was not a radical transformation: many earlier Confucian scholars made their name either in writing or teaching, including the influential Neo-Confucians Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming. However, the structure of academia changed over a fairly short time what it would take to achieve prominence. To take a couple of concrete examples: Xiong Shili taught at Peking University without ever attending college. His student Mou Zongsan, generally acclaimed as the greatest Confucian philosopher of the twentieth century, received a bachelor’s degree from Peking University but no graduate education. One of Mou’s prominent successors, Lee Ming-huei (Li Minghui 李明 輝), received his PhD in Germany and now holds appointments at Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University, among others. In Hong Kong, Qian Mu, who had never attended college at all, and Tang Junyi founded New Asia College to provide post-secondary education in Chinese as an alternative to the English curriculum at Hong Kong University. Now it is part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a PhD-granting institution. These examples illustrate how academic credentials have rapidly become essential for Confucian philosophers in East Asia. As Confucian philosophy transformed into an academic discipline, the idea of excellence evolved as well. Kongzi was notably unsystematic, and I believe a sympathetic reading of early Confucians shows they were interested in moral practice, not theory (Nichols 2015). Hence part of their qualifications for teaching was authority as moral practitioners. Teachers frequently said that they gave instruction based on what would lead to improved practice, which is another way of saying that theoretical consistency and philosophical truth was not their top priority.11 Kongzi was idealized by the later tradition not as an architect of philosophical theorizing, but as a sage, an epitome of moral perfection.12 Whether or not the reality of these teacher lived up to their reputation, their reputation owed as much or more to their moral example as it did to their achievements in philosophical theory. Professional academic philosophy evaluates scholarship, not character. This means that advancement and success as a Confucian philosopher, now mainly though not exclusively pursued in the academy, no longer relates much to a scholar’s moral character. As many chapters in this volume will illustrate, contemporary Confucian philosophers have a greater expectation and hope than most contemporary Western philosophers that studying philosophy impacts behavior, and often distinguish Chinese philosophy from Western by its greater concern for practice.13 Nevertheless, the contemporary philosophers who were most influential—Xiong  Some statements of this as a teaching practice are Analects 11.22 and (Wang 2014: 268).  This started as early as Mengzi. 13  See chapters “Xu Fuguan: Realizing the Human Spirit”, “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”, and “Methods and Approaches in Contemporary Confucianism” for illustrations. 11 12

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Shili, Feng Youlan, Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi—achieved that influence through their extensive writing which constructed new philosophical theories and training future generations of academics who have continued to develop and spread versions of those theories.14 There is even something of a backlash from some contemporary Confucians who complain that Confucianism now is too focused on theory and divorced from praxis (Lin 1992: 76–77; Zheng 2004).15 This is an almost inevitable consequence of Confucianism turning into an academic discipline: success has become redefined in ways recognized by academia. Where Confucianism was once described as a “lost soul” after it lost its institutional backing with the end of the monarchy, its new home for its philosophical development is primarily academia.

4  Characteristics of Contemporary Confucianism The most obvious defining feature of contemporary Confucianism, which is clear from reading any modern Confucian philosopher, is the engagement with Western philosophical thought and vocabulary. Many scholars, including some of those covered in this book, divide Confucian thought into three phases: classical Confucianism before the introduction of Buddhism into China; Neo-Confucianism, when Confucianism reacted to Buddhist thought; and modern Confucianism. As this historical analysis implies, the impact of Western thought on Confucian philosophy is analogous to the influence of Buddhism, and a case could be made that it is even greater. Philosophical writing in Chinese now is saturated with terms and concepts created specifically to translate words from European languages, including the term for “philosophy” itself (zhexue 哲學). Even philosophical work that is not explicitly comparative makes use of this vocabulary of Western origin. Western philosophy also affected the direction and questions of contemporary Confucian thought, and often particular Western philosophers strongly influenced modern Chinese philosophers. The influence of Marxism on China hardly needs mentioning, and even as it has lost relevance as a governing ideology, Marxist thought remains important, as seen in the philosophy of Li Zehou 李澤厚.16 Most of the philosophers in this volume, however, have typically found other sources of inspiration, and those who left mainland China in 1949 were often virulently anti-­ Communist. Mou Zongsan, for example, took an early interest in Bertrand Russell, but his most sustained engagement was with Kant. In the major works of his final philosophical period, he adopted a great deal of Kantian concepts and vocabulary. His aim was to show that Chinese philosophy, Confucianism in particular, surpassed Kant’s philosophy by putting morality on a secure footing through demonstrating 14  In a different respect, Tu Wei-ming [Du Weiming] has also been tremendously influential, but less for a distinctive philosophical theory than his tireless efforts at promoting Confucianism. See chapter “Tu Weiming: The Global Confucian.” 15  See also Yu Ying-shih’s comments in (Makeham 2008: 3). 16  See chapter “Li Zehou: Synthesizing Kongzi, Marx, and Kant.”

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the reality of the free will.17 Hence concepts like “autonomy” and “intellectual intuition” are critical to his philosophical project. German idealism and hermeneutics were also substantial influences.18 Some recent Confucian philosophers have turned to phenomenology as a source for interpreting Confucian philosophy, such as Zhang Xianglong 張祥龍 (Zhang 2001, 2009). The influence of Western thought has grown and now can be found in the work of virtually all Confucian philosophers. The influence of Western philosophy is not mere imitation but is used to advocate for Confucian thought. A common, though not universal, starting point is the classical concept of benevolence (ren 仁) and the assumption of a moral order in the world in which humans play a crucial part. Much contemporary Confucianism is continuous with Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, holding to the Mengzian doctrine that human nature is good as Song-Ming Confucians did. Hence Confucian philosophers were often critical of what they saw as an attempt to drain the world of value in Western philosophy. The opposition of subject and object and treating the self as an object for study was another frequent target of criticism. While twentieth century Confucians had a great respect for the achievements of science and believed scientific knowledge was important, they were critical of reducing all knowledge to science, believing moral questions could not be answered by science.19 While conceding that Western countries were superior in their understanding of the natural world through their development of science, they tended to think China was superior in questions of value, and here could teach the West. Their conviction that there was value in Chinese tradition is the main point of separation with the “complete Westernization” camp in debating the process of modernization. This concern with modernization is another defining characteristic of contemporary Confucian philosophy, and typically accompanies a level of concern for cultural and national survival. It is hard to overstate the degree of existential concern faced by Confucians due to the threat of imperialism and the evident need to defend China,20 the collapse of the traditional institutions that supported and sustained Confucian thought, and slightly later, the attacks of the May Fourth period and subsequent dual repudiation of tradition by both Chinese liberals and Chinese Communists. For many Confucian philosophers of the period, how to modernize and accommodate science and democracy—held up as the two touchstones of modernity—without losing what was essential in Chinese culture were critical questions (Rošker 2016). The fall of the mainland in 1949 provoked further reflection on why China had lost touch with its traditional culture. Serina Chan has called  See chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism.”  See chapters “Liu Shu-hsien and the Effort Toward a Global Philosophy”, “Onto-Generative Hermeneutics: Cheng Chung-ying’s Philosophy of Understanding and Truth”, and “The Influence of German Idealism on the Contemporary New Confucians.” 19  For examples, see chapters “Xiong Shili’s Ontology” and “Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian.” 20  As Pamela Crossley discusses, it was not a simple question to define “China,” or to determine who was Chinese (Crossley 2005). 17 18

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Mou Zongsan a “cultural nationalist” (Chan 2011), and this could apply to most philosophers covered in this volume. Most modern Confucian philosophers have accepted the importance of scientific knowledge while resisting the reductionist view in which science is the paradigm for all knowledge. Democracy is more controversial: the overseas New Confucians were strong proponents of democracy while recently some more conservative and reactionary elements criticize democracy as a Western import unsuitable for Chinese culture.21 Very often Confucianism is identified as the mainstream of Chinese culture, allowing its proponents to claim that losing Confucian identity is tantamount to the end of Chinese culture. Yet at the same time, virtually every modern Confucian philosopher finds something of universal significance in Confucianism, so that it is both the foundation of Chinese identity and a universal philosophy for the entire world. There is very often an unacknowledged tension between these poles of Confucianism: the essence of Chinese culture while also a philosophy for the world. To take one example, in one important essay Xu Fuguan wrote, “The source of values in human life is human beings’ own heart-mind. This fundamental affirmation may be said to be a special characteristic of Chinese culture and something other nationalities do not have,” and later on in the same essay, “The fundamental heart-mind is in human life, so anyone at any time in any place can activate their fundamental heart-mind” (Xu forthcoming). This fundamental heart-mind is a unique characteristic of Chinese culture, but Xu also has a sort of faith that it is accessible to anyone at any time. In general, the assumption that Confucian views of human nature are universal animates a great deal of recent Confucian thought.22 Whether and how this can be justified to those of different cultural backgrounds is a difficult problem which contemporary Confucian philosophers have yet to grapple with sufficiently. That universal significance is found in the dimension most contemporary Confucian philosophers emphasize, which is value. To be sure, many have developed ontology to a significant degree, such as Xiong Shili, and as a contemporary example, Yang Guorong 楊國榮. Yet the major focus, true to the Confucian tradition, is examining what is necessary for a good human life. Even the most elaborate theoretical structures, such as those of Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi, ultimately derive from a concern to realize moral value in the human world. Metaphysics is in the service of ethics, rather than the other way around. Liang Shuming was so concerned with making a difference in life that he left academic philosophy to work in rural reconstruction projects. While he was unusual in taking that step, the emphasis on realizing the potential of human existence recurs throughout contemporary Confucian thoughts. Along with Levinas, we may say that in Confucianism ethics is first philosophy. Both the value dimension and practical concern intersect in another strong contemporary interest in recent Confucian thought: political philosophy. Here again the

 See chapter “Contemporary Confucian Political Thought.”  See chapter “Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on Human Nature.”

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worry about modernization and the future of the Chinese nation shows itself. While social concerns and the role of tradition in a modernizing China were present in the work in the early part of the century, contemporary Confucian political philosophy as such began in the 1950s and the arguments continue to the present. Living in Hong Kong and Taiwan and paying close attention to developments in mainland China, Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan all made efforts to explain what, from their perspective, had gone wrong: why had the Chinese republic failed and the Communist Party taken over? While the Republic of China existed in name in Taiwan, it was no more democratic. Concerned with preserving Chinese tradition, they rejected complete Westernization but agreed that democracy was the way forward for the Chinese nation. They wanted to justify democracy in Confucian terms. They did this by arguing that democratic politics would provide for the full realization of Confucian morality, which had actually been inhibited by the dynastic system. Democratic government with citizen participation allows for the development and expression of Confucian virtues. Seventy years after the Communist revolution in China, the landscape has changed. Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have shown that democracy and Confucian values can at minimum coexist. Yet Confucian democracy still faces criticism, now by other views within Confucianism as well as outside it. In recent years a number of scholars in the PRC have proposed versions of Confucian meritocracy as both more faithful to Chinese tradition and more effective than democratic government.23 In response, advocates for Confucian democracy, largely outside the PRC, have defended the possibility and desirability of democracy that is to some extent based on Confucian thought and suitable for Confucian societies. The framing question remains the same—what sort of political institutions best realize Confucian values in the actual world—but now there are two quite different views that both claim to be the answer. Even among those sympathetic to Confucian democracy, there are many different perspectives on what this democracy should look like, the role of law and ritual, how to deal with aspects of the Confucian tradition which are antithetical to democratic equality, and others. This makes political philosophy one of the most important and active areas of recent Confucian thought. Another area of substantial controversy in contemporary Confucian philosophy is the nature of knowledge, specifically intuitive or non-discursive knowledge. One of the early instances of this debate was in a meeting between Feng Youlan and Xiong Shili, in which Xiong criticized Feng’s claim that innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知) is a “hypothesis.” As related by Mou Zongsan, Xiong vehemently disagreed, insisting that it is a real presence known by direct experience, not a hypothesis (Mou 2015: 121–22). Xiong’s followers, Mou and Tang especially, thereafter highlighted the importance of first-person, experiential knowledge of morality, considering this to be an area where Chinese philosophy had surpassed Western. Mou called Confucianism a “learning of life” (shengming de xuewen 生命

 See chapters “Contemporary Confucian Political Thought” and “Confucian Thought and Contemporary Western Philosophy.”

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的學問), which could also perhaps be translated as “lived learning,” because it is something that the moral subject must experience in life to understand fully. It cannot be approached simply in the third-person, objective standpoint of scientific investigation. Mou’s attributing the possibility of intellectual intuition (zhi de zhijue 智的直覺) to humanity was a way of asserting that moral experience is in fact a source of knowledge, though knowledge of a different sort than that acquired from sensible intuition.24 Tang Junyi as well emphasized the importance of personal experience as a source for knowledge of moral values.25 Due to their great influence in educating succeeding generations of scholars in Hong Kong and Taiwan, this line of thought remains very prominent. Which is not to say that it is universally accepted. Mou’s idea of intellectual intuition remains a source of debate and controversy. More generally, the claim that first-person experience can be a source of knowledge of universal moral truths is contentious, to say the least, and unlikely to be accepted by Western philosophers. While the philosophical issues are far too large to examine in this introduction, I believe it points to a difference in what philosophy is about. Above I already alluded to the more practical dimension of Confucian thought, and this is another manifestation of it. Even as contemporary Confucians have become professional scholars and constructed elaborate philosophical theories, the theory itself is not the aim. I believe a useful analogy can be drawn with Buddhist thought: the philosophical theorizing is in service of a religious or spiritual pursuit that necessarily involves practice. I believe New Confucians were doing something similar: philosophical theory explains and justifies the need for a personal experience of morality that they believed was crucial for each person’s moral life. That personal experience is what has the motivating force, not the knowledge of moral theory. The goal is to be a moral person, rather than merely a person with knowledge about morality.

5  Overview The volume is divided into two parts: one with an individual and historical focus centered around the main representatives of contemporary Confucian thought and their philosophical influences (particularly Buddhism and German philosophy), the other thematically oriented around major philosophical topics. There is of course overlap between the two, as important philosophers to whom a chapter is dedicated in the first part will appear in the second part as well in topics to which they made significant contributions. The goal, however, is for each chapter to stand alone and provide a good introduction to the philosopher or topic in question as well as a direction for further reading for those who are interested. There is an important difference in authorship as well. Most chapters are authored by researchers of

24 25

 See chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism.”  See chapter “Beyond the Horizon: Late Work of Tang Junyi.”

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Confucian thought, others by scholars who identify specifically as Confucians (often New Confucians in the narrower sense mentioned above—the chapters by Guo Qiyong, Lee Ming-huei, Wong Wai-ying, and Lin Wei-chieh are in this latter category). The reader will notice significant differences in approach between these two categories. One of my goals as editor was to illustrate the rather different philosophical methods of Confucian philosophers in East Asia, and these chapters represent that well. I have tried to make each chapter accessible to non-specialists, particularly since contemporary Chinese philosophy of any sort is only recently getting much attention in Anglophone scholarship, but some are still rather dense. Nevertheless, I hope the volume demonstrates that creativity in Chinese thought did not end with the dynastic period.

5.1  Part One Pablo Blitstein begins by tracing part of the story about how Confucianism became a philosophy, and one philosophy among others, open to contestation, revision, and rejection. At the same time, Confucianism became emblematic of everything traditional in China, so that it was identified with the past, present, and future of the Chinese nation by more conservative reformers, such as Kang Youwei, while also serving as a target for everything the more radical reformers, such as Chen Duxiu, wanted to discard and relegate it to the past. As he describes, over the end of the Qing dynasty and early Republican period, the status of Kongzi and Confucianism changed, becoming for some separable from the Chinese nation. Participants in the New Culture movement (Xin wenhua yundong 新文化運動) were more interested in new ideas that they felt would lead to a stronger, more independent China. Yet while Confucianism was blamed for holding progress back, it became part of the discovery of philosophy in China. Even as it was moved from the center of education, it stayed on in the new universities being founded. These would become the new centers of Confucian thought. Ma Yifu was one of the early prominent defenders of Confucianism in the Republican period. As Liu Leheng explains in his chapter, Ma argued for a return to the Confucian Classics, which he called “the Six Arts,” though he also asserted that Buddhism and Confucianism converged on the important truths of human nature In his view, although they belonged to Chinese tradition, the Six Arts held significance for all humanity, containing universal knowledge of the heart-mind and human nature. Although he himself studied Western languages and philosophy, he established institutions for transmitting the learning of the Six Arts, personally lecturing on them. The learning of the Six Arts is not merely studying facts, but transformative education that shapes the person. This must be the basis of all education, which he thought must be founded on the Six Arts. Therefore, his main contributions were to articulate the universal and timeless significance of classical Confucian learning, in which he attempted to show that it was not simply a historical relic, but still had relevance in a modernizing China. In terms of philosophical creativity, Ma cannot

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compare with the systems later developed by Xiong Shili or Feng Youlan. Although he asserted the universal significance of the Six Arts, he did not spend much effort considering how to justify this to those outside the Chinese cultural sphere. Instead he took for granted that the Classics revealed the truth about humanity and provided a blueprint for universal moral cultivation. It is thus not surprising that Ma gets little attention outside of Chinese scholarship, since his method takes the supremacy of Confucianism for granted. Thierry Meynard shows that Liang Shuming as well was concerned with cultural continuity during a time of upheaval, but his approach differed significantly from Ma Yifu’s. Initially interested primarily in Buddhism, Liang was invited to lecture on Buddhism and Indian philosophy at Peking University. There he published what remained his most famous work, Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies 東西文化及其哲學. In this book, he distinguished three approaches to the basic philosophical problem of the self in the world. The Western approach is to extend outward to try to change the world, molding external conditions to fit what the self desires. The Indian approach is to turn away from the world, seeking a state of permanence and tranquility in the self entirely independent from the world. The Chinese approach is for the self to accommodate itself to external conditions, not denying or escaping them as in the Indian thought, but embracing them and adapting the self to them. This he identified with Confucianism in particular. However, although Confucianism was he felt the most useful philosophy for China at the time, it was not the final philosophical truth, which for Liang remained Buddhism. Confucian morality was important to maintain and strengthen Chinese society, but would ultimately prepare for Buddhist liberation. Similarly to Ma, he saw universal significance in Confucianism. While he admired Western achievements in science and democracy, he thought Western culture was unstable and would also need the influence of Confucianism. Xiong Shili may fairly be called the first New Confucian in the narrower sense mentioned above. He developed much more of a philosophical system then Ma or Liang, and due to the influence of his students, his system has had more longevity and influence than that of Feng Youlan. Like Liang Shuming, he was initially drawn to Buddhism and was invited to Peking University to lecture on Buddhism. However, he gradually turned toward Confucianism. His publication of New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness in 1932 was a watershed moment in contemporary Confucianism. In his chapter, Guo Qiyong illustrates how Xiong used traditional philosophical paradigms, especially from the Classic of Changes 易經, to develop a new kind of ontology based on change and the identity of reality and phenomena. Coming from a background of Yogacara (Consciousness-Only) Buddhism, Xiong came to feel that its denial of external phenomena was wrong and, as Neo-Confucians had complained centuries earlier, led to insufficient attention to morality. Instead, Xiong argued that ultimate reality and phenomena are not different, that the heart-mind of humanity is a fundamental reality of the universe, and that morality is known in an intuitive and supra-rational way that goes beyond subject-object distinctions. In many respects, Xiong outlined what would become common themes in New Confucian philosophy.

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Zhang Junmai is almost the polar opposite of Xiong. Xiong devoted himself to establishing a metaphysical system, engaged very little in political and social activity after his youth, and remained in the PRC after the 1949 revolution. Edmund S.K. Fung and Kenneth Yung show that Zhang’s philosophical legacy was relatively modest, and he distinguished himself in his political activity, trying to preserve Chinese culture while in self-chosen exile abroad after 1949.26 Unlike others who left mainland China, he refused to go to Taiwan, opposing the anti-democratic Nationalist government, yet he had also been closely involved in drafting what eventually became the Republic of China constitution. Zhang was committed to constitutional democracy as the way forward for China, and was a staunch believer in the importance of individual rights. He was a great admirer of democracy and certain kinds of socialism, particularly in Western Europe. Unlike many modern interpreters of Confucianism, he saw the individual as the basic unit, able to be a possessor of rights. Political and economic systems should protect the individual. To this end, he thought that China had to select the best of its own traditions and Western thought, rather than adopting only one side. Feng Youlan presents an interesting and difficult case. One of the first Chinese students to receive a PhD in philosophy in the United States (like his contemporary Hu Shi, Feng studied under John Dewey), Feng quickly became an influential scholar after his return to China. Lauren Pfister distinguishes three phases of Feng’s philosophical development: his early work developing his own system which he called “New Principle/Pattern Learning,” his Marxist phase in which he was pressured to repudiate his earlier work and join in criticism of classical Chinese philosophy, and a last phase in which gave up the strictly Marxist approach of his middle period. However, as Pfister describes, Feng did not merely return to his pre-Marxist philosophy but went in a new direction that included elements of both periods. Feng was heavily criticized, by those outside the PRC in particular, for writing and publishing works condemning Kongzi in a doctrinaire Maoist fashion, but Pfister gives a more sympathetic portrayal of Feng’s position here with reference to Jacques Ellul’s theory of the “propaganda of integration.” Pfister argues that Hegel’s articulation of modern consciousness can illuminate the various phases of Feng’s philosophical career and show there is more to it than a conventional narrative of a Marxist and post-Marxist phase. While Feng remains best known in English for his two-volume History of Chinese Philosophy, Pfister demonstrates how his thinking about the history of Chinese philosophy continued to evolve over his long career. With Zheng Zemian’s chapter on Fang Dongmei (Thomé H. Fang), we begin a series of chapters on the overseas Confucians of Hong Kong and Taiwan, those who chose to leave in 1949 and settled in nearby Chinese-speaking territories. Fang was the only member of this group with advanced academic training, receiving a PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He was also unique for publishing extensively in English, often with a comparative focus. Although classified as a

 See (Fröhlich and Adamec 2013) and other articles in “Chinese Reflections on the Exile Experience after 1949,” special issue of Oriens Extremus for more on the 1949 exile.

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New Confucian, as Zheng describes, Fang’s own identity was more complicated, with elements of Buddhism and Daoism as well, and he often wrote on what he saw as the common threads of all Chinese traditions. His major interest was philosophy of life, and like his contemporaries, he saw an inherent value in the generation of life. He too was concerned about the encroach of science and distinguished scientific knowledge from philosophy. Too much focus on science deprived humanity of meaning and value, while for Fang it was important to preserve an elevated sense of humanity as not merely a natural existent grasped scientifically. He respected the achievements of modern Western science as well as the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, but believed the traditional Chinese wisdom of inclusion and harmony must be preserved to complement these others. In his chapter on Qian Mu, Gad Isay identifies the notion of balance as critical to understanding Qian’s long scholarly career. His work as a historian reflects the concern for Chinese tradition which may be found in most of the figures in this volume. The notion of balance that Isay employs is another illustration of this, since as he writes, part of balance is preserving what a thing essentially is over time. Hence it is not surprising that Qian chose to emphasize the continuity of Chinese culture and the Confucian tradition in particular. He was critical of New Text scholars like Kang Youwei, whom he felt manipulated the Confucian tradition for their own purposes and lost proper balance. Yet Qian also felt the New Confucians who followed Xiong Shili were too one-sided. Isay suggests Qian’s studies of Zhu Xi were connected with his refusal to add his name to the 1958 Declaration co-authored by Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, and Zhang Junmai. They favored the more intuitive and introspective approach to moral knowledge of Lu-Wang Neo-­ Confucianism, as opposed to the more traditional assessment that Zhu Xi represented the high point of Neo-Confucian philosophy. Wang in particular rejected learning from the past in favor of relying on one’s own mind, which someone as committed to history as Qian surely found troubling. His study of Zhu Xi may have been another way in which he pursued balance. With my chapter on Xu Fuguan, we pick up with the founding generation of overseas New Confucianism in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A former general in the Nationalist army and personal associate of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), Xu understandably fled mainland China in 1949, soon taking up a post teaching in Taiwan while publishing a journal, Democratic Review 民主評論, dedicated to advocating modernization and democracy. Though Xu was a wide-ranging scholar, I focus on two connected aspects of his thought: his philosophy of human nature and his political thought. Xu strongly defended the Mengzian conception that human nature is good, which for him meant true morality came from the self and was not something learned from outside. Accordingly, he emphasized internal experience through embodied recognition (tiren 體認) as the source of moral knowledge. Yet Xu diverged from his contemporaries Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan by insisting that Confucianism is not a form of idealism and the human heart-mind does not transcend the physical body. Confucianism, he thought, should not be constructed into a metaphysical theory, but understood through lived experience in the real world and the practice of moral cultivation (gongfu 功夫). Democracy was for

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him the political system best suited for realizing morality through providing the freedom for self-development. This mean that democracy was the true realization of the Confucian spirit. Ady Van den Stock opts to focus his chapter on Tang Junyi’s challenging final work, the two-volume Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Mind 生命存在與心 靈境界. Through an examination of the structure of this work, Van den Stock presents the tensions throughout much of Tang’s scholarship. In his analysis, Tang saw his philosophical work as pointing to a more religious kind of experience of self-­ knowledge and self-transformation. Thus Tang exemplifies that aspect of contemporary Confucian thought I discussed above: philosophy is not only and not primarily about accurately understanding the world, but has a more existential import. Relations between subject and object were a critical preoccupation of Tang. Van den Stock shows how the nine horizons of Tang’s book can be understood as different ways of understanding the constitutive relations of subject and object, which are disclosed in what Tang called “affective resonance” (gantong 感通). While given the concern for defending tradition that we have already seen, it is not surprising that Tang places Confucianism at the top of the nine horizons, Van den Stock usefully points out that the hierarchy is not as stark as it first appears. Though Tang’s work is highly technical and can appear abstract, Van den Stock highlights the ethical and spiritual concerns that motivated all of Tang’s scholarship. Mou Zongsan is typically acclaimed as the greatest twentieth century Confucian philosopher, and Lee Ming-huei’s elucidates his major achievements. Mou wrote extensively on the history of Chinese philosophy, and his work on Song-Ming Neo-­ Confucianism and Buddhism were particularly significant. Mou developed a comprehensive analysis of Neo-Confucian thinkers in terms of the categories of autonomy and heteronomy, elevating the autonomy of Lu Xiangshan 陸象山, Wang Yangming, Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周, and Hu Wufeng 胡五峰 over the heteronomy of Cheng Yi 程頤 and Zhu Xi. This was a radical reinterpretation of this history which remains influential. On the Buddhist side, he identified Tiantai Buddhism rather than Huayan as the highest achievement of Chinese Buddhist thought, because it was the only true perfect teaching. Only Tiantai Buddhism represents ontological perfection, because it expresses the necessity of phenomena even in the enlightened state, rather than detaching from them. Mou is best known for his sustained engagement with Kant, and Lee analyzes his major works in which Mou argued that only Confucianism can complete the Kantian project, due to its affirmation of the possibility of intellectual intuition. Through intellectual intuition, Confucianism shows that the free will is a reality, and thus gives a stable foundation to morality. Likewise, intellectual intuition is necessary to confirm the two-level ontology of appearances and things in themselves. Finally, Confucianism can unite virtue and happiness, making the perfect good a reality. Nor did Mou neglect cultural and political questions, writing extensively on finding the basis of modernization (democracy especially) within Chinese culture. Li Zehou stands out as the one philosopher in this book who began his career in the PRC after the revolution, though he left in 1992. Andrew Lambert shows how Li shared many of the same concerns as the previous philosophers: the question of

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Chinese modernity was important to him, and he also engaged with Kant. Marxism was another major influence on him, though he is not an orthodox Marxist. The influence of Marx manifests in his aesthetic theory, one of the most significant areas of his philosophy. Lambert examines how Li defines beauty as humanized nature: nature transformed for human purpose. Beauty for Li expresses human freedom in remaking the world for human fulfillment. In his work on the Confucian tradition, Li diverges from the overseas New Confucians in giving more attention to ritual and how it shapes people’s dispositions and maintains social order. In keeping with his aesthetic theory, rituals can be a source of beauty. It is also fitting, then, that he sees personal cultivation in terms of developing aesthetic sensibility, appreciating the beauty in rituals, relationships, and other aspects of the social order. Hence Li declares that Chinese culture is a “culture of sociable delight” (legan wenhua 樂感 文化), emphasizing the joy found in harmonious relationships. Leung Yat-hung’s chapter examines the contributions of Liu Shu-hsien (Shuxian), particularly in philosophy of culture and global ethics. Born in mainland China, Liu moved to Taiwan and studied with Fang Dongmei before going to the US for his PhD. He taught in the US for many years before leaving first for Hong Kong in 1981, and then after his retirement in 1999, he moved back to Taiwan where he remained until his death in 2016. Like his early mentor Fang, Liu was interested in understanding the different cultural orientations in Western and East Asian cultures, and articulating the value of Chinese culture. Inspired by Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, he thought that each culture creates its own network of significance, but each has its own biases. Hence, it is important to learn and adopt the best of other cultures to improve one’s own. In Liu’s view, Chinese culture excels at understanding the source of value. Perhaps due to his experience living abroad, Liu was more pluralist about value than many other contemporary Confucians, but he still believed value has a universal source. He used the Neo-­ Confucian formulation “one pattern, many manifestations” to illustrate how universal value can have different cultural manifestations, and in this way allow pluralism without relativism. Liu applied this same concept to seeking dialogue and consensus among religious traditions, and for constructing a global ethic. Liu sought consensus on some fundamental values, while recognizing the need for accepting pluralism. Cheng Chung-ying has also pursued a very distinct direction, as Ng On-cho illustrates. Cheng responds to the European hermeneutic tradition, Gadamer and Heidegger especially, but has developed his own onto-hermeneutics based on the Yijing. This onto-hermeneutics takes seriously the integration of polarities characteristic of Chinese thought, the Yijing in particular, and so the reader and the text both create meaning, and subject and object unite in the act of understanding. The Yijing is also the locus of another important unity for Cheng: heaven and humanity, both of which are characterized by change. This reality of change serves as an ultimate fact which is the basis for any understanding of the person and the world. As Ng points out, hermeneutics is an ethical as well as epistemological enterprise for Cheng. Understanding includes empathetic response to the feelings of others, and knowledge must be paired with action to be complete. To illustrate how Cheng’s

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onto-hermeneutics can be realized in practical life, Ng examines the virtue of truthfulness (cheng 誠), which he reads as not simply an imperative to be truthful, but to know truth as well as to act on it. Hence cheng is the source of all virtues and a fundamental principle of truthful living. Tu Wei-ming is yet another distinctive figure. An intellectual historian more than a philosopher, his most significant contributions are as a public intellectual and advocate for Confucian humanism. Yet Ralph Weber shows in his chapter that Tu has a unique conception of philosophy as having an essential religious significance, what he calls “religiophilosophy.” In this Tu displays another aspect of a common theme, the Confucian concern for philosophy in action, making it part of life. Tu is perhaps the most prominent voice, certainly in Anglophone circles, calling for a place for Confucianism and for Chinese culture in ethics, education, politics, and more. His theorizing of a third epoch of Confucianism (the contemporary period) and attention to Confucianism across East Asia laid the ground for proposing a distinctive form of Confucian modernity. This Confucian modernity can include democratic politics and a market economy, but Tu emphasizes how these are modified by the Confucian themes of the relational self and “anthropocosmic” harmony. Confucian humanism thus leads to a sui generis East Asian form of modernization. As Weber describes, Tu then provides a critique of the Enlightenment model and how its individualism leads to problems which it cannot solve. The solution is Confucian humanism, which is indispensable in global dialogue. Though Tu tends not to say much at the level of concrete prescription for how Confucian humanism should be realized, he has done a great deal to make it part of conversations in global academic, political, and economic circles. Part One closes with two chapters of a different sort, examining major philosophical influences on the development of contemporary Confucianism. The first, covered by Chan Wing-cheuk, is Buddhism. Chan examines how three major figures—Xiong Shili, Tang Junyi, and Mou Zongsan—were influenced by and appropriated aspects of Buddhism in their philosophy. Xiong became dissatisfied with Yogacara philosophy for its dualistic outlook: it divides subject and object, and treats consciousness as real while denying the reality of phenomena. Xiong wanted to uphold the mind as fundamental reality, but denied that it is different than phenomena. This would preserve the possibility of morality. Tang as well was critical of Buddhism for lacking the moral dimension and failing to see the self as good. In his nine horizons, Buddhism occupied the eighth, transcending the subject-object distinction through seeing both self and phenomena as empty. Huayan was the highest form of Buddhism for him, since it recognized the purity of the true mind. However, it still fell short of Confucianism, which recognized the essential good of human nature. Mou, on the other hand, criticized Huayan for not being a true perfect teaching. To him, a perfect teaching had to maintain a paradoxical identity, such as between ignorance and enlightenment, or good and evil. In a perfect teaching, all phenomena are interdependent and necessary, whereas in Huayan, a buddha would be completely separate from the other nine dharma realms. Only Tiantai was a perfect teaching in this sense, maintaining the necessity of all phenomena. Thus, it could serve as a model for a Confucian perfect teaching.

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As has already become clear, modern German philosophy was also a significant influence on many contemporary Confucians. While phenomenology has become a topic of interest in recent Confucian thought, Pong Wen-berng focuses on how German Idealism—Kant, Fichte, and Hegel especially—influenced Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi in particular. Pong traces the influences of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, tying their central ideas (in Tang’s perception) to three aspects of the moral self that Tang emphasized: reason, mind, and moral practice. He further used this same triadic model in his history of Neo-Confucianism, connecting the three aspects of the moral self to Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and Wang Fuzhi. Mou’s engagement with Kant has already been mentioned. Pong examines further his reconstruction of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism in terms of autonomy and heteronomy, highlighting how Mou appropriated the term “autonomy” from Kant but understood it differently. Thus he was not simply imposing Kantian categories on Confucianism, which is often misunderstood. Pong also examines Heidegger’s influence on Mou, specifically Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. After reading Heidegger, Mou wrote Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy, in which he worked out how intellectual intuition is a possibility for humanity for the first time. Furthermore, Pong points out how both Tang and Mou thought Confucianism surpassed German Idealism.

5.2  Part Two The topical section begins with Stephen Angle’s survey of the major interpretive options for Confucian ethical theory. As ethics is at the center of contemporary Confucian philosophy, the philosophical issues Angle examines will inform many of the subsequent chapters. As previously discussed, the concept of autonomy was very important for many New Confucians, not only Mou Zongsan. Accordingly, Sinophone scholarship often considers Confucianism to be a form of deontology, though differing significantly from Kant’s formulation. Angle examines the contemporary scholar Lee Ming-huei, who is one of the most prominent defenders of Confucianism as an ethics of autonomy. Angle analyzes Lee’s main interpretive arguments, raising some questions about the textual interpretation as well as the philosophical implications. He then turns to virtue ethics, an interpretive theory which has some followers in Taiwan, but is more developed in Anglophone Confucian scholarship. As virtue ethics began to be explored seriously as an alternative to consequentialism and deontology, this general interest began to impact Chinese philosophy as interpreters noted the importance of virtue language in classical Confucian texts as well as the absence of decision procedures for determining moral actions. Then he takes up a third approach, role ethics, formulated primarily by Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, who appear to have been motivated by concern to distinguish Confucian ethics from familiar ethical theories and to emphasize the relational nature of the person. After considering some of the arguments, Angle addresses the objection that by making culturally-defined roles the basis of moral

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norms, role ethics lacks the resources to confront and condemn the oppression these roles can generate and perpetuate. He concludes the chapter with a look at Confucian efforts in applied ethics, an area which is still relatively new, and ways in which Sinophone and Anglophone Confucian scholars can learn from each other and engage in more productive dialogue (which has been rather one-sided for the most part). Jana Rošker turns to epistemology. She usefully points out how knowledge was conceived differently in Chinese philosophy, and accordingly epistemological questions were not solely centered around whether and how knowledge of objective reality is possible. The moral aspect of knowledge was more important in Chinese thought, as debates centered on the relationship of knowledge and morality and between knowledge and action. Contemporary philosophers as well were more concerned with moral knowledge, and although under the influence of Western (particularly German) thought, they often talked about “reason,” the usage was often quite different. Even the most rational philosophers found room for intuition and even the most intuitive employed reason, she notes in her examination of Liang Shuming and Zhang Junmai. Rošker describes how epistemological concerns became prominent in the second generation of New Confucians, Tang and Mou especially, and how both refused to separate axiological and epistemological concerns entirely. Value experiences could be, indeed had to be, grounds for knowledge in order to preserve the truth of morality. This is one of the main differences between most contemporary Western and Chinese philosophers. This intuitive and experiential approach to knowledge is evident in the theories of human nature, another critical topic. Most modern Confucians follow the Mengzian doctrine that human nature is good. Wong Wai-ying also opts to focus on Tang and Mou and their interpretations of this foundational doctrine. As she illustrates, Mou understands Mengzi to be making a few key claims, notably that morality is innate in the heart-mind of every person, and the heart-mind is unconditioned and thus able to be autonomous. Mou makes a sort of transcendental argument, starting with the reality of moral responses, such as one’s reaction to a child about to fall into a well in Mengzi’s famous example. He claims these are not hypothetical imperatives, and considers what is necessary for these moral responses to be real. This is how he concludes that the responses of the original heart-mind are something entirely different than ordinary feelings. The key step is experiential verification of these feelings in oneself, illustrating the focus on first-person experience. This raises the question of how one knows that every person shares this heart-mind, which Mou answers through asserting a common nature endowed by the Way. Tang also addressed the question of knowledge of other minds, which he argued was achieved through “transference” (or “affective resonance” above): as one behaves morally toward other people, and they behave morally to oneself, there is transference in which each recognizes the other’s moral mind. Tang also treats the question of human nature not as a question about an objective nature, but a question of practice and personal realization. My chapter here looks at political philosophy, where we find a division between proponents and critics of Confucian democracy. I focus on Mou Zongsan on the

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pro-democracy side, examining his arguments that democracy is a practical, though not logical, entailment of Confucian morality. Mou claims that classical Confucians failed to develop democracy due to insufficient theoretical reason, but he applies his famous idea of “self-restriction” to argue that Confucian moral reason has to restrict itself to allow for democracy. Only in that way can moral reason realize its goals. In the PRC, Jiang Qing 蔣慶 is one of the strongest voices for Confucian meritocracy. While allowing for some democratic representation, he feels that democracy is both un-Confucian and hopelessly flawed as it makes the will of the people the sole form of legitimacy. Based on the Gongyang triad of heaven, humanity, and earth, he claims a government must have three sources of legitimacy, and each should be represented with a house in the legislature, in which the Confucian scholars have the most power. Bai Tongdong 白彤東 also argues for meritocracy based on the flaws with democratic practice, though his system is less complex, with a democratic house of people and a meritocratic house of the experienced. Confucian pragmatists favor a Dewey-inspired approach to democracy as a kind of community and not a specific form of government. The pragmatists are critical of liberal focus on rights and laws, concerned with the effects on social harmony. Instead they favor ritual and other informal means of reaching accord, though whether this is always sufficient is open to question. Su-san Lee examines Confucian aesthetics, another area in which contemporary Confucians have defended traditional Chinese culture, often in a clearly nationalistic way. Thomé H. Fang (Fang Dongmei) lamented the bifurcation of humanity and nature in Western thought, leading to a sense of conflict that obliterated the harmony between humanity and the world preferred in Chinese culture. Likewise, Tang Junyi believed the Chinese sense of art was founded appreciation of nature. Chinese art is immanent, unlike the transcendent approach of Western art, which is imposing and intimidating. Chinese art, in contrast, invites the viewer to immerse himself in the work of art. Qian Mu favors Chinese literature for similar reasons. Western tragedy is, for him, based on irresolvable conflict, but Chinese literature prefers to show the possibilities for happiness and harmonious resolution of conflict. Qian, Tang, and especially Xu Fuguan all agree that art should have a moral purpose and affirm life. The good and the beautiful should coincide. This is why Xu strongly condemned modern art for being nihilistic. Lee demonstrates that the paradigm of “art for life’s sake” was much stronger in Confucian theorists than “art for its own sake.” Art should represent and support the good; beauty as such is a subordinate value for them. Lin Wei-chieh examines the hermeneutics of Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Liu Shuxian. Regarding Tang and Mou, questions of interpretation are largely restricted to the Classics. Lin reads Mou as arguing for a Zhu Xi model of interpretation in which the text takes precedence and the reader must engage closely with it and understand its existential import, despite Mou’s demotion of Zhu in moral theory. Tang, in contrast, put philosophical principles first, claiming that one had to understand a text in light of correct philosophical principles. According to Lin, Tang’s hermeneutic approach amounts to putting one’s own mind first, in the manner of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming. Tang also demonstrated an interest in

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mediating conflicts in thought, an interest taken up by Liu Shuxian. Unlike Tang and Mou, Liu was acquainted with modern hermeneutic thought, such as Gadamer and Heidegger—Mou engaged with Heidegger’s work on Kant but showed little to no awareness of his other philosophical works—, but he followed Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms most closely. This provided a model of harmonizing universality and particularity for him, which he further developed using the Neo-­ Confucian formulation “pattern is one but its manifestations are diverse.” This was how Liu approached cross-cultural ethics, recognizing diversity but still searching for the shared pattern. For Liu, the value of hermeneutics is making possible this kind of cultural dialogue. While most chapters focus primarily or entirely on philosophers working in Chinese, Andrew Lambert examines recent American and European work on Confucian thought. The analytic philosopher Herbert Fingarette was an early interpreter, seeing convergence between Confucian ideas of ritual and J.L. Austin’s performative theory of language. Notably, Fingarette denied that ideas of choice and deliberation—inner mental life in general—were relevant to understanding the Analects. Similar themes were taken up by David Hall and Roger Ames, who in a series of works highlighted the distinctive features of Chinese thought: lack of transcendence, a process ontology, and a focus on exemplary persons rather than absolute principles. Missing these differences, they claim, Western interpreters fail to see how different Chinese philosophy is. Going even farther, Lambert examines the reaction against Chinese philosophy itself, with some scholars suggesting applying the very category of “philosophy”—laden as it is with specific cultural connotations—distorts what Chinese thinkers were doing and makes it impossible to understand the texts in their own terms. Nevertheless, philosophers continue making comparisons in many areas. Ethics and politics have been particularly fruitful, as both how to understand traditional Confucian ethics and politics and what their contemporary relevance is have sparked considerable debate. Lambert suggests more areas for comparison in future research as Confucianism continues to develop as a living tradition. We move back to the PRC with Li Yong’s chapter on recent developments in the PRC. As already discussed, after 1949 there were few developments in Confucian philosophy in the PRC. During the Cultural Revolution in particular, scholars had to condemn. Kongzi and other Confucian thinkers. Thus, for decades the developments in Confucian thought took place overseas. Beginning in the 1980s, the political and academic situation began to open and Confucian studies resumed on the mainland. As Li describes, much of the early work in particular was historical, with scholars in the PRC studying and writing on the main overseas Confucian philosophers. Recently, PRC Confucian scholars have begun developing their own philosophical views, and Li singles out four: Tang Yijie’s unity of humanity and heaven, Zhang Liwen’s theory of harmony, Chen Lai’s ontology of benevolence, and Jiang Qing’s political Confucianism. In addition, Li introduces some of the important debates among mainland Confucian scholars: the legitimacy of “Chinese philosophy” as a category, Confucian emphasis on familial love versus impartial morality, and Confucian meritocracy versus democracy.

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The volume concludes with Fung Yiu-ming’s examination of philosophical methods in Confucian thought. Fung describes how the historical and philological approach favored by Hu Shi was rejected by Xiong Shili and Feng Youlan, who, however, took very different approaches. Fung examines the intuitive method favored by Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi, contrasting that with Feng Youlan’s logical analysis. However, he concludes that even though New Confucians like Mou and Tang were highly critical of Feng, all employ transcendental arguments based on what the necessary conditions of knowledge are. Accordingly, there is, at bottom, a conflict between a textual and empirical approach on the one hand, and an approach making use of transcendental arguments on the other.27 Even when Mou and Tang appeal to first-person experience, they draw metaphysical conclusions from this experience through transcendental arguments. Fung concludes that while it appears impossible to disprove another person’s first-person experience, such an experience is not communicable. It is at best private knowledge that cannot be confirmed objectively. He thus casts doubt on relying on intuition as a philosophical method, because it relies on an experience which cannot be shared. This, he suggests, goes against the spirit of philosophy which should start from intersubjective agreement. And that is how we bring the volume to a close. I hope it serves to give the reader a sense of the breadth of recent Confucian philosophy, most of which sadly remains unavailable to the reader without Chinese language ability. Cross-cultural philosophy was a concern of many leading contemporary Confucians, and I would like this volume to form another pillar to the bridge between Euro-American and East Asian philosophers, encouraging more interaction and understanding.

References Angle, Stephen C. 2018. “The Adolescence of Mainland New Confucianism.” Contemporary Chinese Thought 49 (2): 83–99. Bresciani, Umberto. 2001. Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement. Taibei: Taipei Ricci Institute. Chan, N. Serina. 2011. The Thought of Mou Zongsan. Modern Chinese Philosophy 4. Leiden: Brill. Chang, Carsun et al. 1957. “A Manifesto for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture.” In The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought. Vol. 2. New York: Bookman Associates. Chang, Hao. 1980. “Intellectual Change and the Reform Movement, 1890–8.” In The Cambridge History of China, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-chang Liu, 11, part 2:274–338. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Cheng, Chung-ying, and Nicholas Bunnin, eds. 2002. Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 2005. “Nationality and Difference in China: The Post-Imperial Dilemma.” In The Teleology of the Modern Nation-State: Japan and China, edited by Joshua A. Fogel, 138–158. Encounters with Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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 Here setting aside recent methodological developments like pragmatism and analytic philosophy.

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Fang, Keli 方克立. 1995. “Historical Development of Contemporary New Confucianism 現代新 儒學的發展歷程.” In Records of Contemporary New Confucians 現代新儒家學案, edited by Fang Keli and Li Jinquan 李錦全, 1:3–52. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Fröhlich, Thomas, and Brigit Knüsel Adamec. 2013. “Introduction.” Oriens Extremus 52: 3–18. Huang, Max Ko-wu. 2008. The Meaning of Freedom: Yan Fu and the Origins of Chinese Liberalism. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Kuo, Ting-yee, and Kwang-ching Liu. 1978. “Self-Strengthening: The Pursuit of Western Technology.” In John K.  Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I, Vol. 10. 491–542. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lin, Anwu 林安梧. 1992. Taiwan and China’s Advance toward World History 台灣中國邁向世 界史. Taibei: Tangshan. Makeham, John. 2003. “The New Daotong.” In John Makeham, ed. New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. 55–78. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2008. Lost Soul: “Confucianism” in Contemporary Academic Discourse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asia Center. ———, ed. 2012. Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China. The Formation of Disciplines Series. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Mou, Zongsan. 2015. Autobiography at Fifty: A Philosophical Life in Twentieth Century China. Translated by Ming-Yeung Lu and Esther C Su. San Jose, CA: Foundation for the Study of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Nichols, Ryan. 2015. “Early Confucianism Is a System for Social-Functional Influence and Probably Does Not Represent a Normative Ethical Theory.” Dao 14 (4): 499–520. Rošker, Jana. 2016. The Rebirth of the Moral Self: The Second Generation of Modern Confucians and Their Modernization Discourses. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaiʻi Press. Svarverud, Rune. 2007. International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847–1922. Sinica Leidensia 78. Leiden; Boston: Brill. Wang, Yangming. 2014. “A Record for Practice.” In Justin Tiwald and Bryan W.  Van Norden, eds., Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han to the 20th Century, translated by Philip J. Ivanhoe. 238–250. Indianapolis: Hackett. Weston, Timothy B. 2004. The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898–1929. Berkeley Series in Interdisciplinary Studies of China 3. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wright, Mary Clabaugh. 1966. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874. Reprint. New York: Atheneum. Xiong, Shili. 2015. New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness. Translated by John Makeham. World Thought in Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press. Zhang, Xianglong 張祥龍. 2001. From Phenomenology to Confucius 從現象學到孔夫子. Beijing: Commercial Press. ———. 2009. Nine Lectures Explaining Kongzi’s Phenomenology: Philosophy and the Life of Ritual and Music 孔子的现象学阐释九讲 : 礼乐人生与哲理. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press. Zheng, Jiadong. 2004. “Between History and Thought: Mou Zongsan and the New Confucianism That Walked Out of History.” Contemporary Chinese Thought 36 (2): 49–66.

Part I

Major Figures and Influences

Confucianism in Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century China Pablo Blitstein

It is not at all an easy task to categorize what we call “Confucianism” according to modern labels. “Philosophy” and “religion,” the two categories most frequently attached to this “-ism,” have certainly claimed a jurisdictional right over “Confucian” texts, and that is why many twentieth century sinologists and historians have talked about “Confucian philosophy” and “Confucian religion.” However, like anyone who struggles to extend the jurisdiction of modern categories onto materials inherited from the past, contemporary scholars are constantly puzzled by Confucian texts, precisely because the seemingly well-defined categories of “philosophy” and “religion” are hardly capable of fully absorbing their contents. Is Confucianism a philosophy? But any “Confucian” of the past, the ru 儒, discussed issues such as ritual, ceremonies, and the cult of ancestors. Is it then a religion? But Kongzi explicitly refrained from talking about the nature of the afterlife and of the invisible world, and the Confucian controversies about social, administrative, political, or cosmic organization in imperial and pre-imperial times often look more like philosophical discussions than like theological disquisitions. This ambivalence is all the more puzzling that the “-ism” of this word, a suffix that indicates a doctrine or an ideology, seems to condemn “Confucianism” to become either a set of philosophical opinions associated with the figure of Kongzi or a set of religious precepts contained in the scriptures of the ancient sages. Imperial Confucianism actually was neither a “religion” nor a “philosophy.” Past “Confucians” (if the term is at all meaningful as a descriptive label) did not consider themselves as philosophical interlocutors or religious believers, but as the distant disciples of a master-sage who had transmitted from antiquity the eternally valid principles of the harmonious relations between Humanity, Heaven, and Earth (ren P. Blitstein (*) Centre des Recherches Historiques, Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_2

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人 - tian 天 - di地 ). Should we then discard the religious and philosophical reinventions of Confucianism as pure distortions of the past? Not necessarily. Modern conceptual struggles to explain Confucianism, either in contemporary China itself or in Europe and North America, are not just part of the historical reception of an imperial ideology: they are the history of modern Confucianism, whose present shape is the result of intellectual exchanges between East Asia and the Euro-American worlds. These transcontinental exchanges certainly were asymmetrical, for they resulted from the Chinese perception that the “West” and Meiji Japan possessed what China didn’t: the key for “wealth and strength.” That is why Joseph Levenson, one of the most influential scholars in our understanding of “Confucian China,” could not refrain from saying at the end of the 1960s that “what the West has done to China is to change the latter’s vocabulary—what China has done to the West is to enlarge the latter’s vocabulary” (Levenson 1968: 1, 157). He suggested in this way that Chinese intellectual developments after the 1890s were in a way “derivative,” a sort of extension of the “Western” conceptual frameworks. But this assertion, no matter how strong the asymmetry was, cannot be taken literally: the transformations in Confucianism were also part of a longer history of intellectual reconfigurations in the Qing empire and they were made with linguistic and conceptual resources already present in East Asia. The germs of transformation were there, in the empire; and once combined with conceptual, institutional and practical resources developed in other parts of the world, Confucianism did not disappear, but just changed its form. It sometimes became a philosophy, sometimes a religion, sometimes both, sometimes none of them. This introduction is thus meant to tell the history of how a set of practices and texts could ever be labelled “Confucian philosophy” or “Confucian religion” in China. This process, as we will show, is inseparable from the history of how the “Great Qing” became the “Chinese nation” at the beginning of the twentieth century. We will therefore focus on how the redefinition of Confucianism as “philosophy” and “religion” was intimately related to wider reflections on a modern concept, the “nation,” and to how “China” was framed in national terms. We will neither discuss how the idea of “nation” took shape in China during the nineteenth century, nor how the adoption of this concept was partially indebted, as Pamela Kyle Crossley has shown, to the Qianlong reforms in the eighteenth century (Crossley 1999: 337–361). We will limit ourselves to review how, between the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, some well-known literati, scholars and intellectuals attempted to “nationalize” a tradition which, since its very beginning, had universal pretensions.

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1  Master Kong, Master of the Empire What we call “Confucianism” is not only a set of practices and ideas of imperial times, but also the shared recognition of a single textual ancestor: the so-called “Confucian classics”. The number of texts included within this corpus changed a lot across the ages. The ones which were most often included were: the Book of Poetry (Shi 詩), the Book of Documents (Shangshu 尚書), the three ritual books (Book of Rites or Liji 禮記, Ceremonies or Yili 儀禮, and the Rites of Zhou or Zhouli周禮), the Spring and Autumn (Chunqiu 春秋), and the Changes (Yi 易). The Qing dynasty (1644–1911)—the last one to rule over China—recognized thirteen classics in all, and used the “Four Books” as the entry point into the canonical doctrine; among these four, the first two ones—the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸) and the Great Learning (Daxue 大學)—were extracted from the Book of Rites, and the other two—the Analects (Lunyu 論語) and the Mengzi (Mengzi 孟子)—were classics themselves. The classics conveyed the teachings of the ancient sages, who had been able to understand the eternally valid patterns of universal harmony between the “Three Instances” (sancai 三才, Heaven, Earth, and Humanity). For this reason, rulers and ministers of coming ages were supposed to follow these teachings if they wanted to keep order in the realm: they had to respect ritual and ceremonial rules if they wanted to prevent conflicts and keep harmony in the cosmos; they had to be pious to their parents and ancestors if they expected obeisance from their subjects; and, according to the “Dao learning” or “Neo-Confucian” interpretations since the Song dynasty (960–1279), they had to know the hidden principles of the cosmos if they wanted to achieve moral cultivation and nurture the virtuous foundations of their inner nature. Kongzi was supposed to have edited the classics and to have written some of their canonical commentaries. As he claimed in the Analects, he only “transmitted” the teachings of the ancient sages, he did not “create” them; according to “Neo-­ Confucian” interpretations, his sagely teachings found their last representative in Mengzi, the “second sage” of pre-imperial times whose ideas are to be found in the book that bears his name. Whatever the role of the historical Kongzi in editing or composing the canonical books of the ancient sages, the “Confucian classics” consisted of pre-Confucian texts, texts believed to be edited by the Master himself, and writings and lessons of his best closer or distant followers, and all these nuanced attributions were and still are often revised or criticized (for a critical assessment of this question, see Nylan 2001, 16–19; and regarding Kongzi and the Analects, see Kern and Hunter 2018). The practices and ideas associated with Confucianism were grounded on a master-­disciple conception of knowledge transmission, not because there was an uninterrupted transmission of the teachings of Kongzi from one generation to another, but because each “Confucian” claimed to follow the teachings of this “ancient master” (xianshi 先師). Kongzi was both the distant “disciple” of the ancient sages and the distant “master” of generations to come; and these coming generations would in turn produce masters who, incapable of reaching the heights

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of the ancient sages, interpreted the Confucian classics and applied Confucian principles to their own age. The master-disciple relation was so important that, in an explicit or implicit form, it was used as a model for the political rationalization of the empire. The classics identified the ruler with a “master” and a “father.” With his sagely ministers, the ruler was supposed to “teach the people” (jiaomin 教民) and “transform their customs” (yifeng yisu 移風易俗) with ritualized patterns of good behavior (the jiaohua 教化 ideal); he was supposed to extend across “all under Heaven” (tianxia 天下) the eternally valid principles of good rule discovered by the sages. The ruler and his learned officers thus were, on the one hand, the distant disciples of the ancient sages, and, on the other, the present masters of the empire. In this context, the exegesis of the classics was not meant to be just a scholarly exercise, but a socio-political interpretation with institutional and practical consequences on the imperial order. This “magisterial” nature of Confucianism went hand in hand with its universalistic orientation. Confucianism only demanded a wise ruler; as long as the ruler did not violate the principles of the socio-cosmic order, he would keep rule over “all under Heaven” no matter his ethnic, social, or geographical identity. “Confucianism” was not meant to be “Chinese”; it was the ideology of righteous imperial rule. This is precisely one reason why it was well-received by the Manchu conquerors in the seventeenth century. When the Manchu rulers conquered the territories of the former Ming dynasty, and established their domination by recognizing or even creating ethnic distinctions within the empire, they did not contradict Confucian teachings. On the contrary, they suited Confucian standards because they managed to keep harmony among the different groups, from Tibetan to Han populations, from Uyghur to Mongols, from the Manchu banners that accompanied them in their conquest to the Han banners that they organized (Rawski 1998: 197–230; Hevia 1995: 29–56; Wang 2004: 519–543). The Manchus used Confucianism—like other doctrines—to legitimate their right to the Mandate of Heaven (Ho 1998); the “all under Heaven” (tianxia 天下) could then become, as the Book of Rites said, “one single family” (tianxia yijia 天下一家), for within the four seas all were brothers—or, more precisely, elder and younger brothers, related by the natural hierarchies of age and experience. As long as the fundamental relations of human organization, lord-subject, father-­ son, and husband-wife were respected (the “three bonds,” sangang 三綱), as long as the teachings of the sages were observed, the Manchu emperor would be able to rule on any human being on Earth. Whether this was the actual perspective of the Manchu rulers (as the “sinicization” theory holds), or just the way the Manchus presented themselves before Confucian literati (for, as many New Qing historians hold, the Manchus had their own perceptions), it is a subject that has been and still is widely debated (Ge 2011: 18–23). What seems to be clear, is that a key idea within the Confucian tradition was particularly useful for the Manchu rulers: it was the idea that the distinction between the barbarian and the civilized was one between the one who knows and the one who ignores the teachings of the sages. This Confucian universalism offered the dynasty a strong means of persuasion before many of their subjects.

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At the same time, since the early years of the Manchu conquest, some Confucian men of letters, especially those who refused to serve the new Manchu rulers, raised a question that would be later taken up by nationalists in the late nineteenth century: how can the barbarian tribes of Manchuria claim that they know the “doctrine” (jiao 教)—the “Confucian” one, the “arts of the ru” (rushu 儒術)—better than those Chinese literati who, generation after generation, have been commenting the classics? And even if some respectable literati were advising the Manchu rulers, how could the “all under Heaven” be ruled by people who, until recently, had had little acquaintance if at all with the teachings of the ancient sages? In the seventeenth century, Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692) invoked ethnic grounds not so much to abolish Confucian universalism, but to shed a light of suspicion on the new “barbarian” rulers (Elliott 2001: 21–25). This suspicion, which never disappeared completely during Manchu rule, strongly reemerged when, by the late nineteenth century, a new concept made its way in the Chinese-speaking discourse: the concept of “nation.” The transformation of “Confucianism” into a religion or a philosophy, and especially into something specifically “Chinese,” was intimately related to nationalist endeavors to reform or subvert the old imperial order and, as they claimed, to “save China” from the threats of colonial powers.

2  Confucianism and the “Nation” Before “Confucianism” became a “philosophy” or a “religion” in the early twentieth century, it underwent a process of “nationalization” that to a certain extent deprived it from its universal pretentions. This “nationalization” did not mean, for the late nineteenth-century Confucians who still revered classical learning, that they should abandon the idea that the “Doctrine” could extend its beneficial influence onto “all under Heaven.” But with the increasingly central role of the nation concept within the whole organization of knowledge in late-nineteenth century China, Confucianism came to be seen as something specifically “Chinese,” as a contribution of the “Chinese nation” to the history of humanity, and not, as it had been until recently, as the teachings of universal sages who had no “nationality” and who only knew the boundaries between the civilized and the uncivilized. This was not the first time “Confucianism” was, so to speak, “singularized” as the specific product of a region or an empire. After all, Confucianism as a doctrine (ru 儒) was intimately associated with the ritualists in the Lu state during the Spring and Autumn period (ca. 771–ca. 476 BC). Both before and after it became the imperial ideology during the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), it was seen as one doctrine among others, such as Legalism or Daoism; later on, when the imperial elites “discovered” Buddhism between the fall of the Han dynasty and the beginning of the Tang (618–907), India became a point of reference in the geographical imagination of Chinese literati, and Confucianism was increasingly reduced to one particular doctrine of the East. But these previous attempts at narrowing Confucianism to a geographical region or to one doctrine among others were very different from the

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process of nationalization it went through during the late nineteenth century. In pre-­ imperial and imperial times, Confucianism was not the expression of a particular nation or region, but the natural product of the superior understanding of the ancient sages; even if Confucianism happened to be geographically bounded, its particular characteristics as a doctrine were the expression of a universal cosmic order. In the late nineteenth century, on the contrary, Confucianism became the expression of a “national” culture, the Chinese one, and even if it could aspire to universal application, it was increasingly conceived as a contribution from “China” to the world. The nationalization of Confucianism would have seemed harmless if the “Chinese nation” had been able to claim universal superiority. But in the late nineteenth century world order, when one war after the other showed to the imperial subjects and to the world that the “Great Qing” ran the risk of either colonization or territorial fragmentation, Confucianism became in a way the thermometer of the “sick man of the East.” Indeed, if Confucianism had “national” origins, then it should at least be able to protect the nation that gave it birth; but if its nation, China, perished, the “Doctrine” was useless and it should become one more statue in the museum of history. In other words, the universal pretensions of the Confucian tradition were conditioned by the “success” of China as a nation. This was, as we will see in the examples given below, a shared concern. The first time the idea of nation shaped Confucianism took shape within the late nineteenth century development of the so-called New Text Confucianism. As a reaction against the philologically-oriented spirit of “Han learning” (hanxue 漢學), New Text Confucianism had recovered pre-imperial and early imperial exegeses which were based on the “new script” version of the classics and which offered more exegetical freedom. This proved to be particularly suitable for change-oriented projects: in the name of old texts—especially the Gongyang commentary of the Spring and Autumn Annals, He Xiu 何休’s study on this commentary, and Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179–104)’s Spring and Autumn Annals’ Radiant Dew (Chunqiu fanlu)— the advocates of the New Text, from Liu Fenglu 劉逢祿 (1776–1829) to Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1857), could deliberately skip most of the imperial commentarial tradition and make new interpretations that accompanied their reform proposals. Kongzi, the “uncrowned king” (suwang 素王), was for this tradition much more than the editor or author of the classics: he was the most sagely of all the ancient sages, the actual master of the empire; his teachings had certainly been corrupted by the so-­ called Old Text tradition—the “old script” version of the classics and its commentaries—, but the New Text had left enough elements to use his teachings for immediate application to imperial institutions. Kongzi became not just a teacher, but a prophet; he had not only interpreted the sages of the past, but, being himself a sage, he had foretold the present (Elman 1990: 214–256). This particular feature of the New Text tradition enabled late-nineteenth century Confucian reformers to make a bold step: they turned Kongzi into the earliest harbinger of parliamentarian democracy and even a foreteller of the future history of humankind. This idea was associated with someone who, for reasons that will be explained below, can be considered the founder of contemporary Confucianism: Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927). Just like his predecessors, Kang Youwei found

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in the New Text tradition a means to introduce change in the imperial institutions. The changes he proposed went much further than any of his forerunners could ever imagine. In his Kongzi As a Reformer (Kongzi gaizhi kao 孔子改制考), Kongzi appeared as a prophet of reform, as someone who had been able to foretell the need of a full-fledged transformation of the monarchic institutions; although Kongzi was an interpreter of the ancient sages, he was supposed to have explained figuratively the universal evolution of humanity towards a better future, the age of Great Peace (Taiping 太平). Confucian teachings seemed to talk about the past, but they actually talked about the future; they certainly explained the eternally valid wisdom of the ancient sages, but they also disclosed the secrets of the new world that awaited humanity in the future. Kang Youwei thus radicalized the New Text exegetical tradition in order to justify the reforms that should eventually turn the “Great Qing” into a constitutional monarchy. In Kang Youwei’s and, more largely, late nineteenth reform-oriented exegesis of the New Text tradition, the association between Confucianism and nation could have been avoided precisely on Confucian terms: as a universal doctrine, it could relate to Heaven, not to some particular nation, and the reform of the empire could have been justified on universalistic terms. But Kang Youwei, like other late nineteenth-­century Confucian reformers, had an ambivalent attitude towards the “Chinese nation.” On the one hand, he took the concept of “nation” as descriptive, because he felt that the universal monarchy was just a fiction and that the rule on a non-national basis, such as the one that had characterized Qing rule, entailed the risk of political division and foreign colonization. For him, the Great Qing would never be able to rule “all-under-Heaven:” it could only rule over “China.” On the other hand, Kang Youwei took the nation in a normative sense. In the context of the segmented imperial society based on clan organization, on banners, and on ethnically or religiously defined groups—all ruled “according to their own traditional institutions” (Kang 2006: 4, 425)—the “Chinese nation” was as much a fiction as the universal monarchy of the Qing. This meant, for late-nineteenth century reformers, that the political fragmentation of “China” would happen rather sooner than later. A memorial that Kang Youwei sent to the Guangxu 光緒emperor (r. 1875–1908) in 1898 is a sign of this ambivalent attitude. He certainly demands from the emperor a realistic attitude: the Qing ruler should forget universal rule and concentrate on “unifying the minds of the people,” that is, on suppressing ethnic and political boundaries between his subjects, and creating a national feeling of belonging (Kang 2006: 4, 425); if the emperor follows this advice, he claims, then “China” will be saved. But at the same time, behind these demands, he could not hide the fact that the “nation” he had in mind did not exist at the time. These proposals were not a project to strengthen the nation, but to build it. This “national” interpretation of Confucianism had another advantage: that of putting into question the exclusively top-down representation of imperial rule. Most of the 1898 reformers were not courtiers and did not come from the upper layers of the imperial administration; many of them forged their first political experiences outside the imperial institutions, in the so-called “societies” (hui 會), organized, in some cases, to give impulse to reform in the name of the “nation.” In a speech at the

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Society for the Protection of the Nation (Baoguo hui 保國會), for example, Kang Youwei claimed to be representing the “400 million Chinese” (Kang 1981: 237; Murata 1997). According to its rules, this Society had the objective of protecting not only the “nation” and the “race,” but also the “doctrine of the sages” (shengjiao 聖 教), especially the teachings of Kongzi (Kang 2006: 4, 54). In other words, Kongzi was their Kongzi, the Kongzi of these literati outside imperial institutions, not the Kongzi of a stubborn dynasty unable to carry out reform in times of foreign threat; and since these literati represented the nation, and not imperial power, their Kongzi emerged directly from below, from the “people,” not from the top, from the “court.” This “nationalization” of the Confucian teachings undoubtedly represented a problem for their universalistic content, and the reformers did not fail to see this (Cheng 1997: 72–75). But the “nation,” besides being an inescapable reality, paved the way to a new, bottom-up form of politics that looked perfectly compatible with both the teachings of the Master and the requirements of the new world order.

3  Confucianism, a National Religion The most important expression of the nationalization of Confucianism is Kang Youwei’s project to turn Kongzi into a Chinese Jesus. Since 1898, Kang Youwei aimed at turning the “doctrine of Kongzi” (kongjiao 孔教) into a national religion explicitly modeled after Christianity; and more or less implicitly, he also aimed at turning himself—in Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929)’s words—into the Martin Luther of Confucianism. Kang wanted Confucianism to become a state-sanctioned religion, and proposed to destroy “deviating” cults and replace temples with schools (Goossaert and Palmer 2011: 43–47). It was the first time Confucianism was so clearly associated to a “religion” and not characterized as a simple “teaching” (Kuo Yapei 2013). One reason probably was that Christianity was associated to the “superior” West; the other one, even more important, was that a “national religion” would help the Chinese nation strengthen its cohesion. Kang did not see Kongzi as just a “philosopher”: he was for him the founder of a religion, and his descendants, who since the Song dynasty (960–1279) bore the title of “Duke who Perpetuates the Sage” (Yansheng gong 衍聖公), should be its head (Kang 2006: 4, 93). In this way, Kang could preserve the universalistic, “Catholic” orientation of Confucianism, and at the same time turn it into an “Anglican” style of national religion which would have a political role within the reformed monarchy he dreamt of. Kang Youwei’s Kongzi thus looked more like a prophet than like the Master of yore. The Confucian classics did not “teach” but “revealed”; they should not be used to “rectify” the present according to a golden age in the past, but to transform the present in order to bring the golden age of the future. And at the same time, such a Kongzi was the cherished treasure of the “Chinese nation”—a nation which, by engendering this universal prophet, had made a unique contribution to the history of humanity.

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Such a religious form of Confucianism stood in sharp contrast with the one depicted by moderate reformers or conservatives. Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909), for example, who in 1898 advocated educational reforms but rejected parliaments (Zarrow 2012: 125), considered the Confucian classics as the ultimate source of the imperial order, and used the traditional dichotomy between “essence” (ti 體) and “function” (yong 用) to explain the relation between Confucianism and reform. This dichotomy had its roots in the “study of mysteries” (xuanxue 玄學) or “neo-Daoist” thought in the medieval period, and in Song times “neo-­Confucianism” had turned it into an important conceptual dichotomy. For the main neo-Confucian figure, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), this dichotomy referred to the opposition between the fundamental state or condition of a thing (ti 體) and its application, activity or employment (yong 用); ultimately, it corresponded to the opposition between the fundamental “principle” (li 理) underlying all things between Heaven and Earth and the constitutive “material force” (qi 氣) of a dynamic universe that was in perpetual transformation (Makeham 2010: xxix). Zhang Zhidong used this pair of concepts in a different way, more for social than for cosmic matters. In his 1898 Exhortation to Study (Quanxue pian 勸學篇), the “essence” (ti), that of the “nation” itself, consisted in the well-ordered arrangement of the “three bonds” between lord and subject, husband and wife, and father and son. This essence could be preserved thanks to the sagely teachings contained in the classics. The Western imports in science, technology, education, and economic organization would on the contrary have a “function” (yong), strengthening the nation, but that did not alter the eternal “essence” of China. Zhang Zhidong reduced Confucianism to a socio-political doctrine. He did not turn it into a distinct, “religious” institution, but embedded it in the socio-political order itself, which the rulers could only preserve by sticking to its essential principles. Zhang Zhidong’s use of the “essence”-“function” dichotomy shared with Kang Youwei’s interpretation a necessary “nationalization” of Confucianism. But his strategy of nationalization was, in a way, more threatening for the subsistence of Confucianism. As Levenson observed, in so reducing the “Doctrine” to the essence of a particular polity, Zhang involuntarily recognized that Confucian teachings could not have universal validity, and their effectiveness was more than ever associated to the fate of the empire as such (Levenson 1968: 1, 88–94). In this sense, if Confucianism was taken as the expression of an essentialized political order, all its contents, even its most universalistic ones, ran the risk of perishing with the “essence” that embodied it. Kang’s religious Confucianism, on the contrary, seemed to represent a more successful path: just like Christianity, Confucianism could save itself by becoming a religion. Rome might fall, but the Church remains.1

1  For the particular way in which the Qing dynasty, during the reforms of the last years of the empire, attempted to turn the official cult of Confucius into the symbol of national unity, see Kuo Yapei 2009: 123–154

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4  Kongzi Between the Particular and the Universal Kang Youwei’s Confucianism kept itself so attached to a universalistic content that an old ideal in the Confucian tradition, the Datong 大同or “Great Unity,” became its ultimate goal. Kang argued that, in the end of times, when the Great Unity reigns over the whole world, all “boundaries” (jie 界) between nations, races, classes, and sexes will disappear. This ideal came from a chapter in the Book of Rites, the “Liyun 禮運” or “Movement of Rites,” and it was the name of a golden age of the remote past in which the social and cosmic orders were in harmony under the virtuous rule of the sage kings. Kang turned this ideal into the key of his own teachings, first in his schools, later in a book published under that name, the Book of the Great Unity (Datong shu 大同書).2 This book was a synthesis between Confucianism and French socialist utopianism (especially Fourier’s), with some elements taken from Buddhism: it mobilized Confucian arguments to explain and foretell the evolution of human history, and at the same time it placed the ideal society not in the past, like in the Book of Rites, but in the future, in the age of Great Peace. In practical terms, this idea enabled both nation-building and nation-denial. Since he thought that the nation was not only a reality, but a need at this stage of human evolution, Kang tied the survival of the Chinese nation to the survival of its own national religion, Confucianism; but since the nation, like any other bounded community, will finally disappear in the Great Unity, he saw in Confucianism a universal religion, not just a national one. Nation-­ building and universalism were for him not only compatible, but two necessary steps in the progressive development of human history. This tension between the national and the universal also shaped Kang’s Confucian perception of world history. The general framework of his Book of the Great Unity is New Text Confucianism and its theory of the Three Ages (sanshi 三世): the Age of Disorder, the Age of Ascending Peace and the Age of Great Peace. In He Xiu (129–182)’s study of the Gongyang commentary of the Spring and Autumn, the cyclical dimension of these three ages was more important than its linear progression. In the Book of the Great Unity, on the contrary, the linear dimension of time played the leading role: each age brings into the world a hitherto unknown stage in the history of humanity. Kang Youwei was not the first to emphasize the linear elements of the Gongyang framework. His predecessors within the New Text Confucianism, especially Gong Zizhen (1792–1841), had already reduced the cyclical dimension of the three ages and emphasized the linear one (Wang 2004: 585–590). What was new in the Book of the Great Unity, was that the organizing framework of historical time was the nation, or, more precisely, a world of nations. In previous versions of this New Text philosophy of history, the universal framework of the three ages was the imperial monarchy, and this was the general standard of human history. The Chinese monarchy imposed its time on the rest of the world. 2  The book was only published in 1935, after Kang Youwei’s death, but the first draft seems to have been completed in 1902 and many of its ideas started circulating even before.

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In the Book of the Great Unity, there was an asynchronous representation of human time: each nation certainly had to go through the three ages that characterize human history in general, but they went through them at different times in human history, some of them before (like the West), some others later (like China). This asynchronous perception of human history not only lay on a social-Darwinist postulate of the unequal “evolution” of different social groups, but it also represented the world as a set of contiguous nations which did not share the same historical temporality. Kang Youwei was not the only one to preach this new, “nationalized” perception of historical time. In the 1890s, Liang Qichao, still under Kang’s influence, used the same framework to interpret both national and world history. Before Liang started using European discourses to reframe Chinese historiography, as he did during his exile after the 1898 reforms, he followed the New Text framework of his master. He characterized the succession of ages as the history of the progression of wisdom: the Age of Disorder was the age of force; the Age of Ascending Peace, an age of both force and wisdom; and the Age of Great Peace, the age of triumphant wisdom (Lin 1989: 1, 14; Levenson 1953: 39). He also added, like his master, other characteristics to his typological definition of each age: the first age was that of many sovereigns, the second one was the age of one single sovereign, the third one was the “age of the people.” China had been in the age of one single sovereign for a very long time, whereas France and the United States had remained in that age for a shorter time (the second under the British crown) and had already reached the age of the people. This did not mean that part of humanity had already reached the last historical stage; he claimed that if one takes the whole of the world situation, then one gets a different picture: since each nation has its own sovereign, then the whole world has not yet been able to do away with the age of many sovereigns, that is, the Age of Disorder. The world still lived in an age in which each nation and each group only cared about its own affairs (Lin 1989: 1, 2.7–11; Levenson 1953: 40). In this way, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao shared an ambivalent discourse. On the one hand, they supported a nation-building process, and they constantly asked themselves what were the specific contributions of “China” to the world. On the other, they never forgot that humans were not inhabitants of “China,” but inhabitants of the world, of the “all under Heaven”—which they understood, unlike earlier predecessors, as a world which was not under the actual or potential rule of the Chinese emperor. Some reformers were even more universalistic than Kang Youwei or Liang Qichao, but their attitude towards Confucianism was also more ambivalent. Such was the case of Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898). Tan, a close friend of Liang Qichao, was executed right after the failure of the 1898 reforms. Before then, he was able to formulate a reform-oriented discourse without resorting to the “nation” as a primordial element of the world order. In his early writings, he resorted to Confucian and Neo-Confucian concepts to develop a systematic discourse on historical and cosmic development in which China was placed at the center of the world. In these early writings of his youth, he looked far less universalistic than Liang Qichao or Kang Youwei (Chang 1987: 67–70). But later on, when he wrote his Study of Benevolence (Renxue 仁學), he combined Confucian with Buddhist, Daoist and

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Christian notions to build a salvationist discourse beyond boundaries. His ideas are, as Chang Hao explained, reminiscent of Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1020–1077) and Wang Fuzhi’s monism based on material force (qi) and on the unity between Heaven and humanity (tianren heyi 天人合一). The cosmos is for Tan rooted in a single principle, and this principle, instead of bearing the name of “material force” (qi), is called “ether” (yitai 乙太, a phonetic translation). The paradox is that Tan’s Neo-Confucian inspirations were, to a certain extent, an explicit denial of Confucianism, not so much because he took elements from Buddhism (as Song Neo-Confucianism had done without acknowledging its debt), but because he explicitly refused a partial stance against other doctrinal contents. All the different doctrines (treated in many cases more as “religions” than as simple “doctrines”) shared a common truth. Confucianism was a partial truth that needed the complement of other “doctrines” to reach the universal one. In this case, the different terms Tan Sitong used for “Confucianism” are particularly meaningful. In a speech he gave at the Southern Study Society, Tan distinguished between the “doctrine of Kongzi” (Kongjiao) and the “school of the classicists” (rujia 儒家). The teachings of Kongzi, the “uncrowned king,” were for Tan the source of all the ancient knowledge. But later on, he claimed, different schools developed these teachings in opposite directions, and the “school of the classicists,” ru, was turned into the single heir of Kongzi’s teachings. The conclusion of these premises was clear: by recovering the original teachings of the Master, one could save the best of the ancient knowledge, whether or not it belonged to the “school of the classicists” (Tan 2006: 50–52). In this sense, what Tan called “Confucianism”/“school of the classicists” (rujia) was only partially related to Kongzi. Real Confucianism encompassed all the ancient masters, from Daoists to Mohists, and it represented the whole of the “ancient knowledge of China” (Zhongguo guxue 中國古學)

5  Kongzi, Interpreter of the Chinese Nation For Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, the “nation” was sometimes an active, sometimes a passive political actor. On the one hand, they claimed that they had to guide and, in a way, tutor the nation, which in their opinion was not yet mature enough for complete self-government; on the other, they acted in the name of the nation, as if they were representing the nation’s will. Their interpretation of Kongzi followed the same patterns. On the one hand, Kongzi was the Master and the Chinese nation his disciple, and the reformers had to interpret his teachings in order to push the nation into the path of reform; on the other, Kongzi only “expressed” the Chinese nation, and in this sense Confucian reformers were expected to hear what the nation itself, and not “their” Kongzi, had to teach them. Kongzi had been the Master of the Empire; with the reformers, he became the Master of the nation; and finally, since this Master had emerged from the “Chinese nation,” some reform-minded literati could also think that the new Master was not Kongzi, but the nation itself.

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This tension led someone like Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 (1868–1936), very close to literati reformers in the 1890s, to leave this group in the early 1900s and side with nationalist revolutionaries. Zhang, only a decade younger than Kang, was, like the latter, trained in the Confucian classics, and was thus familiar with the Confucian masters of the past. But, following the anti-Manchu tradition, he refused to serve the Qing dynasty and decided to remain politically active outside the imperial institutions. After joining the reformers for some time, and experiencing their defeat, he became increasingly persuaded that the only way of changing China was to get rid of the Manchu dynasty. In this context, he developed a racial discourse which identified the “Chinese nation” with the “Han nation”: national unity was for Zhang Binglin inseparable from the “racial” homogeneity of China (Murthy 2011: 64–69). This “racial” idea of nation enabled him not only to attack the Manchu rulers as a “foreign race,” but also to claim that the “nation” had an independent existence; it existed and could subsist even if the imperial institutions fell. Being a biological and historical unity, with its own racial lineage and its singular customs, “China” did not need any sort of political institution to provide it with clear boundaries, and it certainly did not need any ruler from a different race. China was a self-sustained unit. And this also meant it did not need a “national religion” to subsist, because the nation could worship itself. Zhang Binglin certainly gave Kongzi an important place in Chinese history, but he did not grant him the role of Master of Masters. This “demotion” of Kongzi was not only part of a discursive strategy against Kang Youwei. It actually had deeper roots. Zhang came from a family of literati who were adepts of “Han learning”; they took up the Old Text exegetical tradition, which gave Kongzi a less prominent role in the transmission of the “Confucian” classics. Following this tradition, but in a more radical way, Zhang Binglin did not see in Kongzi the most sagely among the ancient sages. Kongzi was nothing other than a good historian. He had been able to edit the classics and choose the best part of them, but he had certainly not revealed, as the New Text tradition held, any fundamental truth: the classics were themselves history, and they only revealed the hidden traditions of the Chinese nation. Zhang Binglin followed in this regard an important eighteenth century predecessor, Zhang Xuecheng 章學成 (1738–1801), whose General Principles in Letters and History (Wenshi tongyi 文史通義) started with the famous phrase that the “six classics” (including the lost Classic of Music) “are all history” (liu jing jie shi 六經皆史也). This phrase was intended to disclose the real nature of the classics, not to dismiss them; history was a highly prestigious activity, and some of the classics like the Spring and Autumn and the Documents had been considered historiographical works. But, in Zhang Binglin’s interpretation, history was national history, it was the history of the Han race, and that was the major reason why the classics and Kongzi deserved to be praised (Levenson 1968: 88–94). In the 1890s, when he was closer to literati reformers, Zhang was, in a way, a “Confucian.” At that time, he had used the “naturalist” conceptions of the Xunzi 荀 子 to counter the moral and cosmic conceptions of the Mengzi. In the Xunzi, Zhang saw a positive understanding of the role played by human desires in the production of communities; like Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921) and Liang Qichao, he drew on

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Xunzi’s idea of qun 群, “grouping,” and claimed that the ability to form groups, and to establish distinctions among people, was what differentiated men from animals. Zhang Binglin—following Yan Fu—combined this idea with social Darwinism, not only to explain the mechanisms of group formation, but also to explain racial hierarchies: in the universal struggle among races that characterized human evolution, only those races which excelled in “grouping” techniques were more fit for survival (Chang 1987: 109–112; on qun, see Jenco 2015: 151–168). Later on, he abandoned the Confucian foundations of this interpretation, and by the end of the first decade of the 1900s he became increasingly sympathetic to Buddhism and Daoism. But his actual object of reverence, the Chinese nation, kept its central role. Kongzi, Confucians and the classics became less and less the direct source of Zhang Bingling’s theoretical framework, and more and more a key element of what he and other nationalist scholars called, using a Japanese term, “national essence” (guocui 國粹): that is, the cultural heritage of the Han Chinese, which distinguished this nation-race from the other nation-races of the world (Murthy 2011: 78–86). By doing this, Zhang Binglin displaced Confucianism from its magisterial role. His single master was now the “Chinese nation,” and his mission was to preserve the “essence” of this nation. Paradoxically, during the last decade of the empire, a similar approach to Confucianism was taking place at the Imperial University (the forerunner of Beijing University). In 1898, when Liang Qichao wrote the regulations for the new university, Confucianism was placed in the first preparatory years, under the old rubrics of “classical studies” (jingxue 經學) for the study of the classics and “study of principle” (lixue 理學) for the study of neo-Confucianism. These courses were designed to be mandatory. After the failure of the 1898 reforms and the Boxer rebellion, the new regulations, established by Zhang Baixi 張百熙 (1847–1907), included Confucian writings within a mandatory three-year course called “ethics” (lunli 倫 理); and later on, when Zhang Zhidong reorganized the institutions, Confucianism migrated to the Department of Classical Studies—in charge of the “essence” (ti 體), as Zhang Zhidong saw it (Weston 2002: 99–123). In these different regulations, Confucianism was given the role of filling up the gaps left by “Western learning,” that is, all the other sciences and arts taught at the Imperial University—a university which, by combining “Chinese” with “Western” knowledge, presented itself as really “universal.” Beyond the strong differences in these institutional classifications, which in none of the cases labelled Confucianism as a “religion” or a “philosophy,” the general institutional tendency was to reduce Confucianism to a particular form of knowledge, thus putting it, involuntarily, at the same level with the other forms of knowledge offered by the newly founded university. This reduction was, like in Zhang Binglin’s case, related to the “nationalization” of Confucian knowledge. Confucianism could only find such a place because it was, in a way, only China-specific, as if it just meant everything that was not “Western.” In this institutional embodiment, Confucianism lost most of its universal pretensions of yore.

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6  The Fall of the Empire and the Exegesis of the Nation Zhang Binglin contributed to the anti-Manchuism and antimonarchism that ultimately led to the fall of the empire and to the foundation of a (very weak) Republic. The fall of the empire represented a strong blow against some of the oldest forms of Confucianism: that is, against that Confucianism which was intimately associated to the imperial monarchy, to the patriarchal conception of political power based on the “three bonds,” and, most fundamentally, to the magisterial conception of the monarch, who was expected to rule according to the teachings of the ancient “Confucian” sages. But beyond rejection or adoption, beyond reformulations, piecemeal objections or fierce attacks, the reformers and revolutionaries of the last decades of the empire had provided enough arguments to justify the recovery of Confucianism under a “national” form. The new cult, the cult of the nation, was not at all incompatible with Confucianism; it certainly forced Confucianism to change and develop new strategies, but just like Christianity and Catholicism in Europe or the Americas, some of its teachings could even be used to strengthen different versions of nation-building. In this sense, during the first decade after the fall of the empire, Confucian textual traditions still provided arguments to nationalist discourse. This is clear enough in the debates between monarchists and republicans after 1912. As expected, during Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916)’s failed restoration of the monarchy (backed by some old reform-minded scholars like Yan Fu), Confucian-­ inspired monarchical arguments reemerged. But we should not be surprised that, in tune with the nineteenth century stream of a reform-oriented Confucianism, the Confucian tradition was also invoked by the other camp, that of the Republican anti-­ monarchists. Li Dazhao 李大釗 (1889–1927), future founder of the Chinese Communist Party, is an emblematic example. In a famous text he wrote some months after Yuan Shikai’s restoration, “The Standards of the People and Politics” (“Minyi yu zhengzhi 民彝與政治,” 1916), he makes an exegesis of the Confucian classics to build an opposition between the “standards of the people” (minyi 民彝) which corresponded to the traditional standards of the Chinese nation, and the “standards of the ancestors” (zongyi 宗彝) which corresponded to dynastic rule. The standards of the people—an expression he took from the Confucian classics— cannot be usurped, because they are the expression of the spontaneous nature of the people; but the standards of the ancestors can and have been stolen many times in history, because they only express the selfish standards of ruling families, who not only steal political power from other families, but also, in a way, from the people itself. This exegetical interpretation of the classics was thus combined with both republicanism (a republic was, in Li Dazhao’s opinion, the only form of constitution that could express the standards of the people) and a political liberalism directly inspired from the writings of John Stuart Mill (Li 1959: 36–57). Such a radical republican interpretation of the Confucian classics cannot be seen as a form of nostalgic appropriation of a dead doctrine. On the contrary, everything in the article points to a natural combination between a form of—so to speak— “populist liberalism” and some living elements of the Confucian tradition of

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classical exegesis. The text is written in classical Chinese, takes its notions from the classics, and interprets them by employing the old exegetical methods of philological commentary. Li Dazhao thus follows to a certain extent Zhang Binglin, not so much by emphasizing the racial character of the nation, but by conceiving of the nation as a master to itself. The classics are, in a way, the voice of the nation; and just like former Confucian literati found in the classics the expression of the wisdom of the ancient master-sages, Li Dazhao found in them the expression of the wisdom of the master-nation. Before he adopted more radical views, Li Dazhao also ascribed to the Confucian tradition a relatively positive role in the “Eastern civilization.” The concept of “civilization”—another nineteenth-century concept to classify the world population into different cultural and historical entities—was indeed at the core of some New Culture debates. In these debates, there were more moderate and more radical points of view. The more moderate ones, though persuaded that the East should adopt some civilizational elements from of the West, saw in Confucianism a possible supplement against the flaws that led the West into the First World War. Others, like Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942), rejected Confucianism and called for a total “Westernization” of China (Jenco 2015: 169–187). Li Dazhao, like other intellectuals, held a moderate position. He thought that the “quietist” inclinations of the Eastern civilizations, some of them due to Confucian ethics, could eventually supply the “active” Western civilization with the necessary tools to avoid large-scale wars (Jenco 2015: 174–178). In this sense, he seemed to see in the Confucian heritage a fertile soil for the development of the best things imported from the West, and therefore a national contribution to a future blending of the East and the West into a “third civilization” (Jenco 2015: 176)

7  T  he Nation Against the Master and Confucianism as “Philosophy” By this time, among some radical intellectuals, it seemed as if Confucianism had to prove that it deserved to be part of China. For many of this generation, China was not essentially “Confucian”; China was a self-standing nation which should rely on its own forces to save itself, and not on a monarch or on a particular “doctrine.” In this context, if Confucianism had something to offer, then China should certainly keep it; but if it did not have any use, why should China stick to it? If China had been able to produce Kongzi and other sages, why couldn’t it now produce new masters? Confucianism suddenly started looking archaic. And just as Li Dazhao had found in some elements of the Confucian tradition an antimonarchical discourse, others, like Li Dazhao himself, did not take too long to acknowledge that the teachings of the ancient Master were inescapably tied to the “old,” to monarchism, to social hierarchies and eventually to everything that prevented China from going forward. For this reason, some major figures of the “New Culture movement” attempted to do away with Confucianism. Precisely because some of them saw in it

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not just a source of practical teachings about life, but a relatively closed and identifiable system of thought, they turned the Confucian “shop” (as many New Culture figures sarcastically called the doctrine) into the main enemy of Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy—these two new “saviors” of the Chinese nation that the figurative rhetoric of Chen Duxiu managed to establish as the metaphoric leaders of their movement. The Chinese nation did not need to cherish its own past to impose itself as a nation. It just needed to adopt what made it go forward. The “philosophical turn” of Confucianism, at least among New Culture intellectuals, should be placed within this context. Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) 蔡元培, one protagonist of the New Culture movement, considered that Confucianism should be taught together with other “philosophical traditions,” both Chinese and Western (Weston 2004: 81). Confucianism was no longer coincident with the “essence,” as it had been in Zhang Zhidong’s writings; it was just one tradition among others, and was thus taken into account within the framework of modern pluralism and academic freedom. Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962), another member of the movement, made a similar attempt in his Outline History of Ancient Chinese philosophy (Zhongguo zhexue shi dagang 中國哲學史大綱) (the first history of “Chinese philosophy” in Chinese), where Confucianism shared a “philosophical” status with Daoism and Mohism. All of a sudden, it seemed possible to portray Confucianism as a philosophical “opinion.” This portrait was certainly related to the genre of “history of philosophy” (zhexue shi 哲學史), which tended then (as it tends now) to present the lessons of ancient masters as scholastically conceived exchanges of arguments; but it was also grounded in the idea that “Confucianism” was nothing else than that, a philosophical opinion, and as such it could be criticized as a “wrong” opinion. Piecemeal exegesis of Confucian texts, like in the above mentioned text by Li Dazhao, could have infused Confucian elements even into Mr. Democracy. But the most radical representatives of the New Culture movement refused to grant this privilege to Confucianism: the nation had to transform itself completely, break with the past, and for that reason it needed to identify the “Mr.” that was on the side of the “new” (xin 新) and the “Mr.” that was on the side of the “old” (jiu 舊). Confucianism definitely was on the side of the “old.” However, the reduction of the Confucian “shop” to a particular philosophy did not have only negative effects on Confucianism. The “Doctrine” certainly suffered; the other form of reduction, “religion,” had at least granted Confucianism a more fundamental role in the history of humanity. But the use of the label “philosophy” was also a way of dignifying it as a constitutive part of the national past. If, as Hu Shi claimed, there were two branches of philosophy, the Western and the Eastern one—the Western corresponding to the Greek and the Mosaic philosophical traditions and the Eastern to the Indian and Chinese traditions—then Confucianism suddenly had the status of one of the major world philosophies, and China was in that sense a “philosophical” nation—an important mark of civilizational distinction, for there were nations without philosophy. If Confucianism was just a “religion,” radical intellectuals could only see in it a pure fiction to justify patriarchal oppression; but if it was a philosophy, the ancestor of “science,” then Confucianism was acknowledged as an old doctrine with a “rational” content, and, in some particular

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philosophical problems, it could even offer some inspiration. In this sense, taken as a “philosophy,” or, better, as a constitutive part of the “history of philosophy,” Confucianism could still arouse some sympathy among New Culture and May Fourth activists. Hu Shi is a perfect example of this sympathetic attitude towards Confucianism. In different writings after the 1920s, he didn’t hesitate to underscore two “scientific” moments of the Confucian tradition. The first one was Neo-Confucian philosophy, which had advocated the proto-scientific principle of the “investigation of things” (gewu 格物). In his opinion, the Neo-Confucians had led a major fight against the “Indianization of China”—that is, against the irrational speculations that Buddhism had brought from India into Chinese soil—, but they had not been able escape a religious vision of the world: their blind veneration of the classics and their search of some form of “enlightenment” had prevented their scientific impulse to develop. The second moment was the “Han learning” in the eighteenth century, which, in its philological studies of the ancient classics, had followed a scientific rationality. Hu Shi claimed that the bold hypotheses of Han learning and its careful use of textual evidence had foreshadowed his own personal interest in “arranging the national heritage” (zhengli guogu 整理國故) (Grieder 1970: 163–166). It is true that Hu Shi, like many of his radical fellows, only assessed the value of Confucianism in the light of a European model of scientific development. However, this positive attitude opened new possibilities of interpretation and contributed to reshape Confucianism into a “national heritage.” “Philosophy,” “religion:” in only some decades between the late 19th and early th 20 centuries, Confucianism’s face had completely changed. Did this mean that the era of Confucianism was over? Not at all: the ensuing chapters of the present book are a proof of the contrary. It is true that the idea of “nation” struck Confucianism a strong blow, as Levenson already explained in the 1960s. But this blow was not a deadly one. Although Kongzi and the ancient sages ceased to be the Masters of Chinese political institutions, their teachings proved to be compatible with nation-­ building and, to a certain extent, facilitated that process; and even if the idea of “nation” was in some cases turned against it, Confucianism remained an available resource. We can still see it in our days: the Confucian shop has been crafty enough to keep its sales up.

References Chang, Hao. 1987. Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890–1911). Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (A classical study on four key figures of late 19th and early 20th century China: Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, Zhang Binglin and Liu Shipei.) Cheng, Anne. 1997. “Nationalism, Citizenship and the Old Text/New Text Controversy Late Nineteenth Century China.” In J.  Fogel and P.  Zarrow, eds., Imagining the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890–1911, Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 61–81. (On the reform-minded tradition of New Text Confucianism in late imperial times.)

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Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (On the Qing dynasty’s incorporation of different political traditions and the way it shaped imperial identities.) Elliott, Mark. 2001. The Manchu Way. The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (On the history of the Eight Banners and Manchu identity in Qing China, especially regarding economic, social, and administrative structures.) Ge, Zhaoguang 葛兆光. 2011. Here in China I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses on “China” for Our Time宅茲中國: 重建有關 ‘中國’ 的歷史論述 . Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. (On the historical narratives about the concept of “China”) Goossaert, Vincent, and Palmer, David. 2011. The Religious Question in Modern China, Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press. (A history of the relation between religion and political power in China from the end of the 19th century until the present.) Grieder, Jerome. 1970. Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. (A monograph on Hu Shi intellectual and political trajectory, and more generally a historical discussion on Chinese liberalism and on what Hu Shi himself called the “Chinese renaissance.”) Hevia, James. 1995. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham: Duke University Press. (A historical and anthropological analysis on how the Qing court officials understood the Macartney Embassy.) Ho, Ping-ti. 1998. “In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Renvisioning other Qing’.” Journal of Asian Studies 57 (1), 123–155. (Ho Ping-ti’s defense of the “sinicization” hypothesis against the “New Qing history.”) Jenco, Leigh. 2015. Changing Referents. Learning across Space and Time in China and the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (On the debates about “Western learning” in late 19th and early 20th century China.) Kang, Youwei. 1981. Collection of Kang Youwei’s Political Essays康有為政論集, ed. by Tang Zhijun 湯志鈞. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. ———. 2006. Complete works of Kang Youwei康有為全集, ed. by Jiang Yihua 姜義華et al. Beijing, Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 12 vols. Kern, Martin, and Hunter, Michael (eds.), Confucius and the Analects Revisited: New Perspectives on Composition, Dating and Authorship, Leiden: Brill, 2018. (A critical reassessment of the history of the Analects from historical, philosophical and literary perspectives.) Kuo, Yapei. 2009. “The Emperor and the People in One Body”: The Worship of Confucius and Ritual Planning in the Xinzheng Reforms, 1902–1911.” Modern China 35 (2), 123–154. ———. 2013. “Christian Civilization and the Confucian Church: The Origins of Secularist Politics in Modern China.” Past and Present 218, 235–264. Levenson, Joseph. 1953. Liang Ch’i-Ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. (A history of Liang Qichao’s thought, and especially on what Levenson considers as Liang’s main question: “how can a China in full process of westernization feel equivalent to the West.”) ———. 1968. Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press. (An intellectual history on the fate of Confucianism in modern China.) Lin, Zhijun 林志鈞 (ed.). 1989. Collected Essays from the Ice-Drinker Studio飲冰室合集. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 12 vols. (Collection of Liang Qichao’s works.) Li, Dazhao. 1959. “The Standards of the People and Politics民彝與政治.” In Li Dazhao’s Selected Writings 李大釗選集. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. Makeham, John. 2010. “Introduction.” In J.  Makeham, ed., Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy, Dordrecht; Heidelberg; London; New York: Springer. (Introductory essay on the basic concepts of Neo-Confucian Philosophy.) Murata, Yujiro. 1997. “Dynasty, State, and Society: The Case of Modern China.” In Joshua Fogel and Peter Zarrow, eds., Imagining the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890–1911, Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 113–141. (On the changing concepts of the state and the nation in late Qing China.)

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Murthy, Viren. 2011. The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan, Leiden: Brill. (Monograph on Zhang Taiyan’s political thought, and more generally on his intellectual explorations of an alternative modernity.) Nylan, Michael. 2001. The Five « Confucian » Classics, New Haven – London: Yale University Press. (A history of the five major “Confucian” classics in China since pre-imperial times until the 20th century.) Rawski, Evelyn. 1998. The Last Emperors. A Social history of Qing Imperial Institutions. Berkeley-­ Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (On how the Qing dynasty’s political success derived from its combination of Manchu forms of leadership with Han Chinese traditions.) Tan, Sitong 譚嗣同. 2006 [1898]. “The Circuit Administrator Tan Sitong’s second lecture at the Society of Southern Learning譚復生觀察南學會第二次講義” (Xiangbao, no 7, 25–26), in Xiangbao baoguan (ed.), Xiangbao, 2006, 50–52. (coll. Zhongguo jindai qikan huikan). Wang, Hui 汪暉. 2004. The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought現代中國思想的興起. Beijing: Sanlian shudian. (A genealogy of modern Chinese thought and of China’s own form of “modernity.”) Weston, Timothy. 2002. “The Founding of the Imperial University and the Emergence of Chinese Modernity.” In Rebecca Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Political and Cultural Heritage in Late Qing China. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898–1929, Berkeley -Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (On the history of Beijing University and its role in shaping the intellectuals’ political commitments.) Zarrow, Peter. 2012. After Empire: The Conceptual Transformation of the Chinese State, Stanford: Stanford University Press. (A conceptual history of the State in late imperial and Republican China.)

Ma Yifu’s Theory of the Virtue of (Human) Nature and the Six Arts Leheng Liu

1  Introduction Among the contemporary New Confucian thinkers, Ma Yifu 馬一浮 (1883–1968) was a very unique figure. He visited and studied in the U.S. and Japan in his early years, where he came into contact with Western ideas; after returning to China, however, he followed Chinese traditional research methods to study “National Learning” (guoxue 國學) intensively. Besides, he paid special attention to the issue of cultivating the mind and human nature and cared nothing for building a systematic philosophy. The textual materials left by him are mainly records of his lectures, letters, recorded sayings, and classical poems. Apart from these, he is not a “typical” Confucian either. He spent most of his life in seclusion; he was a “hermit” in Chinese intellectual circles. And most importantly, Ma Yifu claimed that there are no substantial differences between Confucianism and Buddhism. All these mentioned above create difficulty for us to determine Ma Yifu’s philosophical characteristics. Perhaps because of this reason, Ma Yifu’s thought was not often integrated in some research projects on New Confucianism.1 This, however, does not mean that his thought is not important. His philosophy relates closely to the contemporary New Confucian movement. His philosophical system is somewhat similar to that of Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), an important representative and one of the founders of New Confucianism. In a sense, Xiong Shili in his early years was somewhat inspired and influenced by Ma Yifu’s thought (Li 2009: 93–98; Liu 2014: 163–178). And Ma often exchanged views with Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988), another founder of New Confucianism. Moreover,

1  For example, Liu Shu-Hsien notes: “Since the first generation [New Confucian] Ma Yifu had no immense influence, we temporarily leave aside his thought.” (Liu 2008: 193)

L. Liu (*) School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_3

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in this chapter, I will show that Ma’s philosophy of culture also inspired Tang Junyi (1909–1978), a leading representative of second generation New Confucianism. Therefore, if we want to comprehend New Confucianism fully, we cannot ignore Ma Yifu. Accordingly, this chapter begins with an account of Ma Yifu’s life and his spiritual course. Then it will turn to discuss Ma’s views on the relation between Confucianism and Buddhism, showing that he tried to integrate Confucian and Buddhist doctrines through the perspective of the “virtue of (human) nature” (xingde 性德). And then it will demonstrate how Ma Yifu, on the basis of the virtue of nature, established his New Confucian thought, namely, the “Theory of the Six Arts” (liu yi lun六藝論). Finally, the chapter will also address the problems in Ma Yifu’s thought concerning the Six Arts and share my responses to these problems.

2  A Confucian Hermit Ma Yifu was named Fu 浮. His courtesy name was Yifu一浮, which is how he is generally known. From childhood, Ma Yifu was interested in literature. When he was four years old, his first teacher asked him what his favorite line of Tang poetry was. He replied without hesitation that it was “Visiting a lone monk in a hut” from a poem by Li Shangyin 李商隱 (813–858). The teacher remarked with astonishment to his father, “Is this child going to be a monk?” (Ma 2013: 1:630). And when he was nine years old, his mother one day pointed to the chrysanthemums and asked him to compose a poem about the flowers; he finished it without any consideration: I love Tao Yuanliang;2 He enjoyed plucking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence. All the branches brave the frost and snow; All the petals are expanding, just like clouds and sunset. They were originally cultivated by immortals; And now they have been transplanted to seclusions of the hermits. At dawn, I feed on [the blossoms], which are cleaner in the autumn; I need not admire [eating] the sesame [to achieve immortality]. (Ma 2013: 2:1044)

The poem embodies Ma Yifu’s appreciation during his boyhood of the spirit of eremitism. To be sure, for a child, this appreciation is mostly an inclination, rather than a conscious ideal rooted in the heart-mind or subjectivity of the individual. And in his youth, with strong aversion to the despotic Qing regime, Ma Yifu gradually took a clear-cut stand against the Qing government, supporting democratic revolution. In 1903, he accepted the offer from the embassy of the Qing government in the United States and later worked as a secretary in St. Louis to help the embassy participate in the international exposition. Holding the ideals of democracy and 2  Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (365?–427), also known as Tao Qian 陶潛or Tao Yuanliang 陶元亮, was a famous Chinese poet whose poems represent a Daoist style.

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republicanism, he extensively read Western classics in the fields of politics, philosophy, and literature, looking for the spiritual basis for democracy and liberalism. During his stay in the United States, he completely lost confidence in the Qing government. During his stay in the US, Ma Yifu did not develop any specific philosophical system of his own. In 1904, he went to Japan and continued to study and translate philosophical and literary works from the West. Then he came back to China in 1905. After returning from abroad, however, he did not pay close attention to Western thought anymore; nor did he have sufficient incentive to investigate the issue of democratization in China. Instead, he was fully immersed in traditional Chinese culture. The reason that Ma Yifu changed his research focus, in my view, was probably that his driving force to study Eastern and Western cultures was to find the “true” meaning of life. The Western thought that he knew could not ease and overcome his “crisis of meaning.” And eventually his appreciation of the spirit of eremitism prompted him, consciously or unconsciously, to addressed this issue through deeply studying and comprehending Eastern traditional thought. Of course, Ma Yifu’s approval of the spirit of modern democracy, liberty, and republicanism, and his hatred for autocratic monarchy in his early years did not pose any obstruction for him to embrace Eastern cultural traditions; rather, this made him a “modern new Confucian.” While studying Chinese traditional culture, Ma Yifu gradually entered the spiritual realm of Buddhism. There are several reasons. First, in the late Qing and early Republican intellectual world, there were many followers of Buddhism; the monk-­ scholars and some scholarly laymen’s promotion of Buddhist doctrines also influenced the whole intellectual circle. Second, Ma’s temperament and his appreciation of hermits made Buddhism attractive to him. Third, and probably most importantly, his family had been struck by tragedies again and again. While he was still young, Ma’s mother, father, second sister, and wife passed away one after another. These unfortunate life experiences gave him a deep sensitivity towards suffering and impermanence, and prompted him to study Buddhist philosophy. Probably in 1908, he made up his mind to research Buddhist doctrines systematically.3 He was then associated with important figures in Chinese Buddhist circle such as Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911), Yuexia 月霞 (1858–1917) and Li Shutong 李叔同 (1880–1942). During 1908–1917, his Buddhist thought was mainly influenced by the doctrines of the School of Emptiness, Tiantai, and Huayan. In order to comprehend and carry forward the spirit of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Ma advocated forming the Prajñā Association (Borehui 般若會) in 1914. He then gave lectures on the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith (Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論) to Buddhist intellectuals in Zhejiang Province. We can say that, from 1908 to 1917, Ma Yifu concentrated his efforts in studying Buddhism.

 In 1908, in a letter to his friend Xie Wuliang 謝無量(1884–1964), Ma Yifu expressed that he had already made up his mind to believe in Buddhism and study Buddhist doctrinces (Ma 2013: 2:297).

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During this period, however, Ma Yifu did not closely relate the spiritual world of Buddhism to his inner heart-mind. And during 1917–1918, after studying Chan Buddhism, he suddenly realized that the spirit of Buddhism is deeply rooted in one’s own mind. Therefore, he understood that the ultimate aim of Mahāyāna Buddhism is to convince the people to return to their authentic selves. According to the following recorded sayings of Ma Yifu, we know that he was enlightened by Chu Quan 楚泉, a Chan Buddhist monk, in about 1917–1918: At that time, I believed scriptural teachings (jiao 教) and was doubtful of Chan, knowing nothing about the meaning of stick and shout (bang he 棒喝).4 Chu Quan said to me one day, “There is nothing wrong with what you interpret. But the Tiantai teaching that you interpret is Zhizhe’s [teaching]5, the Huayan teaching that you interpret is Xianshou and Qingliang’s [teaching], the Yogācāra teaching that you interpret is Xuanzang and Kuiji’s [teaching], [the thoughts of] Kongzi and Mengzi that you interpret are Kongzi and Mengzi’s [thoughts], [the thoughts of] the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming that you interpret are Cheng, Zhu, Lu and Wang’s [thoughts] – None of them are yours.” His words touched me on the raw at that time, making me bright and open. I have never forgotten [his words]. (Ma 2013: 1:691–692)

Chu Quan’s words made him eventually realized that the doctrines of Buddhism flow out from the heart-mind of the inner self. Therefore, to study Buddhism is to explore one’s own heart-mind. It may be said that this was Ma Yifu’s first “great awakening” (wu dao 悟道). Since then, Ma gained a new perspective on Buddhism; and from that time on, he specially emphasized that “Chan is a conventional name (xianming 閑名), and we may well put it in mothballs; the nature is real virtue, and we must be aware of it by ourselves” (Ma 2013: 2:366). After several years, Ma Yifu achieved his second “great awakening,” from which he finally realized that both the doctrines of Buddhism and Confucianism flow out from the mind and the human nature, and that the doctrines of Confucianism are superior to that of Buddhism. According to his comprehension, in order to achieve liberation, some Buddhist schools (especially the “Hīnayāna” or the “Lesser Vehicle” teachings) take a negative attitude to human life and ethics; by contrast, Confucian teachings hold that moral cultivation and ethical practices are the right ways to comprehend the mind fully and know the nature (jinxin zhi xing 盡心知性). In Ma’s view, the Confucian approach can give us a more basic stance on the meaning of human existence (Ma 2013: 1:533). Therefore, he determined to intensively study Confucian classics during his lifetime. For him, the Confucian canon is made up of the “Six Arts” (liuyi 六藝) or the “Six Classics” (liujing 六經), namely, the Book of Odes, the Book of Documents, the Book of Rites, the Book of Music, the Book of Change and the Spring and Autumn Annals.6 He believed that the Six Arts

4  In Chan circle, students often receive a blow with a stick or a yell by the masters so that they can reach sudden awakening. 5  Zhizhe 智者 is another name of Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597), the founder of the Tiantai tradition of Buddhism in China. 6  It is known that the Book of Music has been lost for about 2000 years. But Ma Yifu paid no attention to the specific content of the text and mainly addressed the spirit of music in Confucianism.

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were Kongzi’s own teachings and they were well elucidated by Kongzi himself. In a letter to his friend Ye Zuowen 葉左文 (1886–1966), Ma Yifu wrote: “Honestly I had turned away from Buddhist Scripture Learning (yixue 義學) and Chan Learning (chanxue 禪學), and returned to seek the Way in the Six Classics” (Ma 2013: 2:390).7 According to my textual research, by 1927 at the latest, Ma Yifu had definitely started to view the Confucian doctrines as the essentials of his life meaning. In a letter to Jin Rongjing 金蓉鏡 (1855–1929) in 1927, he wrote, The sacred writings in India are like verses and rhapsodies, using gorgeous words to analyze [Buddhist] doctrines. Therefore, [Buddhist teachings] often lose [some essentials of truth] because of their extravagant expressions; so they are inferior to the brief and simple words of the sages in China. This is the reason that Confucians such as Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi finally sought [the Way] in the Six Classics, after their contemplation [in the Buddhist spiritual world] for a long time. … I haven’t talked about this issue over the years; and the [Buddhist] books have long been put in mothballs. I still want to study intensively the Six Arts during my lifetime, finding the ancient sages’ way that has been lost, and returning my teachers and friends’ great expectations. (Ma 2013: 2:438)

After his second “great awakening,” Ma Yifu devoted himself to study the Six Arts and tried to relate the doctrines of the Six Arts to the mind and (human) nature (xinxing 心性) of the inner self.8 According to Ma, the Confucian Six Arts have the characteristics of transcendence and vitality. The Six Arts flow out from the mind and nature. The Six Arts are like undying trees, because the human mind will not vanish. Ma Yifu spent about ten years to tackle this issue and finally put forward his “Theory of the Six Arts.” Here it should be noted that, while already adopting the Confucian understanding of the meaning of life, Ma Yifu didn’t completely give up carrying on research on Buddhism. In his view, it is true that some Buddhist sects have a negative attitude about human life and the mundane world, but this is not the core of Buddhism. The core spirit of Buddhism should be “seeing the nature (jianxing 見性).” Both Confucianism and Buddhism are learnings of “seeing the nature”; they share one common source. Meanwhile, deeply influenced by Chan Buddhism, Ma held that “Buddhism” and “Confucianism” are merely expedient names. In his mind, the ultimate purports of these two schools are the same. In addition, his understanding of Buddhism and his preference for the spirit of eremitism promoted each other,

7  The term “Buddhist Scripture Learning” (yixue 義學) was coined by Ma Yifu. According to him, the Mahāyāna Buddhism can be divided into two approaches: the approach of “Buddhist Scripture Learning,” which aims at revealing Buddhist doctrines through systematical interpretations and analysis of Buddhist scriptures, and the approach of “Chan,” which mainly focuses on seeing the nature of the inner self through meditation rather than complicated analysis of Buddhist scriptures (Ma 2013: 1:589–597). 8  The “mind and nature” is a term widely used and extensively discussed in Eastern traditions, especially Confucianism, Daosim and Buddhism. The essence of the mind-nature philosophy in the East, as I understand it, is to view the inherent mind of the self, and the nature of the inherent mind, as the basis of the meaning of life. The term of “nature” (xing 性) here can have broad implications; but it can be roughly understood as the origin and the function of the inherent mind. Therefore, the “nature” here belongs to the human nature.

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forming his unique image: a Confucian hermit. This philosophical image enriches our understanding of Confucianism. Confucian hermits were not uncommon in history; a representative example is Yan Hui (c.521–481 BC), the favorite disciple of Kongzi. However, living in seclusion, for Yan Hui, is a way to practice Confucian principles and comprehend humanity; whereas Ma Yifu’s preference for seclusion is more like an ideal pursuit, which tries to find out the “overlapping consensus” between the spirit of eremitism and Confucian philosophy. In the period from 1927 to 1937, Ma Yifu lived a somewhat secluded life in Hangzhou, devoting himself to comprehending Confucian doctrines and developing his philosophical thought. During this process, he declined invitations from Peking University and Zhejiang University to be a professor. In 1937, the Sino-Japanese War broke out. Japanese invaders attacked and bombed the city of Hangzhou, where Ma Yifu lived. With nowhere else to turn, he joined the faculty of Zhejiang University, which had been moving westward to avoid the invaders, and gave the students a series of lectures on “National Learning.” In this process, he published the Conversations in Taihe (Taihe huiyu 泰和會語) and Conversations in Yishan (Yishan huiyu 宜山會語), both of which are the transcripts of his lectures. In Conversations in Taihe, Ma Yifu systematically expounds his thoughts of the Six Arts; and in Conversations in Yishan, he focuses on how to comprehend and practice the Way of the Six Arts through self-cultivation. When Ma Yifu taught at Zhejiang University, his friends and disciples persuaded him to establish a traditional-style institute in order to promote the spirit of the Six Arts. At the beginning, he had some reservations concerning this suggestion. In the meantime, the Nationalist government pledged its support to Ma Yifu for political purposes and permitted him to express his academic opinions freely. Under such background, Ma Yifu established the Fuxing Academy (Fuxing shuyuan 復性書院; literally “the Academy of Recovering the Human Nature”) in 1939 in the southwestern city of Leshan. Meanwhile, he successfully invited his academic friends such as Xiong Shili and He Changqun 賀昌群(1903–1973) to teach at Fuxing Academy. After joining the academy as a founder-member, Xiong Shili found himself in opposition to Ma Yifu on issues like the nature of the academy, educational philosophy, and so on. These two New Confucian founders exchanged in-depth views and, unfortunately, they failed to reach a mutual understanding. Eventually, Xiong Shili and He Changqun left the academy and Ma Yifu had to support the academy himself. In 1941, because of the mistrust from the government, and the failure of his educational program, Ma Yifu stopped his educational activities and concentrated his efforts on editing and printing the Confucian classics. In 1946, one year after the end of the war, the academy was moved to Hangzhou from Leshan. But soon, for a variety of reasons, the academy was finally disbanded. During his teaching at the academy, Ma Yifu published the Records of Lectures in the Fuxing Academy (Fuxing shuyuan jianglu 復性書院講錄). In this book, he further elaborates his theory of the Six Arts through discussing concrete Confucian classical texts. At the same time, he also published the Questions and Answers at Eryatai (Eryatai dawen 爾雅台答問), which is supplementary to the Records of Lectures in the Fuxing Academy.

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After returning to Hangzhou, Ma Yifu lived a secluded life again. In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party seized political power in China. In the following years, Ma Yifu firmly insisted on his philosophical stance and wrote allusive poems to criticize Communist ideology. In 1966, the notorious “Cultural Revolution” broke out; Ma’s residence was destroyed by the Red Guards. Reluctantly, he lived in another place in Hangzhou to avoid the political disaster. Knowing that he was going to die, he left a poem as the final farewell to the world: Driven by transforming forces, where am I going? In void and emptiness, I will go wherever I wish. My image and spirit freely condense and disperse; My seeing and hearing lose their functions and are always in a profoundly calm state. All the floating bubbles have ceased and returned to the ocean; All the branches have been covered with blossoms. Approaching the cliff, I wave farewell; The sun has been setting behind Yanzi Mountain. (Ma 2013: 3:617)

Ma Yifu was not only a philosophical thinker, he was also a distinguished poet. In a sense, this poem can embody his hermit personality and reveal his philosophical thought. It is true that Ma Yifu is a Confucian; however, in his spiritual world, the meanings of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism are interlaced and interpenetrated. “Confucian,” “Buddha” and “Dao” are expedient names; only the virtue of nature in the heart-mind is immortal. With his firm belief in the virtue of nature and the Way of the Six Arts, Ma Yifu left this world without any regret in 1967.

3  T  he Virtue of (Human) Nature: Cornerstone of Ma Yifu’s New Confucian Philosophy The “Theory of the Six Arts” is generally accepted as Ma Yifu’s philosophical system. According to Ma, the Way of the Six Arts embodies the mind and nature of the inner self. He emphasized that “the reality of the Six Arts is exactly the doctrines intrinsically contained in our own mind” (Ma 2013: 1:44). Therefore, if we want to understand Ma Yifu’s theory of the Six Arts, we first need to investigate his views on “mind and (human) nature” (xinxing 心性). In fact, different schools in Eastern traditions have different standpoints on the issue of “mind and nature.” As a New Confucian, Ma Yifu mainly believed in Confucian mind-nature. He held that Kongzi’s philosophy of humaneness or benevolence (ren 仁), Mengzi’s doctrines of mind and nature, and Song-Ming Neo-­ Confucianism can represent the core of Confucian mind-nature. And Ma Yifu also had in-depth study of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. However, there are many schools in the tradition of Neo-Confucianism, such as Cheng-Zhu School (or School of Pattern lixue 理學), Lu-Wang School (or School of Mind xinxue 心學) and the School of Vital Forces (qixue 氣學) as well. We need to ask: which school does Ma Yifu’s New Confucian thought belong to? There are three points of view: (1) Ma intentionally blurred the distinction between Cheng-Zhu and Lu-Wang, ignoring

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their differences (Teng 2001: 253–254); (2) Ma’s thought belongs to the Lu-Wang School because it emphasizes the dimension of “inherent mind” (benxin 本心), which is the key concept of this school (Yang 1994: 21–55); (3) Ma’s thought belongs to the Cheng-Zhu School because the basic structure of Ma’s philosophy is “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” (xin tong xin qing 心統 性情), which is the central thesis of the Cheng-Zhu School (Lin 1985: 38–45). The third point of view, as I understand it, is the most reasonable one, because Ma Yifu fully accepted the thesis that “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” and criticized the key idea of the Lu-Wang school that “the mind is pattern” (xin ji li 心即理) (see Ma 2013: 1:540). But on this basis, I want to make some amendments to this point of view: (1) Ma Yifu believed that his theory of the mind and nature can not only integrate Cheng-Zhu and Lu-Wang in Neo-Confucianism, it can also integrate Confucianism and Buddhism. Hence, Ma Yifu’s New Confucian philosophy is not merely another version of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. (2) On the basis of the above, Ma Yifu inclined to demonstrate his theory of the mind and nature through interpreting the central theses of the Cheng-Zhu school. How, then, should we understand Ma Yifu’s theory of the mind and nature? According to my research, Ma Yifu’s philosophy is based on comprehending and practicing the “virtue of (human) nature” (xingde 性德). In his view, the concept of “the virtue of nature,” as the cornerstone of his philosophy, is another expression of Kongzi’s “humaneness,” Mengzi’s “humane mind” and the concept of “nature and pattern (xingli 性理),” “inherent mind” and “innate knowing” (liangzhi 良知) in the Neo-Confucian tradition. But compared with traditional Confucian thought, Ma’s interpretation of the virtue of nature emphasizes the following two points. First, he pointed out that the virtue of nature contains different kinds of virtues, which form a mutually inclusive structure. In other words, these virtues together constitute a “web” of the meaning of life and existence. He said, Humaneness is the general characteristic of the virtues. When it opens as two aspects, these are humaneness and wisdom, or humaneness and righteousness. When it opens as three aspects, these are wisdom, humaneness, and courage. When it opens as four aspects, these are humaneness, righteousness, ritual propriety and wisdom. When it opens as five aspects, then living up to one’s word is added to the list. When it opens up as six aspects, these are wisdom, humaneness, sagacity, righteousness, centrality, and harmony. When this process continues ad infinitum, these aspects can be called the myriad virtues, and they are unified by humaneness. (Ma 2013: 1:99) (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham)

In fact, ancient Confucian scholars and Ma Yifu shared similar views on the meaning of “virtue” and “nature.” But Ma went further than his predecessors, because he creatively and intentionally borrowed the doctrines of Huayan Buddhism—such as “the perfect interpenetration of the six characteristics of conditioned phenomena” (liu xiang yuanrong六相圓融) and “the one true dharma realm” (yizhen fajie 一真法界)—to reveal the hidden meaning of the virtue(s) of nature. He explained: “The six characteristics are: general, specific, sameness, difference, formation and disintegration. The ‘general characteristic’ means that one virtue includes numerous virtues; the ‘specific characteristic’ means that numerous virtues differ from one another. The specific relies on the general, without which there is no

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specific; [the general] is formed by the specific, without which there is no general.” (Ma 2013: 4:6) Inspired by the doctrines of Huayan, Ma broadly interpreted the meanings of the virtue(s) of nature in a new way. Second, I need to emphasize that, in Ma’s view, the teachings of Confucianism and Buddhism share a common source, and this source is “seeing the nature” (jianxing 見性). Since both Confucianism and Buddhism are capable of seeing the nature, then it is possible to integrate them. This is strikingly different from Song-Ming Neo-Confucians’ view on the relation between Buddhism and Confucianism. Ma Yifu said: “‘Confucianism’ and ‘Chan’ are both human stipulations, but the nature and the Way are true realization” (Ma 2013: 2:25). “In truth, Confucianism, Buddhism, the Duke of Zhou, and Kongzi are all conventional names; without awakening, they are all but dross” (Ma 2013: 1:664). In order to fully comprehend the above view, we need to realize how Ma Yifu understood the “virtue of nature.” According to my investigation, we can see that Ma especially emphasized that the virtue of nature has the quality of “independence” (wudaixing 無待性), “intrinsicality” (benjuxing本具性) and it is “without falsehood” (wuwangxing 無妄性). The term “independence” refers to an attainment that manifests the virtue of the nature when one’s mind is without anything to which it stands in contrast, is without attachment, and without conditional limitations. Ma Yifu said, “It must be understood that that which stands in contrast to something else is a conditionally originated dharma and is without self-nature. Therefore, its change and cessation depend upon conditions. Self-nature is not a conditionally originated dharma, and so is without dependence; it is not generated as conditions arise, and it does not cease as conditions are removed” (Ma 2013: 1:563). “Intrinsicality” refers to the notion that the virtues of the nature are the true characteristic of dharmas (zhufa shixiang 諸法實相; that is, suchness) and are so of themselves—they do not require prearrangement, conceptualization, design, or reification in order to be. He said: “The capacity of our human nature is intrinsically immense and has always intrinsically been replete with its own virtues. Accordingly, the Way of the Six Arts flows out of these virtues of the nature as a matter of course, and apart from the nature there is no Way…. all are intrinsically in our own mind” (Ma 2013: 1:15). “Without falsehood” refers to the notion that the virtue of the nature is exclusively true and not false; it is the true characteristic of the mind. Due to the action of deluded habituated tendencies on the human mind, however, the mind might be prevented from showing its true characteristics. Based on this, we need to differentiate the true and false aspects of the mind. According to Ma Yifu, the inherent mind is intrinsic reality, which is utterly sincere, authentic, and not false. The mind has falsehood because it cannot find its inherent sincerity. He said, “No falsehood is sincerity. The mind is inherently without falsehood; only because it has lost [sincerity] is there falsehood” (Ma 2013: 1:392). Furthermore, according to his view, there is an inherent interconnection between the virtue of the nature’s “independence,” its “intrinsicality,” and its “being without falsehood.” To sum up the above discussion, it is evident that Ma Yifu’s interpretation of the virtue of the nature mainly relied upon “apophatic explanations” (zhequan 遮詮),

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which are extensively used by Buddhist teachings and which rely upon negative and deconstructive methods to reveal their import. “Independence” and “being without falsehood” serve to illustrate this point. As to the notion of “intrinsicality,” this refers to the true state of the mind revealed after one has deconstructed and transcended attachment, which is what Buddhists refer to as “the true characteristic of dharmas.” Therefore, Ma Yifu mainly discussed the virtue of the nature from the perspective of Buddhist doctrine. Although he also drew on Confucian ideas for support, his main point of departure is the Buddhist notion of the empty nature of conditioned origination (yuanqi xingkong 緣起性空). Since Ma Yifu emphasized the Buddhist notions of “the empty nature of the conditionally originated” and “the one true realm of reality” to define the qualities of the nature; and at the same time, he also pointed out that Confucianism and Buddhism are both concerned with seeing the nature, this means that, for Ma, the Confucian theory of mind and nature is not contrary to the principles of “the empty nature of the conditionally originated” and “the one true realm of reality.” It is known that the main objectives of Confucianism and Buddhism are not entirely the same. Buddhism aims at liberation, whereas Confucianism is concerned with fully developing the virtues in our nature. And the foundation of Confucian teaching to develop fully the virtues in our nature lies first and foremost in the affirmation of life-existence itself. Confucians believe that the flow of life-existence is itself imbued with morally good virtues and a morally good nature. This is what is meant by the passage in the “Appended Statements” (Xici zhuan 繫辭傳) in the Book of Change, “The successive movement of yin and yang is called the Way. That which continues the Way is good. And that which accomplishes the Way is the nature” (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham). According to Confucian thought, the reasons that the flow of life-existence is imbued with morally good virtues and a morally good nature are: (1) One who practices moral cultivation can realize that humaneness, as the virtue of nature and as the authentic origin of the meaning of life, is good and is always in a process of self-transcendence and self-generation. (2) Basing on these experiences in the heart-mind, she or he naturally holds that ren is not only the authentic origin of the meaning of her or his life, but also the authentic origin of the meaning of her or his existence and even the whole existence. (3) Finally, she or he views the whole existence as a meaningful flow, or a flow of ren. Thus, she or he has reason to hold that the flow itself is embodied as a ceaselessly self-transcending activity, that is, the Way of ceaseless generation. This Way of ceaseless self-­ transcendence—that of the successive movement of yin and yang, and of contraction and expansion—is imbued with a natural moral goodness. Therefore, the proposition that “that which continues the Way is good” is not a proposition of “is” (shiran 實然), but a proposition of “existential ought” (dangran 當然).9 9  The term “existential ought” was coined by me to reveal the essential characteristic of a philosophy concerning the issue of the meaning of life. Roughly speaking, there are differences between “existential ought” and “normative ought.” In my view, “normative ought” (or “ought”) is connected with the issue of correctness. For example, the proposition that “1+1=2 is correct” is equiv-

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And at the same time, this flow of life-existence that is itself ceaselessly self-­ transcending embodies the characteristics of non-attachment, being without dependence, and being without falsehood. This is because if life and existence consist of attachments and closure, then self-transcendence would not be possible, and it would not be able to embody the Way of ceaseless generation. Thus understood, Ma Yifu’s use of the notions of the empty nature of the conditionally originated, and the one true realm of reality, to discuss Confucian theories of the mind and nature, and the Way of heaven—and also employing these ideas to define the meaning of the virtue of nature—is certainly not arbitrary and lacking a reasoned basis. Despite this, however, Ma Yifu’s view has ignored a key difference between Confucian and Buddhist discourse on the mind and nature. In fact, the basic attitudes of Confucianism and Buddhism regarding the issue of actual life-existence are quite different. Whereas Confucians emphasize that the flow of natural life-­existence itself is already imbued with a morally good nature and morally good virtues, Buddhism emphasizes that natural life-existence is first and foremost about greed, hatred and ignorance, and so it has negative connotations of desire, attachment, affliction, suffering and so forth. Accordingly, although Confucianism and Buddhism are interconnected in their views on “the virtues of nature” and “seeing the nature,” their initial focal points are distinct. From the point of view of Confucianism, the very beginning of actual life-existence is goodness in which there is no attachment; but from the Buddhist point of view, it is the suffering of attachment. For the Buddhists, the state of non-attachment can be arrived at only by making the effort to forsake attachment and contemplate emptiness.10 Therefore, these two traditions actually embody two different approaches to address the issue of the meaning of life. However, Ma Yifu overemphasized the interconnection between Confucian mind-nature doctrines and Buddhist mind-nature teachings and omitted, in one sense, their crucial differences. Therefore, although Ma Yifu identified himself with Confucianism, actually his main life orientation involved meandering between Confucianism and Buddhism: precisely where he was Confucian, he was Buddhist, he was both Confucian and Buddhist, and was neither exclusively Confucian nor exclusively Buddhist. According, we can also give a clear definition of Ma Yifu’s notion of the relation between Confucianism and Buddhism. Some scholars believe that Ma “paid equal attention to Confucianism and Buddhism” (Liu 2013: 6:486–488), whereas some hold that he “used Confucian doctrines to merge Buddhist teachings and used Buddhist teachings to justify Confucian doctrines” (Wu 2013: 6:573–574). Admittedly, although both sides of the argument have their strong points, they fail to explore this issue through investigating Ma Yifu’s understanding on the “virtue alent to the proposition that “1+1 should be equal to 2”. Thus, correctness itself has normative power. “Existential ought,” however, is nothing to do with the issue of correctness. It’s “reasonableness” and “power” is inherent in the subject’s authentic feeling on his or her existence or the meaning of life of his or her own. 10  Concerning this issue, Tang Junyi has a detailed discussion in his Life, Existence, and the Horizons of Mind (Tang 2016b: 26:134–135).

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of nature.” It should be said that, from the perspective of “virtues of nature,” Ma Yifu tried to find out the correspondences of Confucianism and Buddhism as his basic orientation to life; meanwhile, on this basis, he had more appreciation and acceptance of Confucian doctrines. And this may be, to some extent, closely linked with his unique personality, namely, a Confucian hermit.

4  Three Changes: The Structure of the Virtue of Nature In addition to show that the virtue of nature is the origin of the meaning of life and existence, Ma Yifu still needs to demonstrate the function and the structure of the virtue of nature. This is the responsibility of a philosophy of mind and nature. This kind of philosophy should not only make clear the meaning of mind and nature, but also confirm the relation between the mind and nature in the inner self and the phenomenal world or actual existence. Accordingly, traditional Confucian theories of mind and nature have the notions such as “nature and emotions” and “pattern and vital forces”; Buddhism also has the propositions on “emptiness and existence,” “suchness and arising and ceasing” and so on. How, then, would Ma Yifu demonstrate the function and structure of the virtue of nature? First of all, as one of the founders of New Confucianism, Ma Yifu tried to develop a concise and clear philosophical structure, based on the virtue of nature, to integrate different concepts in the Confucian tradition. Meanwhile, according to Ma, since both Confucian and Buddhist thought are rooted in the virtue of nature, this structure can also integrate Confucian doctrines and Buddhist teachings and is helpful for him to establish his philosophical system. In view of the above, Ma Yifu paid special attention to the philosophy of the Book of Change and proposed his theory of the “Three Changes” (sanyi 三易). The Three Changes are “non-change” (buyi 不易), “change” (bianyi 變易) and “simplicity” (jianyi 簡易). This term first appeared in Apocryphon to the Book of Change: Opening the Laws of the Hexagram Qian (Yiwei: Qian zuodu 易緯:乾鑿度) in the Han dynasty, but Ma Yifu stipulated his own novel interpretation: The Book of Change is the source of the Six Arts. The “Ten Wings” were composed by Kongzi. All doctrines are derived from it, and it is also the [authority] to which they all respectfully return. Now, when explaining terms of doctrines, I first seek their [meaning] in the Book of Change. “Change” (yi 易) has three meanings: change, non-change, and simplicity. Students should understand that vital force is change, and pattern is non-change. When vital force in its entirety is pattern, and pattern in its entirety is vital force—this is simplicity. (Ma’s note: This understanding of the Three Changes is my own stipulation; when explaining the Three Changes former Confucians did not make this point. It is, however, concise and clear, and those who are skilled learners will of course be able to grasp it.) Only understanding change makes it easy to fall into nihilism; only understanding non-­ change makes it easy to fall into eternalism. One must understand that change has always been unchanging, non-change is changing, and the detachment from the two extreme views of nihilism and eternalism is called right view. It is this that is simplicity. (Ma 2013: 1:31–32) (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham)

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Ma Yifu claimed that the source of the Six Arts is in the Book of Change and its core spirit are to be found in the principle of the Three Changes. He also pointed out that if we cannot simultaneously attend to all three dimensions of the Three Changes and can only focus on one, then we would be unable to open up the full scope of the Confucian Six Arts. Therefore, the three aspects of non-change, change and simplicity should be equally valued, and they, especially non-change and change, cannot be separated from each other. This is because non-change and change are both but different expressions of simplicity. Ma Yifu proposed the theory of the Three Changes because he sought to reveal what he considered to be the true significance of the doctrine “the virtue of nature” and “seeing the nature.” From his point of view, “seeing the nature” is the mind’s seeing the nature, and “the virtue(s) of the nature” refers to the functions contained within the nature. Therefore, the mind that sees the nature, or the mind’s seeing the nature, is the source of the moral nature and of the meaning of life and existence. For if I truly wish to understand the meaning of the moral nature, then it is necessary to turn away from my habitual grasping of the objects of the sensory and cognitive faculties to return to my own self, that is, to return to the nature of my own mind; to “gather things together, returning them to my own self” (hui wu gui ji會物歸己) (Ma 2013: 1:45). The movement from external to internal, from things to self, is the process by which moral consciousness proceeds from unawareness to self-­ awareness. And precisely because the virtues of nature are interconnected with the self as subject, the characteristic of the self as subject is that of a pure capacity for “being able to know” and “being able to act.” This “capacity” is nothing other than a pure “being able to.” This pure capacity of the subject is utterly simple and easy, and so it is the capacity of the virtue of nature or of the subject that is manifest as the realm of “simplicity.” Furthermore, the self as subject, which is based on this pure capacity, is able to operate throughout all realms and objects. Accordingly, the capacity of simplicity becomes embodied as change qua function (yong 用). Yet equally, the subject’s capacity of simplicity can also be completely unexpressed. In this state, the subject’s “virtue of the nature” is a capacity devoid of characteristics and specific content. This capacity that is devoid of characteristics is embodied as non-change qua intrinsic reality (ti體). From this we see that the virtue of nature simultaneously contains simplicity, change, and non-change. This is why Ma Yifu emphasized the inseparability of non-change and change. From the perspective of Three Changes, Ma Yifu fully integrated the doctrines of Buddhism and Confucianism, demonstrating the basic structure of his theory of the Six Arts. First, he integrated the Three Changes and the Neo-Confucian thesis that “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions.” Ma agreed with the opinion of Zhang Dejun 張德鈞, one of his disciples, that “the emotions are change, the nature is non-change, and that ‘the mind that combines/controls the nature and the emotions’ is simplicity” (Ma 2013: 1:459). He also made the following interpretation: [In the thesis,] “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions,” “the mind” represents the existence of pattern, and “the emotions” represent the expression of vital forces. “Existence” means it is in everywhere; “expression” means it is flowing once it appears.

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L. Liu The pattern is active within the vital force; for there to be a certain sort of vital force, then there is a certain sort of pattern. Because the natural endowment cannot avoid deflection, so it contains rigidness, softness, good and evil…. this is called “psychophysical nature” by the former Confucians. The sage’s teachings are to enlighten us to change our evil by ourselves and actualize the Mean by ourselves; this is “transforming the psychophysical nature” and returning to our inherent good. The inherent good is called “heaven’s mandated nature” and it is purely the pattern…. The virtues [of nature] flow out of this pattern as a matter of course and so they are also called the Virtues of Heaven; when they appear in the conduct of affairs, they are the Way of the King. (Ma 2013: 1:16)

Accordingly, from the perspective of the virtue of nature and the Three Changes, Ma Yifu’s interpretation on the thesis “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” may differ subtly from that of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. In addition, he also tried to promote the integration between the doctrine of Three Changes and the “one mind, two gateways” and “Three Greats” (sanda 三大) teachings, both of which are the core notions of the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith. He said: The Three Changes are also the Three Greats: intrinsic reality, characteristics and function. Non-change means that “its intrinsic reality is great,” change means that “its characteristics are great,” and simplicity means that “its function is great.” …Students should understand that when Buddhists speaks about “arising and ceasing,” this refers to change; when they speak about “non-arising and non-ceasing,” this refers to non-change; as for “does not change yet accords with conditions; accords with conditions yet does not change,” this refers to simplicity. (Ma 2013: 1:158–159) (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham) It is essential to understand that the “one mind two gateways” teaching alone is what Zhang Zai fundamentally sought to convey [in his “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” teaching].11 The nature is the “suchness gateway,” and the emotions are the “arising and ceasing gateway.” The reality (ti 體) of the mind is suchness and there is no other nature separate from the mind, and so [the Treatise] states, “there is only one suchness.” However, because suchness is free from the characteristics of language, naming, and mental perceptions, “as soon as it called the ‘nature’ then it is already not the nature.” (Ma 2013: 1:451) (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham)

In Ma Yifu’s view, the doctrine that “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” can represent the basic structure of the “Confucian mind and nature,” and the “one mind, two gateways” and “Three Greats” embody the basic structure of the “Buddhist mind and nature.” And both structures can be integrated well by the Three Changes. We can depict Ma’s view in this way:

 This thesis was first advocated by Zhang Zai (1020–1077) and then fully developed by Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi.

11

Ma Yifu’s Theory of the Virtue of (Human) Nature and the Six Arts non-­ change (buyi) 不易 change (bianyi) 變易 simplicity (jianyi) 簡易

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nature (xing) 性

pattern (li) 理

intrinsic reality suchness gateway (zhenru men) (ti) 真如門 體

emotions (qing) 情

vital force (qi) 氣

“the mind combines/ controls the nature and the emotions” (xin tong xing qing) 心統性情

complete integration between pattern and vital force (li qi yuanrong) 理氣圓融

arising and ceasing gateway (shengmie men) 生滅門 function (yong) the non-duality 用 of the two gateways (er men buer) 二門不二 characteristics (xiang) 相

From the perspective of the Three Changes, Ma Yifu tried to support the establishment of his theory of the Six Arts through integrating different notions in both Confucian and Buddhist traditions. All of these notions are labeled by Ma as “terms of meanings and patterns” (yili mingxiang 義理名相). Discussing and elaborating the terms of meanings and patterns on the basis of the Three Changes is an important part of Ma’s philosophy. There are two reasons that he emphasized the importance of analyzing the terms of meanings and patterns. First, he attempted to avoid and transcend the conflict and confusion of ideas among different traditions or different schools of one tradition. Second, he further tried to find out the common origin, which should be concise and simple, of different meanings and patterns and develop his own philosophical system through interpreting this origin. Therefore, we can say that what Ma Yifu was after was the “Way of simplicity.” Undoubtedly, his theory of the Three Changes embodies his understanding of the Way of simplicity and reveals the basic structure of the virtue of nature. Interestingly, Xiong Shili, another founder of New Confucianism, also made much of the notion of the Three Changes and thought of it as the basic framework of his New Confucian philosophy. It is known that the core propositions of Xiong’s philosophy are “contraction and expansion becoming transformation” (xipi chengbian 翕闢成變) and “reality and function are non-dual” (tiyong buer體用不二).12 And Xiong himself frankly acknowledged that his thesis that “reality and function are non-dual” is an extension of the meaning of the Three Changes (Xiong 2001: 4:138). However, although both Xiong and Ma viewed the Three Changes as the basic framework of their philosophical systems, their emphases are not entirely the same. Xiong focused on demonstrating the dynamic relation between non-change and change through his reality-function theory. Thus, Xiong eventually created a system of cosmology. Ma Yifu, by contrast, preferred to develop a theory of self-cultivation (gongfu 工 夫) through interpreting the meaning of the Three Changes. To him, the Cheng-Zhu School’s thesis that “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions” is a

12

 See chapter “Xiong Shili’s Ontology”—Ed.

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concentrated expression of the meaning of Three Changes. And deeply influenced by the Cheng-Zhu school, Ma held that the mind has two dimensions: the inherent mind (or the ideal mind) and the psychological mind (or the actual mind). Accordingly, if my mind is purely the inherent mind, then my emotions or vital forces are purely the manifestation of my inherent mind. In this case, my mind has already reached the ideal state or the state of simplicity, because in this state my emotions or vital forces are completely the manifestation of the nature or pattern in my mind. In reality, however, my mind is often not the ideal mind, because my inherent mind or virtue of nature is possible to be covered over and obscured. In this case, I need to transform my psychological mind through cultivating my mind and nature and make it emerge completely from my inherent mind or my virtue of nature. In view of this, Ma Yifu devoted himself to developing a theory of self-­ cultivation of his own. We know that Ma Yifu’s New Confucian thought, with the perspectives of the virtue of nature and the Three Changes, attempts to integrate the doctrines of Cheng-Zhu Confucian philosophy and the teachings of the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith; similarly, the main feature of his theory of self-­ cultivation is to draw inspiration from the concept of “habituation” (xunxi 熏習) in the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith to enrich Cheng-Zhu’s theory of cultivation, which is centered on “making reverence the master” (zhujing 主敬). His relevant opinions are as follows: Once we hear and talk about “simplicity,” we think we have already achieved it. How easy it is just to talk about it! We must notice that seeking it needs real cultivation. (Ma 2013: 1:359) Reality and function are originally one thing. Function cannot do without reality, and there is no reality without function. The deflection and excessiveness of function comes from the obstruction against reality. The nature is the reality; it has always been clear and radiant. It is just because the preponderance of the psychophysical nature and the hindrance of the habituation blocks the reality, [the reality] is unable to be expressed as function and flow. (Ma 2013: 1:727) If the vital forces (qi) are completely dominated by the will, then they will go smoothly behind the pattern of heaven. [In this case,] these forces are originally the flow of the pattern of heaven. How to maintain the will? By making reverence the master only. Yichuan [Cheng Yi] said, “Nourishing needs reverence.” This is the way of maintaining the will. (Ma 2013: 1:88)

After serious self-cultivation and moral practice of his own, Ma Yifu believed that the way of “making reverence the master” advocated by the Cheng-Zhu Confucianism can eliminate the gap between nature and emotions, pattern and vital forces, non-change and change, and reach the realm of simplicity. In addition, he held that the meaning of “habituated tendencies” (xiqi 習氣), extensively discussed by Chinese Buddhism, can contain the meaning of “psychophysical nature” (qizhi 氣質), a term used by Neo-Confucian scholars. For him, the “preponderance of the psychophysical nature” (qizhi zhi pian 氣質之偏) is only one kind of the “hindrance of the habituated tendencies” (xiqi zhibi 習氣之蔽); and the “hindrance of the habituated tendencies” may cause other problems such as “mental disturbances derived from perceptions” (sihuo 思惑), “disturbances derived from [mistaken]

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views” (jianhuo 見惑), “cognitive understanding” (zhijie 知解) and so on. According to Ma, the Confucian theory of “transforming the psychophysical nature” (bianhua qizhi 變化氣質) may be slightly inferior to the theory of “habituation” in the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith, which can give us systematic and comprehensive analysis of the problem of evil; however, concerning the issue of the practice of self-cultivation and self-enlightenment, the Confucian proposal is more appropriate. More specifically, the Neo-Confucian thesis of “making reverence the master” can not only deal with and transcend the problem of “preponderance of the psychophysical nature,” but also be capable of “removing habituation” (kanluo xiqi 刊落習氣) (Ma 2013: 1:661), one of the central theses of Chinese Buddhism. This is Ma Yifu’s contribution to the Confucian tradition of the theory of self-cultivation (Luo 2007: 1–9). Ma Yifu emphasized that reverence can help us recover our nature (fuxing 復性) and, at the same time, reach the realm of simplicity. Therefore, “making reverence the master,” as a way of self-cultivation, can be viewed directly as the Way of simplicity. With the “virtue of nature” as the philosophical basis, and with the “Three Changes” as the basic structure of the virtue of nature, Ma Yifu’s theory of the Six Arts is on the horizon. In what follows, we will discuss in detail Ma’s thought on the Six Arts and Chinese traditional culture.

5  From Virtue of Nature, Three Changes to the Six Arts We can roughly see that there are two approaches in the Confucian tradition: one is the Confucian philosophy of mind and nature, another is the studies of Confucian classics (jingxue 經學). After integrating various concepts of the mind and nature through the perspectives of the “virtue of nature” and “Three Changes,” Ma Yifu attempted to reconcile these two approaches and thereby construct his own philosophical system (Jiang 2000: 227–248). These two approaches, Ma Yifu believed, are originally two aspects of Kongzi’s teaching. The virtue of ren is rooted in the subject’s mind and nature; therefore, Kongzi’s thought of humaneness is the source of Confucian mind-nature studies. And at the same time, in order to promote the spirit of ren, Kongzi compiled, edited and explained the classical texts and gradually developed his idea of the Six Arts or Six Classics. In fact, after Kongzi’s efforts, the Six Arts are more than classical texts, they are the expressions of ren. If the virtue of ren is the main trunk of a tree, then the Six Arts are branches and leaves from this root. As one of the founders of New Confucianism, Ma Yifu dedicated himself to re-investigating and re-­ interpreting the essentials of Kongzi’s thought. Unfortunately, according to Ma Yifu, Confucian studies of the past, especially the studies of Confucian classics after the Han Dynasty, often failed to really understand the core spirit of Kongzi’s doctrine. For him, there are several problems with the studies of Confucian classics: (1) The idea of “Four Divisions” (sibu 四部) of

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Chinese traditional literature, namely, “(Confucian) classics” (jing 經), “history” (shi 史), “masters” (zi 子), and “collection of letters” (ji 集), extensively held by Confucian scholars, is an unreasonable and inappropriate idea. It is merely a library classification and it is unable to reveal the “sources and flows” (yuanliu 源流) of Chinese literature and Chinese culture. In fact, there is no need to follow the classification of the “Four Divisions,” because the contents in the four divisions are either the “sources” or the “flows” of the Six Arts (Ma 2013: 1:10–15). (2) Studies of Confucian classics in ancient China often became different kinds of classical philology or textology, which have nothing to do with the issue of mind and nature. (3) Another problem of the traditional studies of Confucian classics is that they were often used as political ideologies. For example, the debates between the “Ancient Text School” (guwen xuepai 古文學派) and “New Text School” (jinwen xuepai 今 文學派) in the field of the studies of Confucian classics were sometimes contests for political power, rather than in-depth discussions on the spirit of the Six Arts. Therefore, in Ma Yifu’s view, most of the representatives of the studies of Confucian classics, including Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1869–1936), master of the “Ancient Text School,” and Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), master of the “New Text School,” could not “see the nature” (jianxing 見性) and inherit the true spirit of Konfzi’s thought (Ma 2013: 1:573–574, 601, 605–606). In view of the above problems, Ma Yifu attempted to lay down the theoretical burden of the traditional studies of Confucian classics and demonstrate the meaning of the Six Arts in his own way. According to Ma Yifu, the “virtue of nature” and the “Three Changes” (or “the mind combines/controls the nature and the emotions”) are respectively the ontological origin and basic framework of the Six Arts. Thus, the Way of the Six Arts contains both reality (ti) and function (yong). The reality of the Six Arts is the virtue of nature, which is non-change. And the horizon of the virtue of nature includes endless specific virtues, so that the virtue of nature, as the reality, can also be called “entire reality” (quanti 全體). The virtue(s) of nature, as the entire reality, is also the origin or the “original horizon” of the Six Arts; therefore, for Ma Yifu, the Six Arts are also the entire reality. Meanwhile, the virtue of nature as non-­ change is capable of expressing itself as the “change” and “function” that is the flow of the virtues. The virtue of nature is the “entire reality,” accordingly, the function, as the expression of the entire reality, can be called “great function” (dayong 大用). Therefore, the Six Arts are both the entire reality and great function. In addition, since the mind combines and controls the nature and the emotions, non-change and change, reality and functioning, therefore the Way of Six Arts is also the Way of simplicity. To be sure, in real life, we often fail to reach the ideal of simplicity. In this case, we need to cultivate the mind and nature of our own and eliminate the gap between nature and emotions, pattern and vital forces, non-change and change. Thus, self-cultivation is the bridge of entire reality and great function; therefore, the Six Arts are not only the entire reality and great function, but also the practice of self-cultivation. The Six Arts as the practice of self-cultivation, and the Six Arts as the Way of simplicity, are intrinsically communicative to each other. And as we have mentioned above, “making reverence the master” is the way to achieve simplicity, naturally it is also a central topic of Ma Yifu’s theory of the Six Arts.

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Given the above, we can make certain the basic structure of the Way of the Six Arts. This is expressed in the diagram as follows: non-change change simplicity

the Six Arts as entire reality the Six Arts as great function the Six Arts as the practice self-cultivation

In addition to demonstrating the basic structure of the Way of Six Arts, Ma Yifu paid special attention to the interrelations among the Six Arts. Because the general characteristic and individual characteristics of the virtues of the nature are intersubsumed, so the Way of the Six Arts is just like the “perfect interpenetration of the six characteristics of conditioned phenomena” (liu xiang yuanrong六相圓融) and the “one true dharma realm” (yi zhen fajie一真法界) demonstrated by the Huayan School: The Way of the Six Arts is similarly the case. Therefore, when speaking of the Book of Odes, then the Book of Rites is included; when speaking of the Book of Rites, then the Book of Music is included; the Book of Music then the Book of Odes is included; the Book of Documents then the Book of Rites is included; and the Book of Change and the Spring and Autumn Annals include each other. In this way, the general and the specific are non-dual, and this alone is what is meant by “unimpeded.” (Ma 2013: 1:248) (translated by Peter Wong and John Makeham)

In his Records of Lectures in the Fuxing Academy, Ma Yifu tried to fully explore the deep meanings and spirits of the Six Arts through discussing classical texts and thereby support his own views. He repeatedly stressed that his theory of the Six Arts is not provisionally concocted by himself. For him, his theory is the true face of Confucius’ teaching, which is like a river flowing out of the mind and nature of the inner self. In fact, whether we can find proof from classical texts to support Ma’s theory is not important or essential. It is critical that, based on his deep comprehension, Ma Yifu confirmed that both the basic spirit of the Six Arts and Kongzi’s thought are rooted in the virtue of nature. Therefore, he devoted himself to integrating the Confucian studies of the mind-nature and the studies of Confucian classics, revealing the eternal vitality of the Six Arts. From the above research, we can also conclude that the Way of the Six Arts, revealed and demonstrated by Ma Yifu, is “a structure of the meaning of life.” He tried to convince us that the Way of the Six Arts is the ideal way of living and the authentic existence of human beings: The Book of Odes is to express the wills through words. In the mind, it is the will; expressed in words, it becomes poetry. Words that express the feelings of sorrow and pleasure, or imitate the characters of the myriad things, with complete sincerity and without superficiality and deceptiveness, are included in the Book of Odes. The Book of Documents is to express events. Well governing the state and popularizing [the governing skills] under the Heaven: this is the great event. [Events] that are displayed in government and that start with one’s self and then manifest [his or her character] to the people are included in the Book of Documents. The Book of Rites is to express conducts. [Conduct] that is carried out without disorder and inappropriateness in human activities and everyday life is included in the Book of Rites. The Book of Music is to express harmonies. [Harmonious things] that move us with

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In addition, Ma Yifu’s idea of the Six Arts inspired the second-generation New Confucian Tang Junyi. Tang also paid much attention to the relation between the culture and the mind and nature, and his views on the thought of Confucius are close to that of Ma Yifu. Tang’s approach to his philosophy of culture, however, is contrary to Ma’s perspective. 13

6  Can All the Cultures Be Included by the Six Arts? According to Ma Yifu, the virtue of nature is the most authentic and original existence, therefore, the Way of the Six Arts, as the exhibition of the virtue of nature, is also the authentic and original existence itself. In view of this, he further asserted that “between heaven and earth there is nothing but the Six Arts” (Ma 2013: 1:45; see also Ma 2013: 1.574). If we understand the relation of the Six Arts and the virtue of nature in Ma’ thought, we will not think that his assertions are ridiculous. This, however, does not mean that his view is never a debatable issue. In what follows, we will investigate two points introduced from his theory of the Six Arts. First, for Ma Yifu, the essential difference between the Six Arts, the source of Chinese traditional culture, and Western thought is that the former can “see the nature” and the latter cannot. And meanwhile, the nature, or the virtue of nature, is the most authentic and most original existence. Accordingly, Ma held that “the Six

 Tang Junyi said, “When discussing the issue of culture, Chinese philosophers often started with the judgements of right and wrong, good and evil in the field of value, and always first put forward the origin of the virtues in order to include and integrate the extensive functions of the cultures. This is known as the theses ‘reveal the reality and then reach the function’ (mingti yi dayong 明體 以達用) and ‘stand upon the root and then hold the tips’ (liben yi chimo 立本以持末). But when discussing the issue of culture, Western philosophers first acknowledged that society and culture are a phenomenon, which exists objectively, and then traced to the basis on which it was formed. ”(Tang 2016a: 12:6) In view of this, Tang Junyi adopted the approach of the Western philosophers and completed his book Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason (wenhua yishi yu daode lixing 文化意識與道德理性), in which he systematically demonstrated his cultural philosophy. Therefore, it can be said that Tang Junyi’s New Confucian philosophy inherits and advances Ma Yifu’s theory of the Six Arts.

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Arts do not only include all the learning from China, but also include all the learning from the West nowadays” (Ma 2013: 1:17). Moreover, he criticized the idea of “division” (fenke 分科) from the West, accusing it of “forgetting” the fact that all the divisions or subjects are the manifestations of the virtue of nature and the Way of the Six Arts. Therefore, he believed that the Six Arts teachings of the Chinese sages are the highest doctrines: I dare to assert: as long as the heaven and earth do not perish, as long as human hearts do not die, then the Way of the Six Arts will always endure brightly. All the human cultures in the world will, for sure, finally be included in the Six Arts. And China is eligible to become the leader of the cultures. (Ma 2013: 1:20)

Quite similar to the previous point of view, Ma Yifu illustrated his second point, claiming that the Six Arts is the most reasonable way of living: Nowadays we know that the human being should seek a reasonable or a proper way of living. [We] must know that the teachings of the Six Arts are just the reasonable and proper way of living of human beings. It is not a preference of archaeological research and not just a matter of talking, which is far away from the real life. (Ma 2013: 1:15) Honestly, the manifestations of all the minds of human beings cannot be separated from the Six Arts; the progress of all the ways of living of human beings cannot escape from the Six Arts. Hence, “No phenomena (shi 事) is beyond the Way; no Way is beyond the phenomena.” (Ma 2013: 1:18)

Concerning the above two points of view, I think that the latter is more basic than the former. If we can fully discuss and deal with the latter, we can naturally solve the former. In fact, the reason that Ma Yifu believed that the Six Arts are the most reasonable way of reason is that the Six Arts, for him, were the most reasonable way of living. During the process of self-cultivation, he was absolutely clear that the virtue of nature is the source or foundation stone of the meaning of life and existence of himself; therefore, the Six Arts, as the embodiment of the virtues of nature, are naturally the ideal way of living his life. But here is the issue: precisely what works for me may not work for others; and what is most reasonable for me may not be most reasonable for others. Of course, we may have the following response to this: we cannot deny that a philosophical basis, which is the source of the meaning of one’s life, may have the chance to be the source of the meaning of everyone’s life. And Ma Yifu did believed that the virtue of nature is not only the basis of the meaning of his life, but also the basis of the meaning of everyone’s life. Accordingly, we should discuss whether the virtue of nature is the basis of the meaning of every human being’s life. As noted above, Ma Yifu’s theory of the Six Arts belongs to the Eastern learning of the mind and nature, which is a tradition of seeking the meaning of life and existence. In real life, however, we must admit that we have different perspectives on the meaning of life. And more strictly, we do not have the right to argue that someone’s perspective on the meaning of life is “wrong” or “unreasonable,” as long as his or her perspective does not constitute a challenge

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for basic human rights.14 Thus, if someone holds that the virtue of nature (in Ma Yifu’s sense) is the source of the meaning of his or her life, she or he will believe that the Six Arts is the most reasonable way of living; and if someone confirms that “liberation” is the essential of the meaning of her or his life, then she or he is most likely to choose the Buddhist way of living, rather than the Six Arts. For this matter, of course, Ma Yifu may have the following response: although not everyone realizes that the “virtue of nature” is the ultimate basis of the meaning of life, we still have the chance that, after in-depth analysis and heart-mind cultivation, we will finally acknowledge that other kinds of “ultimate basis” can be included by the virtue of nature. If the above opinion is well justified, we will eventually admit that all ways of living can be included by the Six Arts. But here, Ma Yifu needs to confirm that he can not only fully comprehend the mind and nature in his inner self and the meaning of his life, but also fully grasp the mind and nature in other’s inner self and the meaning of others’ lives. Strictly speaking, however, it is extremely difficult, or impossible, to confirm that there are no boundaries between self and others. And this implies that it is unnecessary and problematic to discuss the questions like “which is the most reasonable way of living of human beings,” and whether “all cultures can be included by the Six Arts.” And because Ma Yifu insisted that the Six Arts, as one of the reasonable ways of living in fact, is the most reasonable ways of living, he showed lack of interest in other ways of living and other kinds of knowledge, such as natural science, Western philosophy and dialogues among civilizations. This is a thing that is regrettable. In spite of this, Ma Yifu’s demonstration of the virtue of nature and the Six Arts enriches our understanding of life and culture. His theory of the Six Arts has successfully established a structure of meaning, providing an ideal way of living for us. In this sense, the Way of the Six Arts that revealed by Ma Yifu really has eternal value.

7  Conclusion Let us conclude very briefly: in this essay I have sought to provide a systematic presentation of Ma Yifu’s life, his New Confucian thought, and his theory of the Six Arts. His theory of the Six Arts successfully integrates both the approaches of the mind and nature philosophy and the studies of classics in Confucian tradition; and it also demonstrates a structure of meaning and a hermeneutical system through discussing the relations among the dimensions of “virtue of nature,” “Three Changes,” and “Six Arts,” revealing the inner vitality and the eternal value of Confucian classics. In this sense, Ma Yifu deserves to be considered a founder and the representative of contemporary New Confucianism. Therefore, certainly, his

 It is necessary to point out that this standard is not directly derived from the Six Arts; it is a standard based on human rights or the boundaries between self and others.

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theory of the Six Arts supports the process of the modernization of Chinese culture. This is because it can shake off the theoretical burden of traditional studies of Confucian classics and directly associate the Confucian classics, and even Chinese culture, with the mind and nature of the inner self. But unfortunately, as noted in this essay, Ma Yifu only gave us a framework of his theory, some topics of which remain to be further discussed and improved.

References Jiang, Nianfeng 蔣年豐. 2000. Texts and Practice I: Contemporary Interpretations on Confucian Thought 文本與實踐 (一): 儒家思想的當代詮釋. Taipei: Guiguan Tushu. (This book views traditional and modern Confucian thought from the perspectives of phenomenology and hermeneutics.) Li, Qingliang 李清良. 2009. “Ma Yifu’s Objection to Xiong Shili’s Record of What Has Been Respectfully Heard and Its Influence 馬一浮對熊十力《尊聞錄》之異議及其影響.” Journal of Peking University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 北京大學學報(哲學社會科學版) 46.2: 93–98. (An exposition of a debate concerning the philosophy of change.) Lin, Anwu 林安梧. 1985. “Preliminary Discussion on Ma Yifu’s Theory of Mind and Nature 馬一 浮心性論初探.” Legein Monthly 鵝湖月刊 116: 38–45. (In this article the author argues that Ma’s thought belongs to the Cheng-Zhu School.) Liu, Leheng 劉樂恆. 2014. “‘Recovering the Nature’ and ‘Expanding the Nature’: Reflections on Ma Yifu and Xiong Shili’s Views on the Book of Change ‘復性’與’創性’: 馬一浮與熊十力關 於《周易》思想的論辯及其意義.” Universitas: Monthly Review of Philosophy and Culture 哲學與文化 41.11: 163–178. (This article shows that Ma Yifu and Xiong Shili held different academic standpoints.) Liu, Mengxi 劉夢溪. 2013. “Ma Yifu as A Paradigmatic Figure of Culture 馬一浮的文化典範 意義.” In Wu Guang 吳光 ed., Completed Works of Ma Yifu 馬一浮全集 Vol. 6. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji Chubanshe. (This article holds that Ma paid equal attention to Confucianism and Buddhism.) Liu, Shu-Hsien 劉述先. 2008. The Three Epochs of Confucian Philosophy 論儒家哲學的三個大 時代. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. (An excellent introduction to the developing processes of Confucian philosophy.) Luo, Yijun 羅義俊. 2007. “‘Free from the Habituated Tendencies’: The Character and its Essentials of Ma Yifu’s Confucian Thought ‘從習氣中解放出來’:馬一浮儒學的系統性格 及其旨要.” Journal of Hangzhou Normal University (Social Sciences Edition) 杭州師範學院 學報(社會科學版) 4: 1–9. (An in-depth discussion on Ma Yifu’s idea about self-cultivation.) Ma, Yifu 馬一浮. 2013. Complete Works of Ma Yifu 馬一浮全集, 6 vols. Edited by Wu Guang 吳 光. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji Chubanshe. (This is the best source for Ma Yifu’s work, including almost all of Ma Yifu’s extant writings and a selection of relevant secondary sources.) Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 2016a. Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason 文化意識與道德理性. In Complete Works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集, Vol. 12. Beijing: Jiuzhou Chubanshe. ———. 2016b. Life, Existence and the Horizons of Mind 生命存在與心靈境界, 2 vols, in Complete Works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集, Vol. 22. Beijing: Jiuzhou Chubanshe. ———. 2016c. On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy: Retracing the Concept of Teaching 中國 哲學原論: 原教篇. In Complete Works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集, Vol. 22. Beijing: Jiuzhou Chubanshe. Teng, Fu 滕復. 2001. A Study of Ma Yifu’s Thought 馬一浮思想研究. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. (A useful introduction to Ma Yifu’s life and his thought.)

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Wu, Guang 吳光. 2013. “The Basic Characteristics of Ma Yifu’s Thought 馬一浮思想的基本 特色.” In Wu Guang 吳光 (ed.), Completed Works of Ma Yifu 馬一浮全集 Vol. 6. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji Chubanshe. (In this article, the author argues that Ma Yifu used Confucian doctrines to merge Buddhist teachings and used Buddhist teachings to justify Confucian doctrines.) Xiong, Shili 熊十力. 2001. Selected Letters and Talks of Xiong Shili 十力語要 in Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集, Vol. 4. Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe. Yang, Rubin 楊儒賓. 1994. “An Analysis of Ma Fu’s Thesis ‘the Six Arts are Included in the One Mind’ 馬浮‘六藝統於一心’思想析論.” Legein Semi-Annual Journal 鵝湖學誌 12: 21–55. (This article argues that Ma Yifu’s thought belongs to the Lu-Wang School.)

Liang Shuming and His Syncretic Confucianism Thierry Meynard

1  Introduction During a wave of radical criticism against Chinese culture, especially against Confucianism, Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988) made the first attempt to establish a positive contribution of Confucian thought, not only for China, but for the world. We shall analyze basic themes, ideas, and texts Liang drew from the rich and complex tradition of Confucianism, and how he applied them in an ambitious program of social reform and education. Liang spared no efforts in advocating the revival of Confucianism at the level of common people, and has been acclaimed as the last Confucian in modern China. Yet he did not understand Confucianism as being the only intellectual and moral resource, but mixed it with elements coming from Western religion and culture, and from Indian Buddhism. This popular brand of Confucianism and its insertion within a pluralistic setting are probably the two most relevant aspects of Liang’s thought for the twenty-first century.

2  The Confucian Life of a Hidden Buddhist Before discussing Liang’s Confucian philosophy, it is important to describe his life briefly since he never considered himself a professional philosopher, but engaged himself in the school of life itself. His biography is well documented because, at the request of collaborators and friends, he gave four self-narratives at different periods of his life: during the rural reconstruction program, between 1932 and 1935; during the war, between 1940 and 1942; during the Cultural Revolution, between 1969 and T. Meynard (*) Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_4

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1979; and finally, during China’s opening-up, between 1980 and 1988. Liang’s diary covers also a span of almost 50 years, from 1932 to 1981. Li Yuanting wrote the chronicle of Liang’s life (Li and Yan 2009). Liang’s family originated from Guangxi province but had been installed in Beijing for three generations, at the service of the Qing court. Liang received a modern education in one of the few schools that had adopted Western methods and teaching, and thus he had little knowledge of the Confucian classics and their philosophy. Liang rejected the marriage arrangements prepared for him, and in 1911, he discontinued formal education, became a journalist, and joined a revolutionary group. At the peak of an intense activism in politics, Liang entered into a deep depression. Just after the Xinhai Revolution erupted in 1911, he attempted suicide twice. After the political enthusiasm which had carried him for a few years, he was now at loss, and found personal liberation only through a religious conversion to Buddhism. In a kind of quasi-retreat, he intensively read both Buddhist sūtras and Western philosophical works. In 1916, he published his first philosophical essay in Eastern Miscellanies (Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌), entitled “Treatise on Finding the Foundation and Resolving the Doubt” (Jiuyuan jueyilun 究元決疑論). Despite Liang’s weak academic credentials, and on the sole basis of one published article, Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940), president of Peking University, invited Liang to become a teacher of Indian Philosophy in the Philosophy Department. In 1918, his father Liang Ji 梁濟 committed a suicide which he had planned for months in order to show his attachment to the Qing dynasty and Chinese tradition. With a deep sense of remorse concerning his father’s death, Liang published later the notes his father had left to explain his suicide. In 1921, at the age of 29 years old and with his two parents already passed away, Liang finally assumed his Confucian duty of filial piety by getting married. He had two children, but his wife died in 1934. At Peking University, Liang taught classes on Indian Buddhism and Yogācāra Buddhism, and he published two books derived from his lectures: Outline of Indian Philosophy 印度哲學概論 (1919) and Essentials of Yogācāra 唯識述義 (1920). His most famous work, Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue 中西文化及其哲學), published in 1921, marks a clear shift toward Confucianism, though dealing also with Buddhism and Western philosophy. He was at that time intellectually inspired by the Taizhou 泰州 School of Wang Gen 王艮 (1483–1541). Despite the immediate fame he gained for this book, Liang was much aware of his lack of academic training, and was not interested in being a professional philosopher. He was more concerned in finding answers to his own existential issues and to the pressing issues of Chinese society at that time (Meynard 2012: 189). Liang left Peking University and the academic world, believing that the solution for China was to come from the masses. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was active in grass-­ roots education and social reform in Shandong where he helped to found the Shantung (Shandong) Rural Reconstruction Research Institute, with affiliates in Henan and Guangdong (Wu and Tong 2009). He promoted a Confucian ethos taking its root in the “rural compact” xiangyue 鄉約 of the Song dynasty. Facing the situation of a very weak state, Liang envisioned substituting the state with schools, a

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project described by Alitto as “a schoolification of society” (Alitto 1979: 222). Liang failed not only due to exterior factors, like the Japanese invasion, but also due to intrinsic reasons. Unlike Mao, he did not succeed in energizing peasants. He was not able to fully understand what peasants really wanted and needed. Liang himself had to admit a kind of apathy of the peasants toward his rural reconstruction program. Because of the Sino-Japanese war, Liang was forced to relocate himself to Sichuan where he opened a traditional academy, or shuyuan 書院, in Beipei 北碚 (Chongqing). In the 1940s, he became involved in politics, joining the Democratic League, which attempted to create an alternative to the Nationalists and the Communists, and with which Zhang Junmai 張君勱 another prominent intellectual, was affiliated.1 In 1949, the year the PRC was founded, Liang published his second-most important book, Substance of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi 中國文化要義), which did not gain much attention at this time of political transition. Unlike many other intellectuals, Liang made the choice to stay in mainland China. Called to Beijing by Mao, he did not join the Communist Party, but was attached to a political unit. Thus, after more than 20 years of social activism across the country, his life became more stable. On September 11, 1953, Liang, as a delegate of the first Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi 中國 人民政治協商會議), openly criticized Mao’s economic development plan, which had been inspired by policies in the Soviet Union (Liang 1993, 7: 3–6). Liang expressed his opposition to a reform which would widen the gap between the cities and villages. On September 18, Mao Zedong publicly criticized Liang for being a hypocrite (weijunzi 偽君子) and a criminal, comparing him to Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) (Ma 2008: 250). Mao kept Liang in his position as a delegate, but 2 years later, in 1955, a major campaign against Liang was launched in the newspapers. Hundreds of articles attacked his ideas or him personally (Alitto 1979: 328). In 1956, Sanlian Bookstore (Sanlian shudian 三聯書店) in Shanghai collected and published, in three volumes, these articles under the title: Criticizing Liang Shuming’s Thought (Liang Shuming sixiang pipan 梁漱溟思想批判). The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, under the leadership of its director, Guo Moruo 郭沫 若 (1892–1978), also held sessions to criticize Liang’s views. Despite the campaign orchestrated against him and other prominent intellectuals, Liang never deviated from his ideas. He never shirked the political obligations attached to his position. In 1958, he took the opportunity to address a sub-­committee of the People’s Political Consultative Conference three times to express his views. In the third address, Liang even reaffirmed his Buddhist beliefs. While most of the intellectuals were writing papers and articles according to Marxist thought, he was one of the very few who secretly continued his own personal work, beginning a book entitled Human Mind and Human Life (Renxin yu

 See chapter “Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian”—Ed.

1

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rensheng 人心與人生). During the Cultural Revolution, on August and September 1966, the Red Guards harassed him a few times in his house and burned his books, including his draft of Human Mind and Human Life (Liang 1993, 8: 724). During this climactic, anxious time, Liang found peace by taking refuge in the name of the Buddha, and he made private vows to the Buddha (Fayuan wen 發源文; Liang 1993, 7: 227). He was able to finish his book in 1975 and to publish it in 1984. During the “Criticizing Lin Biao and Kongzi” (pilin pikong 批林批孔) campaign in 1973–1974, Liang was invited to criticize Kongzi but instead expressed his opinion that there was no connection between Lin Biao and Kongzi, and that there was no need to criticize Kongzi. After the death of Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution, Liang Shuming lived long enough to see the reemergence of Confucianism. In 1984, he became one of the founding members of the Academy of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua shuyuan 中國文化書院). In 1987, the Academy organized an international conference on his thought (Makeham 2008: 49). In 1981, in an interview with the American Sinologist Guy Alitto, Liang declared that he considered himself a Buddhist and that his desire to become a Buddhist monk was still alive (Liang 1993: 8, 1147). In 1987, at the ceremony of the founding of the Chinese Buddhist Cultural Institute (Zhongguo fojiao wenhua yanjiusuo 中國 佛教文化研究所), Liang declared publically, to the astonishment of many, that he had been a Chan master in his previous life. He died in 1988 at the age of 95.

3  C  ultural Philosophy: Confucianism as the Culture of Moral Reason From the ideas emerging around the time of the May Fourth Movement, Liang adopted the stress on science, unlike Ma Yifu who considered Western science already present in Chinese tradition,2 and he endeavored to search for a “scientific philosophy” (kexue de zhexue 科學的哲學). His philosophical method is similar to science in the sense that it is based on experience. It does not start from abstract metaphysical ideas but from concrete questions or problems encountered by human beings. In this sense, his method always aims toward problem solving and toward the recognition that individual human beings and humankind are facing universal issues, but with different levels of intensity. In Outline of Indian Philosophy, Liang stresses the role of reason in Western philosophy, but also its limitation because Western epistemology fails in establishing a sound metaphysics. Liang held that the Buddhist epistemology of the Yogācāra School alone could allow the mind to reach ultimate reality because it develops a rational process of cognition leading to its own annihilation. Reason systematically eliminates all the conceptual attachments that it had created in the first place, and  See chapter “Ma Yifu’s Theory of the Virtue of (Human) Nature and the Six Arts.”

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reason even negates itself. The mind then fuses with the ultimate reality, eliminating any distinction between the inner and outer worlds. Within the mind, there is no longer any self-reflection, nor space for self-awareness. Instead, there is only pure, spontaneous activity. Liang’s anti-rationalism leads him to see Buddhist philosophy as the exhaustion of philosophy or its death: “The original intention of Buddhism is not to practice philosophy; in fact, it means the death of philosophy” (Liang 1993: 1, 72). In Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies, Liang develops the concept of will from the Buddhist School of Yogācāra, distinguishing a “previous self” (qianci de wo 前次的我) and an “actual self” (xianzai de wo 現在的我). The “previous self” corresponds to the karmic result of our previous selves, and constitutes the world which has been known up to now through the senses, deeds and actions, but the “actual self” is the actual will, what is commonly called “mind” (xin 心) or “spirit” (jingshen 精神). It is an instantaneous activity projecting itself ahead, an opposition to the “self already made.” Life is the fighting effort of the “actual self” against “the previous self” (Liang 1993: 1, 48–49). Carried onwards by this constant conflict, the will can make three basic choices, which are not always conscious. The first choice, taken by the West, is to embrace the struggle, always projecting itself ahead in order to change and improve the external conditions of life. For Liang, the self fights in order to overcome material obstacles, and also conflicts in society and politics. In the second option, taken by China, the will decides to adapt itself to the previous external conditions. The will does not turn outward as in the first option, but turns inward, transforming itself. Finally, the third choice corresponds to the Indian position in which the “actual will” negates the “previous self” in a radical way, since it withdraws from the fight altogether, choosing not to constitute a new “actual will.” What is negated here is not life itself, but the “continuum of life” made of temporary moments. In this sense, it would be wrong to read this as a kind of nihilism. What the mind discovers is that true life is not made of this succession of temporary and unstable stages, but rather a tranquil and permanent reality, accessible to the one who discards the wrong idea of a permanent and independent self. Will determines life, and life determines culture. In other words, culture is a “creative activity,” “an impulse of the will.” Thus, the three cultures of the West, China, and India, respectively, represents three epistemological and moral options: in Western culture, the development of the self and of the nation, based on intellection, or biliang 比量; in Confucianism, the deepening of harmonious relations with others, based on moral intuition, or zhijue 直覺; and in Buddhism, the radical quest for transcendence, based on direct perception, or xianliang 現量. Liang sees the moral intuition in Confucianism as belonging to the realm of true morality, giving meaning (yiwei 意味) to the world. Starting from around 1937 onward, Liang developed this concept of intuition as a special mode of cognition that he called lixing 理性, a term best translated as “moral reason” (An 1997: 337–362; Hanafin 2003: 202). This change of terminology, from moral intuition to moral reason, manifests Liang’s shift from epistemological problems to ethical issues, applying Buddhist epistemology to Confucian ethics.

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According to Yogācāra, wrong cognitions generate four types of attachment: attachment to the self due to discrimination (fenbie wozhi 分别我執); attachment to the world due to discrimination (fenbie fazhi 分别法執); innate attachment to the self (jusheng wozhi 俱生我執); and innate attachment to the world (jusheng fazhi 俱生法執). Liang reorganized the way to deal with these attachments. According to him, while the Western culture based on intellection creates the four types of attachment, a culture based on intuition, like Confucianism, can dissolve the first three attachments, but only a culture based on direct perception, like Buddhism, can dissolve the fourth attachment, that is, the mistaken belief in the existence of an external world (Meynard 2014: 232). In other words, Confucian intuition could overcome the cognitive hindrances created by the discriminating mind, realizing the first step of perceiving reality without the constraints of the self. What is perceived is not the reality of this or that object, of something perceived by someone; rather it is a whole encompassing all that exists. Moral and aesthetic meanings are added to reality but without creating an attachment to the self. In a second step, realized only in Buddhism, reality is perceived as it is, without any support. Even the perception that there is a world goes away, or as Liang said: “The mountains, the rivers and the earth in front of the eyes have all disappeared. Nothing is seen and then ontological reality (benti 本體) appears. As Yogācāra says, fundamental wisdom (genbenzhi 根本智; [mūla-jñāna]) witnesses Suchness (zhenru 真如)” (Liang 1993: 1, 411). Although Liang remains fundamentally a Buddhist, he believes that the traditional Buddhist teaching does not make enough room for a positive appreciation of human life, and he therefore establishes a Confucian morality that can hold value for the present and prepare the Buddhist liberation for tomorrow. Later on, Liang called his analysis of the three cultures a “cultural philosophy” (Liang 1993: 3, 4). The Taiwanese scholar Lin Anwu 林安梧 has praised Liang for the importance given to the will, but he brings also strong criticism against this kind of idealism, which does not pay enough attention to the external reality of the material world and of the social structures. According to him, Liang neglects the path of knowledge over the path of existence. Although he starts with an experimental method, his method leans toward solipsism and subjectivism. Liang forgets the empirical data of the world along the way and rushes too quickly in building a metaphysical and ontological system (Lin 2009: 14). However, Liang did not think that Confucian morality alone could rejuvenate the culture of his time, and thus, he also strongly advocated for the import of Western scientific and social thoughts.

4  Historical Philosophy: Confucianism as the Ethical Age In Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies, not only did Liang describe three kinds of culture, but he also explained their inter-relationship within a historical frame. While in the past, the three cultures of the West, India, and China have taken their own independent paths, they have come into closer contact in

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modern times. Because of the influence of economics and politics, cultures come into conflict with one another. Western culture invades and attacks cultures which have taken the second and third paths. However, Western culture faces the question of “alienation” (yihua 異化), which is created by an excessive concern with forward and external projection and by its desire for conquest and competition. Always projecting itself ahead, Western culture can no longer continue its focus on intellection and cannot solve its problems by itself. Therefore, in the near future, Western culture shall reorient itself along the line of Chinese culture. The West will not need to completely abandon the fundamental products of modernity, such as science, democracy, and so on, but it will abandon its onward thrust toward progress and adopt a more conciliatory approach to life, learning from China’s intuition. Then, China will become the model for world culture. However, at present China needs to successfully, and sufficiently, appropriate and integrate elements of the first path in order to fully develop its traditional, harmonious spirit. This is a subtle balance that China needs to get right; it cannot take too much from the first path, which would run against its own spirit, but it needs enough to provide a sufficiently comprehensive material and social basis for the moral principles of Confucianism to fully develop. China thus needs a combination of intellection and intuition to preserve China’s own identity and at the same time embrace progress. By entering deeper into the ethical age, humanity will advance one step further toward direct perception and the final enlightenment of Buddhism. After having successfully resolved the questions of inter-personal relationships and personal cultivation thanks to Confucianism, humanity could then face the radical question of the meaning of life. Then, the Indian, Buddhist path would impose itself on the whole of humanity. After the affirmation and harmonization of the human will, the will would itself be negated. Although the final stage may be Buddhist, yet in the present situation, China and the world need to uphold Confucianism as a culture that could save them from the predicaments of Western culture, like competition and desire for conquest. Liang’s evolutionary scheme should not be considered deterministic. It contains no law of necessity, since the encounter between the three types of culture was accidental. Without such an encounter, the three cultures would have followed their own specific paths indefinitely. Liang therefore later claimed that Chinese culture had not made any progress for the last 2000 years and, had it not encountered Western culture, would have followed its own trajectory indefinitely, never giving rise to science or democracy. Lin Anwu criticizes Liang for establishing the transcendent frame of three cultures above the concrete history of humankind, a frame that is quite arbitrary, and that fails to respect true cultural diversity. In Liang’s defense, however, I should say that it is precisely because Liang was able to encapsulate the essence of the three cultures into some basic concepts that his philosophy of culture provides a meaningful frame of reference which invites people to reflect critically about their own culture.

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5  S  ocial and Political Philosophy: The Confucian Model of Family Ethics Some 26 years after his first book on attitudes towards life, in his second major work Substance of Chinese Culture 中國文化要義, Liang continued his thinking by grounding it in a philosophical analysis of society. In this work of greater maturity, Liang shows that two attitudes towards life have produced two different societies (he does not deal with Indian society). Liang presents his famous list of the ten characteristics of Chinese culture and society, which are ambivalent, both as strengths and weaknesses. Even if Liang is often perspicacious, some judgments are sometimes too superficial (like the supposed immobility of China). He develops the two most important characteristics: the ethics of reciprocity and the professional differentiation. Those two characteristics are not set by external conditions, as determinist theories would hold, but result from a cultural choice that can be traced back to the Warring States period. The ethics of reciprocity structures an ethic-based society (lunlibenwei de shehui 倫理本位的社會); it does not establish duties, but promotes a moral attitude which puts the other first. Chinese ethically-based social structure takes family as the architectural model for societal relationships (Lu and Zhao 2009: 31). The model of family relationships is promoted throughout the entire society, inevitably creating a “circle” of closeness and distance. Liang criticizes Feng Youlan for whom the Chinese family reflects a pre-industrial society, and on the contrary, he sees the model of the Chinese family as a permanent feature of the culture. In contrast, the society in the West is shaped by a strong tension between the two poles of the individual and of the state. Liang did not see the state either as an absolute foundation or as an end. Instead, during his engagement in rural reconstruction in the nineteen thirties, Liang advocated autonomous villages and communities that would be their own agents of development. According to him, the centrality of family has made Chinese society very stable, though it also induced immobility and did not foster the development of individuals and of the state. Liang also lamented that Chinese lack a sense of public morality. The second fundamental characteristic of Chinese society for Liang is professional differentiation into scholars, peasants, artisans and merchants. Liang’s idea germinated during the debate on the social history of China in the 1930s. Marxist scholars analyzed Chinese society according to the notion of class struggle (An 2002: 160). However, Liang considers that professional differentiation has allowed China to avoid the conflicts between rigid social and political classes like in the West. Unlike Western ethics, Confucian ethics prevented the concentration of land and capital. Thus, the Marxists were wrong in describing ancient China as feudal since the power did not belong to an aristocracy, like in the West, but to a meritocracy. Liang never departed from his rejection of class struggle, even in front of Mao in 1938. Yet, the lack of social conflicts in China has a negative consequence since this did not allow the building up of a strong state. In the modern context of countries competing against each other, China finds itself in a weak position.

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Liang Shuming said that China was not suited for democracy, but some scholars do not see this as a pure rejection of democracy on his part (Ip 1991: 473). Liang looked at democracy not as an institution regulated by laws but as a lifestyle. As Gu Hongliang 顧紅亮 has shown, Liang inherited this idea of politics from Dewey, especially with the stress on political participation and education (Gu 2008, 111). Furthermore, he held that Confucian politics was not based on rights like in the West but on duties. Liang incorporated from Western democracy the principle of respect for the individual and majority rule and believed that it was necessary to combine majority rule with government by the wise. Liang was also creative in reinterpreting the traditional opposition between yi 義 and li 利 along the lines of the Western opposition between duty (yiwu 義務) and right (quanli 權利). During the chaotic years of the Republican era, most thinkers advocated a strong state that could alone provide social stability. Edmund Fung described Liang as a “politico-cultural nationalist” who wanted to regenerate both the state and the nation (Fung 2010: 102). Liang recognized that Chinese society lacked enthusiasm for political life and in his rural reconstruction he attempted to foster some new political habits in terms of organizational abilities, discipline, and mutual respect. However, Liang was very much aware of the dangers from the state and political organizations because they feed irrational desires. On the contrary, he considered that politics should not be based on desire for power and for might, but should be sustained by a moral quest, by a moral transformation of oneself and of all. In order to achieve this, Confucianism holds the “innate goodness of human nature,” enabling people to trust in each other and in politics. In this sense, Liang tends to place the cultural ethos of the nation above the state. At the end of Substance of Chinese Culture, Liang discusses “cultural precocity” (zaoshu 早熟), a term which he had first used in Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies. The West had focused at an early stage on material survival, which has allowed the development of a strong social body, and of morality. Comparatively, the moral attitude adopted by China under the Zhou dynasty came too early because the social body was not strong enough to carry its ideal. In modern times, China faces a dead end, unable to progress socially without hurting its ethos. Gu Hongliang interprets Liang’s idea of ethically-based society with the concept of “lifeworld,” a concept shaped by Edmond Husserl. By underlining the workings of inter-subjectivity, this concept gives a deeper foundation to Liang’s analysis of Chinese society as being neither collective nor individualistic. Gu also makes a parallel with Martin Buber, who advocated a Jewish renewal combining religion, culture, and nationality (Gu 2008, 256).

6  The Question of Religion, or the Beyond of Confucianism As with the concept of philosophy, Liang adopted the Western concept of religion but radically transformed it. Instead of building upon the notion of God’s existence or the experience of the divine, Liang defined religion from a Buddhist perspective:

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as a radical negation of the present world. Buddhism, as a religion, went further than philosophy, because it reached a non-conceptual reality, beyond the dichotomy of the thinking subject and the object of thought. From a functionalist perspective, it can be said that Confucianism is not a religion like Christianity, since it does not build up a strong social cohesiveness, nor a religion like Buddhism, since it does not address the ultimate question. But still Confucianism, for Liang, is very similar to a religion since it fills psychological and moral functions for the individual and the community. Through moral reason, human beings can apprehend the whole of the cosmic life in movement and embrace its flux. Through balance between their inner moral feelings and reason, people can express themselves in their social life and be associated with the pace of the cosmos. As Liang states in Human Mind and Human Life We cannot but distinguish between two aspects: the essence of the cosmic life in the state of flux and its essence in the state of tranquility, of unconditionality, without arising and ceasing. The two aspects are not identical nor distinct, two but still one, one but still two. And the way of Confucianism deals mainly with the first and Buddhism with the second. (Liang 1993: 3, 660)

While history is marching toward the final Buddhist awakening, Confucianism is the best way for the present, since it can positively prepare the path for the transcendental question to arise, first by rejecting the impasse of too worldly religions and second by insisting on the cultivation of the mind. In Substance of Chinese Culture, Liang explains that all the primitive societies were born with religious practices and norms, but China very early on took another direction. Liang adopts here the thesis of Feng Youlan of 1928, but while Feng talks about a transformation of religion towards morality, Liang radicalizes the theory, talking about a “replacement of religion with morality” (yi daode dai zongjiao 以道 德代宗教). Also, Liang makes an analysis of the Confucian rituals as establishing a deep harmony between the participants themselves, and with the cosmos, in which any division and externality are abolished. Thus Liang talks about “ritual without ritual” (wuli zhi li 無禮之禮) and “music without sound” (wusheng zhi yue 無聲之樂). Surely for Liang, Confucianism cannot overcome the inborn attachment, since it is powerless to cut through the support of natural and mental life on which it relies to develop. But Confucianism enables humans to find a spiritual harmony inside the world. First, it overcomes the fundamental egoism of self by establishing wide communication between itself and the cosmos. Second, it overcomes the attachment of the discriminating mind to the mistaken ideas of a self and of the world, by reestablishing the basic unity of the mind between itself and its experience. For Liang, Kongzi sets a middle path between Christianity and Buddhism. Only Confucianism truly knows the inner heart. The Confucian proposal is at the same deep level of questioning as a religion, and as religion it provides intellectual and affective answers. But it is not yet a religion in the sense that it does not postulate any external revelation or realm from the outside (Christianity), nor does it lead to a radical transcendence from the inside (Buddhism). So Liang sees the religion established

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by Kongzi as a quasi religion, “not a religion, but yet similar to a religion” (Liang 1993: 1, 417). In his writings, Liang has developed this very profound religious view, drawing mainly from Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism. Accordingly, the personal inner heart can be enlarged to the dimensions of the moral cosmos, enabling humans to achieve a real freedom inside this world (Meynard 2007). Liang maintained for himself the conviction that Confucianism could not address the ultimate questions of meaning for the individual and for the world. The complex relationship that Liang had with Buddhism has been understood only recently by the academic community, especially by taking into account some interviews that Liang gave at the end of his life, in which he revealed that he had remained a Buddhist all his life. In August 1980, Guy Alitto went to interview him in Beijing and asked his position about Buddhism, to what Liang answered: “I consider myself a Buddhist. But on the standpoint of society, it is better to say that I am a Confucian. I admit this point” (Liang 1993: 7, 1178). A few years later, on spring 1985, Liang declared in the same vein to Professor Wang Zongyu: “I converted to Confucianism because Buddhism is an other-worldly religion, which does not coincide with the human world. But I have still held Buddhism in my heart. I have never changed on this” (Wang 1988: 67). The misperception of the academic community about the true identity of Liang is somewhat understandable. Believing that humanity was not yet ready to enter into the Buddhist cultural period, Liang promoted Confucian morality as a necessary step for fostering self-reflection and personal cultivation, which would eventually prepare the ground for Buddhist enlightenment. From his philosophical method of question-solving, we can gather that Liang has kept silent about his Buddhist faith because he wanted people to concentrate on the issues they were presently facing and not become distracted with issues which were not yet ripe.

7  L  iang’s Influence in Both Academic and Popular Confucianism After the establishment of the PRC, Liang’s thinking was regarded as reactionary and a denial of historical materialism, which was the ideological foundation of the regime. However, starting from the 1980s, Liang’s ideas and his own life have received a lot of attention in China. Every year his texts are reprinted in different editions. Among some ten biographies, the one by one of his two sons, Liang Peishu, as well the one by Ma Yong are noteworthy. In the general public, Liang is considered to be one of a few intellectuals, along with Chen Yinge 陳寅格 (1890–1969), to have upheld intellectual freedom under Mao, and thus he represents the conscience of China. With a stricter control of the government over the intellectuals in the last decade, Liang’s example sets a reference for many intellectuals about the limits they accept in collaborating with the ideology of the regime.

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Scholars in China usually recognize Liang as belonging to the first generation of the movement of Contemporary New Confucians, though Xiong Shili is often considered the real founder of the movement because of the theoretical foundations he laid. In the debate between the Liberals, the New Left, and the Culturalists since the 1980s, Liang’s ideas of Chinese cultural identity have received a growing appreciation. Important scholars in contemporary Confucianism like Guo Qiyong 郭啟勇 (1996), Jing Haifeng 景海峰 (2005) and Zheng Dahua 鄭大華 (1999) have dedicated monographs on Liang. For those scholars, Liang should not be understood as a conservative opposed to modernity, as the Chinese Marxists saw him. In fact, though Liang rejected the blending of the West with the Chinese tradition, he critically adopted ideas of modernity, and thus his thought can be better described as “modern cultural conservatism” (Fung 2010: 63). Liang was the first to proclaim the universalism of Confucianism in the modern age, and he initiated a reverse process of assimilation: not only does China need to learn from the West, but equally as important, the West should learn from China. With the economic and political rise of China in the world since the last 20 years, this challenge to the Western-centric view, first articulated by Liang 100 years ago, attracts growing attention. The question of the position of Confucianism in the world is also linked to the question of the role of Confucianism within Chinese society itself. In the context of a Chinese society which is pluralistic and cannot be reduced to its Confucian dimension, Liang’s cultural pluralism, combining Confucianism not only with the West but with Buddhism, represents an important asset. This may be relevant in avoiding the trap of Confucianism becoming the new ideology of the regime. Liang was against all isms and he would certainly not have supported something like Confucianism as such, even less state Confucianism. While the theoretical foundations of contemporary Confucianism have been firmly established thanks to the work of Mou Zongsan, many questions are raised about its practical implementation. Liang incarnates the Confucian ideal of the “union of knowledge and action” 知行合一. Gu Hongliang’s study on Liang’s philosophy as a lifeworld, which we mentioned above, goes into the direction of building a Confucian social body, with a focus on local communities. Scholars attempt now to look at concrete Confucian forms of life in the modern world, in the areas of politics (Jiang Qing 蔣慶 2012), civil society (Lin Anwu 2011), and spiritual exercises (Peng Guoxiang 彭國翔 2007). In all these sectors, Liang Shuming was a pioneer, and his ideas provide important resources. Since the last decade, we precisely see this model of popular Confucianism (minjian rujia 民間儒家) spreading. As in Liang’s case, there are individual initiatives starting from men and women who have experienced a kind of conversion and associate with others sharing the same belief. For example, in 2004 in Anhui province, the Lujiang School for Traditional Culture and Education (Lujiang chuantong wenhuajiaoyu xuexiao 廬江傳統文化教育學校) was founded. This private school provides teachers and educators moral training of half a year, mostly based on the study and the practice of the Dizigui 弟子規. After the training, people are expected to be

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active in their capacity of teachers to educate the young generation about Confucian morality. Same as for Liang, the focus is about the moral transformation of the individual in view of the collectivity, which can be described as a form of “collective subjectification,” by which the deepest emotions of the individual become factors of communitarian cohesion (Meynard 2015). By avoiding the two extremes of individualism and collectivism, individuals develop a strong interiority oriented toward the collectivity. This is precisely this balance between the two, which allows the criticism of some degenerate ways of life in modern society. Also in 2004 the Liang Shuming Rural Reconstruction Center 梁漱溟鄉村建設 中心was founded at Renmin University, Beijing. This center sends young students to different parts of China to educate rural community leaders. Yet we cannot overlook how much Chinese rural society has changed since the nineteen thirties. Unlike a population relatively fixed at the time of Liang, today most young people have deserted the villages, feeding a floating population employed in the factories of big cities. This important geographical mobility put a great stress on the family, which was precisely the basis for the Confucian society. Taking into consideration the mobility of the population from villages to cities, back and forth, I wonder if we can continue applying a dualistic vision of countryside versus the cities. In fact, I would propose looking at the relationship between countryside and cities as no longer based on territory, but as based on social and cultural belonging and self-­ identification, with the urban and the rural psyche as two poles co-habiting in any single individual. Liang’s ideas on religion have received a growing appreciation. His ideas on Confucianism as being a specific religion have helped contemporary Confucianism to reclaim the spiritual tradition of Confucianism, and Liang’s influence can be felt in the “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of the World” (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijierenshi xuanyan 為中國 文化敬告世界人士宣言) of 1958, stressing a specific religiosity of Confucianism, in contrast with Christianity (Bresciani 2001: 83). The works of Tu Wei-ming about Confucianism as spirituality and the reshaping of Confucian philosophy as a way of life (under the influence of Pierre Hadot’s theories on ancient Western philosophy) have contributed to rediscovery of Liang’s ideas on religion. For example, we can see a displacement in Chen Lai’s understanding of Liang’s thought. In Tradition and Modernity (2006), he situates Liang’s thought within the intellectual context of the May Fourth movement, and he rightly shows how Liang in his own times was wrongly perceived as a conservative opposed to modernization and to the West. Because Chen Lai considers that the modernization of China is not yet complete, he sees Liang’s ideas still very relevant for China in its process of accommodating Western ideas and of deepening its own traditions according to its roots. In this book of 2006, which in fact re-uses texts already published in 2001, Chen Lai does not pick up the religious dimension of Confucianism (Chen 2009). However, in a paper published in 2009, he deals with Liang’s relationship with Tantric Buddhism. Thus Liang’s life and thought are recognized as not being purely

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identified with Confucianism, and it is now recognized that Liang found in Buddhism the expression of a religiosity which completed and exceeded the religiosity he found in Confucianism. Finally, I shall end with Liang’s influence in the West. Guy Alitto made Liang known in the West at a very early date with his very well-researched book entitled The Last Confucian (1979). At that time Liang was still alive, but communications between China and the outside world were very scarce. Alitto did not have the chance to go to China and meet with Liang, and so the title of Alitto’s work is misleading because he defined Liang exclusively as a Confucian, missing out his Buddhist crypto-identity. The second monograph in English devoted to Liang’s thought is by Meynard (2011), in which I expound in some details the complex relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism in Liang’s thought. In 2001, Bresciani offered a detailed description of what he called the New Confucian movement for the first time, where Liang Shuming is featured as the forerunner of the movement, followed by other ten figures. After Bresciani’s work, a few works have appeared, usually with a chapter dedicated to Liang. In New Confucianism, edited by John Makeham, Liang Shuming is among the four authors discussed, described by John Hanafin as the “Last Buddhist,” in contrast to Alitto’s title. In Contemporary Chinese Philosophy edited by Cheng Chung-Ying and Nicholas Bunnin, An Yanming has one chapter under the heading “Liang Shuming: Eastern and Western Cultures and Confucianism.” We should mention also the translation by Edmund Ryden into English of the book of Chen Lai, with two chapters on Liang Shuming, as well as four papers from contemporary Chinese scholars in a volume edited by Thierry Meynard (2009). More recently, Zhang Huajuan (2013) has published a study comparing the educational theories of Liang with Dewey’s. There is also a book in German by Zbigniew Wesołowski on Liang’s philosophy of life and culture (Wesołowski 1997). As we can see, the volume of research on Liang Shuming in the West is not negligible. In contrast, the process of translating Liang’s texts into English is rather slow. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963) translated and compiled by Chan Wing-Tsit offers texts by Feng Youlan and Xiong Shili in two distinct chapters, considering them Confucian, but there is nothing by Liang Shuming. The Sources of Chinese Tradition (2000a) compiled by Theodore De Bary has one chapter entitled “Reopening the Debate on Chinese Tradition” with texts by Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan, but there is only a very short text by Liang Shuming, found in a preceding chapter about the New Culture Movement and the controversy about Chinese and Western cultures. The Chinese Human Rights Reader includes large excerpts from two chapters of Eastern and Western Philosophy and Their Philosophies (Liang 2001b). No complete works of Liang have been so far translated into English. However, his two major works, Eastern and Western Philosophy and Their Philosophies and Substance of Chinese Culture, have already been translated into French (Liang 2000b; Liang 2010). Compared with Feng Youlan and Mou Zongsan’s works, the research and translation on Liang’s works have been quite weak, and thus Liang is not known as he should be.

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References Alitto, Guy. 1979. The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (A very detailed biography of Liang Shuming, still unsurpassed.) An, Yanming. 1997. “Liang Shuming and Henri Bergson on Intuition: Cultural Context and the Evolution of Terms.” Philosophy East and West 47.3: 337–362. (Analysis of the evolution of key concepts in Liang’s thought, such as intuitive knowledge, reason, and intellect) ———. 2002. “Liang Shuming: Eastern and Western Cultures and Confucianism.” In Chung-­ Ying Cheng, ed., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Boston: Blackwell Publishers. (General presentation of Liang’s life and ideas, with an analysis of key concepts, mostly taken from the 1997 paper; lacks an analysis of Liang’s influence.) Bresciani, Umberto. 2001. Reinventing Confucianism. Taipei: Ricci Institute. (Includes one chapter giving a quite complete presentation of Liang’s life and ideas; Liang is presented as the forerunner of the New Confucian Movement.) Chen, Lai 陳來. 2006. Tradition and Modernity: A Humanist view 傳統與現代:人文主義的視界. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshi. (In this collection of essays, Chen Lai has one chapter about Dongqi wenhua jiqi zhexue and one about Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi.) ———. 2009. Tradition and Modernity: A Humanist View. Leiden-Boston: Brill. (This is the English translation by Edmund Ryden of the book above.) Fung, Edmund S.K. 2010. The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Fung analyzes the debates between liberals, socialists and conservatives which happened in the Republican era; he portrays Liang’s thought as cultural conservatism and político-cultural nationalism). Gu, Hongliang 顧紅亮. 2008. The Confucian Lifeworld 儒家生活世界. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe. (Gu interprets Liang’s thought with the phenomenological concept of lifeword.) Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇 and Gong, Jianping 龔建平. 1996. The Philosophical Thought of LIANG Shuming 梁漱溟哲學思想. Wuhan: Hubei People Press. (Presents a detailed analysis of Liang’s two main works.) Hanafin, John. 2003. “The ‘Last Buddhist.’” In John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism. New York: Palgrave. (In contrast to Alitto’s analysis, this presents the convincing case that Liang was ultimately a Buddhist.) Ip, Hung-Yok. 1991. “Liang Shuming and the Idea of Democracy in Modern China.” Modern China 17.4: 469–508. (The author argues that Liang was a strong advocate of democracy, showing his multiple committments to it, which go beyond the concern for national strength). Jiang, Qing 蔣慶. 2012. A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Presents a blue-print of China political reform as an alternative to Western liberal democracy and to Marxism.) Jing, Haifeng 景海峰. 2005. New Confucianism and Twentieth Century Chinese Thought 新儒 學與二十世紀中國思想. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe. (This renowned specialist of Xiong Shili opens his book with one chapter analyzing the background and evolution of Liang’s thought.) Li, Yuanting 李淵庭, and Yan, Binghua 閻秉華. 2009. Liang Shuming 梁漱溟. Beijing: Qunyan chubanshe. (This is the standard chronicle of Liang’s life, year by year, which replaced an ancient version of 1991 by the same authors.) Liang, Peishu 梁培恕. 2001a. Biography of Liang Shuming 梁漱溟傳. Beijing: Mingbao chubanshe. (A biography of Liang written by his other son). Liang, Shuming 梁漱溟. 1993. Liang Shuming quanji 梁漱溟全集. Ji’nan: Shandong chubanshe. (The standard edition of Liang’s works in 8 volumes.)

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———. 2000a. Excerpts from Eastern and Western Philosophies and Reconstruction of Village Community. In Theodore De Bary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition. New  York: Columbia University Press. (Includes a very short text by Liang.) ———. 2000b. Les cultures d’Orient et d’Occident et leurs philosophies. Paris: Puf. (The French translation by Luo Shenyi of Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue.) ———. 2001b. Excerpts from Eastern and Western Philosophies. In Stephen C. Angle and Marina Svensson, eds., The Chinese Human Rights Reader: Documents and Commentary, 1900–2000. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (Translation of excerpts from two chapters from Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue, in total 15 pages) ———. 2010. Les idées maîtresses de la culture chinoise. Paris : Institut Ricci – Cerf. (The French translation by Michel Masson, S.J., of Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi.) Lin, Anwu 林安梧. 2009. “Liang Shuming and His Theory of the Reappearance of Three Cultural Periods.” In Thierry Meynard, ed., Liang Shuming’s Thought and Its Reception. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (A very good analysis and evaluation of Liang Shuming’s Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies.) ———. 2011. Confucian Revolution: From New Confucianism to Post-New Confucianism 儒學革 命:從新儒學到後新儒學. Beijing: Commercial Press. (A critical assessment of Contemporary Confucianism and an attempt in repositioning it within the framework of a pluralistic society and culture). Lu, Weiming 陸衛明, and Zhao, Xiaoyu 趙曉宇. 2009. “Liang Shuming’s Viewpoint of Chinese and Western Cultures in the Substance of Chinese Culture.” In Thierry Meynard, ed., Liang Shuming’s Thought and Its Reception. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (Analysis and evaluation of Liang’s idea about China as an ethic-based society.) Ma, Yong 馬勇. 2008. Liang Shuming, an Extraordinary Thinker梁漱溟思想奇人. Beijing: Peking University Press. (A well-documented biography.) Makeham, John. 2008. Lost Souls: Confucianism in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse. Harvard: Harvard University Press. (An insightful and critical analysis of Contemporary Confucianism from the 1980s to early 21st century.) Meynard, Thierry. 2007. “Is Liang Shuming Ultimately a Confucian or Buddhist?” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 6.2: 131–147. (Taking a closer look at Liang’s copious writings on religion, I show how he conceived the role of religion at the different steps of humanity’s quest. While he engaged the world in a certain way, he was still holding privately another belief. This “secret” of Liang reshuffles traditional boundaries between the secular and transcendence.) ———. 2009. Liang Shuming’s Thought and Its Reception. Armonk, NY: M.E.  Sharpe. (Four recent papers by contemporary Chinese scholars about Liang Shuming, translated into English, with an introduction by Thierry Meynard.) ———. 2011. The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming: The Hidden Buddhist. Leiden-Boston: Brill. (I analyze Liang’s thoughts against the background of the intellectual debates on religion in Republican China, and I show how Liang reshaped the concept of religion from the standpoint of Buddhism, and how he articulated it with Confucianism and Christianity.) ———. 2012. “Introducing Buddhism as Philosophy: The cases of Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili and Tang Yongtong.” In John Makeham, ed., Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic discipline in Twentieth-century China. Hong Kong Chinese University Press. (I analyze the insertion of traditional discourses in Chinese thought within the new setting of universities). ———. 2014. “Liang Shuming and his Confucianized version of Yogācāra.” In John Makeham, ed., Transforming Consciousness: The Intellectual Reception of Yogācāra Thought in Modern China. Oxford University Press. (I show how Liang Shuming modified the Buddhist theory of Yogācāra in order to accommodate Confucianism). ———. 2015. “Confucianism as the Religion for Our Present Time: The Religious Dimension of Confucianism in Liang Shuming’s Thought.” In Guy Alitto, ed., Contemporary Confucianism in Thought and Action. Springer, 2015. (I present and evaluate Liang’s ideas of Confucianism as an ethics and a spirituality deeply grounded in the inner self and in society. I show how

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Confucianism can make an important contribution to the world culture in terms of individual practice and community life.) Peng, Guoxiang 彭國翔. 2007. Confucian tradition: Between religion and humanism儒家傳統宗 教與人文主義之間, Beijing: Peking University Press. (Presents the Confucian tradition as a technique for the cultivation of the self.) Wesołowski, Zbigniew. 1997. Lebens und Kulturbegriff von Liang Shuming (1893–1988): dargestellt anhand seines Werkes “Dong-Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue”. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica. (Besides Alitto 1979 and Meynard 2014, this is the only book in another Western language dedicated to Liang, focusing on his philosophy of life and culture.) Wang, Zongyu 王宗昱. 1988. “Is it Confucianism or Buddhism? 是儒家, 還是佛家?” In Wenxing文星1: 67–69. (One of the earliest papers raising the question about Liang’s cultural and religious identity.) Wu, Shugang, and Tong, Binchang. 2009. “Liang Shuming’s Rural Reconstruction Experiment and Its Relevance for Building the New Socialist Countryside.” In Thierry Meynard, ed., Liang Shuming’s Thought and his Reception. Armonk, NY: M.E Sharpe. (The author describes and critically analyzes Liang’s engagement in rural reconstruction in Zouping County, Shandong Province, in the 1930s.) Zhang, Huajun. 2013. John Dewey, Liang Shuming, and China’s Education Reform: Cultivating Individuality, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. (A comparative study of two educational reformers, insisting on the deep relationship between self-transformation and social transformation). Zheng, Dahua 鄭大華. 1999. Evaluation of the Academic Thought of Liang Shuming 梁漱溟學術 思想評傳, Beijing北京: Beijing Tushuguan北京圖書館. (The author analyzes the development of Liang’s thought in different stages: his critical adoption of Western ideas, his embrace of the School of Mind of Confucianism, and his opposition to Marxism.)

Xiong Shili’s Ontology Qiyong Guo

1  Introduction Xiong Shili1 (熊十力 1885–1968) was a native of Huanggang, Hubei province. In his early years he threw himself into the Xinhai Revolution that began not far from his hometown, in Wuhan in 1911, but by 1918 he had broken away from engagement in political circles and devoted himself to philosophical research. From 1920 to 1922 he studied Yogācāra Consciousness-Only Buddhism (Faxiang weishi zhi xue 法相唯識之學) with Ouyang Jingwu2 (歐陽竟無) in Nanjing. In 1922 he was invited by Cai Yuanpei3 (蔡元培 1868–1940) to serve as a guest lecturer at Beijing University teaching Yogācāra Consciousness-Only Buddhism.4  Names have been converted to Hanyu pinyin for consistency, with the exception of well-known names where the commonly and consistently used Romanization is maintained.—Trans. 2  He also goes by the name Ouyang Jian 歐陽漸. 3  Cai Yuanpei is a well-known early twentieth century Chinese educator, the longest serving president of Peking University 北京大學 (December 1916–August 1927), and a founder of Academia Sinica.—Trans. 4  Xiong Shili served as a professor at Beijing University from the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937) until 1958. During this time, he was not always teaching at Beijing University, though his name continued to be linked with Beijing University and he continued to receive a salary from the school. 1

Translated by Dr. Jesse Ciccotti [The translator (PhD, Hong Kong Baptist University) is grateful for assistance with several difficult passages from Dr. Wang Shunran Shaun 王順然, Jao Tsung-I Institute of Culture Studies, Shenzhen University 深圳大学饶宗颐文化研究院, and editorial assistance from Dr. Lu Yinghua 卢盈华, Associate Professor at Si-Mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University 华东师范大 学思勉人文高等研究院与哲学系.] Q. Guo (*) School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_5

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From 1923 to 1932 Xiong went through a key period of creative preparation during which time he constructed his own philosophical system. During his time at Beijing University he gradually formed his own ideas, departing from the teachings of his mentor, Ouyang Jingwu, and returned to the Confucian tradition from Buddhism, writing New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness (Xin weishi lun 新唯識論). From that time on he worked ceaselessly to improve his theory, in the end becoming one of contemporary China’s exceptionally creative philosophers, and one of the pioneering representatives of Modern New Confucianism. Xiong lived in Beijing from 1950 to 1954, and settled down in Shanghai after 1954 with the family of his only son, finally retiring in 1958. Xiong initially received a courteous reception from the government and could focus on his writing until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution erupted. As a prominent intellectual, Xiong was significantly impacted, facing physical abuse and confiscation of his property (Yu 2002: 130).5 Xiong was deeply sorrowful and regretted this great catastrophe Chinese culture suffered. Throughout his life Xiong Shili wrote voluminously and with great insight, promoting the basic essence of Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy. He contributed the view that the “benevolent heart-mind” (renxin 仁心) is fundamental reality (benti 本體),6 and built the “New Consciousness-Only” philosophical system on the general principles of the “non-duality of reality and function” (tiyong buer 體用不 二), “transformation through expansion and contraction” (xipichengbian 翕闢成 變7), and “realization of truth through intuitive understanding” (mingwuzhenghui 冥 悟證會). Chinese-American scholar Chan Wing-tsit (陳榮捷 1901–1994) believed that “Xiong has definitely made an advance in Neo-Confucianism, particularly in the identification of principle (li 理) and vital energy (qi 氣)…. It is true that he has not clarified the relationship between the mind and principle, but he has given idealistic Neo-Confucianism a more solid metaphysical basis and a more dynamic character” (Chan 1953: 764). In a 1985 letter congratulating Wuhan University for holding a conference commemorating the 100th anniversary of Xiong Shili’s birth, Chan Wing-tsit pointed out that Xiong’s thought “takes the Yijing 易經 as the foundation, elucidates the way of inner sageliness and outer kingliness, truly represents China’s mainstream philosophy without being contaminated by Buddhism8 and without following Western trends, and cannot be compared to putting new wine into an old wineskin” (Guo 1990: 211–212, and Guo 1989: 188).

5  Significantly, Yu reports that Xiong was never required to undergo Marxist self-criticisms like some of his contemporaries, most notably, Feng Youlan—Trans. 6  This term is further explained below, in section two.—Trans. 7  This term is explained below, in section three.—Trans. 8  For an alternative reading that emphasizes Xiong’s appropriation of Buddhist philosophy, see Makeham (2014), (2015), and (2017).

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2  Xiong’s “Reality” 本體 and “Theory of Reality” 本體論 From intellectual resources within Confucian philosophy Xiong Shili discovered and rebuilt its “essential origins” (daben dayuan 大本大源). He believed philosophy’s fundamental task was to “express reality,” taking a “‘theory of reality’ (bentilun 本體論)9 to be the domain” of philosophy. What is this “reality” he talks about? Benevolence (ren 仁) is the original heart-mind (benxin 本心), that is to say, [benevolence] is the same reality shared by humans, heaven, earth and the myriad things…. Building on the philosophies of Kongzi and Mengzi, and up through the teachers of the Song and Ming dynasties, without exception they all pointed to benevolence as the original heart-mind, and the source of all transformation and the foundation of all things. This benevolent substance is that apart from which nothing can be known or understood. (Guo 2001a: 397–398)

Similar to “benevolence,” “original heart-mind,” and “innate moral awareness” (liangzhi 良知10), Xiong’s “reality” is not a “natural reality” (ziran benti 自然本體) but a “vital reality”11 (shengming benti 生命本體) of “ceaselessly creative creativity” (sheng sheng bu yi 生生不已) and “energetic motion” (gangjian yundong 剛健運動). According to a Confucian perspective, human existence must, of necessity, make its purpose realizing the highest good in the world (the fullest attainment of the good12). Here Xiong is emphasizing the Confucian “fundamental reality” (benti 本體), especially the “reality” of the philosophy of the heart-mind of the SongMing period. This is not a transcendental reality, but a substance that is combined into one with heaven, earth and the myriad things, fusing cosmic human life (yuzhourensheng 宇宙人生13) into a single, integrated whole. This “single substance benevolence” (yiti zhi ren 一體之仁) can be expanded to include all sentient beings, plants, land and sea, tile and stone.14 In other words, through the substance

9  The Chinese term bentilun is usually rendered as “ontology” in English. However, apart from the title in which I maintained the use of “ontology” because it is more recognizable to an English readership, I have chosen to render bentilun as “reality” where possible, in order to highlight the difference in Xiong’s meaning and use of the term.—Trans. 10  This is a philosophical term borrowed from Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), expounding on its use in the Mengzi 7A:15.—Trans. 11  Shengming does not refer to merely natural material [or biological—Trans.] life, but rather the existence of an intimate integration between material and spiritual life. In the midst of this existence, it is the vigorous spiritual life which takes the lead. 12  Translation of Guo’s use of the phrase zhishan (至善) from the Daxue in the parenthetical statement is taken from Plaks (2003: 5).—Trans. 13  Cosmic human life is a form of human life that is cosmic in scope or experience. The phrase occurs in four places in Guo’s text. From his explanation in this chapter, it seems that Guo (following Xiong) intends it to be a single term. If we were to insert an “and” in the middle (“cosmic and human life”) it divides into two what Xiong is trying to show is, in fact, singular.—Trans. 14  This is a reference to Wang Yangming’s Daxue Wen 大學問.—Trans.

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of the “benevolent heart-mind” or the “light of one’s inner moral force”15 in a human being—that is, the movement or affective connection (gantong 感通) of the spiritual life-force and moral consciousness in a person—human life and the greater life of the universe is able to be restored to a single substance. At the same time, this original substance is also an inner “moral agent.” The creative movement of human life, the activity of moral self-improvement, is “reality” and its practice; it contains heaven, earth and the myriad things, governing the natural universe. A theory of reality, also called a theory of being (cunyoulun 存有論) or metaphysics (xingshangxue 形上學), is an investigation into the highest questions about existence, that is, an investigation of the relationship between humans and the world. This kind of investigation, in various ages and among various nations (minzu 民族), or within one nation among different schools of thought, lays particular emphasis on different aspects of the subject, representing different cultural essences and value orientations. From the earliest Confucian scholars to those of the SongMing period, all had this theory of reality, but they did not use the term benti or deliberately expound it from this perspective. Xiong discussed the question of a theory of reality at length, specifically making use of debates in Confucian philosophy: the problem of the relationship between the heart-mind and human nature; problems in moral philosophy; foundations for a settled, peaceful life; and the problem of ultimate concern16 (in contemporary language, questions relating to human existence), all of which are at the core of the study of inner sageliness. He systematized answers to these questions from the pre-­ Qin Confucians up through the Song-Ming Confucians, and at the same time invested his energy in lived experience, affection, and living life in its entirety.17 For the first time in the history of Chinese Confucian studies, Xiong publicly used the title “theory of reality” to describe his Confucian philosophical system. Xiong Shili differentiated between philosophy and science because he considered philosophy to be a theory of reality. Through his thorough inquiry into a “foundational philosophical (xuanxue 玄學18) theory of reality” or “foundational philosophical truth,” and the “truth of science,” he concluded that they are fundamentally different.

 Translation of Guo’s use of the phrase mingde (明德) from the Daxue is taken from Plaks (2003: 5).—Trans. 16  Guo intends a similarity here to Paul Tillich’s coining of the term “ultimate concern”—Trans. 17  Key first-hand experiences for Xiong included taking part in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and his lectures at Beijing University. 18  This rendering may strike some readers as odd. Xuanxue is sometimes rendered “metaphysics,” but that may lend to confusion with Anglo-European metaphysics, which Xiong strove to differentiate from his philosophical orientation. John Makeham translates xuanxue as “foundational wisdom,” but that does not lend itself to a fluent adjectival form as Guo often uses it (Makeham 2015: 27). When used as a noun, I follow Makeham; I have chosen “philosophical,” referring to something which is related to the love of wisdom, as the most suitable rendering for the adjectival uses.—Trans. 15

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The ultimate goal of philosophical research is to discover the one reality (yiben 一本). This one reality is not found in an aggregate of the multitude of different aspects of reality. But through each of the fragments of the efforts of individuals it is possible to arrive at the one reality. Scientific success, however, requires expending effort on this fragmentation….So, what is needed is a metaphysics that can determine an origin and ultimate outside of science—this is the utmost attainment of philosophy. Suppose a philosophy has insufficient language to accomplish this. Even if it is able to draw on one or several forms of scientific knowledge to compose a set theory or a system, but actually is only equal to a “handmaiden” of science, it would be insufficient as a philosophy” (Guo 2001c: 5).

On Xiong’s view, if one did not understand the ultimate reality of human life or the ultimate reality of morality, but merely relied on a form of science such as any theory found in physics or biology in order to account for the origin of the multitude of transformations of the universe or the origin of life itself, then one would inevitably have a restricted view of the universe. Xiong’s New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness discusses ultimate reality from the position of a determinate origin and ultimate. In this way Xiong emphasizes the “one reality,” and emphasizes “visualizing substance” (jianti 見體), and “studying substance” (jiuti 究體). He believes that if research is not done in this way, cosmology (yuzhoulun 宇宙論) will only be familiar with phenomena and will not be able to plumb the depths of the origin of the myriad transformations, or the origin of the myriad things. A theory of human life will have no place to return to and will not be able to participate in the investigation of the original nature of life, or from the contents of a limited life be able to comprehend the limitless. Morality without an inner origin can only become an external law. Epistemology will have no source. Social and political doctrines will have no foundation. Xiong uses his theory of reality to guide his cosmology, theory of human life, epistemology, political and social doctrines, and so on. He praised the New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness for combining these together, grasping the core of the unitary nature of thoroughly studied cosmological reality, and thereby inheriting the tradition of Chinese philosophy. Zhang Dongsun (張東 蓀 1886–1973) explains this tradition, saying “[Xiong’s] moral idea was also his cosmological view, and his cosmological view was also his ontological position. These three were one thing, without prioritization” (Guo 2001e: 174). In Xiong’s understanding, to fully reveal one’s nature (jin ji xing 盡己性) is to fully reveal the nature of all things (jin wu xing 盡物性): the cosmos is subordinate to human life. From a deep understanding of the truth (zhenxiang 真相) of human life one can come to a penetrating understanding of the true reality (zhenqing 真情) of the natural world. By admonishing a person in daily life one can cause another person to put this understanding into practice to such an extent that they come to know their own nature and know heaven. This is what is called “the bloodline of the study of the sages.” Xiong’s “one reality” and “visualizing substance” (that is, a thoroughly penetrating perception of true existence), is what is real and what is seen, and as such it is the continuously reproducing (sheng sheng bu xi 生生不息),

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transforming-through-expansion-and-contraction (xipikaihe 翕闢開闔19) cosmic reality. It is also that which is the true ruler (zhenzai 真宰) of humanity. Therefore, cosmological reality is not transcendent above humanity nor exists apart from it. The true nature of all humans is the reality of heaven, earth and the myriad things; likewise, the reality of heaven, earth and the myriad things is the true nature of all humans. The source of all value is in the hearts of all people. In view of this, his Confucian theory of reality discusses not only the processes and origins of the cosmological transformation of life, particularly questions of care for human nature and its complete development, but also raises questions about the meaning, value and function of human existence. Xiong’s Confucian reconstruction of a theory of reality has the two following characteristics. First, he takes Western philosophy as a reference point, including Aristotle’s and Spinoza’s doctrine of reality. These all share a similar concept of reality that is external, independent, and departs from the subject-object distinction. It goes beyond positing a subject and object “first cause,” “sovereign master,” a Creator-lord who reigns over all things, a divinized heaven, or a God. A Confucian theory of reality, on the other hand, opposes “regarding reality as an external affair that occurs apart from my heart-mind,” and opposes “depending on the action and function of the intellect,” looking to the external world to search for or establish reality (Guo 2001f: 320–321). Following Mengzi’s claim that “by exerting one’s heart-mind to the utmost one will know human nature and heaven” (Mengzi 7A:1), Xiong makes the internalization of the cosmic reality (or true reality (shiti 實體)) the reality of the heart-mind and human nature. And he regards the state of human life embodied in “the unity of heaven and man,”20 “the joy of Kongzi and Yan Yuan (顏淵 521?–481? BCE),”21 and “forming a consubstantial unity with heaven, earth and the myriad things,”22 as proof of his theory of reality (that is, moral metaphysics). This feeling of rejoicing in the Way (dao 道) that is prevailing, animate and creative, and the activity of an affective connection with the myriad things, confirms that he shares the same reality with the myriad things in the cosmos through the movement of his heart-mind. Secondly, taking Chinese Buddhism as his reference point, Xiong exalts the doctrines of ceaseless creative creativity (sheng sheng bu xi 生生不息) and the veneration of life and invigorated movement (zun sheng jian dong 尊生健動) promoted in the metaphysics of the Book of Changes (Zhouyi 周易). He said

 This concept is developed in section three.  The first clear expression of the concept “the unity of heaven and man” (天人合一) is found in Dong Zhongshu’s 董仲舒 Chunqiu Fanlu 春秋繁露.—Trans. 21  Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 developed the phrase “the joy of Kongzi and Yan Yuan” (孔颜乐处) from the Lunyu 7.16, believing it fully embodied the highest ideal in Confucianism. See Cheng Yi’s 程 頤 Yanzi suo hao he xue lun 顏子所好學論.—Trans. 22  This is a phrase from Cheng Yi’s Shi ren pian 識仁篇.—Trans. 19 20

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Buddhists talk about reality, but this is only empty quietude and does not involve life transformation. It is only nonaction, not admitting of nonaction in which nothing is not done.23 It is merely not life and death; it does not allow for discussion of life itself…Scrutinizing the basic overall meaning of Buddhism, it is in fact reality and function taken separately…this is a fundamental error as a way of coming into the world” (Guo 2001c: 8–9). Xiong’s doctrine of reality does not merely rework the reality of the heart-mind and nature, it reopens the question of the function of the original heart-mind.

According to his doctrines of “non-duality of reality and function” and the “simultaneous presence of both reality and function” (ji ti ji yong 即體即用), by the changing yet constant (ji liuxing ji zhuzai 即流行即主宰) reality he developed the “transformation through contraction and expansion” cosmology and a theory of life built on activity in the world and continual self-strengthening. The reality of life or the reality of the heart-mind and nature is a reality vibrantly alive with inner power. Its ceaselessly changing and ever-flowing character, its dynamic and transforming function in both nature and society, is superior in every way to a detached, inert natural reality, or an absolute spirit. In the same way, Henri Bergson’s vital impulse (élan vital24) is inadequate because it is merely innate ability and habituated tendencies. Bergson’s vital impulse is aimless, without the innate character and self-­ consciousness of the original heart-mind, and the strength of morality. Regarding the ultimate meaning of the world and human existence, Xiong established a foundation for modern New Confucian moral metaphysics25 (or ethical idealism). He firmly reestablished a framework for reality and function through the “non-duality of reality and function,” introducing the concept of “developing new outer kingliness” (kai xinwaiwang 開新外王) to be later developed by the second generation of the contemporary New Confucian movement.

3  T  he “Non-duality of Reality and Function” and “Transformation Through Contraction and Expansion” The source for Xiong’s metaphysics is the doctrines of dynamic change and ceaseless creative creativity of the Yijing and the Yizhuan 易傳 (Book of Changes and its “Ten Commentaries”). He also inherited numerous ideas from throughout Chinese intellectual history, including Daoist thought from the pre-Qin period, Profound Learning (xuanxue)26 from the Wei-Jin period, and theories of cosmic change,  These are quotations from the Daodejing 道德經, chapters 37 and 48—Trans.  Bergson first proposed this theory in his 1907 work L’Évolution créatrice.—Trans. 25  See Mou Zongsan’s 牟宗三 Xinti yu xingti 心體與性體. 26  These two characters are the same as those above rendered as “foundational philosophical (xuanxue) theory of reality,” but here the term refers to the historical school of thought that flourished between the third and sixth centuries C.E., so I have rendered it according to one of the common English translations for the school. Two of the most well-known scholars of that school are Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249), and Guo Xiang 郭象 (d. 312).—Trans. 23 24

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reality and function, and the unity of heaven and humanity from Pattern-centered ­learning (lixue 理學) of the Song and Ming dynasties. From Buddhist sources he inherited the doctrines of the cognitive realm (jingjie lun 境界論), self-consciousness, the instantaneous arising and passing away of all things (chana shengmie 剎那 生滅), and instantaneous transformation (shunxi bianhua 瞬息變化). He used each of these ideas to strengthen the dynamism and activity of the philosophy of the Changes. His own personal history of involvement in the late Qing democratic revolution forced him to engage in a thorough reformation of his immediate concerns. He recalled the philosophy of Wang Chuanshan (Fuzhi) (王船山 1619–1692), summarized as a “respect for life through advocating quiescence, understanding existence through opposing emptiness, take initiative through rising above decadence, living in accordance with the nature through a unified desire”; and through similar language he summarized his own philosophy (Guo 2001b: 916). The greatest difference between Xiong’s ontology and Song-Ming Pattern-­ centered learning lay in his emphasis on the “power of invigorated movement” (jiandong zhi li 健動之力27) and “the way of focusing on function” (zhi yong zhi dao 致用之道). He advocated “knowing reality through function” (you yong zhi ti 由用知體), “the manifestation of reality through function” (ji yong xian ti 即用顯 體), and through these manifesting the fact that reality truly exists. It is the ultimate source of both human culture and the ceaseless transformation of the cosmos. Xiong’s philosophy implies a thriving vitality, emphasizing in particular the flowing transformation of the cosmos. The doctrine of “non-duality of reality and function” can be summed up in three statements: first, affirmation of the unique nature of reality; secondly, affirmation of the dynamism and variability of reality; and thirdly, affirmation of the uniformity of reality and function (gongneng 功能28). By the means of the Buddhist doctrine of conditioned arising (yuanqi lun 緣起論) Xiong believed that all physical and psychological phenomena are without a self-nature (zixing 自性) or true reality. However, it is through these false phenomena that humans grasp true Reality (zhenshi cunzai 真實存在29). Xiong took this a step further, claiming that true Reality has only one reality; that is the heart-mind of the cosmos. It is also the heart-mind of each individual thing. Since this is the origin of the multitudinous phenomena in the cosmos, it is also the absolute truth of human self-reflection. In contrast to Buddhism, Xiong believes that reality and phenomena (xianxiang 現象) are not separated or divided. Reality expresses itself as the great function (dayong 大用). Reality is not outside of phenomena or above phenomena, but in the

 This is the power of the life-giving movement between the materiality (yong) and reality (ti).  Astute readers will note John Makeham’s rendering of gongneng as “productive power.” It is not quite clear why Guo uses gongneng here, rather than yong. From context, it seems that he regards yong and gongneng as interchangeable terms, so I have tried to maintain a conceptually consistent translation, as opposed to a linguistically precise translation. I have indicated with pinyin the places where I have rendered gongneng as function, to distinguish it from yong.—Trans. 29  Following Makeham (2015: 114). 27 28

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very midst of the vital transformations of all things.30 The greatest characteristics of reality is that it “leaves nothing undone” (wubuwei 無不為31), and is marked by “continual change” (bianyi 變易) and by “creation and destruction” (shengmie 生 滅). At the same time, the category of “reality” is the category of function (gongneng). Reality cannot be sought outside of function (gongneng). Between reality and function, and pattern and vital energy (li qi 理氣) there is no question of which comes before and which comes after (whether in logical terms or temporal terms). New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness does not deny the physical world or the phenomenal world, nor can it avoid manifesting reality. Xiong said the doctrine of the non-duality of reality and function “comes out of its own self-realization,” and he boasts that it overcomes the errors of the views of Western and Indian philosophies that posit a reality either above the phenomenal world or hidden behind the phenomenal world in order to rescue from shortcomings either multiple realities or a dichotomy of reality and function. He said, After considering this for more than ten years, I came to realize that both reality and phenomena, flux (liuxing 流行) and constancy (zhuzai 主宰), appearance and true Reality (zhenshi 真實), change (bian 變) and stasis (bubian 不變), movement (dong 動) and quiescence (budong 不動), creation and destruction are simultaneously present; that when you have reality, you must speak of function in reality, and when you have function you must speak of reality in function. (Guo 2001d: 79–80)

He also claims that There is a thing which we call reality, but we can only access it through function. Without function, reality is not established, and without reality, function is not complete. Reality (tizhe 體者) is a spiritual reality that overcomes polarization; function is the multitude of unlimited transformations in all conceptual fields (mu 目). (Guo 2001g: 151)

Another way of saying this is, innate moral awareness is the shared reality of humans and heaven, earth and the myriad things, and heaven, earth and the myriad things are the ever-issuing flow of the function of innate moral awareness. If you eradicate heaven, earth and the myriad things, then you eradicate the ability to manifest the function (gongneng) of the “original heart-mind” of all things. If eradicated, this singular reality is set aside and abandoned as something already dead. Xiong has underlying purposes for building his theory of the non-duality of reality and function. He is dissatisfied with Yogācāra Consciousness-Only Buddhism, which claims that phenomena evolve from our consciousness and so are ultimately illusions. This doctrine cannot endow phenomena with necessity, and in moral practice, one would not attentively respect the integrity of other things and people in interacting with the world around oneself. In addition, Xiong does not approve those doctrines that presuppose a transcendent substance that is external to the heart-mind (xin 心) to ensure the certainty of phenomena either, since this approach paradoxically devalues phenomena through focusing on the substance. In Zhu Xi’s  See also chapter “New Confucianism and Buddhism”—Ed.  This phrase indicates that all change and transformation, and all phenomenal existence, is accounted for by reality as conceived by Xiong.

30 31

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(朱熹 1130–1200) dualism, pattern is logically prior to vital energy of experience. On this view it would be difficult to explain how empirical activity could facilitate knowing moral principles. In contrast, Xiong maintains that reality originally is inherent in the act of the benevolent heart-mind of human beings, as well as in the heart-mind of the cosmos, and it penetrates the sphere of essence and activity. The doctrine of “transformation through expansion and contraction” is a logical development of the doctrine of the “non-duality of reality and function.” The implicit contradictions and tensions that obtain in Xiong’s “reality” (for example, the tension between consciousness (xin 心) and object, or between life/spirit and matter/ability (nengli 能力)), including the potential for mutual change and transformation between yin 陰 and yang 陽 that results in completeness, contain the transformative development of the cosmos. “Contraction” and “expansion” are both functions (gongneng) of reality. “Contraction” (xi 翕) is the ability to cohere and form material things (wu 物), and by this active coherence the material world is established. “Expansion” (pi 闢) is another potentiality that arises concurrently with “contraction,” a continual change that refuses objectification, but can use and govern “contraction.”32 Reality is nothing less than the ceaseless flowing of the opposite and complementary dependence of contraction and expansion. The power of contraction is the potential for coherence which forms material things, hence contraction is materiality. The power of expansion is the potential for constant development without losing the vitality of reality (benti zhi jian 本體之健); hence expansion is consciousness (xin 心). Contraction (materiality) and expansion (consciousness) are two aspects of the same function (gongneng 功能), a single, indivisible whole. These two potentialities, these two vital, mutual interactions flow ceaselessly. But these two aspects are not juxtaposed. Expansion includes contraction, and contraction belongs to expansion. The power of expansion includes all material things, and is found in all material things. “Contraction and expansion are not alienated from reality, only their potentialities can be differentiated, nothing more. Expansion necessarily deals with contraction, and acquires it for use; contraction necessarily deals with expansion, and observes its constant flow, comprehending its governance” (Guo 2001a: 102). To affirm that the myriad things are generated and transformed by the power of expansion and contraction is not to claim that a rock or a plant has a human heart-­ mind and can think like a human being. The myriad things are not merely lifeless objects as conceived in a naturalistic worldview. The human heart-mind can communicate with the myriad things and assist in their growth by working together with Heaven and Earth. This communication can occur because the heart-mind (or spirit jingshen 精神) of the cosmos permeates everything. At its finest expression we see it in the benevolent heart-mind (ren zhi renxin 人之仁心) of humans, while its more coarse expression is manifested in the myriad things.

 These terms are drawn from the Yijing. Contraction 翕 expansion 闢can be found in the “Xici shang” (The Great Treatise) chapter.

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How do we know reality and function cannot be separated from each other? How can one claim that reality “leaves nothing undone”? Judging from appearances, the benevolent heart-mind at times may not be operating and the myriad things may not be complete. Therefore, it would seem that reality and function can be separated— reality can exist without activity, and so is not “leaving nothing undone.” However, even when a person’s innate knowledge is obscured by desires, various intentions, and so on, it is still operating in the depth of a person’s consciousness, even though its driving force is not strong enough to overcome these negative forces. This explains why one should keep and cultivate the original heart-mind. Moreover, “leaving nothing undone” does not mean everything is already consummated, but rather, that reality as the benevolent heart-mind ensures the existence of phenomena, and through it humans are actively engaged in the process of transforming the myriad things. Jing Haifeng (景海峰 1957–) believes “Xiong Shili’s doctrine of “transformation through expansion and contraction” to a certain extent inherited the Yijing and the tradition of creatively creative transformation (sheng sheng da hua 生生大化) of the Way, and assimilated statements on expansion and contraction from earlier scholars, particularly discussions in Wang Fuzhi’s External Commentary on the Book of Changes (Jing 2010: 176). Jing’s analysis is incisive. Xiong believes we share one great life with the cosmos, each life being at the same time the reality of the cosmos. Therefore, “expansion” is life, is consciousness-­ soul (xinling 心靈), is cosmic spirit (yuzhou jingshen 宇宙精神), the ceaseless transformation of life, limitless capacity, constant creation and renewal, its own basis (ben 本) and origin (gen 根). The doctrine of “transformation through contraction and expansion” opposes searching for a “transformative mover” (nengbianzhe 能變者) outside of the fluctuating change of the myriad phenomena in the cosmos. Xiong rejects searching for the way of the transformation of heaven apart from human beings, and instead advocates starting with a spiritual reality that serves as the source of the myriad transformations, the foundation of all things. He then points out that this noumenal reality is “the power of the heart-mind (xin 心),” that is, human dynamism and creative power. The doctrine of “transformation through contraction and expansion” emphasizes “transformation” (bian 變), which is to transform the material world and society.33 He believes that that which has the function of creating the world is not some immortal soul or a transcendent god (chaoran de shangdi 超然的上帝), but a vital, living subjective spirit. We are all masters of ourselves and the world through self-­ reliant creativity, ability and authority. Therefore, Xiong believes that in order to preserve “respect for the Way of humanity” it is necessary to do away with ideas of things coming into the world, a creator, a resignation to any kind of luck, and to foster continual self-improvement and actively take part in society. Xiong states, “Heaven’s action is vigorous, understanding the greater life of the cosmos,

 Social practice is not necessarily confined to the traditional Confucian engagement in government, but includes a range of activities that transform the world for the better.

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constantly, creatively advancing without end, ever-renewing and inexhaustible. Through continual self-improvement the man of noble character will understand heaven’s virtue in human beings, and through self-reliance humans will display heaven’s virtue and will bring human capabilities to perfection” (Guo 2001b: 955). In a certain sense, reality’s function is mainly expressed through the activity of cultural creation. Where there is reality, there is cultural creativity, and where there is no cultural creativity, there is no reality.

4  Direct Knowledge 性智 and Derivative Knowledge 量智34 Another important question in Xiong’s Confucian-inspired theory of reality, which is also a question of his philosophical method, is the question of how to acquire penetrating knowledge of reality. How does one “see reality”? Are we able to “see reality” through the method of logical analysis of Western epistemology? In order to solve these questions Xiong differentiated “scientific truth” from “foundational philosophical truth,” “scientific psychology” from “foundational philosophical psychology,” “derivative knowledge” from “direct knowledge,” “analysis” from “experiential realization” (tiren 體認), and advanced and defended a “foundational philosophical method.”35 Xiong believed science has its domain, but scientific rationality is unable to resolve fundamental questions regarding cosmic human life. The development of each category of science is an important criterion for the advancement of humanity. However, if humanity only wants science and does not want a “self-reflective mode of study” (fanji zhi xue 反己之學), and is not vigilant against the negative influences of scientism, casting aside their own subjectivity and moral personality, then people will transform into non-humans (fei ren 非人). Without foundational philosophical truth, scientific truth forfeits a foundation and something which they can rely on. The objects and fields of philosophy and science are not the same; therefore, foundational philosophical truth and scientific truth are two different levels of truth, and the methods for obtaining this truth are widely different. Science mainly relies on intelligence (lizhi 理智) and the precision of analytical skill. Foundational wisdom, however, requires passing through reason into a supra-rational state. In this way we are able to grasp the true meaning (zhendi 真諦) of cosmic human life. The “reality” of Chinese traditional philosophy did not come through [pre-­ experiential] ordering categories of the forms of space-time and understanding  Translation of  these two terms follows a  conceptual rendering indebted to  John Makeham’s explanations. He  describes xingzhi as  “direct insight into Reality gained through realization of one’s own nature,” and liangzhi as “knowledge derived from measurement and inference.” See Makeham (2015: lx).—Trans. 35   See also chapter “Modern Confucian Epistemology: From Reason to Intuition—And Back”—Ed. 34

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(zhixing 知性)36: through “sense—understanding—reason” or “concept—judgment—inference.” Rather, through a way of knowing that transcends a concrete experience of objects, we can immediately realize “reality’s” highest object. Therefore, Buddhist “enlightened wisdom” (borezhi 般若智, prajña) and “calming the mind” (zhiguan 止觀, śamatha) are helpful; Daoist “mysterious insight” (xuanlan 玄覽), Confucian “quiet observation” (jingguan 靜觀), “silent insight” (moshi 默識), and “reflective awareness” (nijue 逆覺) are forms of the highest human wisdom and cognitive ability. Cultivating the practice of this ability is not found in the training of logical thought, but rather in cultivation of the character of the heart-­ mind and nature (xinxing 心性). It is only through effort at practicing morality that one is able to comprehend reality. Xiong strictly differentiated philosophical knowledge from scientific knowledge, believing they were two different levels of knowledge. In natural scientific fields rational thinking is used as the primary method for exploring outward; in the area of foundational wisdom, self-reflective thought is necessary; what has the primary effect is surpassing the “sensing” and “comprehension” of rational thought. The former [scientific knowledge] is “derivative knowledge” that “daily increases through study,” while the latter [foundational sapeintial knowledge] is “direct knowledge” that “daily decreases through following the Dao.”37 “Direct knowledge” is acquaintance with “reality,” “derivative knowledge” is acquaintance with “function.” Direct knowledge is equivalent to “knowledge of virtue” (dexing zhi zhi 德性之知), while derivative knowledge is equivalent to “sensory knowledge” (jianwen zhi zhi 見聞之知). Xiong believes derivative knowledge is a kind of tool for the pursuit of external principles. This tool is used in the daily life of the cosmos, that is, in the world of physical and empirical phenomena, and used effectively. But if this tool is not used with caution, when attempting to resolve metaphysical (xingershangxue 形而上學) questions with this tool as a basis, taking the reality of the benevolent heart-mind (renxin benti 人心本體) as an external area for inquiry is a grave and serious mistake. Foundational wisdom and its method do not stop at this step, but must cultivate effort from direct knowledge. He claims, Derivative knowledge is only able to act on the material aspect of the cosmos, but it cannot substantiate reality. Reality is acquired through self-reflection. Reality is the direct knowledge we inherently possess. When it becomes necessary to cleanse and develop our inner life, this knowledge becomes manifest. When this knowledge becomes manifest, the inner and outer sphere naturally blend together (in fact, the inner self and outer material world is a false distinction), what is obscure becomes evident of itself, and the matchless takes on a mate (the understanding of this knowledge cannot be divided into subject and object, so it is absolute). (Guo 2001a: 23)

According to Xiong, intuitive understanding or experiential awareness is a sudden, transcendent, direct enlightenment. That is to say, it is immediate; there is no

36 37

 Referencing the Kantian concepts—Trans.  These are quotations from the Daodejing, chapter 48—Trans.

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need for feelings, concepts, judgements, or reasoning; the boundaries of subjective—objective (zhu ke 主客), subject—object (neng suo 能所), internal—external, and self—object are suddenly eliminated. Xiong emphasizes that foundational wisdom does not abolish rational thinking or reject derivative knowledge, but it is necessary to transcend intellectual inquiry and derivative knowledge and arrive at a direct knowledge of the unity of heaven and humans, and an intuitive understanding or experiential awareness of the cognitive world. The foundational philosophical cognitive world is precisely the foundational philosophical method. It is the activity of transcending logic, once you get the meaning you discard the words,38 ceasing rational cogitation, sweeping aside concepts. It is also rejecting memory, imagination and analysis, and the activity of all rational thinking. It is a spiritual meditation, a silent reflection, a great awakening, and supreme enlightenment that completely unites a person with the way of heaven. First, this is a condition of thought. It has been described poetically: “I look for her in the crowd a thousand times, and upon suddenly looking back, she is standing in the dim light of a lantern.”39 It is a state of being “when the function of understanding of mind arises, it transcends the understanding of mind,”40 instantly receiving comprehensive and complete insight into life and living, the deepest secrets of the essence of the natural world and the spiritual world. Secondly, it is a way of thinking characterized by a subject that permeates the object, or a unity of subject and object. For a subject to grasp the highest reality means using this mode of comprehension or intuitive understanding. Xiong emphasizes that this way of thinking does not conduct rational analysis outside of human life; rather it is to throw oneself into the midst of the visceral emotional experience of common daily life. It is a dynamic and immediate perspective, a lively and vivid experience and observation of the life of the cosmic life and of human life, and the intermingling of the two. Only this practical experience—where one’s mind and body melt into a single experience, where you put yourself in someone else’s position, where reality and materiality wholly interpenetrate—are you able to directly reach and grasp the unity of the good, the true, and the beautiful (zhen shan mei de tongyi 真善美的統一41), a sudden enlightenment that your original heart-mind is the substance of benevolence (renti 仁體). This visceral experience or intuitive understanding overcomes the persistent limitations of language, thought, concepts, and reason. Finally, it is a moral and supra-moral realm. What Confucian scholars have all along called the realm of harmony between heaven and virtue is the realm of embodied knowledge. From the beginning, all of the Confucian scholars have wanted to attain the same level of virtue with heaven, that is, the level of intuitive understanding. Once you achieve the level of oneness with heaven, then you can achieve the  This is an allusion to the “External Things 外物” chapter of the Zhuangzi—Trans.  This quotation comes from a poem by Xin Qiji (辛棄疾 1140–1207), titled “I look for her in a crowd a thousand times” “众里寻他千百度”—Trans. 40  A saying from the Chan Buddhist Niutou Farong (牛頭法融 594–657)—Trans. 41  Guo’s phrase.—Trans.

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limitless creative transformations of the mysteries; by self-reflection you can arrive at a place where you forget yourself (jimo wuxing 寂寞無形) and enlighten others. (Guo 2001a: 146)

What Xiong pursues is the benevolent person’s tranquility of “the joy of Kongzi and Yan Yuan,” a lofty spiritual realm of absolute joy. To conclude, Xiong’s ultimate concern is to search for and bring back the lost self for humanity. The expansion of technology, the loss of the value of human culture, the crisis of moral consciousness, the bewilderment of the essence of the nature of human life, urged him to take upon himself the duty to seek for the fundamental origin of the cosmic human life. Western positivism, Indian Yogācāra Consciousness-­ Only Buddhism, and Chinese textual criticism, on his view, all share a basic weakness that lies in focusing their attention on nothing more than vacuous verbosity, thereby concealing the ultimacy of “heaven” and the cosmos, and comprehension of the foundation and meaning of human life.42

References General Bibliography Chan, Wing-Tsit 陳榮捷. 1953. Religious Trends in Modern China. New  York: Columbia University Press. (A survey of the “three teachings” sanjiao of China.) Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇. 1989. Remembering Xiong Shili 回憶熊十力, compiled by the Huanggang county (Hubei province) Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Committee 中國人民政治協商會議湖北省黃岡縣委員會編. (Collected papers from a four-­ day symposium held in Xiong’s hometown of Huangzhou, Hubei province, in December 1985.) ———. 1990. Xiong Shili and Chinese Traditional Culture 熊十力與中國傳統文化. Taibei: Taibei YuanLiu Chuban Gongsi. (An analysis of Xiong’s academic experience, phases of his intellectual development, and social history, and explores the particularities of the logic of his epistemology.) ———. 2011. A Study of Xiong Shili’s Philosophy 熊十力哲學研究. Beijing: People’s Press. (An outline of Xiong’s philosophical framework and primary concepts, and discussions of Xiong’s relationships with other Chinese scholars.) ———. 2013. A Commentary on Xiong Shili’s Works 熊十力傳論. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Science Press. (A comprehensive and critical exploration of Xiong’s philosophy.) Jing, Haifeng 景海峰. 2010. Philosophical Study of Xiong Shili 熊十力哲學研究. Beijing: Beijing University Press. (An introduction to Xiong and his philosophical system, with particular emphasis on his New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness.) Makeham, John. 2014. “Xiong Shili’s Critique of Yogācāra Thought in the Context of His Constructive Philosophy.” In John Makeham, ed., Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015. New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

 The views and arguments in this paper have been drawn from two of the author’s previous works: Guo (2011) and Guo (2013).

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———. 2017. “Xiong Shili on Why Reality Cannot be Sought Independent of Phenomena.” Sophia 56: 501–517. Plaks, Andrew. 2003. Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung. New York: Penguin Books. Yu, Jiyuan. 2002. “Xiong Shili’s Metaphysics of Virtue.” In Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell. (Book chapter on Xiong’s metaphysics as it relates to virtue ethics.)

Works by Xiong Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇, ed. 2001a. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 3. New Consciousness Only Doctrine 新唯識論. Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001b. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 3. Reading the Classics to Reveal Their Key Points 讀經示要. Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001c. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 4. Key Conversations of Xiong Shili, Forward 十力語要(印行十力叢書記). Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001d. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 4. Key Teachings of Xiong Shili, Vol. 1 十力語要卷一. Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001e. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 4. Key Teachings of Xiong Shili, Vol. 2 十力語要卷二. Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001f. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 6. Origins of Confucianism 原儒. Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe. ———. 2001g. The Complete Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. Vol. 8. Essays and Correspondence, On True Characteristics—Responding to Lay Buddhist Mei’s Book 論文書札(論體相——答 梅居士書). Wuhan: Wuhan Jiaoyu Chubanshe.

Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian Edmund S. K. Fung and Kenneth Kai-chung Yung

1  Introduction The New Confucian, Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (1887–1969), was a cultural nationalist, democratic socialist, constitutionalist, public moralist, and leader of a minor political party. A man of action as well as a thinker, Zhang devoted the best part of his life to China’s modern transformation and national reconstruction. Like many of his generation, he sought “national salvation” through political reform, cultural change, moral rejuvenation, public education, and love of the nation. His cultural and political thought may not be noted for its originality or creativity, but significantly he was able to articulate it consistently and with greater authority than his like-minded fellow intellectuals. To a great extent, he exemplified modern China’s cultural and political reformers whose outlooks defy simple labelling—they were modern yet traditional, Westernized yet Chinese, liberal yet conservative, and socialist yet non-Communist. The likes of Zhang were the middle-of-the-road elements seeking a third way between East and West, between democracy and autocracy, between capitalism and communism, and between the Nationalists and Communists. They explored the questions with which they had long been concerned, such as what was the best political form for China in the post-imperial era, what sort of democracy was best suited to Chinese conditions, what was a good government, what was the relationship between state powers and individual liberties, what went wrong with China that led to a national crisis in the 1930s, and what did the nation need to do to fight Japanese aggression? For Zhang and many others, E. S. K. Fung (*) Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] K. K. Yung University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_6

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the answers to these questions were political and cultural as well as socio-economic. As a New Confucian, Zhang was by no means a towering figure. His stature and achievements were nowhere near as great as those of Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988) and Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968) of his generation or those of Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978) and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995) of the second generation. But he distinguished himself by his intimate knowledge of Western thought and institutions and by his deep political engagement. His foreign education and experience, first in Japan and then in Germany, prepared him for an active political life, making him the most politically active of all the New Confucians. In 1932, he founded the minor Chinese State Socialist Party (Zhongguo guojia shehuidang 中國國家社會黨, no relation to Germany’s NSP). He was as critical of the Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石 (1887–1975) regime as he was anti-Communist. During the War of Resistance against the Japanese (1937–1945), he supported the Nationalist government’s war efforts, became a member of the People’s Political Council (Guomin canzhenghui 國民參政會) and a leading figure in the constitutional movement. In 1941, he joined the leaders of the other minor parties in founding the Chinese Democratic League (Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng 中國民主同盟) in the Third Force Movement (Disan shili yundong 第三勢力運動) aimed at steering China between the Nationalists and the Communists. In 1946, he drafted the constitution which was adopted by the National Assembly (Guomin dahui 國民大會) that November to become the Constitution of the Republic of China (Zhonghua minguo xianfa 中華民國憲法) in the following year. Late in 1949, as the Communists came to power, he left his country for good and resigned himself to exile in the United States as a liberal émigré intellectual, but not before he had instigated a short-lived movement in Hong Kong to revive the Third Force. Early in 1958, he was co-­ signatory to “A Manifesto to the People of the World on Chinese Culture (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan 為中國文化敬告世界人士宣 言)” in an effort to revive Confucianism. Until his death in 1969, he devoted much of his time to researching and publishing on Confucianism while maintaining a fiercely anti-Communist stand and a keen interest in Chinese affairs. Yet he never set foot on Taiwan, where he found Jiang Jieshi’s authoritarian regime unpalatable. Zhang’s thought features a nexus between politics and culture, held together by a deep sense of nationalism. It was this fusion of politics, culture, and nationalism that provided the intellectual resources for his project of nation building during the Republican period. In terms of democratic and cultural change, his main concern as a New Confucian was not to reconcile the claims of “inner sagehood (neisheng 內 聖)” with those of “outer kingliness (waiwang 外王),” as others attempted. Making the new “outer kingliness” out of “inner sagehood” was a forlorn hope, despite the availability of modern political thought, modern science, and new forms of economic and political organizations. Instead, Zhang looked for practical solutions to real problems and found them in constitutional democracy, democratic socialism, rule of law, public morality, and social justice. He championed individual freedoms and civil liberties without ignoring larger community interests and the national

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good, while confident that Confucianism could be rejuvenated and creatively transformed to serve the purposes of China’s modernization. This essay is divided into two main parts. The first part reviews Zhang’s thought collected during the Republican period when he was more a political thinker and activist than a Confucian philosopher. The second part concerns him as a liberal émigré intellectual in the early decades of the Cold War period when he was engaged in the thought of national reconstruction based on a renewed Confucianism and democratic socialism.

2  Zhang Junmai’s Early Life Zhang Junmai was born in Jiading 嘉定, Jiangsu Province, into a large family as the second eldest of eleven surviving siblings. His father was an herbalist and small merchant of sorts. At age six, Zhang began an early traditional Chinese education until 1897 when he moved to Shanghai and enrolled in the new-style School of Multiple Languages (Guangfang yanguan 廣方言館), where he learned English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and foreign history. He excelled in his studies. In his leisure time, he would read some Chinese classical works, enabling him to pass the civil service exam in 1902 with a xiucai 秀才degree. The next year, he moved to Aurora Academy (Zhendan shuyuan 震旦書院), also in Shanghai, which was similar but superior to the previous school. After 1 year, the high tuition fee forced him to transfer to Nanjing’s Jiangnan Senior High School (Jiangnan gaodang xuetang 江南高等學堂). There, Zhang was soon involved in a patriotic anti-Russian movement launched by students over Russia’s occupation of China’s north-eastern provinces, leading to his expulsion from the school. He then moved to Changsha, teaching English in a local school. In 1905, he returned to his hometown and married a woman arranged by his parents. Scarcely was the honeymoon over when he left his wife and parents to study at Japan’s Waseda University (Zheng 1997: 4–10). At Waseda, Zhang took a keen interest in Western thought, politics, constitutional law, and political economy. He was particularly interested in John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848), which he would translate into Chinese, John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government (1689), and Woodrow Wilson’s The State (1898), among others. It was during his Waseda years that Zhang became a fervent proponent of constitutionalism. In 1907, when Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) formed the Political Information Society (Zhengwenshe 政聞社) in Tokyo, Zhang was among the first to join it as a founding member. The next year, the headquarters of the Society were moved to Shanghai, leaving Zhang and others in charge of the organization in Tokyo until his return to China in 1910 after graduating from Waseda (Zheng 1997: 10–26; Jeans 1997: 12–20). After the Revolution of 1911, Zhang joined his fellow constitutionalists in supporting Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916) as President of the new republic. But he soon withdrew his support over Outer Mongolia and other issues, and launched a scathing attack on Yuan over his government’s foreign and domestic policies. An

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angry Yuan ordered Zhang to be placed under surveillance, forcing him to flee China. Early in 1913, Zhang left for Germany to study at the University of Berlin (Zheng 1997: 27–36). The following year saw the outbreak of the First World War, providing Zhang with a rare opportunity to see European events at a close distance. The end of the war brought him to Paris as part of a Chinese delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. His exposure to the affairs of Europe made him better informed about the West and more politically conscious. Back in Germany, in 1920 he met Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926), a philosopher of ethics, who was so impressive that Zhang decided to study under him at the University of Jena. He also met Philip Scheidemann (1865–1939), leader of the German Social Democratic Party, and Hugo Preuss (1860–1925), a philosopher of history and drafter of the Weimar Constitution (Jeans 1997: 39–41). Zhang hailed the Weimar Constitution as the best constitution ever on the grounds that it was underpinned by socialist principles combining representative government with direct democracy and providing a solution to any political deadlocks that might occur between government and parliament. Also, he was struck by the pragmatism of the German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokrastische Partei Deutschlands), which represented a revisionist brand of Marxist socialism advocating a parliamentary road to socialism. Under its influence, Zhang proclaimed himself a democratic socialist, understanding socialism in terms of “state ownership of land (tudi gongyou 土地公有),” the “organizations of production (shengchan jiguan 生產機關),” “public management of these organizations (gonggong guanli jiguan 公共管理機關),” and “distribution of benefits to the public (yi liyi fenpei yu gongzhong 以利益分配於公眾)” (Zhang 1921: 15–16). He distinguished socialism from communism which he rejected because of its political violence and its being used by Soviet Russia to spread Moscow’s international influence. The fledging Chinese Communists, Zhang feared, would become a tool of Stalin’s world revolution. His German experience strengthened his belief in constitutional democracy. For him, constitutionalism was “an expression of the unity of the people’s thought, something that was lacking in China. [Its] spirit [lies in] mutual concessions, mutual assistance, and harmony” (Jeans 1997: 34). He translated the Weimar Constitution into Chinese in 1920 in the hope that it would become a model for a new Chinese Constitution. The next year, he returned to China and, in 1921, was commissioned to draft a provisional constitution for the Shanghai National Affairs Conference sponsored by eight organizations with representatives from 14 provinces. The draft featured a federal system, a mixed economy, heavy taxes on banks and large industries, industrial laws, and a social welfare system, among other things (Fung 2010: 210), all of which was to serve as a basis for the platform of the Chinese State Socialist Party in the 1930s. Philosophically, Zhang was influenced by his mentor Rudoph Eucken and the French thinker, Henri Bergson (1859–1941). This was demonstrated in 1923 when Zhang triggered a science versus metaphysics debate following a lecture he delivered at Beijing’s Tsinghua College (Qinghua xuexiao 清華學校). In that debate, Zhang rejected the omnipotence of science and the idea of a scientific view of life,

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arguing instead that science and philosophy/metaphysics are not in the same category of knowledge, that knowledge is separate from culture, and that morality and aesthetics are separate from science. In other words, he opposed science to metaphysics, physics to psychology, and reason to intuition, while defending the autonomy of values against crass materialism and one’s inner world that is distinct from the atomistic view of the individual (Fung 2010: 81–83). Over the next few years, Zhang taught at Zhixing College (Zhixing xueyuan 知 行學院) in Shanghai’s International Settlement. In June 1929, he was kidnapped by Nationalist secret agents over his criticism of the Jiang Jieshi regime. After his release, he went to Germany again, returning in August 1931 to a teaching position at Beijing’s Yanjing University (Yanjing daxue 燕京大學) (Jeans 1997; 105–111; Zheng 1997, 216–221). From the vantage point of Beijing, he watched events in Manchuria and North China with great anxiety as Japanese aggression escalated.

3  The Politics-Culture Nexus in Zhang Junmai’s Thought It was in the context of a national crisis brought about by Japanese aggression in Manchuria and North China that Zhang articulated his thought underscoring the politics-culture nexus. A deep sense of nationalism pervaded his writings during that time, most notably, his books The Academic Basis of National Renaissance (Minzu fuxing zhi xueshun jichu 民族復興之學術基礎) (1935), Chinese Culture Tomorrow (Mingri zhi Zhongguo wenhua 明日之中國文化) (1936) and The Way of Nation Building (Liguo zhi dao 立國之道) (1938). The first book was a collection of lectures he had given on various occasions during the first half of the 1930s. Zhang vainly likened it to Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s (1762–1814) celebrated Addresses to the German Nation, a series of lectures given in French-occupied Berlin in the winter of 1807–1808 and designed to inflame appeals to German nationalism. Fichte had looked into what had gone wrong with German life that led to the national disaster, blaming it on the lack of a national spirit in German life. To stress the importance of a national spirit, Fichte suspended the Enlightenment notion of universalism that underpinned the French Revolution. Zhang drew a lesson from that, a lesson on how to save China from Japanese aggression. Just as Fichte had invented German nationalism at a particular point in history for a particular purpose, so Zhang invented Chinese nationalism during a national crisis, driven as he was partly by sentiment or sentimentality but more importantly by the imperatives of national survival. China’s problem was not just military weakness. It went much deeper. So, what went wrong with China? This was a familiar question that had been often asked by concerned intellectuals. The cultural iconoclasts of the May Fourth era had blamed the entire Chinese tradition, with Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) in particular saying that the people of China were inferior to Westerners in all respects. Zhang looked at the problem differently. He found that where China went wrong was not the Chinese tradition itself, although it was flawed in some respects, but the population’s lack of

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education generally. If only the masses became educated, the Chinese people would not be inferior to Westerners. And because the masses were uneducated, they had no idea that they were the nation in a modern nation-state, hence no sense of patriotism. In modern Western thought, nation and state are distinct yet not separate, a concept that led Zhang Junmai to articulate an intimate relationship between them. Drawing on the work of the Swiss jurist and thinker, Johann Kaspar Bluntschli (1808–1881), Zhang defined the nation (minzu 民族) as a political community made up of a population in different occupations and positions who belong to the same race sharing common sentiments and spirits. It is their common language, customs, beliefs, and culture that confer on them a national identity distinct from others. The state, on the other hand, is a defined territory and political entity formed for the protection of the political community. Each state has its own jurisdiction and political, legal and military institutions (Zhang 1938: 28–29). Zhang attached great importance to the role of the state in Hegelian fashion. According to Hegel, the state was “the Idea of Spirit in the external manifestation of Human Will and Freedom” and “individuals only have objectivity, truth and morality insofar as they are members of the State whose true context and purpose are in unison.” (Cited in Russell 1961: 710) Zhang subscribed to this organic view of the state in which the state is not the sum total of self-interest; rather it is, in his own words, “transcendent (chaoyuede 超越的),” with elements of “commonality (gonggongxing 公共性),” “universalism (pubianxing 普遍性),” and “permanence (yonghengxing 永恆性)” (Zhang 1938: 382–383). From the German thinkers Zhang learned that the nation is a primordial racial concept while the state is a value concept (Wert Begriff) that underpins the state’s laws, order, and institutions (Zhang 1938: 29–31). The nation is unique and the state is a source from which the nation derives its dignity. There are no inherent contradictions between the two. Considering the Japanese invasion and China’s conditions in the 1930s, however, Zhang had to privilege the state over the nation in that the latter was duty-bound to stand behind the former in the fight against the Japanese. The two were in unison in that regard. But Chinese nationalism was underdeveloped because, Zhang explained, the people had no idea that they were the nation constituting the foundations of the state. An Organic Law under which they were integrated into the state did not exist, and they enjoyed no individual liberties under the Nationalist government. Furthermore, to the uneducated masses, nationalism was an alien concept while they owed their loyalty to the clan, to localism and to provincialism, in that order. A politico-cultural shift could be made only with a national awakening and by injecting national consciousness into the popular minds through education (Zhang 1935, I: 1–2; II: 74). National consciousness was barely enough, however. There needed to be a “national will (minzu yili 民族意力),” the sort of motor that had driven the Germans under Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) in the struggle for German unification in the nineteenth century. Zhang was anxious to crystallize national will and promote it as a unifying force and a source of strength to fight the Japanese. It would lead to unity of action by which China could be assured of survival and independence. He spoke of the “greater freedom of the nation (guojia de da ziyou 國家的大自由)” over

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individual liberties in a time of crisis, that is, collective freedom over individual freedom, with the former offering the best protection of the latter (Zhang 1935, II: 73–74). Equally important to Zhang was self-confidence as a nation. A nation lacking in self-confidence is not qualified for nation building, and a nation cannot have self-­ confidence without showing reverence for its history, culture, and traditions. Zhang criticized the cultural iconoclasts of the May Fourth period for their relentless assaults on Chinese traditions and the national character; such assaults were reflections of their inferiority complex vis-a-vis Westerners. Contradicting Hu Shi, Zhang argued that whatever Westerners could do, so could the Chinese if only they were educated. A cultural revival and reaffirmation was essential to confidence building, hence his idea of National Renaissance (minzu fuxing 民族復興) (Zhang 1935, I: 148–149). He drew inspirations from the Germans and the British, both of whom were conservative and progressive simultaneously. The Germans were a great nation that had made great strides in science and philosophy, yet they retained a great deal of respect for such national icons as Luther, Goethe, and Bismarck. And the British had renewed themselves over and again, making them a great nation, too. Yet their reverence for Milton, Shakespeare, Hume, and Mill never diminished. “In the midst of renewal, the old is conserved,” Zhang concluded. “That is, creative renewal inherits the past and develops the future, both emerging from the same path.” (Zhang 1936: 123) He was cut in the liberal-conservative mold. His idea of National Renaissance differed significantly from Hu Shi’s. Whereas Hu was preoccupied with a literary revolution and language reform, Zhang inherited the Chinese past to shape the Chinese future while taking what the modern West had to offer into account. In Chinese Culture Tomorrow, Zhang, like Liang Shuming, provided a comparative analysis of Eastern and Western cultures. He first looked at Indian and then European culture, with the latter capturing most of his attention. He identified four distinguishing characteristics of Western developments since the Renaissance. The first was the formation of nation-states, which he considered to be more significant than the revival of art and literature and the advance of science. The second was the development of democracy, which was good for all humankind despite problems with some Western governments. The third was the thirst for knowledge, pursued through exploration and the scientific method. The fourth was changes in the notion of morality, thanks to the influence of Kant, Hegel, and other idealists. Zhang admired the democratic traditions of the ancient Greeks and Romans as well as recognized the contributions of Christianity (Zhang 1936: 56–79). China could learn one or two lessons from modern Europe. Firstly, wrote Zhang, the formation of the Chinese nation-state had only just begun, not being helped by a combination of internal disunity and foreign imperialism. During the current national crisis, it was important that the Chinese people stood united in the fight against the Japanese by releasing their “national energies (minzu huoli 民族活力).” Zhang posited a historical correlation between national energies and culture. By national energies he meant the combined energies of the people and the state. A nation’s culture waxed when national energies were in abundance and waned when they were in short supply. He praised Emperor Qin Shihuang (246–210 BC) for

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unifying the country, which was a great achievement. The three centuries that followed saw efforts at ethnic assimilation, leading to a significant expansion of national energies under the Sui and Tang Dynasties, which were also noted for their rich culture. Unfortunately, national energies waned under the alien Yuan and Qing Dynasties, which were “a national disgrace (guochi 國恥)” (Zhang 1936: 84–104). Here again, Zhang underscored the importance of national unity and national will while betraying his ethnocentrism. Secondly, modern Europe was a sharp contrast to China, which was so backward. Zhang deplored that, politically, China under Nationalist rule remained an autocratic state. Intellectually and academically, China’s knowledge base was so narrow that it needed to be broadened in the domains of science and technology. Morally and philosophically, the Chinese people had little understanding of such Western values as individual autonomy and self-dignity, love of the nation, and mutual cooperation, values that ought to be cherished. Zhang particularly commended Kant’s philosophy that every individual should be treated as an end in himself, not a means to an end (Zhang 1936: 79). Though a cultural nationalist, Zhang was among the first to reflect on the Chinese tradition in order to renew and renovate it. The family system also came under his attack: Not only did it compound the individual’s sense of dependence, but it also fostered a culture of hypocrisy in which outward harmony disguised the reality of family feuds. The scholastic tradition suffered from an arcane written language and a lack of orientation toward cognitive learning; it failed to nurture men of talent and to develop great systems of thought owing to a preoccupation with evidential research. Here, Zhang shared with others at the time like Hu Shi and Fu Sinian 傅 斯年 (1896–1950), who did linguistic-based research, a general reaction against Qing scholarship. He was also in tune with Xiong Shili, Tang Junyi, and Mou Zongsan with a focus on intuition and truths that cannot be grasped through scientific investigation.1 Not least of all, Chinese culture lacked “a spirit of martyrdom (wei guo xisheng zhi jingshen 為國犧牲之精神)”; men of integrity were rare, with the exceptions of the Neo-Confucians of the Song period. Other than Neo-­ Confucianism, Zhang found satisfaction in Chinese art, literature, aesthetics, and historical compilation (Zhang 1936: 107–117).

4  O  n a Strong State, Powerful Government, and the Rule of Law When it came to public administration, Zhang was acutely aware of the flaws and shortcomings of the traditional Chinese bureaucracy that was corrupt, irrational, and incompetent. His idea of a good government was one that was powerful, efficient, and capable of planning. Unlike Europe’s classical liberals, modern  See chapter “Modern Confucian Epistemology: From Reason to Intuition—And Back”—Ed.

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China’s intellectuals dismissed the idea that the best government governs least. Since Liang Qichao’s advocacy in 1906 of “enlightened despotism (kaiming zhuanzhi 開明專制)” mainstream Chinese liberal thought had been preoccupied with the pursuit of a strong state capable of defending itself against foreign encroachment and providing leadership in advancing the well-being of the people. However, the strong state in their vision was neither a dictatorship nor one-party rule, nor a liberal democracy that is prone to paralysis and gridlock in government. For Zhang, the strong state was a moderate socialist state like Weimar Germany and Britain under Labour. He shared the mainstream thought that endorsed Sun Zhongshan’s Three Principles of the People but rejected his idea of political tutelage, and was not alone in insisting that a strong state is not an autocratic state. In his vision, a strong state has a capacity to unite the nation and provide leadership where the executive government is given broad powers to plan for the future and to function efficiently and effectively. For China, nothing was worse than a weak state with an incompetent government. Zhang was aware, however, that state powers were often abused and people’s rights trampled on. To safeguard against that, it is important that a balance is struck between state powers on the one hand and personal freedoms and civil liberties on the other. “Individual liberties are entrusted to the state, and the state consolidates itself by relying on individual liberties,” he wrote. “That is the quintessence of state building” (Zhang 1938: 99). In other words, the relationship between state and individualism is a mutually supportive one. How is the right balance to be struck? Zhang’s answer lies in the separation of the sphere of public administration from the private sphere where the individual enjoys freedoms of thought, speech and assembly, and is entitled to pursue legitimate self-interests. In his way of thinking, the tensions between a strong state and a free individual can be resolved by a government that respects individual liberties and obeys its own laws, providing good governance that deserves popular support. Freedom and authority then are not antithetical. What is important is to base state powers on the constitutional principle of legality and to see that the free individual is socially responsible, acting lawfully and in the best interest of state and society. A rule of law combined with a “rational will (lixing de yizhi 理性的意志)” provides the best mechanisms for checking abuses of state power on the one hand and restraining permissive individualism on the other. Key to Zhang’s notion of a powerful, efficient government is a technocracy well served by administrative experts and able state ministers. The administrative experts are above party politics, recruited on merit, and carry out their duties impartially. The idea is to depoliticize the civil service and to make it a meritocracy. State ministers are politicians selected on merit, too, from all political parties and groups, with the ruling party having no monopoly on their appointments. Administrators below the rank of vice-ministers are able to keep their jobs on the departure of their political masters to ensure continuity and administrative stability (Zhang 1938: 142–151). Here, Zhang’s thinking reflects Max Weber’s theory of the modern bureaucracy that is rational and professional in sharp contrast to the traditional Chinese bureaucracy.

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A strong state with a powerful government must rest its legitimacy on a rule of law and public morality. Whether the law is right and just, and whether the regime is legitimate, is a moral-legal issue. Writing in 1938, Zhang invoked Kant’s notion of the state as a “moral community” to ground regime legitimacy in what he called “collective morality (jiti daode 集體道德),” or “state morality (guojia daode 國家 道德),” which he compared to the German concept of the Rechtsstaat (a state embodying the rule of law). Collective morality, he wrote, manifested itself in a sense of shame, like the Japanese bushidō 武士道, in a sense of duty and fair play, and in a sense of ministerial responsibility as in the British political tradition. It combined with the rule of law to constitute “the supreme principle of state and nation building (minzu jianguo zhi zuigao yuanze 民族建國之最高原則” (Zhang 1938: 38–39). The nation as a cultural and political community, and the state as a moral community, rests on the twin pillars of legal institutions and moral values. In this view, the republican state is more than a procedural democracy—it is also a republic of ethics. Such conception of public morality comes close to Jurgen Habermas’ view that the rationality of law, which according to Weber is essential to its independence, cannot be understood as a merely formal or procedural rationality because law is internally related to morality and politics. Habermas has argued that the moral principle must be distinguished from the process of legitimate lawmaking and that law itself provides a necessary complement to morality (Outhwaite 1994: 138, 141). Zhang would have agreed with that. Yet, as Zhang realized, the law is unenforceable if those in authority are above it and if the people, accustomed to the old way, do not nurture a new legal culture. In Republican China, there were some new legal institutions but the old legal culture was deeply entrenched. The problem was that the Chinese would customarily try to evade rules and regulations if they could, showing a lack of civic virtues and public spirit, which was not helped by the fact that no government officials were exemplary, with political leaders and those in authority not obeying the law themselves. To tackle the problem, Zhang called on the government to provide leadership by taking a formal and dignified approach to the administration of justice, by being more serious and more careful in lawmaking and by conforming to the law itself. Not least of all, he held that the law should be interpreted correctly, enforced impartially, and changed when out of date (Zhang 1938: 34–38).

5  On State Socialism In Zhang’s view, a strong state with an efficient administration was best placed to build socialism. He was convinced that socialism could be realized within state boundaries without the internationalization of class struggle, as the Communists would have it. And socialism differs from communism in that it places an emphasis on the nation rather than on class and class struggle. Because the nation is above class, a class dictatorship is unnecessary. But the nation must stand firmly behind the state in its endeavors. In China’s case, it was important that the nation building

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project enjoyed popular support. The aims of the project were to create a unified government, develop commerce and industry, improve the livelihood of the people, promote education, build the transport infrastructure, reform the state institutions, establish the rule of law, and enhance the state’s military capabilities. In return for popular support, the state must respect human rights and individual liberties. In this way, the people were in unison with the state, placing nation and state in an intimate, mutually beneficial relationship under democratic socialism. In The Way of Nation Building, Zhang provided a blueprint for building state socialism in China, based largely on the Western European welfare state model featuring planning and a mixed economy (for details, see Fung 2010: 228–231). Although the blueprint was by no means original, it was significant in that Zhang was attempting to strike a balance between personal liberties and state powers, rights and duties, and at the same time to achieve social justice and satisfy popular demands at the highest possible level (the end of the state). In this, Zhang showed the influence not only of the Germans but also British Fabianism, especially the thought of Harold Laski, whose book A Grammar of Politics (1925) he had translated into Chinese. Democratic socialism, a strong state, a powerful executive government, a rule of law and social justice constituted what Zhang termed “revisionist democracy (xiuzheng de minzhu zhengzhi 修正的民主政治” or “a third kind of politics (disanzhong zhengzhi 第三種政治)” which represented an attempt to find China’s own path to modernity distinct from the Western liberal democracy model, from unbridled capitalism, and from dictatorship of any variety. That path lay between East and West and, theoretically, had the best of all possible worlds. It was a vision shared by many Chinese intellectuals in pursuit of a synthesis of Western and Chinese values and a form of government that was functional, efficient, and well served by a meritocracy. Domestically, “a third kind of politics” offered an alternative to the Nationalists and the Communists, representing a third force that sought to reconcile the political differences between the two rival parties. Unfortunately, the alternative did not prove to be a viable one, and the Third Force movement in which Zhang was a leading figure eventually foundered when the country plunged into a renewed civil war after the Anti-Japanese War was over. The middle-of-the-­ road intellectuals failed to influence events in China owing to a lack of economic, political, and military muscles as well as their liberal-conservative outlooks. In a time of war and revolution, a gradual approach to China’s pressing problems cut no ice. Not least of all, they failed to win popular support. With few exceptions, they were not connected with the rural masses whose well-being they were supposed to promote.

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6  Zhang Junmai As a Liberal Émigré Intellectual After 1949 On the eve of the Communist takeover in 1949, Zhang Junmai left China and began his self-exile. He spent 2 years on a lecture tour of India, after which he paid a visit to Indonesia and Australia for three months (Zheng 1997: 568–570). He then travelled to Hong Kong and reorganized the Third Force Movement with other Chinese émigrés. In the British colony, he co-founded the Chinese Fighting League for Freedom and Democracy (Zhongguo ziyou minzhu zhandou tongmeng 中國自由民 主戰鬥同盟) with General Zhang Fakui 張發奎 (1896–1980). The Fighting League was a political organization that aimed at recovering the mainland with self-­ trained guerrillas. Zhang Junmai, however, did not stay in Hong Kong for long because of close surveillance by the Hong Kong police. He travelled to the United States in early May 1952 and started his lobbying activities there. To his dismay, the American government had already concluded that the Third Force was a loose coalition without any prospects of success. As a result, the Fighting League was disbanded in late 1954 (Wan 2001: 40–50). In 1955, Zhang moved to Stanford University and stayed there for 1 year, working as a visiting research fellow in Chinese studies. He then settled down in San Francisco, writing editorials for World Daily (Shijie ribao  世界日報), a local Chinese newspaper. From the late 1950s onwards, he devoted himself to the study of Confucianism while remaining politically in pursuit of democratic socialism. He co-signed the 1958 “A Manifesto to the People of the World on Chinese Culture” with Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan. In the same year, he commenced a global lecture tour on Confucianism, visiting Germany, Italy, Britain, India, South Vietnam, Hong Kong and Japan. In addition to completing The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought (1963) in English, he published several articles on Confucianism in Liberty Bell (Ziyou zhong  自由鐘), a Hong Kong-based periodical that he founded in 1965. One year after his visit to Singapore, he was diagnosed with gastric ulcers in the autumn of 1968. He died of organ failure in Berkeley, California, in February 1969 (Zheng 1997: 575–586).

7  N  ew Confucianism as a Pillar of National Reconstruction and an Aid to Modernization The 1958 “Manifesto to the People of the World on Chinese Culture,” published in Democratic Review (Minzhu pinglun 民主評論) and National Renaissance (Zaisheng 再生), both Hong Kong-based periodicals, provided a clarification of Zhang and his fellow New Confucians’ understanding of Chinese culture and philosophy. The first half of the manifesto is a general introduction to Chinese culture from the perspective of the New Confucian scholars, while the second half is the signatories’ response to modernization. The signatories attempted to convince their

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readers that Chinese culture was compatible with modernization (Mou et al. 1989 [1958]: 58–118). Zhang and company expressed their concerns about the domination of communism on the mainland, and consequently the need to continue Confucian studies outside China. They were anxious to reflect on China’s problems and think about how they as émigrés could help solve them. Also dissatisfied from an academic viewpoint with Western scholars’ interpretation of Chinese culture, they criticized the fact that Western scholars tended to treat Chinese culture as a dead culture, like the ancient extinct civilizations of Egypt and Persia. Zhang and his associates wanted to show the world that Chinese culture was still alive and well, and an important motivational force for the ongoing development of the living Chinese nation. Chinese culture, the New Confucians believed, was competent to meet the challenges of modernization because of the existence of proto-democratic elements in the Confucian tradition (Mou et al. 1989 [1958]: 59–65). One of those elements was the traditional discourse on the mandate of heaven (tianming 天命). In the Chinese tradition, the mandate of heaven was represented by the “will of the people (minyi 民意),” which the monarch who received the mandate had to respect theoretically. However, without any actual restrictions, the monarch might turn against the people’s will as he wished. To solve this problem, the signatories first suggested that this relationship between the ruler and the ruled could be given a new meaning in a democratic polity in which the people would monitor the government they elected. They also pointed out that several imperial political institutions had restricted the actions of the ruler, and so these could be continued in a modern government system. For example, the influence of intellectuals on the government was realized in the state chancellorship system. Officials could admonish the emperor for his misbehavior through that censorial system. In addition, the civil service examinations provided a way for Confucian scholars to participate in that kind of government. Since the monarch would have to rule by means of these three institutions, his behavior was morally constrained to a certain extent. However, it still depended on the monarch’s morality whether he was willing to abide by the above check-and-balance systems. Consequently, Zhang and other signatories argued that these imperial monitoring systems had to be transformed into a democratic constitutional right for monitoring government activities (Mou et al. 1989 [1958]: 91–93). The New Confucians also discovered “the seeds of democratic thought (minzhu sixiang zhi zhongzi 民主思想之種子)” in Confucianism. The concept of “ruling by non-action (wuwei er zhi 無為而治)” was in fact an idea that also provided reasons for limiting monarchical power. The belief that “everyone can become Yao and Shun (ren jie keyi wei Yao Shun人皆可以為堯舜)” implies that, from the Confucian point of view, the state should not be owned by one single person. Ordinary people may also be qualified for state leadership if he or she is virtuous enough. Zhang and his New Confucian fellows regarded the ideal of “the whole world becoming a commonwealth (tianxia weigong 天下為公)” as the “root of democratic political thought (minzhu zhengzhi sixiang genyuan 民主政治思想根源).” They were keen

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to put such an ideal into practice through democratization (Mou et  al. 1989 [1958]: 93–95). The manifesto, however, did not explain in detail how that transformation from a traditional political system to a democratic form of government was to be accomplished. A possible reason for this lack of clarity is that each of the signatories held his own nuanced view on Confucianism and its place in a modern political framework (He 1996: 189–198). As we will discuss later, Zhang advocated the “unity of morality and law (de yu fa zhi heyi 德與法之合一),” in which the two concepts would be synthesized, but envisaged that individual-society-state relationships should be based on rights and duties. Zhang spent the last decade of his life seeking to revive Confucianism for two reasons. First, by the mid-1960s, the Communist government had ruled China for over 15 years, during which, in Zhang’s view, the Communists had been destroying Confucianism (Zhang 1981c [1963]: 801). Second, just as modern European thought originated from ancient Greek philosophy, so Zhang believed that the Chinese nation should modernize on the basis of its own intellectual foundations (Zhang 1981e [1965]: 586). Zhang pinpointed “five basic concepts” in Confucianism as the keys to China’s modernization. They were “the autonomy of rationality (lizhi de zizhu 理智的自 主),” “thinking and the function of the heart-mind (xin de zuoyong yu sikao 心的作 用與思考),” “the existence of the universe (yuzhou de cunzai 宇宙的存在),” “phenomena and substance (xianxiang yu shiti 現象與實體),” and “the theory of virtuous nature (dexing xueshuo 德性學說).” The “autonomy of rationality” refers to people’s inherent possession of four types of moral potential as universal characteristics of human nature. These are benevolence (ren 仁), righteousness (yi 義), propriety (li 禮), and wisdom (zhi 智). The “function of the heart-mind” helps one to acquire the ability to think and to judge. Such an ability is essential for the classification of things and for value judgements. The universe is made up of different kinds of animate and inanimate beings. With the ability to think, one is able to classify different objects in the world and, more importantly, becomes aware of one’s “ability to carry out moral self-reflection (daode fanxing nengli 道德反省能力).” Zhang claimed that Confucius had recognized the existence of an “abstract world (chouxiang shijie 抽象世界)” of “spirit (jingshen 精神)” and a “phenomenal world (xianxiang shijie 現象世界)” of “substance (wuzhi 物質),” while the Southern Song philosopher, Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), had argued that “pattern (li 理)” and “vital force (qi 氣)” were inseparable from each other. Since principle and vital force are inseparable, an important Confucian concept is the realization of virtue in the “phenomenal world” through the socio-political teachings of the Great Learning (Daxue 大學)—“cultivation of persons (xiushen 修身),” “regulation of families (qijia 齊 家),” “keeping states in order (zhiguo 治國)” and “keeping the Empire at peace (pingtianxia 平天下)” (Zhang 1981e [1965]: 586–592). Zhang’s advocacy of his “five basic concepts” suggests that, in his view, Confucian ethics ought to be restored in Chinese society after 15 years of communism’s devastation of those very same Chinese traditions on the mainland. This was the first step in Zhang’s model of nation building.

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Reacting to the destruction of Confucianism on the Chinese mainland, Zhang provided an outline for its rejuvenation in modern China. For a start, Confucian thought should be compared with Western philosophical ideas. In this way, contemporary Chinese people would be able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of their own philosophy. Zhang pointed out two differences between Confucian and Western philosophical traditions: Confucianism required people to incorporate morality into their daily life, whereas he claimed that “Western tradition” did not. Westerners attached “supreme importance to knowledge” and “recognized only the importance of knowledge, not that of action” (Chang 1962a: 453; Zhang 1981d [1964]: 573). By contrast, educated Chinese treated “knowledge and morality as equally important” and emphasized “the unity of knowledge and action (zhixing heyi 知行合一)” (Chang 1962a: 453; Chang 1962b: 39; Chang 1955: 11; Wang 2004: 29–32). In Zhang’s view, an emphasis on “the unity of knowledge and action” would encourage modern Chinese to live a moral way of life, one that had probably been forgotten by people in the mainland after 15 years of Communist rule. Secondly, Chinese philosophy should be based on a broad foundation. Zhang endorsed the “Doctrine of the Mean (zhongyong 中庸)” and suggested that no school of thought should be advocated to the exclusion of all others (Zhang 1981e [1965]: 595). In his view, Chinese philosophy in the future should incorporate the good points of various schools of thought, both Eastern and Western. This should be a highly selective process––one that would be different from simply “mixing (zarou 雜揉)” different schools or seeking “compromise (zhezhong 折衷)” or “reconciliation (tiaoting 調停)” between differing doctrines (Zhang 1981b [1960]: 539–540). Most importantly, knowledge (zhi 知) and morality (de 德) should be equally emphasized in the modern world. In Zhang’s view, these two concepts are inseparable as reflected in the Great Learning, the Analects, and Mengzi. Having knowledge alone is not enough for bringing happiness to human beings. Happiness could be achieved only when knowledge is used in a moral way (Zhang 1981e [1965]: 595–596). Since the invention of the atomic bomb had already posed a threat to humankind, he urged scientists to have a “sense of responsibility (zeren gan 責任 感)” and a “sense of duty (yiwu gan 義務感).” They should take morality into consideration when exploring new kinds of technology so as to avoid the total destruction of humanity. “The unity of knowledge and morality (zhide heyi 知德合一)” is therefore important for all scientists, regardless of their nationality (Zhang 1981a [1959]: 819). From Zhang’s perspective, the rejuvenation of Confucianism would not only aid China’s modernization but also play an essential role in preventing humanity from utter destruction in a nuclear war.

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8  T  he Unity of Morality and Law in Zhang’s Confucian Thought While Zhang regarded Confucianism as an aid to modernization and a key to preventing the annihilation of humanity, he proposed “the unity of morality and law (de yu fa zhi heyi 德與法之合一)” in China’s democratization, an idea he had broached previously. Now he placed the Chinese concept of morality (de 德) and the Western concept of law (fa 法) on an equal footing, as he discovered close connections between traditional Chinese political thought and modern Western political thought. Like many scholars who advocate that Chinese philosophy had an influence on early modern European philosophers, Zhang claimed that many Enlightenment thinkers had been inspired by Confucian classics, in which, he argued, some modern concepts such as the concept of natural rights had their origins (Zhang 1981f [1965]: 384–386; Mungello 1998: 89–98). Consequently, there were very good reasons for Chinese people to adopt these modern ideas because of their Confucian origins. Yet Zhang also insisted that modern individual-society-state relationships should be based on the modern theory of rights and duties rather than on Confucian concepts. Confucianism treats the self as part of a greater collective. The self is assigned a role interacting with other members of the collective. For example, the self is always the son, husband, father or teacher of someone else (Rosemont 2014: 94). Zhang, however, saw the intrinsic value of the self in its contribution to society and the state. In his view, the “fundamental constituent (jiben fenzi 基本分子)” of a state is the individual who grows up as a member of a family, developing physical strength, intellect and morality during his or her school years, to become a good citizen. He or she will then vote in elections, devote himself or herself to an occupation, and participate in politics. Zhang viewed the above course of personal development as the duties and rights of every individual. Society is the place where the individual earns a living and participates in a whole range of legitimate activities, while the state is “the supreme body that controls all powers (zuigao zonglan quanli jiguan 最 高總覽權力機關)” (Zhang 1988: 17–18). As he had long maintained, no one can separate himself or herself from the state or society. The state and society also cannot be divorced from the law, because it is essential for the maintenance of social order. Nevertheless, the law has to accord with the interests and needs of the people. Serious discussions leading to the approval by a representative parliament are necessary for legislating. In this way, law would be rational and possess due regard for human sentiments, thereby achieving “the unity of morality and law” (Zhang 1988: 17–20). Zhang treated the individual, society and the state as equally important because he was aware of the dangers of elevating any one of them above the others. In totalitarian regimes, where the interests of the state are given the highest priority, the individual is exploited by the state. Karl Marx had emphasized the role of society in historical development and argued for proletarian dictatorship, which was conducive to social tyranny. As for the theoretical supremacy of the individual, Zhang

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linked this with laissez-faire governance, which had sometimes contributed to the exploitation of the working class. So, he suggested three keys to maintaining a proper balance between the individual, society and the state––human rights, constitutional democracy and social justice. These are the three keys that he had been advocating since his youth, constituting what he called “socialism based on democracy and freedom (yi minzhu ziyou wei jichu de shehui zhuyi 以民主自由為基礎的 社會主義)” (Zhang 1988: 18–22). In short, Zhang envisaged different but complementary functions for Confucianism and modern political thought in his model of nation-building, combining modern political ideas with Confucian concepts to serve the purposes of national reconstruction and to better the future of humanity.

9  In Continued Pursuit of Democratic Socialism Apart from the revival of Confucianism, Zhang furthered his views on democratic socialism in his post-1949 writings. In the Fighting League’s manifesto published in 1952, Zhang outlined a democratic-socialist blueprint for national reconstruction in the future, advocating a social welfare system that would provide pensions for the elderly, the sick, and the unemployed. He suggested that the state should increase agricultural and industrial production and distribute the profit reasonably. It had the responsibility to adjust people’s incomes and to guarantee their minimum standard of living. To ensure that every agrarian household could live on its own, the state would improve farming techniques and introduce a system of rural cooperation. With the exception of defense-related industries, people would be encouraged to run their own business under the auspices of the state. A “system of democratic enterprises (minzhu qiye zhi 民主企業制)” would be adopted for the cooperation between the workers and the industrialists (The Manifesto 1952: 14–16). There are some differences between the blueprint in the Fighting League’s manifesto and that in The Way of Nation Building. Zhang no longer advocated protectionism in the 1950s. Previously, he had argued that the Chinese people should achieve “national self-sufficiency (minzu zihuo 民族自活).” China should stop importing foreign goods, and Chinese people should consume domestic products, so that China could strengthen its economy for a prolonged war against Japan (Zhang 1938: 238–241). Now, in the Fighting League’s manifesto, protectionism was implicitly abandoned. The state would not only encourage foreign trade but would also welcome international investment, so as to promote industrial development at full speed (The Manifesto 1952: 16). Toward the end of the 1950s, however, Zhang seems to have had mixed feelings about the prospects of socialism. On the one hand, in 1959, he published an article entitled “Socialism’s Change of Direction (Shehui zhuyi zhi fangxiang zhuanbian 社會主義之方向轉變),” noting that after 1949 he had become less passionate about state socialism for two reasons. First, he did not believe that an ideal society could be achieved through “class struggle (jieji douzheng 階級鬥爭)” and the

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“dictatorship of the proletariat (wuchan ducai 無產獨裁),” as in the Soviet Union. He was disappointed with what he perceived as the Soviet Union’s enslavement of its people in the name of socialism (Zhang 1989 [1959]: 401). Second, he was frustrated with foreign socialist parties that, he claimed, tended to cultivate friendship with the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Zhang was impressed with the West German socialists’ recent political platform, which, he wrote, had abandoned the illusion of a classless society and the goal of eliminating the bourgeoisie (Zhang 1989 [1959]: 402–407). They had also ceased to advocate atheism, recognized parliamentary democracy as the foundation of socialism, and called on socialist regimes to abide by international law (Zhang 1989 [1959]: 408–409). He shared West German socialists’ advocacy of restricting state control to essential industries and encouraging fair competition between private enterprises in non-essential industries. To him, the most important role of the state is to safeguard individual freedoms and social justice through the protection of human rights and the provision of social welfare (Zhang 1989 [1959]: 405–407). His enthusiasm for the new platform of the West German socialists reflects his consistent support for democratic socialism and a mixed economy that would be compatible with liberal principles.

10  Conclusion As a cultural nationalist and the most politically engaged of the New Confucians of his generation, Zhang Junmai devoted himself wholeheartedly to the nation building project based on constitutional democracy, state socialism, a national renaissance and a Confucian revival. His thought was an amalgam of liberal, conservative, and socialist ideas, which were a product of his time—an extraordinary time in modern China’s history demanding political and cultural change. Featuring saliently in his thought were the nexus between culture and politics; the intimate and mutually supportive relationships among individual, state, and society; the rule of law; the unity of morality and law; social justice; powerful, efficient, and effective government; and “revisionist democracy” or “a third kind of politics.” During the Republican period, he sought to translate his ideas into actions in his role as the leader of a minor party and a leading figure in the Third Force movement. To their dismay, the likes of Zhang failed to shape and influence events in China as their ideas were of little significance to ordinary people whose pressing needs appear to have been better understood and met by the Communists. Politically, Zhang was already a spent force before he led the life of a liberal émigré intellectual after 1949. He could only find solace in his undiminished convictions as an anti-Communist and democratic socialist. In the end, he was a loser in the realm of Chinese politics like those who had walked down the middle path with him. Philosophically and intellectually, though, he had made a significant contribution to the study of Confucianism as a pool of resources for China’s modernization.

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References Chang, Carsun (Zhang Junmai 張君勱). 1955. “Wang Yang-ming’s Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West 5.1: 3–18. (A preliminary study of Wang Yangming’s philosophical thought.) ———. 1962a. The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought. New York: Bookman Associates. (A comprehensive study of the Neo-Confucian school from the Song dynasty to the Qing dynasty.) ———. 1962b. Wang Yang-ming: Idealist Philosopher of Sixteenth-century China. Jamaica, NY: St. John’s University Press. (An extensive study of Wang Yangming as a philosopher.) Fung, Edmund S.  K. 2010. The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era. New  York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A wide-ranging and thorough study of Republican China’s cultural and political thought dealing with a large number of non-Communist intellectuals, well-known and not so well-known alike.) He, Xinquan 何信全. 1996. Confucianism and Modern Democracy: A Study of Contemporary New Confucian Political Philosophy 儒學與現代民主:當代新儒家政治哲學硏究. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo. (A comparative study of the political thought of six contemporary New Confucian scholars, namely Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan, and Zhang Junmai.) Jeans, Roger B., Jr. 1997. Democracy and Socialism in Republican China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (A political biography of Zhang Junmai from 1906 to 1941, the first to appear in the English language, a useful narrative with limited coverage of Zhang’s political and cultural thought.) Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三, Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀, Zhang, Junmai 張君勱, and Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1989 [1958]. “A Manifesto to the People in the World on Chinese Culture 為中國文化敬告 世界人士宣言.” In Xue Huayuan 薛化元, ed., Post-1949 Works of Zhang Junmai 一九四九 年以後張君勱言論集, Vol. 5. Taibei: Daoxiang chubanshe. (A manifesto issued by the four New Confucian scholars that attempted to establish the value of Chinese culture in the contemporary world.) Mungello, D.E. 1998. “European Philosophical Responses to Non-European Culture: China.” In Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds., The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A study of the reception of Chinese culture by European missionaries and thinkers.) The Manifesto 1952. “The Manifesto of the Chinese Fighting League for Freedom and Democracy 中國自由民主戰鬥同盟宣言.” National Renaissance 再生 327: 14–16. (A declaration issued by a Hong Kong-based Chinese Third Force organization in the early 1950s.) Outhwaite, William. 1994. Habermas: A Critical Introduction. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rosemont Jr., Henry. 2014. “Confucian Role Ethics: A Model for 21st Century Harmony?” Journal of East-West Thought 4.3: 87–100. Russell, Bertrand. 1961. History of Western Philosophy, new edition. London: George Allen & Unwin. Wan, Lijuan 萬麗鵑. 2001. The Chinese Third Force Movement in the 1950s 一九五零年代的中 國第三勢力運動. PhD diss., National Chengchi University. (A comprehensive study of the Hong Kong-based Third Force Movement in the 1950s.) Wang, Yangming 王陽明. 2004. Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings 傳習錄. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe. (A representative work by Wang Yangming.) Zhang, Junmai 張君勱. 1921. “The Meaning of Social Ownership and the German Bill on the Social Ownership of Coalmine 社會所有之意義及德國煤礦社會所有法草案.” Reform 改造 3.11: 13–27. ———. 1935. The Academic Foundations of National Renaissance 民族復興之學術基礎. 2 vols. Beiping: Zaisheng zazhishe. ———. 1936. Chinese Culture Tomorrow 明日之中國文化. Shanghai: Shanghai yinshuguan. ———. 1938. The Way of Nation Building 立國之道. Guilin: Shangwu yinshuguan.

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———. 1989 [1959]. “Changes in the Direction of Socialism: In Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of Free China 社會主義之方向轉變:為《自由中國》十周年紀念作.” In Xue Huayuan 薛化元, ed., Post-1949 Works of Zhang Junmai 一九四九年以後張君勱言論集, Vol. 5. Taibei: Daoxiang chubanshe. (An article tracing the history of socialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.) ———. 1981a [1959]. “The Turbulence of the Modern World and the Value of Confucian Philosophy現代世界紛亂與儒家哲學的價值.” In Cheng Wenxi程文熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲學文集, Vol. 2. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (Transcript of a lecture suggesting how advocates of Confucianism could respond to the challenges from Western values.) ———. 1981b [1960]. “Basic Categories of New Confucian Philosophy 新儒家哲學之基本範 疇.” In Cheng Wenxi程文熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲學文集, Vol. 1. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (An article introducing the basic ideas of New Confucian philosophy.) ———. 1981c [1963]. “After the Completion of the Development of Neo-Confucian Thought新 儒家思想史寫完以後.” In Cheng Wenxi程文熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲學文集, Vol. 2. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (An essay in which Zhang further elaborated the arguments in The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought.) ———. 1981d [1964]. “The Revival of Confucian Studies 儒學之復興.” In Cheng Wenxi程文 熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲學文集, Vol. 1. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (Transcript of a lecture explaining the necessity of reviving Confucian studies.) ———. 1981e [1965]. “China’s Modernization and the Revival of Confucian Thought 中國現代 化與儒家思想復興.” In Cheng Wenxi 程文熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲學文集, Vol. 1. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (Transcript of a lecture explaining Confucianism as a key to China’s modernization.) ———. 1981f [1965]. “Political Philosophy of New Confucianism 新儒家政治哲學.” In Cheng Wenxi 程文熙, ed., Collected Essays on Chinese, Western and Indian Philosophy 中西印哲 學文集, Vol. 1. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (An article elaborating the idea of “the unity of morality and law.”) ———. 1988. An Overview of Socialist Thought and Movements 社會主義思想運動槪觀. Taibei: Daoxiang chubanshe. (A comprehensive study of the history of socialism from utopian socialism to Soviet Communism.) Zheng, Dahua 鄭大華. 1997. Biography of Zhang Junmai 張君勱傳. Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe. (A full biography covering Zhang’s political life and intellectual thought.)

Three Dialectical Phases in Feng Youlan’s Philosophical Journey Lauren F. Pfister

1  Characterizing Feng Youlan’s Modern Philosophical Career Three dialectical phases in Feng Youlan’s thought can be identified across the more than sixty years of his modern professional career as a Chinese philosopher. These three phases are all expressions of post-traditional forms of secularized intellectual and spiritual life, the latter two phases appearing within the political and cultural context of the first four decades of the People’s Republic of China (Pfister 2012). I will begin by briefly summarizing accounts of his childhood and education, and then move on to characterizing how the philosophical stances adopted by the Early Feng (1924–1949), the Marxist Feng (1950–1978), and the Later Feng (1978–1990)refelect the tensions of modern consciousness as portrayed in Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit. In the first stage of his professional philosophical career, starting from his return to China in 1924 after completing his PhD at Columbia University till the advent of the PRC in 1949, Feng relied on past traditions, especially Zhu Xi’s metaphysical rationalism and the Zhuangzi’s metaphysical mysticism. He developed their metaphysical and logical claims creatively for post-traditional modern use. Disrupted in unforeseeable ways by Maoist-Marxist ideological propaganda after 1949 -- that Feng’s own political philosophy expressed in his New Principle/ Pattern Learning notably did not anticipate -- Feng underwent nearly twenty-five years of what Jacques Ellul has insightfully described and analyzed as the “propaganda of integration.” He “survived” by adopting a fully aligned intellectual/spiritual worldview associated with the leftist extremism of the Maoist regime in the mid-1970s, and so at that time  rejected in principle the methodologies  used and judgments made during the first phase of his philosophical career. L. F. Pfister (*) Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_7

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During the third and final phase of his philosophical career, the Later Feng gradually learned how to express his departure from the ideological straightforwardness and destructive harshness of his Maoist-Marxist phase. It was not simply a return to the Early Feng’s philosophical system or his reassertion of previously promoted Ruist (“Confucian”) values and Zhuangzian mysticism, but now a Hegelian-like sublation of both earlier phases. This resulted in a more complicated and selective affirmation of these and other philosophical claims, revealed in part through a Marxist-inspired research program employing a dialectical historical materialism as its philosophy of history. This led the Later Feng to a reassertion of certain Ruist cultural and personal values, as well as a stronger affirmation of a Zhuangzian-­ inspired mysticism, including a firm rejection of Maoist-Marxist leftist extremism or “cruel modernity” (Mrówcyzński et al. 2016). In the following section, I will first seek to indicate how and why Hegel's understanding of “modern consciousness” provides us with an interpretive approach that reveals several interpretive insights into our dialectical three phase account of Feng’s professional philosophical career. This understanding is primarily found in his major work, The Phenomenology of  [the] Spirit (Die Phänomologie des Geistes)—a work the early Feng Youlan studied in detail—, where “the Spirit” is for Hegel an expression of various levels and kinds of intellectual and spiritual cultural distortions, refinements, and realizations. Subsequently, I will seek to describe each of the three phases of Feng’s professional philosophical career, illustrating and elaborating the dialectical and sublated features in the second and third phase. Finally, I will identify seven ironies inherent within or related to Feng Youlan’s philosophical development, based upon the prior understanding of the three phases of his post-traditional Chinese philosophical vision as formed by a secularized and unsettled “modern consciousness.”

2  R  elating Hegel’s Account of Modernity to Feng Youlan’s Modern Career If a person intends to be a modern philosopher, according to Lumsden, that person must seek to be “at home with [her/him]self” (Beisichsein) in such a way that she/ he is both “at home” and knows that she/he is at home (Lumsden 2009: 56–57). The problem for the modern person, however, in Lumsden’s account of Hegel’s sense of modernity, is that “the self-understanding that would resolve us to the world we inhabit also invariably makes us dissatisfied, since it also recognizes that the unity we seek is not achieved, that our attempts at self-comprehension are inconsistent, wrong, inadequate and so on” (Lumsden 2009: 57–58). Lumsden argues that “the underlying tension that drives Spirit to seek more adequate explanations of itself is not resolved or reconciled in any finite expression of Spirit” (Lumsden 2009: 59). He argues that “Spirit’s dissatisfaction” is actually caused by “an incongruity between what is experienced and what is comprehended,” and that it is that sense of incongruity that prompts “a movement of self-comprehension” that is “essentially

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retrospective” (Lumsden 2009: 59). Whether Lumsden’s account of Hegel’s description of the dynamics within modern consciousness is justified on the basis of readings of Hegel’s original works will not be addressed here, but that “modern consciousness” and “modernity” are philosophical problems is clearly affirmed by many others (for example, Knight 2007, Kobb 1986, and Pippin 1999). I am interested in Lumsden’s  account because of how it provides some heuristic cues for explaining Feng Youlan’s own struggle to conceive of a “modern Chinese philosophy” by means of his repeated efforts to give a retrospective account of “the history of Chinese philosophy.” Very often it has been the case that contemporary philosophers who deal with Feng’s multiform publications separate the creation of his own philosophical system, called the New Principle/Pattern Learning, from his extensive work exploring “the history of Chinese philosophy.” Nevertheless, on the basis of Lumsden’s presentation of Hegel’s understanding of modernity, these two ways of approaching the subject of philosophy in any cultural expression are and should be linked together. From this Hegelian understanding of “modern consciousness,” it was both methodologically correct and retrospectively necessary that Feng Youlan—as a post-­ traditional and intentionally modern philosopher—sought first of all to comprehend the movement of the Chinese “spirit of philosophy” by means of a thorough reconceptualization of its putatively dialectical developments across 2500 years or more of Chinese thinking before pursuing the creation of his own philosophical system. Though he had written about three distinct  styles of philosophical expression in Chinese, Greek and European historial and cultural contexts in his PhD dissertation, Feng had not yet pursued a systematic and chronological account of Chinese philosophical traditions. This is something that he actually started to do for the first time in 1926, so that the first volume of his two-tome work entitled A History of Chinese Philosophy could be published in Chinese in 1931 (Feng 1975: 48). Only after he had completed the second volume of his historical account in 1934 (English version, Fung 1953) was Feng then ready to begin to address his own post-traditional and modern extension of Principle/Pattern Learning (lixue 理學), because he had come to a relatively thorough self-conscious comprehension of all the Chinese philosophical efforts that had led to the point where he was currently (and self-­ consciously) working out his own “modern version” of that school, the so-called New Principle/Pattern Learning (Xin lixue 新理學). Lumsden’s account of Hegel’s understanding of modern consciousness is also heuristically useful in discerning what Hegel claimed was the “distinct role of philosophy” during this process of humanity’s “Spirit becoming modern.” According to Lumsden, philosophy is embodied in the effort to provide a more adequate explanation of human experience “when[ever] it is dissatisfied with its own expression of the world and of itself.” In this sense, the effort at seeking “self-satisfaction” in and through philosophical understanding of any generalization entails two basic efforts: first, a “discursive account of the necessary steps leading to the present,” and secondly, an account of “the movement and arrangement of those concepts” that will adequately give shape to the modern form of life that it is trying to explain (Lumsden 2009: 59–60). Ultimately, however, philosophical comprehension will always lag

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behind human experience, and so any person’s philosophical efforts will continue to be challenged by the gap between one’s philosophical understanding and its lack of alignment with actual experiences (Lumsden 2009: 60). Lumsden concludes, “Philosophical reconciliation takes place only in the ideal,” because philosophical reflection generated by a modern consciousness necessarily leads to a form of philosophical reconciliation that will always be lagging behind cultural experiences, and so will never be finalized, settled, or complete (Lumsden 2009: 60). Lumsden’s interpretation of this Hegelian account of the role of philosophy within modernity therefore also offers a new perspective for explaining how and why Feng Youlan within three different dialectical phases of his professional philosophical career pursued again and again new historical accounts of Chinese philosophical traditions. This comes about precisely because of the unsettling discontentment he faced as he underwent unanticipated experiences while living in revolutionized China, making his situation appear ironic, at the very least, since his own philosophical claims were not adequate for explaining what he was experiencing.

3  Early Feng Youlan’s Upbringing and Education Feng Youlan was the second son (of five children) of FENG Taiyi 馮臺異 (1866–1908), a scholar who achieved his jinshi 進士degree in 1898 when the young FENG Youlan was only three years old. Even though they lived for the first part of his childhood in a small country village within Henan 河南province, his family followed his father to the growing metropolis of Wuchang 武昌 in 1904 (Yin 1991: 3–7; Fan 2001: 10–15; Tian 2003: 11–18). Within the family’s private school the children were taught—along with basic classes in mathematics as well as reading and writing in Chinese—what would be understood to be the standard Cheng-Zhu 程朱 school curriculum as well as basic skills for Chinese education. There was a significant tension between the imperially-authorized orthodox Ruist interpretations of their classics and attendant worldviews with the pressures of modernization that already shaped Feng’s childhood and would become a source of continual challenge within his professional philosophical career (as documented in Pfister 2003c, 2014b, 2015). In the years after his father died in 1908, the young Feng was able to ultimately gain enough background knowledge to be successful in examinations that led to his being admitted to a notable progressive school in Shanghai in 1912, the Chinese Public School (Zhongguo Gongxue中國公學). As a son of a more traditionally-­ oriented minor official, living within this modern-oriented intellectual environment was simultaneously shocking, exciting, and formative. Feng himself notes that it was here that he first came across a course in logic that captivated his intellectual interests to the point that he determined to learn “Western philosophy” by the time he was ready to graduate from that Shanghai “public school.” Nevertheless, he was not immune to other influences, including being introduced to a well-educated young daughter of a member of the 1911 revolutionary forces, Ren Zhiming 任芝 (1869–1969). Adopting modern ways of determining their own

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destiny, Feng and Ren Zaikun 任載坤 (1894–1977) were engaged to be married in 1915 on the basis of their own choices, with his mother and her parents subsequently accepting their decision graciously (Fan 2001: 23, 32–33). Waiting until both had graduated from university three years later (Yin 1991: 15–16; Tian 2003: 40–41), they were married in 1918 and began careers as professional teachers in other modern high schools (Yin 1991: 23; Tian 2003: 74). Feng succeeded in obtaining a place in the recently reorganized Beijing University in 1915, in what was announced to be a degree and department in “Western philosophy,” alongside of similar departments in Chinese and Indian philosophical traditions. He later wrote about his disappointment in discovering that only one professor had been hired to teach in that program, and that before he himself arrived as a fledgling graduate student, that teacher had died. As a consequence, he and others were integrated into the one truly functioning Department of Chinese Philosophy (Fung 1991a, 1991b: 552). His studies were especially influenced by Hu Shi and Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988). In 1919 Feng successfully obtained a scholarship to study philosophy in the USA at the doctorate level. On receiving the news about studying philosophy in the USA, Feng sought advice from Hu Shi, and was told that the two best departments of philosophy were in Harvard University and Columbia University. Hearing from Hu that at Harvard one studied “old” philosophy, but at Columbia there was “new” philosophy being taught, Feng eagerly chose the latter (Yin 1991: 23–25; Fan 2001: 37). Having arrived by ship in late November 1919, Feng Youlan matriculated into the Philosophy Department of Columbia University in January 1920, and wrote his dissertation under the supervision of John Dewey, once the latter had returned from his trips to China and Japan in 1921 (Yin 1991: 29; Tian 2003: 94). Biographical accounts of Feng’s experiences, readings and writings while at Columbia University generally engage to what extent Feng actually studied “new philosophy” (Yin 1991: 29–31; Tian 2003: 92–94). Yet when one reads through the dissertation text (Fung 1991a: 1–190), which was originally entitled “The Way of Decrease and Increase with Interpretations and Illustrations from the Philosophies of the East and West” (Tian 2003: 113), Feng addresses no contemporary philosophical works at all, but starts with studies of ancient philosophical traditions in the Mediterranean Greek and Chinese Daoist cultures, and ends with studies of the works of Kongzi, Song Ruists, Aristotle, and Hegel (Yin 1991: 31–37). Somewhat ironically, then, he addresses three idealizations of life and their related philosophical expressions in both “Eastern” (meaning Chinese) and “Western” (meaning European) traditions, none of which engage any contemporary philosophical works or figures. After returning to China in 1923, Feng took up a series of teaching positions in various institutions. None of these earlier positions fully satisfied him (Yin 1991: 41–43; Tian 2003: 116–135). Ultimately, when Tsinghua (Qinghua) University was about to be established, he was invited in 1928 to take up a post as a professional philosopher and senior university administrator there, located within walking distance of Beijing University from which he had graduated ten years earlier (Tian 2003: 135–153). It was there that Feng finally felt he had reached a place where he could contribute and stay, but that feeling would be tested by the political instability modern China would experience for the following two decades.

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4  Early Feng Youlan’s Post-traditional Chinese Philosophical Contributions In his first years at Tsinghua University, what had been nearly an aversion to teaching anything about Chinese philosophy once he had graduated from Columbia University and returned to China shifted to a growing and systematic philosophical interest in presenting the diversity of Chinese philosophical traditions. It was then that Feng produced his most enduring, nationally recognized, and internationally appreciated philosophical works (Yin 1991: 43–46, 54–73)—the two volume overview of A History of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學史 published in 1931 and 1934 successively, and the first volume of his six volume set called the New Principle/ Pattern Learning 新理學philosophical system, appearing in 1937. When viewed from a cultural perspective that highlights the various roles of philosophical studies within mainland China during the whole of twentieth century, Feng Youlan stands out as one among the very most prominent personalities and prolific writers within the whole century. In various international philosophical accounts that include Chinese figures, he is ranked along with Mao Zedong as the two most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century (Brown et  al. 1998; Arlington 1991).This has come about especially within modern Anglophone readership—as well as those other linguistic corridors that interact and intersect with English language publications through translations based on those English works— due to Feng’s highly influential and first History of Chinese Philosophy, published in a two-volume English version (1953–1954) translated by Derk Bodde. This English work was fundamentally based on the Chinese work originally written by “Fung Yu-Lan” (the pre-Pinyin spelling of his name in non-Chinese languages). So from the outset, Feng Youlan’s position in international cultural circles was established on the basis of his account of the history of Chinese philosophical traditions and not his own philosophical system (produced during 1939–1946), something he did not prefer, but could not control. Nevertheless, when viewed from the educational formation of his understanding of philosophical traditions and the character of philosophical systems, the more significant influences within his own early years of study in philosophical realms at Columbia University under the guidance of the American philosopher, John Dewey, was from an Anglo-European and Chinese comparative philosophical perspective, what he would regularly refer to in more traditional rubric as a comparison of “Chinese” and “Western” philosophical traditions. Notably, his PhD dissertation, ultimately entitled “A Comparative Study of Life Ideals,” developed three basic “idealizations”: the first of “nature” or “the way of decrease"; the second of “art” and “the way of increase”; and the third of a “continuity of nature and art” that emphasized the “good of activity” (Fung 1991a). Within the first category were discussions of the Zhuangzi and Plato, among others; in the second, Yang Zhu 楊 朱 and Mozi 墨子 among others; and in the third, Kongzi (Confucius 孔夫子) and Aristotle among others. Notably, only one chapter in each section dealt also with modern (but not contemporary) figures, most of whom were Europeans. Significantly,

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Feng included no reference to thinkers or philosophers from any other cultural backgrounds outside of China and Europe in any of those discussions. Though he did include one chapter referring to “Neo-Confucianism” under the third idealization category, paralleling it with a chapter devoted exclusively to Hegel, that former reference to Song and Ming dynasty Ruist (“Confucian”) scholars was the only chapter devoted to Chinese persons who were neither categorized historically as ancient or modern. What I would want to highlight here is the prominent role that the study of Hegel had in Early Feng’s writings and their impact on his life-long study of philosophical traditions. Within the twelfth chapter of his dissertation related to Hegel’s philosophical works, Feng’s summary relied heavily on citations and quotations from two sources: J. B. Baillie’s English rendering of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (also known as The Phenomenology of Spirit, and in Chinese Jingshen xianxiangxue精神現象學, meaning, for Hegel the phenomenological study of intellectual/spiritual culture), published in 1910, and W. Wallace’s rendering of The Logic of Hegel produced in 1894. Within this relatively short chapter of only eight published pages, Feng cited the Phenomenology 18 times, and the Logic 15 times. Having cited only one other work by Hegel a few times in the same pages, it is undoubtedly the case that Feng had spent significant time reading and digesting the technical and complicated arguments of the Phenomenology (Fung 1991a: 173–181). There is no question, therefore, that Feng was aware of Hegel’s account of modern consciousness and its desire for self-awareness and self-fulfillment in a concrete cultural embodiment. Following Hegel’s philosophical account of the nature of “creation,” the “fall,” and “evil”/“good,” Feng recognized Hegel’s claim that the highest form of philosophical knowledge is an “Absolute Knowledge,” that is, a corporate consciousness at home with itself in its own age and able to bring cultural unity to the world around it. Within the final paragraph of that chapter, Feng claimed that Hegel was able to bring about a compromise between the “two extremes” of “mysticism” and “egoism,” an achievement the Chinese philosopher apparently lauded, so that he wrote, When the self is united with the whole, the whole becomes self-conscious. Spirit, then, “is the Ego, the concrete Ego, and no other.” Besides, in its recollection or memory, all the past experience of any individual, indeed of anything in the world, is preserved. The individual never needs to be afraid of losing itself in the whole. (Fung 1991a: 181)

This concern for achieving self-conscious awareness—a major theme of the free individual in the modern era for Hegel—left an indelible impact on Feng’s understanding of the nature of the modern discipline of philosophy. More than twenty years later he defined philosophy in A Short History of Chinese Philosophy as a “systematic, reflective thinking on life” (Fung 2008: 2). That emphasis on “reflective thinking” is undeniably Hegelian in character. In the final volume of the New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy published posthumously in 1992, the Later Feng went even farther along the line of a Hegelian account of the nature of philosophy, claiming directly that “Philosophy is the reflection (反思 fansi) of humankind’s spirit (renlei jinshen人類精神),” where jingshen is taken to mean “intellectual/spiritual culture,” very much in the Hegelian sense of that Chinese term (Feng 1992: 245).

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Only once in 1982, after living through several years of house arrest, Feng was able to visit the USA to attend an international conference on Zhu Xi in Honolulu, and subsequently attend a previously arranged ceremony where he was formally given his PhD diploma earned in the 1920s, but actually presented to him nearly 60 years later. In his speech in response to that special occasion, Feng reflected on the difficulties he had endured in the revolutionized China, and then rejected the Marxist ideological rejection of all pasts before the revolution as an “oversimplication.” Instead, he claimed, [Revolutionists argue that] the present should disregard the past, and consider it nonexistent. The present should start from zero and build everything anew. This view is obviously an oversimplification in theory and an impossibility in practice…. The process of [historical] development is a dialectical movement. To use Hegelian terms, there are affirmation, negation, and negation of negation. In other works, there are thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Such synthesis embraces all of the best in the thesis and antithesis. In this sense, the present should embrace all the best of the past. This is the natural way of adjustment of different cultures. The adjustment should be a process of what Hegel called Aufheben. This is indeed a very complex process, the exact opposite of oversimplification. This is what I understand now as the meaning of the development of history (Fung 1991b:662–663, compare with Pfister 2014a).

Here we have a very clear statement by Later Feng that he was self-consciously relying on a Hegelian account of historical dialectics, but we see nothing of Hegel’s account of “modernity” and “modern consciousness” as part of this account, and so it is not self-consciously applied to himself as a professional philosopher. Somewhat ironically, those who have read Feng’s final version of a history of Chinese philosophical traditions, the “New Edition” in seven volumes (if we include the posthumously published history of contemporary Chinese philosophy as the seventh and last volume, as I believe we should, as found in Feng 2000a), will not find Hegel mentioned at all, but only Marx and Marxists who adopt a stricter form of dialectical historical materialism. So even between this speech in 1982 and what was published subsequently in the “New Edition,” there is a gap between his claims and the actual production of his final works. This change in the Later Feng’s philosophical development will be addressed later as a dialectical sublation of the two earlier phases of his life  expressed as a “modern” and “professional” Chinese philosopher. A third point to underscore here is that Feng Youlan was also at least generally aware that Hegel distinguished “philosophy” from “religion” in terms of the self-­ consciousness that was experienced and embodied in the corporate cultural expression of humankind (Fung 1991a: 185–186). Taking up a Hegelian account of these matters, Feng glibly stated near the end of his dissertation that “the embodiment of philosophy” is precisely what becomes human history, so the “different souls” of varying expressions of “reason” will need to work “through those conflicts” in order that each of those “souls of the world” could ultimately “become more für sich, and help to raise each other to some higher level” (Fung 1991a: 189). Significantly, then, Feng had already in 1923 conceived a form and goal for what we would now call

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modern comparative philosophical studies that relied heavily on Hegel’s sense of “a self-reflection of the whole” of humanity. This undoubtedly was expressed in Feng’s multifaceted efforts to “find a place” for Chinese philosophical traditions within international philosophical discussions during his lengthy philosophical career of more than six decades. From an international perspective it is significant to realize that most of what has been known of Feng Youlan in English and European languages by the end of the twentieth century were his translated writings, all of which came from the first phase of his professional philosophical career. They are the products of the Early Feng, works completed and/or published during the period from 1923 to 1948. Nevertheless, as the second edition of his fourteen volume collected works published in 2000 clearly manifests (Feng 2000a), only the first five and a half volumes are completely devoted to works produced by the Early Feng. Another four and a half volumes are devoted to writings published after 1949, while the majority of the essays in the last four volumes are also from the post-1949 period. This suggests, then, that those who are not able to read Chinese original documents may not be able to appreciate in any comprehensive manner the struggles, conflicts, and dialectical transformations of Feng’s philosophical ideas as well as his form of life as a professional philosopher in China during the last forty years of his life. It is therefore worthwhile taking a little more time to characterize in greater detail the nature of the “post-traditional, secular, rationalistic, and synthetic modern” philosophical writings that Early Feng produced before 1949, so that the dialectical movements of the Marxist Feng and the Later Feng can be understood precisely in relationship to those earlier writings. By 1931 Feng Youlan produced a distinctively modern work within the first volume of his history of Chinese philosophical traditions. Unlike traditional writings, his own commentary was written in large font, and his extensive quotations from original sources were printed in the same font size, indicating that both were equally important. Traditionally speaking, the original texts would be presented in a larger font than the commentary, but now this cultural pattern expressed in these standards of publication had been set aside. Not only did Feng provide accounts of the basic philosophical concepts and teachings found in each major writing related to particular figures, he sought to provide a critically assessed chronology of that history of Chinese philosophical traditions, and so clearly emphasized the role of Kongzi (“Confucius”) as the initiator of Chinese philosophical traditions (in opposition to Hu Shi’s 胡適 (1891–1962) claim that the earlier text was the Daodejing). As a history of Chinese philosophical traditions, the number of Chinese philosophers and philosophical works referred to in that two-volume work was far more numerous and complex than any other attempt at portraying a history of “Chinese philosophy” up to that period of time (Pfister 2002b and 2015). Here was the first putatively “comprehensive” history of Chinese philosophical traditions by a modern Chinese philosopher published in the post-traditional era, an achievement that would earn him overseas acclaim and become the basis for his being criticized later by Chinese Marxist philosophers (because of his choices of materials and the interpretive approaches he adopted, see also Pfister 2003b in this regard).

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As has been mentioned previously, Feng Youlan produced his own philosophical system only after he had completed that massive two-volume work on the history of Chinese philosophical traditions. It is not hard to find Feng’s distinctive efforts within the six volumes of his New Principle/Pattern Learning, or Xin lixue 新理學, to “think about embodying” a modern form of life. All six titles begin with the word xin 新 or “new”; five out of the six volumes consisted of ten chapters, suggesting that he had set for himself a formal limit to the content of each volume. Discussion of some of the details of each of these volumes reveals more of what could count substantially as the Early Feng’s “modern attempt” at philosophizing. Within the first volume that shared the same name as his philosophical system, New Principle/Pattern Learning新理學, Feng explicitly described how he was seeking to bridge what was both “new” and “old” within “philosophy” (Feng 1996: 15–20). He spoke of his own modern philosophical system as aspiring to be “the most philosophical philosophy” (zuizhexue di zhexue最哲學地哲學) that there could be (Feng 1996: 10–12, and used as a title for the sixth volume rendered into Germay by Möller, see Feng 2000b). So it was the case that within the conceptual organization of that first volume, Feng regularly employed terms recognized as having been employed in traditional Ruist philosophical schools (particularly those from the Song dynasty), such as li 理, qi 氣, taiji 太極, dao 道, tiandao 天道, and xingxin  性心). Nevertheless, he gave them modern metaphysical meanings supported by logical and analytical explanations and justifications. In this manner, at the very least, he intended to be offering a “systematic reflection on life” in the form of a modern Chinese expression of what was a Hegelian form of modern consciousness. Yet it would be inappropriate to limit our understanding of the “modern,” “post-traditional” and “rationalist” dimensions of Feng’s philosophical system to just these Ruist elements. For example, the cultural and political dimensions of Feng’s philosophical system within New Principle/Pattern Learning were particularly manifested within the second and third volumes of the series (Xin shilun 新事論 and Xinshi lun 新世訓). In the former volume he addressed the differences between traditional and modern societies, and in the latter he discussed the values that should undergird a modern political system and the way a Chinese philosopher could participate and honor those modern values. It is notable that in this regard, Feng was far more conservative than any Maoist or Marxist revolutionary intellectual in his portrayal of the guiding values and principles of political philosophy within that third volume. In it he offered what could be generally portrayed as a rather simplistic expression of Ruist (“Confucian”) political values. It was simplistic because it did not argue for a new set of political values or institutions that should be adopted by modern Chinese philosophers, but instead continued to support a straightforward “respect” of and “obedience” to rulers, without any extensive discussion of the problems of governance that rulers might face, or any modern institutional expressions of Chinese political life that might be realized within a post-traditional context. Notably, he did not address more critical philosophical dimensions related to governance that he had previously discussed in his historical studies. For example, Feng did not even mention, evaluate, or criticize the justifications for regicide found

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in the Mengzi  孟子, or the Xunzi’s 荀子advocacy of the moral duty of political officials to admonish their rulers whenever they are living unrighteously or inhumanely. Neither did he discuss even more radical claims like the forward-looking democratic-like institutions advocated within one work of the late Ming Ruist scholar, Huang Zongxi 黄宗羲 (active in the seventeenth century CE). Because the second and third volumes of his philosophical system were produced during the initial years of World War II, when the Japanese invasion of mainland China had occurred, the Early Feng’s political sentiments were motivated by nationalist sentiments he shared with many other Chinese persons during World War II.  Nevertheless, this led to his articulation of a system built upon less than astute or enlightening political principles. Significantly, then, he had not truly achieved a modern (in a Hegelian sense) self-consciousness by means of political philosophical principles that he actually could have employed at the time on the basis of his earlier work in the 1930s related to the Ruist history of Chinese philosophical traditions. If he had done so, he may have become a Chinese Maoist-Marxist, but he deliberately did not do so. Modern dimensions of his New Principle/Pattern Learning philosophical system are more prominent in the fifth volume of the series—Xin yuandao新原道, subtitled an account of “the Spirit of Chinese Philosophy” (English version published in Feng 1947). Of course, the title itself reveals still another form of reflective reconsideration of the history of Chinese philosophical traditions. Its arguments started from Kongzi’s teachings and ended up with Feng’s own “New System,” that is, his New Principle/Pattern Learning. So confident was the Early Feng that he was presenting a “modern form of Chinese philosophy” that he, like Hegel did with German culture at the time (at least according to some Hegelian scholars), identified the “most philosophical philosophy” with his own system—an act of philosophical hubris that would come back to haunt him in the post-1949 political and cultural context. Within this fifth volume dealing with the “Spirit” of Chinese philosophy Feng notably developed Daoist themes within three of ten chapters. The first appeared in the second chapter, involving Feng’s account of the pre-Qin figure Yang Zhu 楊朱 (Feng 1996: 727–730), whom he counted as the initiator of what would later become “philosophical Daoism.” This claim made here and also in his 1948 English text, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, was a historical innovation regarding the emergence of Daoist philosophy that is generally rejected or forgotten by late twentieth and early twenty-first century Chinese philosophers and those working in Daoist philosophical studies. More significant for the development of the intellectual and spiritual realms of Chinese philosophical traditions were the writings associated with the Old Master (Laozi老子) and Zhuangzi莊子 (Feng 1996: 750–765), and the more radical developments of Daoist political, metaphysical, and religious life within the Abstruse Learning (xuanxue 玄學) of the Wei-Jin 魏晉 period (third– fourth centuries CE, see Feng 1996: 798–813). Within these explorations of philosophical concepts and arguments found in various Daoist texts, the Early Feng discovered what was ultimately a major philosophical justification for a form of Daoist mysticism that he had identified with the highest of the “[intellectual/spiritual] horizons” (jingjie 境界) within the fourth volume of

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his system, Xin yuanren 新原人 (Feng 1996: 552–568; Möller 1997; Moeller 2012). What this form of Daoist philosophical mysticism expressed especially in the Zhuangzi sought to portray, according to Feng Youlan's own account of the Daquan 大全 (lit. “the Great Whole”) or Tiandi jingjie 天地境界 (“the [intellectual/spiritual] horizon of Heaven and Earth”), is a form of experience of the whole of reality that ultimately led to a complete identification with reality, so that at that point one need no longer allow one to think or speak about it (because that would lead to an ontic distinction that would no longer participate in the experience of the unity of the whole of reality). Though Feng in the mid-1940s advocated this [intellectual/ spiritual] horizon as the highest of human achievements within the Chinese philosophical traditions that he had studied, it had implications for the nature of philosophy per se as well as for modern philosophy in its Chinese expression that he had to reconsider during the latter two phases of his professional philosophical career. In addition to some “new and modern” developments related to the interpretation of Chinese philosophical traditions in the fourth and fifth volumes of his philosophical system, Feng still had more to say about the international significance of those philosophical discussions. These claims he explored within the sixth and last volume of his own philosophical system, entitled Xin zhiyan 新知言 (literally, A New [Treatise] on Knowing Words, but also could be interpreted as Speaking about New Knowledge by expressing the title as Xinzhi yan). In this volume Feng revealed and explored further what he had learned from producing his two histories of Chinese philosophical traditions—the two-volume set produced from 1931–1934, and the second being the portrayal in 1945 of the “Spirit of Chinese Philosophy” within the fifth volume of his own philosophical system—and applied within his own “new” philosophical system (for a German rendering and interpretation, see Feng 2000b. While answering questions in this final volume related to his own “modern” attempt at addressing philosophical themes in metaphysics, he indicated how his (1) approaches to philosophical analysis, (2) his discussion of issues related to determinism, (3) the distinctive elements of Chan Buddhist ways of thinking, and (4) the aesthetic elements that could be discerned within the writing of Chinese poetry, could all provide what he considered to be substantial answers to questions raised in various European philosophical works. They answered questions and paralleled philosophical conceptions raised by Plato and philosophical claims also made by various modern European philosophers. Summarily speaking, Feng argued that his New Principle/Pattern Learning resolved matters highlighted by the pantheism of Spinoza, the account of moral duty found in Kant, and the skeptical analytical methods explored in the writings of the modern Vienna School of philosophy. In all these aspects, Feng was highlighting the value of his post-traditional, modern, and more or less rationalistic interpretations of selected aspects of Chinese philosophical traditions for a wider range of international and modern philosophical problems. Having completed the writing and publication of his own philosophical system in 1946, Feng Youlan had the opportunity to travel to the USA and teach graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania in the history of Chinese philosophy. It was there that Derk Bodde was also a faculty member. Feng worked together with Bodde to complete his first English-language history of Chinese philosophical

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traditions based upon the lectures Feng gave at that time. From that perspective, it is of some interest to see how this third version of a historical account of Chinese philosophical traditions differed from his two earlier accounts (Pfister 2002a, 2002b, 2003a). Notable among those differences was the stronger statement the Early Feng made in 1948 about the way philosophy would and should “replace religion,” how he changed the chronology of certain aspects of his account to adjust to new critical discoveries related to Daoist philosophical traditions, and how he sought to enrich his previously very weak and inadequate accounts of Chinese Buddhist philosophical traditions, also taking time to lengthen the account at the end of this third historical overview of the “new” and “modern” philosophical system that he had promoted in his New Principle/Pattern Learning. Brimming with confidence in his newly attained self-consciousness of the modern account of Chinese philosophy and its historical development, Feng Youlan chose to return to mainland China in 1948, believing that he could participate in helping to create a “New China.” Under the political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party Feng hoped that he, as a professional philosopher willing to adapt to the times and seeking to realize his own modern self-conscious version of a critically received but still faithful account of Chinese philosophical traditions, could contribute substantially to developments in that new cultural setting. Significantly, he did not realize the powers of revolutionary rejections of the past would ultimately oppose his creative engagement with past Chinese philosophical traditons (as described in Pfister 2014a).  In this regard, the Early Feng was unable to anticipate the difficulties and ideological struggles that he would have to endure in the post-1949 context, nor did he foresee how his own preconceived understanding of “modern Chinese philosophy” would be ultimately rejected as misguided and unrepresentative of the new Communist Chinese form of modernity.

5  T  he Maoist-Marxist Phase of Feng Youlan’s Professional Philosophical Career As Diana Lin has clarified from a historical perspective, once Feng Youlan returned to mainland China from teaching American graduate students, he was initially treated with what appeared to be great leniency and respect. Once Beiping 北平 had come under the authority of the Chinese Communist military regime in the early part of 1949, Feng was made Dean of the School of Humanities and head of the Philosophy Department at Tsinghua (Qinghua) University清華大學, and the chairperson of the university management committee. At that time, Feng had nothing but praise for the new governing authorities; he could continue to be a “professional philosopher” within the context of the new Chinese Communist regime, and so felt that he had succeeded in “adjusting” to the new political and cultural environment. However, by August of the same year, the ideological leader of the city, Qian Junrui 錢俊瑞 (1908–1985), became more skeptical about Feng’s philosophical orientation, and so deemed him “unsuitable” for all three positions. He was promptly

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demoted from all of them, but was allowed to remain as a full professor in the Philosophy Department (Cai 2000: 372–373; Lin 2016: 103). Starting from that point in time, Feng’s experience of the Chinese Communist Party’s method of governance made his own “modern philosophical system” appear to be anachronous, and though he had been given advice about how to “weather the situation” by a leading Communist intellectual, XIE Teli 謝特立 (1877–1968), he failed to comprehend its significance until much later (Cai 2000: 375–376). There were in fact so many points of ideological confrontation that arose between his own works and the new ideological vision of the Chinese Communist leadership that he had no choice but to determine how he would address the new cultural and political milieu that his own pre-1949 philosophical reflections had failed to anticipate. For those contemporary Chinese philosophers who try to address this period in Feng’s life as a conflict between Feng’s New Principle/Pattern Learning and Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist philosophy, there is the expectation that Feng would take his philosophical stand and simply oppose the new Chinese Marxist regime. What this does not consider, however, is that Feng was already a post-traditional, secularist, modern, and rationalistic philosopher; he did not hold that his previous philosophical positions were “absolute truths” that could not be changed, but as modern responses to a wider level of experiences that he hoped to analyze through reflection and creative engagement in order to create a suitable “systematic and reflective thinking about life.” This is precisely what a “modern consciousness” that sought to address matters philosophically should do, according to Hegel, once it entered into a new kind of cultural and political experience. This second phase of Feng’s modern philosophical career lasted from 1950 till 1978, and is referred to here as “the Marxist Feng.” Many Chinese philosophers who lived outside of mainland China and who read his published works during this period considered that Feng Youlan became a traitor to his own cultural and philosophical heritage during this period. Their criticisms were not without reason, but what this condemnation does not fully take into account are several factors in Feng’s life during the Maoist era (1949–1976) that appear to be in tension with, or even contradictory to, claims that he was such a “traitor.” For example, why was it that Feng himself never became a member of the Chinese Communist Party? This choice was made even while many of his contemporaries who were philosophers, younger and older, including among them his philosophical colleague, Jin Yuelin (1895–1984), did request to become members of the CCP. How was it also the case that Feng was categorized in the 1950s as one who was “educable,” a “center rightist,” and not merely an “anti-revolutionary rightist”? What this did was to make it possible for him to avoid being treated with harsher forms of ideological “re-education” or straightforward political condemnation leading to imprisonment or execution. Yet, having confirmed that both of these claims are true historically, why was it the case that during the “Great Cultural Revolution” the nearly 80 year old Feng Youlan ultimately submitted himself in the mid-1970s—seemingly willingly and independently under the impact of Maoist propaganda techniques—to writing a blistering and trenchant critique of “Confucius” or Kongzi, involving a systematic

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Marxist critique of his worldview, political orientation, moral values, and educational practices? Elsewhere I have written about Feng’s experiences during this period from 1949 to 1978 as one in which he underwent a Maoist-Marxist form of “the propaganda of integration” as described and analyzed by Jacques Ellul (Ellul 1973; Pfister, forthcoming, ch.1). Put summarily, the use of “total propaganda” within the context of the Cultural Revolution as documented and examined by Ellul in an appendix to his classic work on Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (Ellul 1973: 303–313) reveals that there are a variety of ways that brainwashing can occur, including torture and decimation tactics, as well as more subtle forms of pressure applied especially to intellectuals who might initially believe that these “crude tactics” cannot affect them. In the 1950s and 1960s Feng underwent a series of intense public shame campaigns as well as required “self-criticisms” that sought to break down his resistance. Though he managed to endure them for two decades, within the 1970s context of the Cultural Revolution, he finally submitted willfully to the Maoist ideological pressure, writing a bellicose critical account of why Kongzi was in fact an agent of slave-owning landlords, and so provided the ancient justifications for their oppressions. This was precisely the desired result that Mao and others hoped to achieve by means of their propaganda campaigns—what Ellul refers to as “propaganda of integration” (Ellul 1973: 74–84, 310–313). Essentially, then, Feng self-consciously and willingly submitted to this form of propaganda technique, and became known internationally as a notorious traitor to the very Ruist philosophical traditions that he had previously advocated and elaborated, especially as expressed in his philosophical system, the New Principle/Pattern Learning. What is intriguing about Ellul’s account of these matters is that it explains sociologically what many historians and philosophers who have written about Feng’s life either try to justify or excuse as “understandable under the unusual circumstances” (such as Fan 2001 and Lin 2016) or simply avoid. Very rarely are there those within mainland Chinese contexts—partly due to their own fears and public censorship that is still applied to published works—who find ways to address this significant problem in Feng’s life with the candidness that underscores Feng’s complicity in Maoist extremism (Yin 1991: 188–192). What Ellul provides is an insightful sociological explanation of the propaganda techniques that Feng submitted to, one that has yet to be thoroughly addressed in either historical or philosophical studies of his life and works. Here I will add to that important Ellulian interpretive perspective the flexibilities that Feng brought with him into the Maoist period as a Hegelian-inspired modern and secular post-traditional Chinese philosopher. From Hegel, the Marxist Feng had learned that there was no “absolute right or wrong,” but that for a “modern philosopher” there was a task to “make sense” of the new cultural and political experiences he had to endure, and so to bring himself to the point of “feeling at home” or adjusting his philosophical justifications to the conditions he experienced within the new and modern Chinese Communist culture that was profoundly influenced by the writings and policies of Chairman Mao. Having referred to this phase of his professional philosophical career as “the Marxist Feng,” I will argue that Feng Youlan did

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not “successfully” become a self-conscious modern Marxist philosopher, but instead was motivated by fears and anxiety over his own personal fate, and so “willingly and independently” took on a “modern Maoist-Marxist philosophical perspective” in order to manage the increased political and cultural tensions he experienced. In order to present and justify my account of the Marxist Feng, I will provide descriptive and evaluative summaries of various dimensions of two of Feng’s representative philosophical works of this period. Notably, they do not deal directly with the immense amount of other research and new published writings Feng also produced during this period related to Marxist historical reconsiderations of Chinese philosophical traditions (Standaert 1995). These I will address only very briefly after I have presented my accounts of the general character and some specific arguments found in Feng’s two major self-criticisms. Both were written in Chinese, and have never been translated into English, I will refer to the first self-criticism as Looking Back over Forty Years (1959), and the second as On Hillock Kong (1975). When viewed from the history of the People’s Republic of China, these two published works by Feng Youlan can easily be associated with two periods of leftist extremism during the Maoist regime. The first was produced at the height of the “Great Leap Forward Campaign” that had started in 1958 and lasted for several years; the second was published near the end of the “Great Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976), a period that ended with the death of MAO Zedong, but was sustained for about a month afterwards due to the continued efforts of the Gang of Four. Both of these relatively small works that bear Feng Youlan’s name were produced under propagandistic-created pressures, and the latter in particular under a deep sense of anxiety (Lin 2016: 151–156). In the latter case, Feng fully aligned himself to the destructive Maoist-Marxist leftist critiques of that period, and was seen as a major advocate of its ideological claims, suggesting not only that his decision made within the context of “the propaganda of integration” was self-conscious, but also driven by social pressures that were particularly poignant. As a consequence, he was put under house arrest (“subject to some degree of confinement”) by more moderate Chinese Communist officials in the late 1970s (Lin 2016: 156) , and so was not given any leniency by his own contemporaries due to the excessive ideological character of his critiques of “Hillock Kong” and his alignment with Mao’s extremism. During those years of house arrest the Marxist Feng once again came into a new self-consciousness of his own ideological extremism, leading him to a “turnabout” (Lin 2016: 159), and ultimately to take up a final dialectical development of his professional philosophical career. So what did the Marxist Feng write about, and how was it a rejection of many philosophical claims made during the Early Feng phase? The first volume published in 1959, Looking Back over Forty Years (subsequently LBOFY) is an 80-page-long Marxist self-criticism written by the Marxist Feng to criticize the writings of the Early Feng during five “periods” (shiqi時期). It starts with critical reflections about his initial philosophical studies as an undergraduate student at Beijing University北京大學, but quite naturally focuses more on his doctoral studies in philosophy at Columbia University. Subsequently, it moves through critical analyses of three other periods (1924–1928, 1929–1937, and 1938–1948),

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before elaborating an account of what he had begun to learn under Marxist propaganda techniques and ideological directions from 1949 to 1957. Notably, the volume does not end with these critical summaries and Marxist evaluations of the “five periods” of Feng Youlan’s philosophical career up to that point in time, but devotes a final chapter to "Doubts and Requests for Guidance" (Zhiyi he qingjiao 置疑和請 教) addressed to his comrade-mentors (Feng 1959: 67–80). While the earlier chapters present some of the Early Feng’s more or less systematic philosophical works as written under the inspiration of philosophical pragmatism, and others from perspectives influenced by “subjective idealism,” “objective idealism,” or a “naive materialism,” all of them were now seen as ideologically tainted reflections of his support for the “capitalist class.” The final chapter asks a series of questions that seek to justify within Marxist philosophical categories the cross-cultural and even universal value of an “abstract inheritance” that was an underlying methodological concern of the Early Feng. Ending with a humbly stated request for further guidance, the Marxist Feng appears within those final pages to still maintain his self-­ awareness as a modern professional philosopher within the new political and cultural climate of the first decade of the PRC. The second volume of the Marxist Feng phase is of a very different character. As the preface to the 1975 volume indicates, Feng Youlan began to address questions related to the teachings of “Hillock Kong” (Kong Qiu 孔丘, the revolutionized term of reference including a rhetorical defamatory tone, demoting him from a “Master” to his common birth name) during the fall of 1973, when the “Anti-Lin and AntiKong” political movement was initiated by the Maoist regime. Two initial essays published in the Beijing University Bulletin in 1973 caught others’ attention, and apparently even resulted in Mao Zedong himself editing them before they were widely circulated (Lin 2016: 151–152). In this ideological context, Feng realized that his previous support for “honoring Kong” (zun Kong尊孔) could be evaluated as a form of “anti-revolutionary ideology,” and so with some fear and trepidation, but also ideological zealousness, he wrote out a thorough critique of Hillock Kong’s political “counter-movement” (fandong反動). He did so by means of a relatively systematic Maoist-Marxist critique of original sources related to “Kongzi” (孔子) including in that process a further self-criticism of his own “adulation” of the ancient Chinese philosopher that ultimately participated in the “divinization” (shenhua 神化) of the man (Lin 2016: 153–154). In this volume, the Marxist Feng presents Maoist-Marxist criticisms of Hillock Kong’s political inconsistencies, his suppression and oppression of some notable critics of some contemporary rulers, and consequently his deceptive and inauthentic use of moral, religious, and historical justifications for “supporting the slave-owning class” to which the rulers belonged. Throughout the whole of these systematic discussions, the Marxist Feng regularly referred back to interpretive positions adopted by the Early Feng, and succinctly categorized them as factually incorrect, interpretively skewed, and politically aligned with oppressive powers of their day. There are no doubts in this volume regarding the “Conclusions of History” addressed in the final chapter (Feng 1975: 116–123). First of all, Feng’s participation in the “honoring of Kong” through his philosophical writings had become an anti-revolutionary tool of

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oppressors, and was ironically now categorized as a religious effort to “divinize” Hillock Kong (here and below, Feng 1975: 123). Secondly, presenting it with an ideological assertion that left no room for doubt, the overturning of those ideological claims associated with Hillock Kong and the Early Feng, among others, was the realization of the “victory” of Chairman Mao’s Great Cultural Revolution and the Anti-Lin Anti-Kong Campaign. What may well amaze those of us who would expect such a work to be highly rhetorical, irrational, and unsystematic, On Hillock Kong is a relatively systematic, rationally consistent portrayal of “Hillock Kong’s” worldview on the basis of consistently documented original sources and augmented by an informed Maoist-­ Marxist perspective. These features within On Hillock Kong can be highlighted by comparing its approach and claims with the earlier LBOFY volume. With regard to references to Ruist canonical sources, there are 26 classical works and well-known commentaries to those works cited in On Hillock Kong, while only two ancient works are mentioned in LBOFY (the Laozi 老子 and the Zhongyong 中 庸, Feng 1959: 9 and 18). Not only are there many more classical and notable ancient sources cited, some are quoted numerous times, indicating the level of engagement the Marxist Feng took up in the midst of writing the nine chapters that constitute that small book. The canonical work cited most often throughout the text is the Analects (Lunyu  論語). Within the pages of On Hillock Kong, 19 of the Analects’ 20 chapters are cited, and the total number of times it is cited is 115 times, far more than any other Chinese classical work. Next in frequency of citations comes the Zuozhuan 左傳 (notably a text rarely favored as a medium for discussing Chinese philosophical themes in most contemporary Chinese philosophical contexts), followed by the Shijing 詩經, the Zhongyong 中庸, the Xunzi 荀子, the Liji 禮記 (not including the Daxue 大學 and Zhongyong), the Shiji 史記, the Daxue, and the Shangshu 尚書. No one having read the titles of these many ancient works and realizing that they were all referred to multiple times would doubt the seriousness of the academic tenor of On Hillock Kong. Because the LBOFY is dedicated to characterizing and critiquing the Early Feng’s writings, one would expect that citations of Feng Youlan’s early works occur frequently. That expectation is fully confirmed within the text. Eight of his texts are referred to by their title, including some that had been written originally in English, but then were rendered for the Sinophone readers into Chinese (such as the essay, "Why Did China Have No Science?" and Feng’s PhD dissertation, Feng 1959: 4, 7–9, 14, 15). The most often mentioned and cited text is Feng’s first history of Chinese philosophical traditions produced in 1931 and 1934 (Feng 1959: 19–39). Sometimes the citations that the Marxist Feng made from his own works seem exorbitant within this “self-criticism,” especially when they exceed more than ten lines in a single quotation (such as Feng 1959: 10 (14 lines), 14 (15 lines), 15–16 (26 lines), 19–20 (13 lines)). The excessive length of the Marxist Feng’s quotations of his own works might only receive some level of ideological justification when it is found that within the same work Chairman Mao is also cited at some length in two places (Feng 1959: 31 (8 lines) and 32–33 (ten lines)), and Engels, Lenin, and Stalin are also cited extensively (Feng 1959: 41, 43, 45, 47 and 51, the longest being from

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Stalin at 15 lines). Precisely because of this manner of citation and counter-citation, one feels a rhetorical discomfort caused by the hammering emphases made by these lengthy quotations that assert various kinds of ideological correctness. How does this kind of ideological flair compare with what is found in On Hillock Kong? Throughout the nearly 125 pages of On Hillock Kong, the Marxist Feng surprisingly referred only to three major works of his own: the first history of Chinese philosophical traditions published in the early 1930s; his preparation for a “New Edition” of that history already begun in the mid-1960s, and the first volume of new essays on the history of Chinese philosophical traditions produced in 1962. That text written by the Early Feng was only cited eight times (Feng 1975: 35–49, 63, 64, 79, 96 and 112), while between the other two texts produced by the Marxist Feng, the book of essays was only cited once (Feng 1975: 52). Notably, the “New Edition” was cited twenty times (see also Standaert 1995). In fact, the Marxist Feng only referred to himself 29 times within the whole text. Indeed, whenever anything in On Hillock Kong was quoted from the Early Feng’s previous works, they were almost always short citations. On the other hand, within the whole work fourteen times Marxist and Chinese Marxist sources were quoted, seven of those being from Chairman Mao. Obviously, then, the emphasis was on ideological alignment with the aims of the Anti-Lin Anti-Kong Campaign. As a consequence, there is little wonder that the name of “Hillock Kong” appeared on almost every page (110 out of 123 pages). The vast majority of other names found in the text were historical figures mentioned within the critical discussions of various themes, including the names of a large host of Ruist disciples and commentators, along with references to Chairman Mao, Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin. In reference to his philosophical position during the Early Feng phase, the Marxist Feng wrote that he had been a willfully ignorant advocate of the capitalist class, hiding his motivation to “honor Kongzi” by claiming, among other things, that he was “objective” and “had no class bias” (Feng 1975: 48). Furthermore, the Marxist Feng argued directly that the “Way of the Zhongyong” is “a weapon opposed to revolution”; it has been so in ancient times and was still so in the contemporary PRC (Feng 1975: 111). In promoting an ethic of “humane tolerance” and “love of the people,” “Hillock Kong” was in fact the “spokesman for slave-owning noblemen,” “deceiving” (qipian 欺騙) laborers and slaves, so that they would not rise up against their landlords and owners. His advocacy of “loving the people” (ai ren 愛人) was in fact a form of “pitiful grace and pitiful comfort” (xiao en xiao hui 小恩小惠) (Feng 1975: 55 and 121). The most damning evidence was drawn from the Zuozhuan and the Xunzi, where it was recorded that “Hillock Kong” had ultimately arranged for a righteous opponent to the ruling class, Shao Zhengmao少正卯, to be executed (Feng 1975: 43–51). Therefore, he not only deceived others to submit to the authorities, but also participated in oppressing those who opposed them and exploiting those who remained obedient. It was with these political purposes in mind that “Hillock Kong” supported doctrines related to the “Decree of Heaven” (tianming天命) and the presence of ghosts and spirits (guishen鬼神), in order to utilize those beliefs and the fear of heavenly blame for the sake of ensuring the obedience and submission of the laboring and slave classes (Feng 1975: 86–89). Ultimately, he expected others to

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treat him as a “sage” (shengren聖人) and to “worship” him (chongyang 崇仰) after his death (Feng 1975: 98). Dialectically speaking in the sense of a  Hegelian movement of sublation or Aufhebung, the Marxist Feng in 1975 had adopted a “new modernity” in the form of Maoist-Marxist leftist extremism, rejecting all the previous values and institutions associated with Kongzi and the Ruist traditions as “deceptive,” “false,” “weapons” of oppressive classes, and destined to be overturned. Where in 1959 there were still questions and doubts that Feng the professional philosopher could raise for discussion to his Chinese Marxist mentors, there was in 1975 a full alignment with Maoist doctrines by the Marxist Feng. From the vantage point of Jacques Ellul’s “propaganda of integration,” the Marxist Feng had not yet been fully integrated into the PRC ideological system in 1959, but by 1975, he willingly and vigorously participated, becoming one of the most notorious spokesmen for Maoist extremism as a principled and destructive critic of the philosophical traditions he had previously advocated. When his work On Hillock Kong was published in September 1975, Feng’s name became a household word supporting the final stages of the “Great Cultural Revolution.” It was on this basis that he was initially lauded by CCP supporters, and then subsequently criticized by more moderate CCP representatives, due to the ebb and flow of ideological trends during the final years of the Great Cultural Revolution (Lin 2016: 157). Having produced such a devastating and unrelenting critique of “Hillock Kong,” Feng Youlan was also despised by Ruist advocates overseas; MOU Zongsan referred to him poignantly as “a shameless literatus” (wuchi wenren無恥文人 (Lin 2016: 156)).

6  T  he Later Feng Youlan’s Sublation of the Previous Two Phases (1980–1990) It has been claimed by Feng himself that after Mao Zedong died in September 1976, and his wife of more than fifty years also passed away a year later (Cai 2000: 592, 603; Lin 2016: 157), he experienced a “turnaround,” and finally could manage to face the public shame and intellectual inconsistencies that led to the production of On Hillock Kong. In the preface written on July 11, 1990, and appearing within his posthumously published volume, Zhongguo xiandai zhexueshi (A History of Contemporary Chinese Philosophy), Feng wrote directly about how after the death of his wife, Ren Zaikun, he had experienced a gradual realization (kaishi renshidao開 始認識到) that “fame and benefits that had shackled him” (ming li zhi suoyi wei shufu名, 利之所以為束縛) previously had been overcome, so that “I flew by myself” (wo zi fei我自飛). This feeling was reaffirmed, Feng claimed in the same preface, after he completed the last chapter of that final volume of his professional philosophical career (Feng 1992, 1999). As if to emphasize this point, his son-in-­ law, Cai Zhongde蔡仲德 (1937–2004) repeated two of the key phrases in Feng’s

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reflective poem written after his wife’s death in his “Postscript to Textual Revisions” (jiaokan houji校刊後記) on Christmas Day, 1998, emphasizing that in having completed the remarkable feat of this final work at age 95, he has indeed achieved a freedom of “flying [away] by myself” (Feng 1999: 278). So, it would seem, the deaths of Mao and his wife certainly must have been factors that provoked his further reflective self-criticisms and self-corrections. Though they would in no way account for any philosophical reassessment of what he had previously promoted in his Maoist-extremist publications, this personal claim made both after his wife’s death and after completing his final book testifies to moments of transformation that reveal an interpretive key related to the nature of the final phase of his philosophical journey. What is intriguing about this notably self-attested interpretive claim is that the biographers I have consulted either did not and could not know of this final work’s existence (Yin 1991) or they willingly refused or were prevented by censors from referring to that final volume as part of Feng’s philosophical corpus, so that they did not mention it either in their discussion or their bibliographies (Fan 2001; Tian 2003). I have relied on the later Feng’s own personal statements and the confirmation of his son-in-law’s discerning affirmations, as mentioned above, to justify my own interpretive account elaborated here in this chapter. Since from a Hegelian point of view one should gain self-consciousness of one’s own contemporary situation by pursuing a reflective analysis of “the past,” it is particularly notable, though often not considered as significant philosophically, that the Marxist Feng endured more than twenty years of “re-education” by working over themes and texts related to the reconstruction of the history / histories of Chinese philosophical traditions from 1957 till his “breakthrough” in 1978. Notably, that breakthrough was not a simple and full-fledged return to positions held during the Early Feng phase of his professional philosophical career, but another dialectical step that involved a sublation—a selective negation of his previously principled Marxist negation of the “old faith,” allowing for a new synthesis of Marxist, Ruist, Daoist, modern analytical and metaphysical approaches to be formed and expressed in the final set of works he referred to as the “New Edition” (xinbian 新編) of a history of Chinese philosophical traditions. Four of the fourteen volumes of the second edition of Feng’s collected works published in 2000 are devoted to this re-­evaluation of historical materials and historical interpretations of Chinese philosophical traditions written during the first years of the Marxist Feng phase and published throughout the span of his Later Feng phase. In addition, within the final volumes of his Collected Works  there were many other smaller essays published, all approaching specific themes and analyzing philosophical issues on the basis of first Marxist, then Maoist-Marxist, and subsequently sublated Marxist philosophical principles (following also the dates they were written). One indication of this further dialectical effort was the fact that in the early 1980s Feng Youlan had refused simply to adopt the highly ideological and strictly Marxist accounts of the “New Edition” he had already begun to write and had published as a “draft history” in the mid-1960s (Standaert 1995; Fung 1991b). Having determined that he need no longer follow the current Maoist-Marxist philosophical and

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political line, Feng began a new version of that “New Edition,” publishing in 1982 the first of six volumes that appeared in that series during his final decade of life (Lin 2016: 163–181). From an interpretive point of view, the first four volumes had a prevailing Marxist dialectical materialism intimately woven into its historical accounts. The fifth volume, notably devoted to the interpretation of the development of Song and Ming Ruist philosophical works and their claims, involved more subtle interpretive claims, but still continued to employ principles of dialectical historical materialism in its choice of figures, texts, and themes to be discussed, analyzed and evaluated. The sixth volume, the last one published while Feng was alive, was devoted to Late Ming and Qing dynasty Ruist scholarship related to philosophical themes, and so continued to address the texts and issues raised in that volume by means of this more dynamic and synthetic account of the histories of Chinese philosophical traditions. Most revealing, however, was the seventh volume that was initially not included in the six-volume set of the “New Edition” published in the PRC, but was published in Hong Kong in 1992, and only later in 2000 integrated into Feng Youlan’s collected works as the “seventh volume” of the “New Edition” of his historical account of Chinese philosophical traditions. What makes this volume so personal and revealing is not only the fact that the Later Feng devoted the final three chapters presented before the “General Conclusion” to the philosophical achievements and problems associated with philosophical works of Jin Yuelin金岳霖 (1895–1984), Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), and himself, but in an earlier chapter he addressed also the philosophical legacy of Mao Zedong. Ending that chapter with a critique of Mao’s leftist extremism, he also notably ended the chapter on his own New Principle/ Pattern Learning with a critique of its metaphysical inconsistencies. In this way, then, a thorough reflective mode of dealing with “contemporary Chinese philosophy” had been achieved. By these means the Later Feng had also achieved a new self-consciousness of his own modern philosophical system’s insights and failures, as well as a precise realization of how  Mao’s extremism had trapped him into an unjust and destructive phase of Marxist ideological alignment. That philosophical reflective task appeared ultimately in the “General Conclusion” to the “New Edition,” and so it would seem that the Later Feng himself did see that final posthumously published volume as the “seventh volume” in the whole series constituting the New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy. More significantly, he expressed within that conclusion a number of issues that reveal the sublation of the Marxist Feng phase of his life, and the affirmation as well as further justification of elements of Chinese philosophical attainments that he could accept with his renewed modern self-consciousness as a Chinese professional philosopher. Here below I will summarize the most prominent themes found in that concluding assessment, in order to illustrate how the Later Feng sought to argue for and justify judgments arrived at during this final phase of his career. First of all, the Later Feng’s definition of philosophy had shifted from “systematic [and] reflective thinking about life” as promoted in 1948 to “a reflective thinking about humankind’s intellectual/spiritual culture” or “Spirit” (renlei jingshen de

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fansi人類精神的反思) (Feng 1992: 245–246) as promoted in his posthumously published work of 1992. The difference between these two definitions may appear to be slight, but in fact the former assumed an act pursued by a single person, while the latter designates that the object of reflection is not what may be a more general concept of “life,” but now “humankind’s intellectual/spiritual culture” and, presumably, its achievements. For the Later Feng, then, philosophy must focus on what humankind has been able to achieve reflectively, and not just what a single person had done by that means. This change reflects a shift back to a Hegelian mode of philosophical orientation, seeking the wholeness of both experience and self-­ consciousness, and so provides us with a final standard by which to assess Feng Youlan’s own achievements expressed not only throughout his own professional philosophical career, but also in his very last published work. On the basis of this affirmation of the nature of philosophy, the Later Feng proceeded to address several important philosophical achievements found within the fourth and final multi-volume history of Chinese philosophical traditions that he had published. The first achievement within Chinese philosophical traditions involved the conceptual clarification and intellectual value of the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization” (zuigao jingshen de jingjie 最高精神的境 界); the second, the philosophical achievements expressing that realm of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization in Daoist, Buddhist and Ruist philosophical traditions; the third, justifying his reaffirmations of Song Ruist understandings of sageliness as a factor in philosophical and political life; and the fourth, reaffirming a shared Mengzian and Song Ruist theme that supported the value of humane cultivation (ren  仁) and therefore necessarily rejected the Maoist-Marxist doctrine that would always see enemies as enemies, and never could see them in the context of a new peace as friends. By these means the Later Feng presented his final philosophical synthesis based on his modern and secular post-traditional reflections resulting from his historical studies within Chinese philosophical traditions. Because they lead us to some new philosophical positions that clearly reject philosophical claims criticized as “deceptive” and “oppressive” during his Marxist Feng phase, I will now summarize and evaluate the nature of these philosophical judgments as conclusions reached during his final reflective effort as an elderly professional philosopher. In discussing the character of the horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization that Chinese philosophical traditions including his own New Principle/ Pattern Learning had advocated, the Later Feng first referred back to a four-sentence teaching promoted by the Song Ruist scholar, Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073), and then reasserted themes found in the Mengzi and the Zhuangzi. Whether it was described as “the place of joy achieved by Kongzi and his disciple, Yan Yuan” (Kong Yan lechu 孔顏樂處), or the “great one” or “the great whole” (dayi 大一) of the Zhuangzi, both sought to describe a state in which one had become “the same with the great completeness [or great whole]” (zi tong yu daquan 自同於大全) (Feng 1992: 246). This was precisely the claim Feng had made in the early 1940s in the fourth volume of his New Principle/Pattern Learning, Xin yuanren. Notably, the Marxist Feng had argued that his previous conception of the intellectual/spiritual horizon of Heaven and Earth was vapid and empty (Feng 1959: 72), but that the

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conception of the Zhuangzi was philosophically sound (“scientific”) and not relying on religion (Feng 1959: 73). Now thirty years later the Later Feng once again affirmed the character and value of both the Zhuangzi’s and his own conceptions of that ultimate horizon, adding to his claims the conceptualization of Zhou Dunyi and the Mengzi. He took this “horizon of the highest spiritual/intellectual realization” to be an achievement of Chinese philosophers in both Ruist and Daoist traditions, a true reflective achievement of humanity’s intellectual/spiritual culture or civilization expressed in Chinese texts. While reasserting the character and value of this highest intellectual/spiritual realm, the Later Feng continued to argue as the Early Feng had done for “philosophy replacing religion” (Feng 1992: 254–255), but now the meanings of both “philosophy” and “religion” had shifted. Because of this shift in definitions and content, the problem related to the new understanding of this sentence needs to be reexamined. Foremost, however, I should reaffirm that the Later Feng continued to characterize the “philosophy” that he sought now to justify in ways that no longer assumed that his own New Principle/Pattern Learning was the only “modern” alternative in contemporary Chinese philosophical systems or schools. Though the Later Feng had not written up a new set of arguments to clarify, elaborate, and justify his own new synthetic philosophical system, this final account of what he found most meaningful and significant within Chinese philosophical traditions is ultimately asserted to be a framework in which that new synthesis can be discerned with some degree of clarity. Secondly, the Later Feng used both his new definition of “philosophy” and his reasserted affirmation of the character and value of the highest intellectual/spiritual horizon to justify claims related to both of these dimensions of his philosophical work as found in selective Daoist, Buddhist, and Ruist traditions. According to the Later Feng’s final discernments, the theme of “inward sageliness and outward regalness” (neisheng waiwang 聖外王) initially advocated in the Zhuangzi was the equivalent of “philosophy,” because it concretely expresses a “reflective thought about humanity’s intellectual/spiritual culture” (Feng 1992: 255). More than this, the conception of dao within the teachings of that same philosophical Daoist, Zhuangzi, was now asserted to be the equivalent of the highest spiritual/intellectual horizon (Feng 1992: 253). This was also the case that the vision of the dayi mentioned above found in the Zhuangzi, and so provided another conceptual equivalent for that highest horizon. Similarly, the Later Feng argued that the Chinese Buddhist reconceptualization of nirvana (niepan  涅槃) and prajna (bore 般若) are also expressions of that highest intellectual/spiritual horizon (Feng 1992: 251). In a more controversial vein, the Later Feng also argued that Ruist scholars need to accept what is beyond their control, and having done so, may also achieve philosophical equanimity and seek to become humanely cultivated. Contrasting these Ruist orientations with Christian belief, where a “Lord” (zhu主) is approached through prayer, the Later Feng argued that Ruist scholars need only accept what they cannot control by returning to focus on what is “spontaneous” (ziran自然) and within their proper sphere of activity, and thereby would have no need for such a religious alternative (Feng 1992: 254). Ironically, however, the Later Feng did not

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refer again to how the Marxist Feng had criticized “Hillock Kong” for his religious use of the concept of “the decree of Heaven” (tianming), his belief in a “supreme Lord” (shangdi上帝), and his “utilitarian” support for belief in ghosts and spirits (guishen) in order to suppress the rebellious feelings of laborers and slaves (Feng 1975: 77–89). If “Ruist scholars” have no need for a “Lord,” why did “Hillock Kong” support and affirm such beliefs? There is something here that lacks a full reflective sublation of the Marxist Feng’s criticisms, and suggests that there may be more to discuss about these understandings of humanity’s intellectual/spiritual culture within Ruist traditions than the Later Feng as a modern and secular philosopher was willing to admit. Here it seems that the Later Feng was also probably taking his cues from Hegelian precedents, but then it would be necessary to ask in that same Hegelian vein further questions about the Later Feng’s modern consciousness as a philosopher, and how much his own self-consciousness had successfully reflected the larger experience of the whole of humankind’s intellectual/spiritual culture (Geist/Spirit). This theme I will pick up once more at the very end of this section. Thirdly, the Later Feng strongly reaffirmed the philosophical insights and value of Song Ruist understandings of sageliness, pointing out their value as expressions of the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization” both in Zhou Dunyi’s final doctrine (Feng 1992: 249) and in Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1020–1077) “four-sentence teaching” (Feng 1992: 253–254). Their advocacy of a humanely cultivated person as being the best option for a ruler, following precedents in Mengzi’s teachings, is confirmed by the Later Feng as both philosophically justified and politically insightful (Feng 1992: 256). In an indirect manner, then, this provides a new and more critical philosophical standard for weighing the political principles advocated by Chairman Mao, something the Later Feng does not avoid, but addresses directly by means of reference to other teachings of the Song Ruist, Zhang Zai. Fourthly and finally, as has already been hinted at above, the Later Feng affirmed the philosophical values inherent in the conceptual difference advocated by Mengzi between a true king (wang王) and a tyrant (ba霸) (Feng 1992: 255–256). Not only is this difference critical for discerning the way forward to support humane governance, the Later Feng argues that to act like a tyrant is precisely a way of living “deceptively.” In this context, then, the Later Feng argued that when revolution requires that an enemy can only be an enemy, and there can never be peace that would change that enemy into a friend, as advocated by Zhang Zai, the Marxist and Maoist doctrine of revolution is reconceived as being essentially tyrannical and “deceptive” (Feng 1992: 256–260). Here the strongest expression of the Later Feng’s double negation— rejecting the Maoist-Marxist rejection of Ruist forms of governance—is given a firm and philosophically justified basis. Here also is an indication of the ultimate character of the sublated synthesis that the Later Feng was able to achieve, expressing his justifications in coherent and well-argued evaluations of Maoist and Marxist political philosophies, while not simply returning to his relatively naive and simplistic political philosophy expressed in his New Principle/Pattern Learning. In this regard, however, we do not see in the Later Feng the same political philosophical concerns of other Contemporary New Ruists such as Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), Mou Zongsan牟宗三 (1909–1995), Xu Fuguan徐復觀 (1902/03–1982), and Zhang

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Junmai張君勱 (1887–1969), who not only criticized tyranny, but advocated democratic forms of governance as consistent with a modern Ruist vision of life. The Later Feng did not provide such an argument, and so the final character of his political philosophy, even though substantially transformed, remained distinct from others among his most notable Ruist contemporaries (Pfister 2003a). As a consequence of these four major judgments occurring in the General Conclusion to Feng Youlan’s last volume in the New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy, I do not believe we have seen a fully expressed new philosophical synthesis attained through the sublation of the Marxist Feng phase, but we do have hints of what the synthetic content of such a new philosophical work was suggesting. What remains, however, is a philosophical quandary that I want to explore as a philosophical reflection about the character of the “modern consciousness” the Later Feng embodied through this final effort in a generally reflective reconsideration of the results of his historical studies related to Chinese philosophical traditions. What I take to be a remaining philosophical quandary has to do with the Later Feng’s affirmation of the nature of the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization.” That quandary or paradox involves what I take to be a logical contradiction between the nature of that horizon and Feng’s preferred definition of philosophy. According to his account of this “horizon of the highest intellectual/ spiritual realization,” it would embody an experience of the “whole” of reality that would result in the cessation of any thinking and writing (Feng 1996: Xin yuanren, chapter 3). That is to say, the experience of that “great whole” would essentially mean the end of any philosophically motivated “reflective thinking about humanity’s intellectual/spiritual culture.” As is unquestionably obvious from all that has been indicated here, Feng Youlan continued writing and thinking about philosophical matters till his very last days. In this light, then, is it not ironic that, having advocated a Ruist-and-Daoist understanding of that horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization, Feng himself never did manifest the silence and equanimity that would accompany that quiet satisfaction and peaceful fulfillment? From the Hegelian perspective I have adopted within this chapter, it would seem that at the end of his professional philosophical career Feng Youlan was still far too “modern” and “restless” to pursue that onto-generative union with reality. His was a continuing effort to seek to come to grips reflectively with a vision of reality that he could attempt to comprehend, but one that never fully matched his and others’ shared cultural experience. His trouble, it would seem, was that there continued to be a significant gap between his philosophical self-consciousness and the general experience of humankind around him, as was especially manifest during his Marxist Feng phase, but appearing more subtly in his last phase. The experience of humankind’s intellectual/spiritual culture had evaded his efforts to reflectively think through it; that experience continued to be very different from the account that his philosophical reflections portrayed. So, though he had at least been able to conceive of a philosophical mysticism expressed in the experience of a complete union of self and reality, he remained too modern and philosophically restless to achieve it. This restlessness was summed up in the final four-sentence statement that ended the General Conclusion to his New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy (Feng 1992: 262):

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高山仰止,/ Gaoshan yang zhi,/ Upon high mountains [we] have] gazed; 景行行止,/ Jingxing heng zhi,/ Glorious actions [we] have done. 雖不能至,/ Sui bu neng zhi,/ Although [we are] unable to attain [some], 心向往之。/Xin xiangwang zhi./ [Our] heart-minds yearn for them.

7  M  odern Ironies in the Three Phases of Feng Youlan’s Professional Philosophical Career Seven judgments related to this Hegelian interpretation of Feng Youlan’s professional philosophical career are presented here as my current assessments of the man, his life, and his philosophical works. One extra word I would want to add that helps to put all of these considerations into a larger existential and interpretive framework. When the young Feng Youlan had completed his PhD dissertation in 1923, he was 27 or 28 years old. Already by that time he had read quite a bit of major European philosophical standard works, including those of Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Hegel. In addition to these, he had been digesting some of the major Ruist and Daoist texts prevailing during the pre-imperial period, along with a vast array of Ruist writings by Song dynasty scholars. This was an extraordinary set of tasks that he had completed at such a young age. In addition, by the time he was about 35 years old, he had been reading far more broadly in Chinese philosophical traditions, and published his first volume of the two-volume work that was a major contribution to historical studies of Chinese philosophical traditions. That work covered texts in Chinese that involved more than two thousand years of development, and was unprecedented in its scope, style, and innovativeness. Here and below I have written assessments of Feng Youlan’s immense corpus that contain some bold critical claims, all of which I submit to others’ more discerning considerations. Nevertheless, I still have no doubts in my mind that he is one of the most important and influential Chinese philosophers in the twentieth century. My admiration for his prolific efforts, intellectual flexibility and, at suitable times, a form of moral courage that included dealing with an immense amount of cultural and political pressure, has been heightened as I have once again sought to understand the complexities of his professional philosophical career. Here I want to attempt to identify and assess seven ironies either located within, or related to and extended from, Feng Youlan’s professional philosophical career. First of all, there is a major irony in the fact that Feng Youlan preferred to see himself, and hoped that others would also see him, primarily as a philosopher, and not “just” as a historian of philosophy. From the Hegelian interpretive position I have adopted in this chapter, however, this would appear to be a false dichotomy. Precisely because of the nature of modernity and the role of philosophy that Hegel discerned within modern settings, there is a resolution to this “split personality” in terms of the philosopher’s need to gain a “reflective self-consciousness” of the contemporary era before any decisive and insightful philosophical assertions could be made. This clearly provides justifications for Feng in studying philosophy’s history

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before pursuing something philosophically more independent and systematic of his own creative effort. In addition, it offers a new explanation for why he did not deal only with “new” philosophy in his PhD dissertation, because in order to be truly “modern” in the Hegelian sense, he needed to comprehend and reconceive what styles of philosophy he had become aware of after his rigorous study of the most prominent philosophical works in European and Chinese cultural settings. Secondly, within the philosophical system Feng Youlan called the New Principle/ Pattern Learning (Xin lixue), his political philosophy and cultural philosophy (volumes 2 and 3) were colored more by the patriotic conditions of WWII than by a true modern sense of political and cultural options within China. These are clearly the least successful dimensions of his own philosophical system, and so he did not refer to them within the critical assessment of his work produced posthumously in 1992. Nevertheless, and ironically, these Chinese texts have continued to be republished since his death in 1990. This leaves historical traces that are important for current readers, but do not reflect his own critical assessment of them later in his life. Thirdly, in spite of his belief that he could endure and adapt to the changes of the Maoist regime, Feng Youlan ultimately was a victim of the “propaganda of integration,” and became one of the most notorious “traitors” to the “old faith” as expressed in his systematic and destructively critical arguments expressed in On Hillock Kong (Feng 1975). On the one hand, this should shock philosophers into an awareness that their own philosophical understanding may not prevent them from succumbing to ideological traps of various sorts. On the other hand, without an understanding of this ideologically troubled period and Feng’s participation in its extremism during the final years of the Cultural Revolution, one cannot fully appreciate the more complicated synthesis that he was proposing subsequently in the General Conclusion of the New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy. This has been a serious shortcoming in some of my own previous work on Feng’s corpus (Pfister 2002a, 2002b, 2003a), but unfortunately many philosophers in China and abroad who work on Feng’s life and works also have had this shortcoming. It is as if we have all been working out from under a form of “historical amnesia.” Ironically, as I have argued above, without understanding some of the most prominent texts produced during the second phase of Feng Youlan’s career, it is difficult to articulate an insightful account of his third phase of philosophical work. This can then skew our general understanding of the whole of Feng Youlan’s professional philosophical career, and so I have purposefully pursued this new understanding of the complexity within Feng’s career in order to correct my previous shortsightedness and avoid an ironic situation that would not accompany many other important contemporary Chinese philosophical insights that can be drawn from his corpus. There is a fourth irony constituted by the fact that Feng rarely mentioned Hegel directly again after his PhD was written in 1923. The only explicit reference to Hegel by Feng occurred in 1982 and was scripted in English, not in Chinese, so it was a relatively “safe” way to make that affirmation after having endured a few years of house arrest (Fung 1991b). Nevertheless, I have sought to argue here that Hegel’s conception of “modern consciousness,” an issue the early Feng clearly read about, provides an interpretive fulcrum that leads to many new insights into his

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complicated professional philosophical career. Here I assert that this new approach offers greater insights into his three-phase dialectical development and the somewhat inchoate nature of his final synthesis than any previous Marxist, Maoist-­ Marxist, or other alternative biographical accounts of his life and professional philosophical career. Related to the fourth irony is the following problem. Though Feng himself claims that he was gradually being “liberated” from his Maoist-Marxist ideological orientations after 1978, many Chinese philosophers question the truthfulness or validity of this claim. As I have indicated above, the Later Feng did not simply return to his pre-PRC philosophical position, but he did manifest a certain degree of new self-­ consciousness that allowed him during the last decade of his life to sublate certain aspects of both his Early Feng and Marxist Feng phases, bringing boldly into focus some important corrections and advances in his philosophical claims and judgments. These occurred especially in his underscoring of the significance of the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization” within Chinese philosophical traditions, and his philosophical criticisms of Mao Zedong’s political extremism. Here, then, the irony relates not only to Feng Youlan’s lived experiences, but also the standards of judgment brought to bear on (or left unaddressed in studies of) his life and works by interpreters. As a consequence, there are a number of further questions that could be raised about the worldviews I and others who evaluate Feng’s life and works bring to such a case in order to assess it. Can there be within Chinese philosophical circles the kind of personal transformation and noetic repentance of a Gadamerian sort or not? (Pfister, forthcoming, ch. 1) Is such a transformation understandable, realizable, and justifiable philosophically within the categories of “philosophy of culture” or “onto-­ generative metaphysics” discussed within contemporary Chinese philosophical circles? How would such a realization help to avoid a historical and philosophical amnesia about the terrible situations that occurred to Chinese philosophers and millions of other Chinese persons during the “Great Cultural Revolution”? Would such a realization also provide a new framework and some new standards for reinterpreting the history of contemporary Chinese philosophical traditions? The sixth irony I want to highlight here relates to one of the life-long claims Feng continued to repeat throughout his more than sixty years of philosophical productivity. How in fact does “philosophy replace religion”? How should philosophers respond when the “old traditions” related to a traditional account of Chinese philosophical texts and movements are exposed as being a form of “religion”? Though we can understand how this is formulated during the Marxist Feng’s phase, how should these claims have been reconsidered dialectically, and then properly sublated in the final phase of Feng’s career? So, for example, is the “philosophical mysticism” the Later Feng clearly supported actually and ironically another door into a valid form of “religious experience”? Is this then a form of philosophical and religious cultural synthesis, and not “merely” a philosophical justification for some alternative form of “mysticism”? Finally, as I have also addressed the matter previously in this chapter, there is an irony with regard to Feng Youlan’s relentless efforts in philosophical writing and

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thinking, and the alternative that he promotes as the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization,” which is essentially the goal of all philosophical activity according to Feng. Did his modern restlessness prevent him from experiencing this horizon? More pertinently, is the “horizon of the highest intellectual/spiritual realization” as Feng presents it and justifies it actually philosophically sustainable? If one stops talking and thinking, is that not the “end of philosophy”—especially as a reflective thinking about humankind’s intellectual/spiritual culture—even if it provides a full “satisfaction of the Spirit”?

References Arlington, Robert L., ed. 1991. A Companion to the Philosophers. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. (Among twelve Chinese philosophers highlighted, only three modern Chinese philosophers were included: Kang Youwei, Feng Youlan, and Mao Zedong.) Brown, Stuart, Diané Collinson, and Robert Wilkinson, eds. 1998. One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers. London: Routledge. (Introducing only two Chinese philosophers: Feng Youlan and Mao Zedong.) Cai, Zhongde 蔡仲德. 2000. Initial Edition of Mr. Feng Youlan’s Personal Chronology馮友蘭先 生年譜初編. Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Press. (The standard and most extensive “personal chronology” of Feng Youlan, with footnotes to the philosopher’s personal writings as well as references to other major events in Chinese philosophical circles. It served as an appendix to the 14 volume Complete Works published in the same year.) Ellul, Jacques. 1973. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner. New York: Vintage Books. (A classic work on the nature of propaganda, typifying its modern development in post-WWII settings, especially under the rubric of “total propaganda” and a thorough characterization of its technical environments. It contains in the second appendix a short study of the propaganda techniques employed by Mao from 1929 through the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.) Fan, Peng范鵬. 2001. Daotong Tiandi—FENG Youlan道通天地·馮友蘭. Jinan: Shandong Xuanbao. (This is a literarily attractive biographical study by a younger scholar who was deeply impressed by Feng’s philosophical achievements. Nevertheless, in spite of a good number of insights into the literary and autobiographical writings produced by Feng, it is a biography that does not recognize or discuss the Marxist Feng’s Maoist extremism in any depth, and also has not realized that Feng’s posthumously published volume regarding a history of contemporary Chinese philosophical traditions was in fact Feng’s seventh volume in his “new edition” of a history of Chinese philosophical traditions.) Feng, Youlan 馮友蘭. 1959. Looking Back over Forty Years四十年的回顧. Beijing: Scientific Press. (One of Feng’s published self-criticisms, the most prominent one published during the first ten years of the PRC, manifesting how FENG had begun to reconsider seriously his previous philosophical works in the light of Marxist categories of thought.) ———. 1975. On Hillock Kong論孔丘. Beijing: The Great People’s Press. (This is the 125 page condemnation of the ancient Chinese intellectual, produced as a piece within the larger movement criticizing LIN Biao and the intellectual Kong.) ———. 1992. Contemporary Chinese Philosophy中國現代哲學史. Hong Kong: Zhonghua Shuju. (This is the posthumously published final volume of the New Edition of FENG’s history of Chinese philosophical traditions, though it was published separately in Hong Kong two years after his death due to ideological censorship and other related concerns.) ———. 1996. Purity Descends, Primacy Ascends: Six Books貞元六書. 2 vols. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press. (A republication during the post-Mao period of the six-volume set of Feng Youlan’s philosophical system, produced here in two concise volumes.)

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———. 1999. Contemporary Chinese Philosophy中國現代哲學史. Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Press. (This version of Feng’s 1992 posthumously published volume with the same title is of special value because it was carefully revised by Feng’s son-in-law, Cai Zhongde, who also left a short prologue at the end of the volume that affirms Feng’s claims about having been “liberated” from the Maoist extremism of the Marxist Feng phase.) ———. 2000a. Complete Works from The Three Pine Hall三松堂全集. Fourteen volumes. Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Press. (The most recent and relatively comprehensive collection of Feng Youlan’s writings. Notably, it does not include the most notorious publication in 1975 of the Marxist Feng phase, On Hillock Kong.) ———. 2000b. Die philosophischste Philosophie: Feng Youlans Neue Metaphysik. Mit einer Übersetzung der “Neuen Methodologie” (The Most Philosophical Philosophy: Feng Youlan’s New Metaphysics—with a Translation of The New Methodology) Trans. and comm. Hans-­ Georg Möller. Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz. (A German translation of the sixth volume in Feng’s New Principle-centered Learning system, including an important contemporary European interpretation of his overall system, with a notable Daoist philosophical emphasis.) Fung, Yu-lan (Feng Youlan 馮友蘭). 1947. The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy. Trans. E. H. Hughes. London: Routledge and Paul. (The first English translation of the fifth volume in Feng’s New Principle-centered Learning system by an American-born sinologist teaching in the United Kingdom, unfortunately largely overlooked in subsequent studies.) ———. 1953/1983. A History of Chinese Philosophy—Volume II: The Period of Classical Learning (from the Second Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. Trans. Derk Bodde. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (The second volume of the internationally influential English rendering of Feng’s earliest history of Chinese philosophy produced in Chinese and published in 1934.) ———. 1991a. Selected Philosophical Writings of FUNG Yu-lan. Beijing北京: Foreign Languages Press. (This rather thick volume includes the early English writings produced by FENG during his PhD studies, his PhD dissertation, and a “brief history” produced as lectures to American graduate students in Pennsylvania during the academic year of 1947–1948.) ———. 1991b. “Speech of Response Delivered at the Convocation of September 10, 1982, at Columbia University.” In Fung, Selected Philosophical Writings, pp. 658-665. ———. 2008. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: English-Chinese Bilingual Version 中國 哲學簡史: 英漢對照. Trans. ZHAO Fusan趙復三. Tianjin: Tianjin Social Sciences Academy Press. (This is an attractive Chinese-English bilingual version of FENG’s 1948 English work, rendered into Chinese by one of the former Vice Presidents of the Chinese Social Sciences Academy.) Knight, Kenneth. 2007. “Recognition through Misrecognition: Kant, Hegel and the Problem of the United Life in Modernity.” Carbondale: M.A. thesis, Southern Illinois University. Kolb, David. 1986. The Critique of Pure Modernity: Hegel, Heidegger and after. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (A helpful early study indicating some of the “modern” problematic involved in the philosophical systems produced by Hegel, Heidegger, and others.) Lin, Diana Xiaoqing. 2016. Feng Youlan and Twentieth Century China: An Intellectual Biography. Leiden: Brill. (One of the most recent monographs on Feng in English, filled with many historical details and some helpful historical, cultural, and textual interpretive explanations. She takes Feng to be one of the most important Chinese intellectuals in the 20th century, though tends to excuse him for his Maoist-Marxist excesses.) Lumsden, Simon. 2009. “Philosophy and the Logic of Modernity: Hegel’s Dissatisfied Spirit.” The Review of Metaphysics 63 (1): 55–89. (A seminal essay in Hegelian studies that reveals many aspects to Hegel’s account of “modern consciousness.”) Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2012. “Daoism as Academic Philosophy: Feng Youlan’s New Metaphysics (Xin lixue).” In John Makeham, ed., Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline in 20th Century China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press: 217–235. (An insightful study of Feng’s Daoist philosophical orientation within the metaphysics of his own philosophical system.)

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Möller, Hans-Georg. 1997. “Der philosophische Daoismus in der Neuen Metaphysic (Xin lixue) Feng Youlans,” Monumenta Serica 45: 381–398. (An earlier German essay dealing with the philosophical Daoism found within Feng’s own philosophical system.) Mrówcyzński-Van Allen, Artur, Theresa Obolevitch, and Pawel Rojek. 2016. Beyond Modernity: Russian Religious Philosophy and Post-Secularism. Eugene: Pickwick Publications. (Here is a notable study applying post-secular insights into a realm that addresses both modernity as a philosophical problem and its impact in the realm of religious philosophy, but in this case with regard to Russian sources.) Pfister, Lauren F. 2002a. “Feng Youlan’s New Principle Learning and his Histories of Chinese Philosophy.” In Chung-ying Cheng and Nick Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Company: 165–187. (A generally informed and relatively detailed account of FENG’s philosophical system, its claims and certain problems, as well as a general account of his different histories of Chinese philosophy.) ———. 2002b. “From the ‘Three Teachings’ to ‘Chinese Philosophy’ .” In Hu Jun胡軍, ed. Tradition and Creativity: Collected Essays from the Fourth Symposium on Feng Youlan’s Academic Thought 傳統與創新: 第四届馮友蘭學術思想研討會論文集. Beijing: Beijing University Press: 137–166. (An effort at seeking to understand the cultural and epistemological transitions involved in moving from the Chinese traditional categories of “the three teachings” to the modern Chinese category of “philosophy” known as zhexue.) ———. 2003a. “A Modern Chinese Philosophy Built upon Critically Received Traditions: Feng Youlan’s New Principle-Centered Learning and the Question of its Relationship to Contemporary Ruist (‘Confucian’) Philosophies.” In John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan: 165–184. (A careful analysis of FENG’s New Principle-centered Learning (Xin lixue) philosophical system as it thematically relates to and contrasts with the philosophical writings of a set of four expatriated Chinese philosophers categorized as “Contemporary New Ruists”: TANG Junyi, MOU Zongsan, XU Fuguan, and ZHANG Junmai.) ———. 2003b. “The Creative Potential and Philosophical Importance of Going Beyond a ‘China-­ West’ Philosophical Focus in 21st Century Chinese Philosophy.” In FANG Keli, ed., Chinese Philosophy and the Trends of 21st Century Civilization. Beijing: Commercial Press: 603–624. (A study challenging a reduced ‘China-West’ focus, since the study of Chinese philosophical traditions have not only been pursued in European, Anglophone, and other non-Asian settings, but also have had an immense impact on various aspects of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures. It is argued that these are also worthy of integration into the broader history and contemporary engagements of those pursuing studies in Chinese philosophical traditions.) ———. 2003c. “Kang Youwei”. In Antonio S.  Cua, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. New  York: Routledge: 337–341. (A succinct account of the multiformity of Kang’s philosophical writings, especially as an expression of the New Text School of Ruism. It also reveals briefly the utopian features of his most radical and posthumously published work, Datong shu (The Book of the Great Unity).) ———. 2012. “Post-Secularity within Contemporary Chinese Philosophical Contexts.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39 (1): 121–138. (After defining four interpretive positions adopted by persons in post-secular cultural contexts in general, ranging from a principled secularism to an engaged post-secular advocacy, two examples of the post-secular cultural dynamics within contemporary Chinese philosophical contexts are described and assessed.) ———. 2014a. “Distinguishing Spiritual Revolution from Military Revolution: Meditations on the Impact of Chinese Literature by Protestant Missionary-Scholars in Late Traditional China.” Ching Feng New Series 13: 3–34. (An description and assessment of military revolution based on relevant studies of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973), followed by an exploration of how far his account could be employed as a metaphorical standard of “revolution” as it relates to the “spiritual revolution” claimed to be the goal of Protestant missionary-scholars, initially and briefly described by James Legge in 1877.)

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———. 2014b. “A Modern Ruist Religious Vision of a Global Unity: Kang Youwei’s Utopian Vision and its Humane Religious Refraction in European Sinology.” In Thomas Janson, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer, eds., Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China”: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present. Leiden and Boston: Brill: 235–271. (A more detailed account of Kang’s Datong shu (The Book of the Great Unity) is presented here and evaluated both with regard to its utopian vision as well as its critical reception by the former Lutheran missionary and German sinologist, Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930).) ———. 2015. “A Dynamic and Multi-cultural Disciplinary Crucible in which Chinese Philosophy was Formed.” minima sinica 1: 33–90. (In this article it is argued that there were unusual cultural dynamics in China that involved dialectical and contested cultural settings within the late Qing empire and the first decades of the Chinese Republican period that profoundly affected the disciplinary formation of what was counted as “Chinese Philosophy.” These include, among other influences, the impacts of foreign Christian missionary-scholars and their tertiary institutions established during these periods, involving elements that secularist accounts of this disciplinary formation of “Chinese philosophy” often overlook or deny.) ———. forthcoming. Vital Post-Secular Perspectives on Chinese Philosophical Issues. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Press. (The first two chapters deal with Feng Youlan’s professional life and his philosophy of history respectively.) Pippin, Robert B. 1999. Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Company. (Based on European and Anglophone philosophical works, this volume argues that the nature of modernity leads to a form of “modernism” that requires philosophical analyses that are culturally complicated and philosophically significant.) Standaert, Nicolas. 1995. “The Discovery of the Center through the Periphery: A Preliminary Study of Feng Youlan’s History of Chinese Philosophy (New Version),” Philosophy East and West 45 (4): 569–589. (A thorough study of the emergence of a new version of historical accounts of Chinese philosophical traditions during the Marxist FENG phase, followed by an analysis of some of its major differences with the earlier historical accounts appearing in the Early Feng phase.) Tian, Wenjun 田文軍 2003. FENG Youlan Zhuan馮友蘭傳. Beijing: People’s Press. (This biography is a historically detailed study of Feng’s life and career, regularly framing Feng’s experiences and writings into a broader cultural and political context. It also does not recognize or deal with Feng’s posthumously published final volume.) Yin, Ding 殷鼎. 1991. FENG Youlan馮友蘭. Taipei: Dongda Tushu Gongsi東大圖書公司. (This remarkable and earliest biography produced soon after Feng’s death is stylish in its literary presentation, and is written under a pseudonym by a researcher who was able to interact with Feng and obtain many personal and autobiographical materials from him before he died in 1990. Its focus is on Feng’s own philosophical system, the New Principle/Pattern Learning.)

Fang Dongmei’s Philosophy of Life and Culture Zemian Zheng

Fang Dongmei (1899–1977) is an influential Confucian thinker of the twentieth century. However, it is contested whether it is apt to call him a New Confucian, as some commentators would rather call him a New Daoist, because he greatly appreciates Daoism and criticizes both the “later Confucians” after Mengzi and the Song-­ Ming Neo-Confucians’ narrative about the “transmission of the Way” (daotong道 統) (cf. Hu 2000: 70–71, 76). In fact, Fang stated that he was a Confucian in terms of the cultural heritage of his family and upbringing, a Daoist in terms of personal temperament, a Buddhist in terms of religious inspiration, and a Westerner in terms of academic training and methodology (Fang 1981: 525). Li Chenyang thinks that we should take this statement at face value: “Fang was a Confucian-Buddhist-Daoist who was influenced by Western thought” (Li 2002: 273). Jiang and Yu argue that Fang Dongmei was a New Confucian, because his criticism of “later Confucians” was just a strategy of re-appreciating Kongzi and Mengzi, and his praise of Daoism, especially Zhuangzi, was based on the assumption that Confucianism and Daoism are complementary and that Kongzi’s ethical ideal of personality is greater than Zhuangzi’s, because Kongzi’s mind was the most liberal and his philosophy most comprehensive (cf. Jiang and Yu 2012: 8–11). Fang differs from his peer New Confucians such as Mou Zongsan, because he endeavored to revive classical Confucianism, not Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, while his peers usually regarded their own work as a continuation of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism which, they believed, was consistent with Kongzi and Mengzi. Fang Dongmei (1899–1977) was born in Tongcheng桐城 in Anhui Province in China. He was a descendant of the famous Tongcheng Fang Clan桐城方氏 that boasts of Fang Yizhi 方以智, (one of the most important philosophers in the Ming-­ Qing transitional period) and Fang Bao 方苞 (a great writer in the Qing dynasty, Z. Zheng (*) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_8

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one of the leaders of the Tongcheng School).1 Dongmei was Fang’s courtesy name, his given name was Xun珣, and his English name was Thomé H. Fang. He studied philosophy in the University of Nanking (南京金陵大學), and in 1921 he went to the US to study philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, and wrote his master’s thesis on Henri Bergson’s philosophy of life and then his PhD dissertation on Neo-­ realism. After he returned to China in 1924, he taught at Wuhan University (then named Wuchang Superior Normal College), Nanjing University (then named Southeast University and later the National Central University), and then in National Taiwan University. Fang Dongmei’s central philosophical concern is the ontology of life and the value of life. His ontology rejects the materialist view of the world and Darwinian view of life. For him, the world is the expression of the “creative creativity” (sheng sheng生生) of life. In exposing the value of life, he was particularly interested in comparing different ways and views of life in ancient China, India, Greece and modern Europe.

1  F  ang’s Ontology of Life and His View on the Ideal of a Person After the defeat in the Opium Wars and in a series of subsequent wars in the nineteenth century, the Chinese young generation in the late 1910s were eager to learn science and democracy from the West, while regarding traditional culture as an obstacle for China’s modernization. Against this trend, most modern New Confucians believed that Chinese traditional culture, as represented by Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, is compatible with democracy. The path of modernization did not require China to demolish traditional culture and then build everything anew. What should be avoided was the exclusive scientism and the cult of modern Western culture whose intrinsic problems had been exposed by the First World War. Liang Shuming梁漱溟 (1893–1988) published his famous book The Cultures and Philosophies of the East and West東西方文化及其哲學, and stated that Western, Chinese, and Indian cultures represented three directions of life.2 Western culture is aggressive in conquering nature. Indian culture is regressive, advocating the ideal of nirvana and giving up earthly concerns. Chinese culture is intermediate between these two cultures; it is more balanced, emphasizing self-cultivation and seeking harmony between the self and the world. Liang’s view is that the Chinese nation should first learn from the West, but should not forget that the Chinese culture is also significant and, in a sense, more advanced than the modern Western culture. The

 It is usually said that Fang Dongmei was a descendent of Fang Bao. Jiang and Yu contend that he belonged to another line of the Tongcheng Fang Clan (桐城方氏), and was a descendent of Fang Yizhi (cf. Jiang and Yu 2012: 26–28) 2  See chapter “Liang Shuming and his Syncretic Confucianism” for more—Ed. 1

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only problem is that it is precocious: Chinese traditional culture cannot truly reach its ideal of harmony unless it first learns from the West to use science and technology to change the environment to ensure human flourishing. Liang’s book encouraged Chinese readers to have confidence in traditional culture. Fang’s philosophy of life can be better understood against this background. At the age of twenty-one, Fang published two papers on the philosophy of life, one of them on the French philosopher Henri Bergson (Fang 1920a, b). His motivation of introducing the philosophy of life is both to cultivate an optimistic attitude towards life, against the background of dismay and malaise universally felt after the First World War, and also to encourage Chinese readers to be innovative and courageous to change the status quo of the society in China. In these early papers, he has associated Bergson’s philosophy of life to the philosophy in the Book of Change, as he used “the philosophy of Change易之哲學” to translate the title of H. Wildon Carr’s book, Henri Bergson: The Philosophy of Change, and stated that it would be better called “the philosophy of life” (Fang 1920a: 3). The major Western source of Liang Shuming’s philosophy of life was Schopenhauer, while for Fang Dongmei, Bergson was a direct source of influence. In fact, the discussion about “views of life” (人生觀 rensheng guan, or the reflection on the fundamental attitude towards living) was predominant in China at that time. In 1923–1924, almost the whole of the humanities in China at that time was involved in the debate concerning the relation between science and “views of life.” This debate was later called “the polemic on science and metaphysics” (ke xuan zhi zhan科玄之戰). Scientism was the ideology for those who were eager to “uproot” China from its tradition and then rebuild China according to Western models. On the other hand, most Confucian thinkers, led by Zhang Junmai張君勱 (1886–1969), argued that although science is significant for modernizing China, it does not solve the fundamental questions of life. Clearly, Fang Dongmei belonged to the latter camp, but this has usually been neglected. King Pong Chiu stated that “after Fang’s death, it was only Tang Junyi who observed that Fang’s Kexue zhexue yu rensheng科 學哲學與人生 (Science, Philosophy and Human Life), published in 1936, was a response to ‘the polemic on science and metaphysics’ or ke xuan lun zhan in the 1920s.” (King 2016: 80) Fang Dongmei distinguishes between science and philosophy: (1) Science is a “homogeneous thought of Nature,” while philosophy belongs to a meta-level of thought, namely, it is the “heterogeneous thought about the thought of Nature” (Jiang and Yu 2012: 98). (2) Science only seeks the system of objective knowledge, but philosophy reflects on subjectivity, seeking the foundation of the rationality applied in science. (3) Science is analytic: aiming at describing the structure of beings, while philosophy emphasizes synthesis, aiming at understanding the unity of the principles of comprehensive harmony. (4) Science is divided into different branches, but philosophy is a system of architecture that unites them all. (5) Science is value-neutral and one-dimensional, while philosophy is multi-dimensional; it does not restrict itself in unveiling the logical structure of beings, but points to the highest ideal and values for human beings (cf. Jiang and Yu 2012: 98–99).

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Fang’s earliest formulation of his view of life is that “life is the residence of feelings” (qing zhi fu情之府) in a paper “The Moods and Beauty of Life,” but his aim in this paper is not to give a definition of life. Rather, he gave a pure description of the expressions and spirit of life. The major investigation is in aesthetics, not ontology. According to Jiang and Yu (2012: 80–83), in the paper “The Duet of the Tragedy of Life”生命悲劇之二重奏 first published in 1936, he first came up with the concept of “universal life” (pubian shengming普遍生命), and stated that there is a universal life-force that flows both in humans and in nature, and unites them together. This view was articulated later in his Introduction to Chinese Philosophy of Life中 國人生哲學概要: life is not mechanical movements of materials or a blind biological force that needs to be tamed, trimmed or redirected. He understands life as an ontological substance that is omnipresent and underlies all phenomena, and most importantly, strives spontaneously “upward,” namely, towards higher and new values. There is a rational and intrinsic order of values in life. As he stated, “the root of a human being’s life is a noble sentiment and a realization of meaning” (Fang 1937: 39). Therefore, he stated that the functions of philosophy include both understanding the principles of events that happen in space and time, and appreciating and evaluating the feelings and spirit of life (Fang 1937: 34). Both feelings and rationality/pattern (li理) or rules (fa法) are essential to philosophy. Rationality and feelings are not mutually reducible: they are two sides or relata of the relational whole. Fang Dongmei apparently attached more importance to emotions, since he maintains that philosophy is an expression of the spirit of life (Fang 2012a: 6), and “life is the realm that has feelings” (Fang 1937: 37). Fang Dongmei’s ontology of life leads him to appreciate highly The Book of Change, from which he borrowed a phrase to serve as a book title of a collection of his later works, sheng sheng zhi de生生之德 (the virtue/power of creative creativity). Fang Dongmei’s philosophy of life is systematically articulated in his renowned “Three Forms of Wisdom in Philosophy哲學三慧,” and later that part on philosophy of life in this essay was translated by Fang himself and incorporated in his English book The Chinese View of Life. Fang articulates the “principle of life” in five phrases: (a) “Fulfilment through generation of new species”; (b) “Expansion through ever-new achievements”; (c) “Perpetual creativity”; (d) “Emergence of novelty from what is already accomplished in the continual process of change and transformation”; and (e) “Efficacious efforts to attain to actual immortality” (Fang 1980b: 44–45). The principle of life is all-embracing and ever-changing. It maintains creativity in renewing things. It attains immortality not by remaining the same in and by itself, but by maintaining the incessant process of renewing and creating things. There is an intrinsic order in the process of life, but it is not a pre-determined static pattern built in each and every individual as a component for the whole pre-­ established harmony. Rather, what Fang calls comprehensive harmony manifests itself in the dynamic process of the ever-unfolding cosmos. Obviously, Fang Dongmei’s principle of life was influenced by the Confucian canon, the Book of Change. As Lewis E. Hahn observed, Fang Dongmei focuses on metaphysics when his Western contemporaries mostly abandoned this area. He and Whitehead believed

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that philosophy and poetry could be brought together, when their Western contemporaries usually tended to model philosophy after the standard of science: accuracy, unambiguity, and objectivity in representing the facts. Hahn also noticed the striking similarity between Fang’s philosophy and contemporary contextualism in the West. Hahn stated that the following quotation from Fang’s work incorporates both Hegel’s and Whitehead’s philosophy (Hahn 1989: 11): Metaphysically, the philosophy of change is a system of dynamic ontology based on the process of creative creativity as exhibited in the incessant change of time as well as a system of general axiology wherein the origin and development of the idea of the Supreme Good is shown in the light of comprehensive harmony. Thus the principle of extensive connection asserts at the same time that the confluence of life, permeating all beings under heaven and on earth, partakes of the creative process of time, and achieves, as a natural consequence, the form of the supreme Good. From the view-point of organicism, no set of fundamental principles formulated in a system of metaphysics can be cut and thrust into an air-tight compartment without interpenetration. And, therefore, the principle of extensive connection serves as a prelude to the principle of creative creativity which, in turn, furnishes a keynote to the principle of life in the process of value-realization. (Fang 1981: 109)

This text suggests that, for Fang, the phenomena that all beings are interconnected in a harmonious way (according to organicism) are indicative of the ultimate reality of “creative creativity,” namely, comprehensive harmony and all-embracing interconnectedness are the ratio cognoscendi of the fact that the world is not just the totality of matter and meaningless mechanical movement, but is imbued with the spirit that tends to ascend upward to the Supreme Good. Fang’s view of cosmology was so optimistic and idealistic that it might be difficult for modern readers to fully accept it. He observed that the sublime values for human life had been under fatal attack from three perspectives: the “cosmological blow,” “the biological blow,” and the “psychological blow.” The first is from astronomy: it deprives human beings of the central place in the universe. The second is from biology, namely, the “Darwinian conception of the descent of man”: it challenges the traditional distinction between humans and other animals, the distinction on which the idea of human dignity is based. The third is from psychology, especially Freudian psychoanalysis, a “depth-psychology” that digs into the level of the sub-conscious, the irrational instinct, desires, impulses, etc., rendering the “rationality” of humans as merely a cover or a fragile surface layer above the depth of irrational self. According to this view, human beings merely “live, move and have their being in the dark world of subconsciousness,” and therefore “religion is dead, philosophy is dead.” Against this “depth-psychology,” Fang thinks that we need a “height psychology,” because most of the great traditions of philosophy and religions “take man in ideal regard,” not “in natural regard” (Fang 2013a: 54–56). Fang states that in Chinese philosophical tradition, “a system of ontology is also a theory of value. All forms of existence are charged with intrinsic worth” (Fang 1980b: 13). This is a view commonly shared by other Confucians such as Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan. Mou, for instance, maintains that Chinese culture, from its very beginning, emphasizes life, while Western culture emphasizes nature. For Fang, life is not a blind force; it strives upward, from the material level, up to the

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artistic, the moral and the religious levels. This view is a striking contrast to the modern materialist and Darwinian views of life. To fight against these reductionist views, Fang’s strategy is, on the one hand, objectively to defend this view with his theory of organicism; and on the other hand, subjectively to depict the ascendance of life from the material level to yet higher levels. On the one hand, Chinese culture does not have the dualism predominant in ancient Greek and the medieval Christian culture. In Chinese cosmology, the material world is the foundation. This earthly layer of the world is where human life starts. A solid foundation of material conditions is required before a life of spiritual pursuit can really prosper. One the other hand, the world of mind is higher than the world of life, and the world of life is built on the material world: these three layers form a tower-shaped structure of beings. These layers are not cut off from one another, rather, they form a continuity. Based on this hierarchy, Fang distinguishes five types of personality: (1) Homo faber: a creature that is capable of using his life force and taking action to organize the material world in his environment. In this aspect, we see no difference between a human and a monkey; (2) Homo Dionysiacus: a person that is good at taking actions but is sometimes influenced by unjust drives or abilities, and might do irrational things and might jeopardize his or her own life. (3) Homo creator: when the person directs his or her ability to achieve a higher level of meaning and values, he or she becomes a person of creativity. Such a person can transform the “sphere of physical existence” to “the sphere of life,” and even to “the sphere of creative life.” If such a person can form a system of theoretical knowledge, and let reason guide his or her actions, then a combination of “Homo faber,” “Homo Dionysiacus,” and “Homo creator” makes a “perfect person of Nature.” However, a person as perfect as this one still has not fulfilled the requirement of philosophy and culture. Because all of the person’s achievement pertains to the ontic level, not the ontological level. Human life should strive upward to the metaphysical level. (4) Homo symbolicus: this term was borrowed by Fang from Ernst Cassirer. Such a person has ascended to the metaphysical level, because he or she has created symbols, and discovered grammar in languages, and used symbols to represent the realm and the secret of the beauty of Nature, and transformed the ordinary world to an artistic realm. In this way, the human mind enters the metaphysical world. However, a work of art can be either noble or ignoble. The world of art can go irrational when a weak will and a troubled mood make an artist lose his or her sanity. (5) Homo honestatis: when an artist cultivates both his or her skill in arts and his or her moral quality, he or she becomes a homo honestatis, a person of spiritual purity, or so to speak, a perfect person. In this way, art can become a “moral culture.” Fang’s thought here clearly reflects Kongzi’s view: Kongzi commented on the music “Wu” that it is of utmost beauty, but not yet of utmost goodness, while the music “Shao” is of utmost beauty and goodness (Analects 3:25). (6) homo religiosus: Fang thinks that the ultimate achievement of a moral person is to become a homo religiosus, in another word, “co-creator with the Divine” (Fang 2013a:14–20). It is noteworthy that Fang does not treat the homo religiosus as a separate stage in the journey of the pursuit. Rather, it is just the ultimate ideal state that a homo honestatis can attain.

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In a word, the journey of the pursuit for higher values is, as Fang puts it, “material world→life→mind→art→morality,” the completion of which makes a person a homo religiosus or a complete and perfect person. Clearly, Fang’s view reflects the classical Confucian view of humanity: the highest achievement of human self-­ cultivation is sagehood, and a perfect human being is a co-creator with Heaven and Earth. In Fang’s five stages of human self-cultivation, the theme is indeed secular. It is about how to become a perfect human being. There is no place for God’s grace or salvation. As Fang usually states, in Chinese philosophy, “to be human is to be divine,” and “to be divine” is to become a “co-creator with the Divine” (Fang 2013a: 20). Fang’s view reflects an essential doctrine of the Zhongyong (the Doctrine of the Mean): anyone who completely fulfills one’s nature endowed by Heaven “can assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth, they can thus form a trinity with Heaven and Earth.” (Chan 1963: 108)

2  Fang’s Philosophy of Cultural Comparison Fang’s most renowned essay is perhaps “Three Forms of Wisdom in Philosophy,” in which he compares Chinese culture with ancient Greek and modern European cultures. Fang Dongmei’s cultural comparison is a reaction to the uncritical imitation of modern Western culture in early twentieth-century China. He sided with Liang Shuming in highly appreciating classical Chinese philosophy and traditional culture. Liang Shuming holds that ideally human civilization should begin with modern Western culture (being aggressive in changing the environment for human life), and then develop into a second stage that resembles traditional Chinese culture (maintaining harmony between the self and world), and eventually the third step: the Indian orientation towards nirvana. In contrast with Liang’s three-step synthesis in a hypothetical narrative of the psychology of human being’s attitudes towards the world, Fang Dongmei’s cultural comparison is a one-step synthesis of Chinese, ancient Greek and modern European culture, and this synthesis is based on his ontology. Fang’s basic ontological view is that feelings and rationality are two manifestations of the ultimate unity, they complement each other, and the task of philosophy is to “investigate the source and truth in rationality and feelings in all of their reality and possibilities, so as to make full use of their wondrous functionality” (Fang 2013b: 110). Corresponding to rationality and feelings, Fang distinguishes between knowledge (智) and wisdom (慧). Wisdom is not merely knowledge about the pattern in the objective world, but also involves practical virtue that harmonizes desires with original feelings and principles. In the essay “Three Forms of Wisdom in Philosophy,” Fang is particularly interested in the wisdom characteristic of a nation, shared by its people, and reflected in the spirit of its culture. Fang compares ancient Greek, modern European, and traditional Chinese cultures as follows: the Greek gave birth to reality-reflecting wisdom 如實慧 to represent the pattern of beings, and attained the wisdom that mirrors reality; the European

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used pragmatic wisdom 方便慧to conquer the natural environment; the traditional Chinese aimed at “cultivating the wondrous functionality of human nature” (妙性) and “understanding the transformation of the world” (Fang 2013b: 111). Therefore, the Chinese culture depended on reality-reflecting wisdom, and applied the ingenuity of pragmatic wisdom, in order to achieve egalitarian wisdom平等慧, a wisdom that sees things as equal and excludes nothing from its comprehensive harmony. The orientations of wisdom differ. Ancient Greek wisdom is oriented towards the union of the contemplative self with ethereal principles; thus, ancient Greeks were good at logic and analysis. The modern European aimed at making use of the capacity and force of this earthly world for success in this life, and thus they are good at calculation. The traditional Chinese were concerned with self-transformation in moral life and emphasized enlightenment and love. These three orientations left us three seeds of wisdom, and led to three types of cultures. Fang states that the characteristic of the ancient Greek is represented by three spirits: the Dionysian, the Apollonian, and the Olympic; that of the modern European by the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Rococo; and that of the Chinese by Laozi (and also Zhuangzi), Kongzi (and also his followers including Mengzi and Xunzi), and Mozi. In comparison with Western culture’s characteristic of dichotomies and oppositions, the traditional Chinese saw in the cosmos an all-inclusive structure that encompasses all beings, enables all functionalities, and encourages complementarity and interdependence. As examples to this view, Fang cites the idea of comprehensive harmony in Kongzi’s interpretation of the Book of Change, Laozi’s idea that Dao is empty and dynamically embraces everything, and Mozi’s idea of uniting people with universal love (Fang 2013b: 115–116). Fang thinks that the ancient Greek, the modern European, and the Chinese cultures can complement one another. He points out the defects of each culture: As to the ancient Greek, Socrates’s failure lies in treating knowledge as the sole criterion for cosmological truth, the social structure, and the virtue of the people. Knowledge corresponds to principles (li理) and the realm of intellect, which by itself has no emotions. According to Fang Dongmei’s ontology, emotions and rationality are two aspects of the ontological unity, just like yin and yang that support each other. Intellect would wither without emotions (Fang 2013b: 118). Other dichotomies such as ideal and reality, mind and body, etc., would encourage the attitude of disdaining reality, body, and the life in this world. As for the modern European, Fang thinks that modern culture is informed by a sense of nihilism or skepticism. The cosmos is seen as an empty space for dreamers, life as a drama, thus the ancient Greek’s love of truth is replaced by the European’s endless pursuit of trivial knowledge, but their interest in any knowledge does not last long, and will soon be replaced by another. Exactly because of this basic disbelief in any ultimate truth, paradoxically, the European are encouraged to start with hypothesis, and to verify beliefs through a certain method. Logic, not the ultimate underlying truth, is what they really care about. Therefore, the European are good at constructing complicated theories, most of which, Fang believes, are illusory (Fang 2013b: 119–120). By “illusory,” Fang Dongmei seems to be criticizing a certain form of “phenomenalism” that rejects all traditional metaphysics, though he does

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not use this term. Knowledge is regarded merely as a tool or a strength to conquer the world, and therefore it encourages the worship of power and achievement. As a result, the modern European have not yet gotten rid of the dichotomous mode of thinking, but have only increased the level of combat among oppositions. As to arts, Fang comments that the modern European let themselves be driven by fantasies and even by devil’s temptations. Modern European art has its own charm, but, due to its playful attitude, it does not really touch the realm of genuine emotions (Fang 2013b: 121–122).3 As for Chinese culture, Fang thinks that the wisdom of the nation was handed down in the ancient classics, which were in fact only accessible to the social group of scholar-officials. Scholar-officials (especially the Han-dynasty Classicists) usually stuck to the doctrines they inherited, without motivation for innovation. Those Han-dynasty Classicists who wanted to advocate new doctrines would hide their own ideas in the fabricated text of oracles or divinations. The later dynasties such as Ming and Qing of traditional China controlled culture, subordinated it to politics, and suppressed liberty of thought. Rulers used either terror or temptation to erode the integrity of independent thinkers. Those who could really uphold their moral and political ideal to fight against reality were rare among those who were engaged in government, while other people who distanced themselves from politics and lived in seclusion did maintain integrity, but their influence in politics was limited. Moreover, Fang criticizes the way of discourse in Chinese philosophy. Great philosophers usually conveyed their wisdom through very succinct aphorisms, and did not engage themselves in systematically expounding their theories, leaving insufficient clues and proofs for subsequent generations to understand their thought. Finally, Chinese philosophers usually expressed their thought through artistic imagination, and grounded their insight in their own moral practice and experience. Their usage of artistic expression made their work sometimes chimerical, while their insistence on the given ethical rules made them sometimes rigid and narrow-­ minded. They were good at empathy and expressing and cultivating emotions in arts and moral life, but lacked the scientists’ virtue of perseverance in pursuing the truth about objective principles (Fang 2013b: 124–125). After pointing out the characteristics and problems of each culture, Fang holds that each culture might be able to solve their own problems on their own, but it would be very difficult because the problems were deeply rooted in these cultures. He recommends that these cultures learn from one another. The ancient Greek’s earnest pursuit of objective truth can remedy the modern European’s fixation on exotic innovations; the European’s innovation and emphasis on the power of controlling the environment can help Chinese people secure a good material basis for a good life. The Chinese “superficiality” (or the lack of interest in systematically exposing philosophical ideas) can remedy the ancient Greek’s obsession with objectivity and the modern European’s worship of technology (Fang 2013b: 126).

3  See also chapter “In Defense of Chinese Sensibility: Confucian Aesthetics in the 20th Century”—Ed.

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Fang Dongmei’s approach to comparative study of cultures and philosophies reflects his own philosophical belief in all-inclusive and comprehensive harmony. He objected to the view that the past cultures should be transcended and purged so as to give way and space to the new ethos and new ideal of personhood. For Fang, each characteristic of the cultures can be preserved, but they need to be balanced by other characteristics from other cultures. His attitude towards all cultures is egalitarian. His way of remedy does not invoke any sense of grand narrative, nor does he predict the future trajectory or stages of cultural development in a way the social progressivists would do. In a slight departure from his early tripartite comparison, Fang’s later work on comparative study of philosophies and cultures focused on the Sino-Western contrast, and did not distinguish ancient Greek from modern European culture. The thrust of his later comparison is the contrast between what he called “transcendental metaphysics” in China and “preternatural metaphysics” in the West. The challenge to the dichotomy between transcendence and immanence has become almost a trademark of contemporary new Confucianism, but in the research literature, Fang Dongmei’s view is cited less often than other New Confucians such as Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan, probably due to the fact that he was not a co-author of the “New Confucian Manifesto” drafted by Tang Junyi and co-authored by Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, and Zhang Junmai. In a paper, “The World and the Individual in Chinese Metaphysics,” first presented at a conference in 1964 and later published in Philosophy East and West, and then in his book Creativity in Man and Nature, he called “transcendental metaphysics” the characteristic Chinese ontology. In such a metaphysics, reality, “though deeply rooted in actuality, is not denuded of the importance for energizing ideality;” this metaphysics “rejects neat bifurcation as a method; it disowns hard dualism as a truth” (Fang 1980a: 29). Fang later calls it “transcendental-immanent metaphysics” (Fang 2012b: 1). This metaphysics, unlike some of its Western forms that go merely “upward,” it also goes “downward,” namely, it avoids hard dualism that would discriminate the ideal from the real world, and dismiss the latter. In his own words, From its viewpoint, both the world and the individual therein are considered to be a sort of architectonic unity in which all the relevant basic facts are taken for a solid foundation on which to build up different layers of superstructure, ascending from below until the coping stone is set over them all. From what is given as actual, we can take the ascending steps and look upward, aspiring to attain to the supreme ideal. And, at the same time, starting from the contemplated ideal, we are thereby enabled, through the potency of gradually clarified ideas, to explicate the great mystery involved in the existence of the world and the achievement of man. (Fang 1980a: 29)

In other words, noumenon (or substance 體) and phenomenon (or function 用) interpenetrate each other, so do eternity and temporality. As Fang states, in Chinese philosophy, “there is no abrupt breach between reality and its appearances” (Fang 1981: 20). This marks a major difference from mainstream Western forms of metaphysics. According to Fang, one of the corollaries of this unique orientation of Chinese metaphysics is cosmological organicism, whose advantages are characterized as follows:

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Negatively, it denounces the possibility (1) of taking things and persons in absolutely isolated systems, (2) of reducing the plenitude of reality into an impoverished mechanical order of merely juxtaposed constituents, and (3) of squeezing the dynamic universe into a tightly closed system of complete developedness, devoid of continual creativity. Positively, it is an endeavor to encompass the integral universe in all aspects of its richness and plenitude without any indulgence in the most abstract form of an underlying unity which is never unearthed. In the midst of experiential multiplicities, there may be discerned a set of such organic wholes as the unity of being, the unity of existence, the unity of life, as well as the unity of value. But all the manifold unities are such that they can be woven and fused into an intimate embracement of mutual relevance, essential interrelatedness, and reciprocal importance (Fang 1964: 101–102).

Finally, a general observation about Western philosophy made by Fang is that there is no man in the philosophy, because philosophy is extracted from the thinkers and becomes an isolated and abstract system of theories, and the figures of philosophers are hidden. Fang thinks that in Chinese philosophy, “there is really man in philosophy.” A philosophy is an expression of the personality of the thinker (Fang 2013a: 64–65).

3  F  ang’s View on the Different Philosophical Traditions of China Fang seldom wrote articles or monographs on particular theories of specific thinkers. He usually made general observations about a whole school or a whole culture. Thus, in academia, his work was not frequently quoted by scholars who carefully define their research interest as only regional and not global. On the other hand, Fang is very influential because his characterization of Chinese philosophy as a whole, for instance, the label of organicism, and his view that in Chinese philosophy noumena and phenomena interpenetrate each other, have been widely received by scholars on Chinese culture. Just to name one example, Roger Ames proposed the idea of “Confucian role ethics,” on the basis of what he understands as the Chinese “processual cosmology.” One of the characteristics of such a form of cosmology is that all things are correlates to one another. Ames attributes this observation on Chinese philosophy to Tang Junyi’s Yiduo bufen guan一多不分觀 or “the inseparability of the one and the many, of uniqueness and multivalence, of continuity and multiplicity, of integrity and integration” (Ames 2011: 83). This idea is in fact commonly shared by Tang Junyi and Fang Dongmei. Fang Dongmei formulates this idea as “a notion of comprehensive unity” (guantong yiti lun貫通一體論) or “the unity of the one and the many” (yi duo yi he 一多合一), and thinks that this notion is a common characteristic of classical Confucianism, Daoism, and Mahayana Buddhism (Fang 2012b: 18–19). Both Tang Junyi and Fang Dongmei were inspired

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by the Huayan School, one of the most influential schools in Chinese Buddhism.4 Fang states, “Chinese philosophical ideas are centered around the i­ ntegrative wholes explicable in terms of organicism,” according to which “all the manifold unities are such that they can be woven and fused into an intimate embracement of mutual relevance, essential interrelatedness and reciprocal importance” (Fang 1980a: 30). Besides Fang’s global observation of Chinese and Western philosophy as a whole, it is of equal interest to read how he comments on different schools in the tradition of Chinese philosophy, from which we can understand both his selective reception of the tradition and his vision about the future development of Chinese philosophy. Fang Dongmei sharply distinguishes classical Confucianism from Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. This view differs greatly from other contemporary New Confucians such as Mou Zongsan. According to Fang, after Mengzi, the spirit of Confucianism declined. Although Song-Ming Neo-Confucians did to some extent revived classical Confucianism, they were no equals of Kongzi and Mengzi in terms of the greatness of philosophical mind. As to the heritage of Kongzi’s thought, Fang Dongmei attaches less importance to the Analects than to the Book of History尚書 and the Book of Change that Kongzi edited, because the Analects preserves only Kongzi’s sayings about the ways of life, but provides no systematic exposition about the cosmos or the ultimate source of all beings, while the Book of History and the Book of Change preserve the philosophical wisdom before Kongzi and includes Kongzi and his followers’ systematic exposition of ontology and axiology, as can be seen in the “ten Commentaries” (Yizhuan Shiyi 易傳十翼) on the Book of Change. Fang Dongmei thinks that a Confucian is a “Time-man,” and a Daoist a “Space-­ man” and a Buddhist a “Space-time-man.” The Confucians are “Time-men” because they see Heaven’s virtue of life-giving force in the temporal stream of change, and affirm the positive intrinsic value of human nature in the sense that human beings’ creativity can assist Heaven and Earth in a harmonious co-creation. The problem of this view is that Confucians, in cultivating an attitude of acceptance, sometimes tended over-optimistically to “take what is worse for the better, take what is bad for the good.” The Daoist wanted to transcend the realm of morality and ascend into a higher realm, from whose view, this world is just an “admixture of wisdom and folly” (Fang 2013a: 84). By “space” Fang Dongmei means “pictorial space” or “poetical space,” or a space for artistic freedom. In contrast with Confucians and Daoists, Mahayana Buddhists are characterized by Fang Dongmei as “the space-­ time men with an alternative sense of forgetting.” Fang states that Hinayana Buddhists were “actual Time-men,” but they differed from the Confucians because they tended to “take time in its bad sense”: to regard the constantly changing world as a source of suffering (Fang 2013a: 86). A Mahayana Buddhist is a “time-man intent upon the joy of eternity.” Not only do the Mahayana Buddhists forget the change and inconstancy of the world, but they also forget time itself. Thus, Fang

4  For a systematic investigation of both philosophers’ appropriation of Huayan thought, see King Pong Chiu (2016).

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Dongmei calls them the “space-time men with an alternative sense of forgetting.” Finally, Song-Ming Neo-Confucians were eclectic in synthesizing the afore-­ mentioned traditions, and are therefore called “concurrent space-time men” (Fang 2013a: 86–88). As to Fang Dongmei’s reception of various traditions of Chinese philosophy, the major source of Fang Dongmei’s philosophy of life is Confucianism, especially the tradition of the Book of Change, in which ontology (about the process of life) and axiology (about the value of creative creativity) merge into one. His organicism or the notion of comprehensive harmony is partly derived from the Book of Change and partly from Huayan Buddhism. Besides this, his views about arts and freedom are usually expressed in his reading of Daoism. He interprets Zhuangzi’s way of emancipation from narrow-mindedness in three principles: (1) The first principle is about the respect for individuality and acceptance of difference and uniqueness. He writes, “The principle of individuality and value asserts that anyone oriented in a limited perspective of the over-all Perspective which is the infinite system of Tao, must accept it as authentic in so far as its own uniqueness is concerned.” (2) The second principle broadens the scope beyond the narrow self: “The principle of transcendence asserts that any realization of individuality and value within the confines of its own nature is insufficient because it depends upon external conditions which are uncontrollable to some extent.” No one is really self-sufficient, and therefore genuine freedom should transcend the limitation of the narrow self “by reaching forward to something higher and more perfect than itself.” However, the craving for the higher and the more may lead to the crisis of self-estrangement; (3) The first principle (about self-acceptance) and the second principle (about self-­transcendence) are reconciled in the third principle. Fang writes, “The Principle of spontaneous freedom in conformity with Nature will cure this injury. Only the man of great wisdom who has come to terms with what is infinite in the realm of Tao can become thereby congruent with the really unconditioned.” (Fang 1981: 136–137). The first and third principle are from Guo Xiang 郭象(252?–312) and Xiang Xiu向秀, and the second principle is from Zhi Dun支遁 (314–366). Fang very skillfully weaves these two opposing principles into a structure that resemblances Hegel’s dialectics of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis.”

4  Conclusion This chapter provides only a brief overview of Fang Dongmei’s philosophy. His early philosophy of life was influenced by Bergson, but his theory was a response to the polemic on science and metaphysics in the 1920s in China after the May Fourth Movement. He creatively drew on the cultural resources of organicism, comprehensive harmony, and “creative creativity” from the Book of Change and from Huayan Buddhism to support his philosophy. His theory is unique in such views as rationality and emotionality are two complementary aspects of the unity of being, and ontology and axiology are ultimately inseparable. In response to scientism, he

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advocated a view of life striving upward to higher values. Meanwhile, in comparison with Western philosophy, he holds that Chinese philosophy is characterized by “transcendental ontology” that emphasizes the continuity of Being and rejects hard dualism, an ontology that goes not only upward, but also downward in explicating “the great mystery involved in the existence of the world and the achievement of man” (Fang 1980a: 29). Fang is not just a theorist: as a teacher and a true lover of wisdom, he inspired a generation of influential scholars such as Liu Shu-hsien劉述先, Chen Guying陳鼓 應, Cheng Chung-ying成中英, Vincent Shen沈清松, Charles Wei-Hsun Fu傅偉 勛, and Chin Kung釋凈空. His life and work genuinely reflected his own ideal of a philosopher: a mixed personality of a prophet, a poet, and a sage (Fang 2012b: 23). As to the significance and heritage of Fang’s philosophy, firstly, Vincent Shen remarks that Fang differs from other New Confucians such as Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi in the sense that Fang transcends the latter’s philosophy of subjectivity. Jana Rošker also finds that “for Fang Dongmei, the idea of the subject is something which actually distances men from their humanity” and that “Fang Dongmei refused the notion of the subject as useless for his purposes” (Rošker 2015: 151, 153). Vincent Shen states that Fang instead “puts human beings in the context of cosmic processes,” while Mou and Tang “may have overemphasized subjectivity,” and thus they are burdened with the task of defending their subjectivity against “the serious critiques of Heideggerian phenomenology, structuralism, critical theory, and postmodernism” (Shen 2003: 251). Secondly, “with regard to ontology,” Shen further observes, “twentieth-century philosophy moved from the ontology of substance to that of events, which in turn is now giving way to an ontology of dynamic relations—something that all schools of Chinese philosophy articulate in one way or another. The philosophy of Thomé Fang, a philosophy of organicism and comprehensive harmony, is the best expression of an ontology of dynamic relations” (Shen 2003: 252). Liu Shu-hsien, another student of Fang, holds that Fang’s philosophy, in comparison with Mou Zongsan’s, can foster a more liberal and pluralistic attitude to embrace different spiritual and cultural traditions, to encourage creativity in culture and education, and to reach minimal consensus among different civilizations of this global village (Liu 2000: 25–26).

References Ames, Roger T. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Chan, Wing-tsit, trans. and ed. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963. Fang, Dongmei (Fang, Thomé H.) 方東美(方珣). 1920a. “Bergson’s Philosophy of Life” 柏格森 生之哲學. Youth of China少年中國 1.7: 2–7. ———. 1920b. “Realistic Philosophy of Life” 唯實主義的生之哲學. Youth of China少年中國 1 (11): 14–23.

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———. 1937. Science, Philosophy, and Life 科學哲學與人生. Shanghai上海: Shangwu Yinshuguan商務印書館. ———. 1964. “The World and the Individual in Chinese Metaphysics.” Philosophy East and West 14 (2): 101–130. ———. 1980a. Creativity in Man and Nature: A Collection of Philosophical Essays. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1980b. The Chinese View of Life: The Philosophy of Comprehensive Harmony. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1981. Chinese Philosophy: Its Spirit and Its Development. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 2012a. Philosophy of Premordial Confucianism and Daoism 原始儒家道家哲學. Beijing 北京: Zhonghua Shuju中華書局. ———. 2012b. Chinese Philosophy: Its Sprit and Its Development 中國哲學精神及其發展. Beijng 北京: Zhonghua Shuju中華書局. ———. 2013a. Fang Dongmei’s Lectures方東美先生演講集. Beijng 北京: Zhonghua Shuju中華書局. ———. 2013b. The Virtue of Creative Creativity: Philosophical Essays 生生之德:哲學論文集》. Beijng 北京: Zhonghua Shuju中華書局. Hahn, Lewis E. 1989. “Mr. Fang Dongmei and the Spirit of Chinese Philosophy” 方東美先 生與中國哲學精神. Translated by Sun Zhishen孫智燊, in Committee of the International Symposium of Thomé Fang’s Philosophy. Ed. 國際方東美哲學研討會執行委員會 ed. Mr. Fang Dongmei’s Philosophy 方東美先生的哲學. Taibei: Youshi wenhua shiye gongsi幼 獅文化事業公司. Hu, Jun胡軍. 2000. “The Daoist Spirit of Fang Dongmei’s Philosophical Thought” 方東美哲學 思想的道家精神. History of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學史 2000.1: 70–76. Jiang, Guobao蔣國保, and Yu Lüyi余律頤. 2012. Research on Fang Dongmei’s Philosophical Thought方東美哲學思想研究. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe北京大學出版社. King, Pong Chiu. 2016. Thomé H.  Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in Twentieth-Century China. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Li, Chenyang李晨陽. 2002. “Fang Dongmei: Philosophy of Life, Creativity and Inclusiveness.” In Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell. Liu, Shu-hsien劉述先. 2000. “A Study of Fang Dongmei’s Philosophy and Its Possible Convergence with Contemporary New Confucianism” 方東美哲學與當代新儒家思想互動 可能性之探究. Legein Monthly 鵝湖月刊, 306: 18–27. Rošker, Jana S. 2015. The Rebirth of the Moral Self: The Second Generation of Modern Confucians and Their Modernization Discourses. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Shen, Vincent. 2003. “Fang Dongmei (Thomé H. Fang).” In Antonio S. Cua, ed. Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, New York, London: Routledge.

Balanced Continuity: Qian Mu and Contemporary New Confucianism Gad C. Isay

1  Introduction Throughout his very long scholarly career, Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990) was preoccupied with the notion of balance, both as idea and as approach, and there one finds his major contribution to contemporary New Confucianism.1 A twentieth century scholar and humanist, Qian published his first book in 1918 and continued to produce writings uninterruptedly until his death in 1990.2 The value of his body of work containing 54 volumes and more is attributable to his concern for preserving Chinese history and culture and to his scholarship, together with his creativity in using Chinese categories of thought. He is known for his patriotism and yet he always maintained a concern for universal wellbeing. To Qian, the reform of China precedes the reform of the world. The present account of Qian Mu’s contribution to contemporary New Confucianism begins with a brief biography (Sect. 2). Thereafter an abridged survey highlights his more “Confucian” works. The survey is analytical in that it differentiates works that engage issues of continuity in the transmission of the Confucian Way (3) from works concerned with revitalizing Confucian ideas (4). The latter concentrates on Qian’s studies of Kongzi 孔子 (551–479 BCE). The next section (5) discusses Qian’s studies of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), perhaps his

1  Balance in this essay refers to Chinese terms such as zhong 中 and he 和 and also to phrases for avoiding factions such as (budang 不黨). 2  It has been suggested that in terms of quantity Qian Mu’s writings exceed those of any other scholar in Chinese history. See Du Zhengsheng 杜正勝 1995, quoted in Soffel (2013: 114–115), fn. 7.

G. C. Isay (*) Department of East Asian Studies, Tel-Hai College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_9

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seminal work. The present study demonstrates how Qian’s studies of Zhu Xi were, most significantly, an extension of his studies of Kongzi. To better decipher Qian Mu’s philosophical thought, section six (6) sets aside his scholarly works on periods, schools, and themes in the history of Chinese thought to focus on a collection of short essays he wrote in a more meditative style, in the spring of 1948 (Qian 2001).3 He referred to this style as “calm” or “quiet” thoughts (xiansi 閒思) and acknowledged his decision to leave them unsystematic as they were. In this respect, the present study ventures to go beyond his original intention to trace correspondences between approaches and ideas in his “scholarly works” and those more meditative writings. In conclusion, this essay explores Qian’s preoccupation with both the affirmation of the Confucian tradition and the notion of balance, in association with the question of the transmission of the Way and, generally, the nature of Confucian thought.

2  Biographical Notes In presenting the biography of a renowned historian such as Qian Mu, one has to consider the extent to which he is involved in shaping the narrative of his personal and scholarly past.4 The brief summary that follows begins with his childhood and continues until his death. Qian’s autobiographical account appears predisposed to highlight the positive aspects of his parents, family, and close kin, his “home,” the region of his birth, and its inhabitants. As observed in my discussion of his affirmative approach, his predisposition to beautify the past and traditional sources, which applies equally to his self-account and to his studies of Chinese history and culture, is a definitive characteristic of his thought. Qian Mu was born on the ninth of June, 1895, in Wuxi (無錫) county, Jiangsu ( 江蘇) province. Several generations earlier his family enjoyed elite status but by the time he was born, the family had long lost the economic foundations of that status. His mother came from a more well-off family. Her father gave consent to her marriage, saying that the wealth of a family that observes ritual propriety (li 禮) is not measured in financial terms (Qian 1983: 17). Qian’s father was a teacher who, among other occupations, mediated disputes among his kin. In his reminiscences written at the age of eighty, Qian, the son, observed that despite the many hardships, his parents devoted much attention to their children and the spirit of the love of learning and culture infused their home (Qian 1983: 11–23). Concerns with learning, moral values, and patriotism loom large in Qian Mu’s memories of his early years. He narrates how in his early childhood, at nine years old, he was fond of learning and capable of seeing things with his own eyes. From 3  Hereafter, HSXSL. These essays are both scattered among Qian’s writings and collected in book form as in Qian (1987). 4  The major source is the autobiographical account he wrote at the age of eighty (Qian 1983). For an English translation of an important section see Dennerline (1988).

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his father, he learned a lesson in modesty on one occasion. On a subsequent occasion he learned to read that which is not written in the text (Qian 1983: 13, 14). At the age of eleven, young Qian became acquainted with the truth that a foreign dynasty rules China (Qian 1983: 34). In 1911, Qian’s plans to join revolutionary forces eventually failed and soon thereafter he assumed responsibilities as a teacher. From early childhood, he had been engaged in comparing and evaluating the cultures of China and the West. The question of culture that dominated the Chinese intellectual scene during that period—to remain ever since—provided entry into patriotic expression and scholarship. Qian soon recognized the propensity of his character to be critical of radical attitudes. He agreed that the future should not necessarily be modeled upon his parents’ world, but he resisted the approach decrying compatibility between the new culture and the tradition (Dennerline 1988: 17). His first book, An Analects Reader, was printed in 1918 (Qian 1918).5 During the next few years, Qian published readers for other sources of the classical period: Confucian, Mohist, and Daoist. During discussions on religion, politics, and Communism with his friends, he realized the affinity between his studies and contemporary cultural debates. In late 1919, in his capacity as a school director, he integrated several ideas of John Dewey (1859–1952) into his educational program.6 In order for China to resist disengaging her soul from her body while becoming rich in technological skills, he urged the new generation of intellectuals to acquaint themselves with what was still alive in the tradition rather than see it as superfluous. During the next few years, he continuously engaged in educational activities. Qian assumed academic responsibilities without formal training. In 1928, he began lecturing at the University of Suzhou. In 1930, he moved to Yanjing University and later that year joined the faculty at Peking University in Beiping (now Beijing). In his autobiography, Qian observes that upon arrival, his goal was to bring Chinese history back to the Chinese. In other words, he was critical of foreign disciplines, such as dialectical materialism, that flooded the Chinese intellectual scene at the time. His lectures were a tribute to the merits of Chinese culture and history. One of the first courses Qian taught in the autumn of 1932 was his critical version of Liang Qichao’s 梁启超 (1873–1929) earlier lectures at the neighboring Qinghua University on Chinese thought of the past three hundred years. Soon after the Japanese invasion of 1937, he moved to Changsha and later to Kunming, where the leading Northern universities had relocated. Sensing a broad national consensus over the need for unity, he accepted a colleague’s encouragement to write a book on the national history of China. For that purpose, he retired to a Buddhist monastery in the countryside and in one year he wrote, mostly with no available printed sources, his two-volume Extended Synopsis of National History (Qian 1995b). Over the next few years, Qian moved between various locations, generally in southern China. In 1948, while the civil war was raging, Qian returned to the East, to Jiangnan

5  An earlier unpublished manuscript that contained patriotic content is mentioned in Soffel (2013: 115). 6  Dewey lectured in China between 1919 and 1921. For his lectures see Dewey (1973).

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University in Jiangsu, near his birthplace. In 1949, he moved to Guangdong to teach at a recently opened university. Exile soon followed. That same year, just before the Communists became victorious, Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893–1976) identified Qian, along with Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) and Fu Sinian 傅斯年 (1896–1950), as running dogs of the imperialists, who in China were represented by the Nationalists (Mao 1969: 427). Qian was considered one of the villains of recent history. The first rectification campaigns in the liberated areas were still fresh; he had to leave. Qian Mu’s narrative of Chinese history since the late nineteenth century suggests a break with the past, a deterioration in the present, and yet confidence with regard to the future. This temporal distinction corresponds to his understanding of the modern history of China in terms of a transition that began in the late nineteenth century and continued in his day, from a state of self-affirmation to self-denial and, expectantly, a return to self-affirmation via the study of Chinese history and culture.7 How did China come to take a path which forced exile on people, and how should he understand his own role? These sorts of questions began to engage Qian upon leaving his native country (Isay 2014: 106). In 1950, when he moved to live in exile in Hong Kong, Qian became a founder of New Asia College (Xinya shuyuan 新亞書院) that in the early 1950s was the only Chinese-speaking institution of higher education in Hong Kong. The institute and the numerous works he wrote in his new home established Qian's leadership as a historian of Chinese culture (Vickers 2003: 101). His wife and five children stayed behind and were not to meet him again for more than 30 years. In 1954 he remarried. Qian retired from his position as president of the New Asia College in 1965 after seeing it develop into a center for the liberal arts, later to merge successfully into the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). In 1968, he moved to Taiwan where he lived next to the campus of Soochow (Dongwu) University. By then he had lost much of his eyesight. Yet, he uninterruptedly continued to publish scholarly writings. In 1982, a reunion was arranged with his family and Qian occasionally met them thereafter. In June 1990, he became inadvertently involved in political controversy when several public figures falsely accused him of seizing the house where he lived. Refusing to be drawn into a debate about the legitimate ownership of the house, his approach was to disregard both honor and shame (Han 2005: 6.3375), and he left the home where he had lived since 1968. Qian Mu lived on until August 1990, and two years after his death he was buried in China in a location overlooking Taihu 太湖, the lake near his childhood home in Jiangsu province.

7  ‘Study’ here very much in the sense of ‘education’. Compare with Yu Ying-shih’s recent call for “…Chinese historians to begin to design and develop their own concepts and methods uniquely suited to coping with the particular shapes of Chinese historical experience independent of, but not in isolation from, theories and practices of history in other parts of the world including the West” (Yu 2007: 49–50).

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3  Continuity of the Confucian Tradition8 Throughout his scholarly career, as he constantly addressed the challenges that engaged his contemporary intellectual scene, Qian sought the affirmation and preservation of the Confucian tradition (Isay 2014). More precisely, the Confucian tradition is presented everywhere in his writings as the backbone of the culture of the Chinese people. Positively affirming its framework, its content, and its axis, he self-­ consciously portrays Chinese culture with a nuanced superiority that he never openly acknowledges: “I do not want to claim that Chinese culture is superior to the culture of the West…” (Qian 1979; Han 2005: 4.3134). Qian’s affirmation of the Confucian tradition communicates his confidence in its intrinsic value in face of assaults made against it during the May Fourth period and its aftermath. He nonetheless recognizes the call for its revitalization. The present section concentrates on the aspect of affirmation and preservation and leaves the discussion on revitalization to the next two sections (4) and (5). Qian Mu’s early publications mark his resolve to preserve the Confucian tradition in face of prevalent countertendencies then dominant in the intellectual scene (Chow 1960). His first few books published between 1918 and 1930 introduce masters of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods (respectively, 722–453 and 475–221 BCE).9 Thereafter, his writings turn to highlight the continuity of the Chinese and Confucian tradition and, at the same time, to distinguish the essence from the flow. The principal criterion in this practice is that of balance. In 1930, Qian addressed the Old Text (Guwen 古文) and New Text (Jinwen 今文) debate that started in the first century BCE and resurfaced toward the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, and then again in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Qian 1930).10 Unlike Old Text scholars who attributed to Kongzi the origination of the Analects and saw him as scholar and teacher, New Text scholars recognized a somewhat messianic persona who authored the Six Classics and reformed ancient institutions. For late nineteenth century reformers

8  The survey of Qian Mu’s “Confucian” writings that follows is chronologically ordered at the same time that it prioritizes analytic concerns. A note of caution, though, is in order. It is fair to say that the sheer amount of Qian Mu’s scholarly writings in itself communicates a commitment to affirm and  revitalize the  tradition and  culture of  China. To  be  sure, the  survey that follows comments on only a certain number of his essays and books. Fortunately, there are so many of them! Indeed, however much the writer of this essay would have liked to demonstrate an aptitude for selectivity, in the present case that would be presumptuous. One must admit a measure of random choices as well. This caution notwithstanding, I still urge the reader to consider the remarkable consistency of Qian’s views throughout his scholarly career. 9  Kongzi’s Analects (1918), Mengzi 孟子 (1926), Mozi 墨子, Huishi and Gong Sunlong 惠施公孫 龍 (all published in 1931), and from the Ming period, Wang Shouren 王守仁 (Wang Yangming) (1930), among other works. 10  For the New Text see Nylan (1999: 87–92), and Elman (1990: 141–43).

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such as Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), the New Text learning opened new avenues to promote political activism and a national agenda.11 To Qian, such preference for one-sided demands over scholarly considerations was a maneuver that unsettled the core of the Confucian tradition. In a review article in 1931, he proposes a differentiation between scholarly learning and factionalism or one-sidedness. The discussion distinguishes what he calls “[unconfirmed] accounts” (chuanshuo 傳說) from “[deliberate] fabrications” (weizao 偽造), and allocates Kang’s works to the latter (Qian 1931a; Han 2005: 2.694). Unconfirmed accounts, he observes, partake in a process of growth and share broad consensus. Deliberate fabrications are, in contrast, the product of one breath, the creations of one person or one faction (Qian 1931a; Han 2005: 695–707). Qian’s observations were intended to distinguish a primary scholarly current from marginal, one-sided views and, in this process, to consolidate the Confucian tradition along an “authentic” axis. The differentiation in this case refers to impartiality in the former and partiality or one-sidedness in the latter. The authentic corresponds with the impartial and, in this respect, it converges with balance. Qian augmented his critical approach with constructive efforts to recreate the narrative of the Confucian tradition. A Survey of National Studies narrates the history of Chinese thought from Kongzi to Qian’s contemporaries (Qian 1931b). As Jerry Dennerline observes, Qian argues that over the past two hundred years, the Chinese world of thought has undergone many changes, readapting in each case to the challenge of a new age. Furthermore, contrary to arguments that foreign ideas, from India and from the West, diverted Chinese culture from its evolutionary path or, alternatively, corresponded to values of China’s own ancient heritage, Qian opines that with each successive transformation, something essential to Chinese culture was elaborated (Dennerline 1988: 55). He argues that for three thousand years, Chinese thought continuously adapted itself to new times and new challenges and preserved its vitality in spite of transformations of various kinds.12 The overall message is that the sequence of Chinese history and culture—the Confucian tradition included—has its own pattern. The argument affirms the internal balance of that pattern. Qian’s concern with Confucian continuity persists in his Chinese Scholarship in the Recent 300 Years, a narrative of the world of thought during the Qing period (1644–1911) that highlights the links between scholars’ ideas and their roots in the Song period (960–1279) (Qian 1995a, first published in 1937). Unlike Liang Qichao, who earlier considered early Qing thought (second half of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century) an independent criticism of scholarly sources of Song and Ming (1368–1644) learning, Qian stresses the continuity in the scholarly world from Song to Qing. Rather than a renaissance-like disruption he sees substantial links with the past. Accordingly, the scholarship of the Qing (sometimes

11 12

 See chapter “Confucianism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”—Ed.  A similar argument features some 50 years later in Qian (1979), Han (2005: 6.3133).

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labeled as Han Learning) is unfathomable without the Learning of the Song period (Qian 1939; Han 2005: 3.1223).13 Chapter 14 of the HSXSL (written in late 1948) highlights the Confucian tradition as the balanced current that forms the axis in the history of Chinese thought (Qian 2001). Qian observes how in ancient China the Confucians, unlike the Mohists and the Daoists, avoided radical lifestyle forms such as utilitarianism and leisure, representing the middle way in Chinese society. As in A Survey of National Studies, he cautions his contemporaries not to abandon this authentic Chinese course due to challenges of Buddhist and Western origins. In chapter eight of the HSXSL, Qian criticizes the tendency inherent in the thought of Wang Yangming’s followers to seek an original substance deep in the mind and to subordinate reality to it. At the same time, he praises Zhu Xi’s attention to the person’s need to cultivate the mind by means of learning that consists of balancing the internal and the external. Accordingly, Qian labels the Wang Yangming School as elementary education and the Zhu Xi School as advanced education.14 The HSXSL presents the notion of balance as both a formal feature of the Confucian tradition and a value in its own right. The criterion of balance explains Qian’s support of Confucian thought over Daoist, Mohist, Buddhist, and Western thought, and designates Zhu Xi’s understandings as the correct transmission. Qian Mu’s affirmative approach towards the Confucian tradition concurs with the approach in Kongzi’s Analects of avoiding factions (e.g. sayings 2.14, 4.10, 15.22). Qian’s promotion of seeking similarity and convergence rather than difference and divergence further elaborates upon this approach regarding the correct relations between a source and its later developments (Yu 1991: 31–37).15 The approach recognizes that the similar and the convergent are earlier in time, while the different and the divergent develop later. In the beginning, the similar and the convergent dominate; the different and the divergent later propose alternatives. To the extent that a scholarly work follows the similar and the convergent, it remains within the main line of transmission. Conversely, scholars who subscribe to factions invest their emotions in the commitment to a definite side, and contrast their ideas with those of others. They advance a narrow cause, upset the inherent balance, and diverge from the main line of thought (Isay 2014: 110–112). But was there in the Confucian tradition a standard of balance to begin with? To answer that question, I turn to Qian’s explorations of the thought of Kongzi.

 Beside Liang, another target of this criticism was Hu Shi.  This ranking of Wang and Zhu reverses the appraisal shared by most of Qian’s contemporaries such as Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1883–1968) and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–95). 15  Qian discusses this approach as characteristic of both Chinese learning and Chinese civilization as a whole. See Ch’ien (1986: 32). For a comparable text in Chinese, see Qian (2000: 24–25). 13 14

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4  Engaging the Thought of Kongzi From the beginning of his scholarly career Qian Mu consistently addressed Confucian learning. In 1988, at the age of 93 he observes: Throughout my life, from youth to old age, my nature was to prioritize learning. As long as I live, the inside of my mind has been preordained to admire Kongzi; from the Analects I learnt to live the human Way, though [with regard to the vocation of] history I set to differ from Kongzi’s Spring and Autumn Annals (Qian 1988; Han 2005: 6.3363).

Kongzi and the Analects were to him the core of the spirit of the Chinese tradition (Qian 1988; Han 2005: 3365). To unravel the nature of this core the following explores Qian’s explication of the notions of oneness and balance in Kongzi’s thought.16 Qian Mu’s studies of Kongzi and his early followers claim the essentialness of oneness—and its synonyms such as the non-dichotomous and this-worldliness. Referring in his “Kongzi and the Learning of the Mind” to the problem of life and death and the problem of self and society, Qian demonstrates how solutions proposed by the culture of the West are inadequate due to their failure to avoid other-­ worldliness: “They have two worlds, religion that enters into this world [from the outside], and the law of this world, [and, further,] their various practices all subordinate to this [differentiation between two worlds]” (Qian 1943; Han 2005: 3.1561).17 Conversely, owing to Kongzi, the Chinese subscribe to this-worldliness: “The Chinese God is the great human collective” (Qian 1943; Han 2005: 1560–1563). In an earlier essay, “Confucian Scholars’ Discussions of the Goodness of Human Nature and Their Method for Its Realization” (Qian 1933), Qian refers to sources such as the Zhongyong (The Doctrine of the Mean) to highlight the goals of “participating in the creative process of heaven and earth” and “joining heaven and earth” (Zhongyong 23). “The union of heaven and man,” concludes Qian, “is arguably the highest logical summit of Confucian practice,” and, he adds, “it is still attainable” (Qian 1933; Han 2005: 2.930–931). To Qian Mu’s Kongzi, roots and branches, the internal and the external, are all one, and, realizing this, above all involves the mind and its capacity to expand (tui 推). He observes that each time Kongzi presents affairs with the purpose of discussing the mind, he draws on the mind to expand the affairs and to eventually join them into one (Qian 1925; Han 2005: 1.297). Virtues such as filial piety (xiao 孝) and benevolence (ren 仁) further illuminate this quality of the human mind to expand. Qian introduces filial piety as the point of departure in forming linkages between people, and he highlights the propensity to expand that is a given in the theory and in the practice of filial piety, providing the mind of the one person the means by which to form linkages with the mind of the larger community (Qian 1943; Han  An underlying assumption in the present essay concerns the interdependence of oneness and balance (or evenness). 17  Significantly, as observed in Isay (2013b: 265), Qian’s non-dichotomous approach assigns a dichotomous approach to his cultural other. 16

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2005: 3.1562). Ren is similarly inseparable from the working of the mind. Quoting Mengzi’s “ren is the human heart-mind” (Mengzi 6A:11), Qian further associates the mind with ‘the heart-mind of the Way,’ with the ‘human heart-mind’ and with ‘the heart-mind of culture’: [T]he heart-mind occupies the in-between of people, connecting sadness and joy… pain and pleasure. That is what is called ‘the heart-mind of the Way’ (daoxin 道心) or, otherwise, the ‘human heart-mind’ (renxin 人心). And this may also be called ‘the heart-mind of culture’ (wenhuaxin 文化心) (Qian 1943; Han 2005: 3.1562).

The process of expansion that proceeds from the inner heart-mind (neixin 内心) is essentially interdependent with the notion of balance. Essentials of the Analects associates the inner heart-mind with the emotions and with several Confucian values (Qian 1925; Han 2005: 1.297). In one of his later sources (1974), Qian observes that the human Way has its foundation in the center of the self of each person. Kongzi’s “one thread,” he notes, “connects the virtue that is there inside one’s heart-­ mind” (Qian 1974; Han 2005: 6.2977). Furthermore, although this virtue is nurtured within one’s heart-mind, only if the person relates with others, that is, expands, shall this virtue abide (Qian 1974; Han 2005: 6.2977). To counter-balance the apparent stress on the inner heart-mind, in association with the purpose of self-cultivation, Qian’s Essentials of the Analects specifies the need to consider the external aspect as well, that is, the external norm, or the normative (guifan 規範)—also referred to as ritual propriety (li 禮) (Qian 1925; Han 2005: 1.297). The Confucian concern with balance for the sake of self-cultivation is further elaborated in Qian’s discussion of Kongzi’s thought about the heart-mind’s virtue to expand in terms that highlight the heart-mind’s quality of reconciliation (tiaohe 調 和). His “A Brief Biography of Kongzi and an Evaluation of his Sayings and Learning” claims that unlike schools or factions who favor radical approaches, Kongzi particularly emphasizes reconciliation (Qian 1928; Han 2005: 1.360). To opt for reconciliation and to avoid the radical is to set the criterion of balance. Qian rests his claim about Kongzi’s concern with reconciliation on an analysis of three interrelated spheres. With regard to the sphere of the heart-mind, Kongzi’s teaching reconciles knowledge (zhishi 知識) and emotions (qinggan 情感) and, equally, the religious and the scholarly. In the temporal sphere, Qian’s Kongzi proposes to make the world of the future manifest (biaoxian 表現) in the framework of present society. And in the social sphere, Kongzi reconciles the individual and collective. Rather than promote self-centered individualism, Qian’s Kongzi proposes reconciliation between people; thus, he warrants that the individual and society will never clash (chongtu 衝突) (Qian 1928; Han 2005: 1.361). Several decades later, and on a different level, in his essay on the philosophy of life of the Chinese, Qian uses terms such as “harmonious agreement” and “integration” (hehe yu tonghua 和合與同化) to denote a pattern quite similar to that of reconciliation. He mentions the propensity of the Chinese people to assimilate foreign invaders such as the Mongols and Manchu into their civilization. Because the Chinese favor agreement they are capable of integration. In this respect, Qian observes, the Chinese are different from the people of the West. Western people

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favor separation and, therefore, they remain separated. He then offers the Jewish people as an illustration in point. The Jewish people, he says, have been scattered throughout the whole world. During the Tang period they settled in China, but contrary to the course of their fate in other places where they managed to retain their identity as Jews, although they stayed, there are no Jews in China. They ceased to maintain their Judaism and eventually became assimilated (Qian 1980; Han 2005: 6.3168).18 Within the framework of non-dichotomous oneness, the heart-mind reconciles and expands and conceivably realizes a religious and a spiritual quality. Qian’s Kongzi taught that human life materializes within the body of benevolence (rensheng jizai rentizhong 人生即在仁體中), and that human immortality—the greatest aspiration there is—must likewise be the immortality of that which ensues within the body of benevolence. To the extent that to inhabit forever the mind of other people connotes immortality, meaning in life is to be found in the presence of each person in the mind of other people. Qian uses Kongzi as an example: he still lives in people’s minds, he still partakes in this world, and thus is immortal. Qian concludes that due to the fact that Kongzi’s teaching of the heart-mind lives on in China, he deserves the credit for articulating the special culture of the Chinese and the special logic of their view of human life (Qian 1943; Han 2005: 3.1563). To Qian, the association made by Kongzi between the non-dichotomous world, the heart-mind, and spirituality and religiosity, forges the path that is the perfect fit for human life. The Way of the world emanates from the human heart-mind (you renxin xian er wei shidao 由人心顯而為世道), argues Qian, and this human heart-­ mind is the context of the traditional philosophy of life, and one may as well define it as the religion of the Chinese. Qian observes, too, that the Chinese frequently discussed “the Way of the world of the human heart-mind” (renxin shidao 人心世 道) and, as a consequence, talk of God became superfluous. The religion of the Chinese is confined to relations between people; it mitigates the need to reach for a God from another sphere. Significantly, this path is by no means exclusively the possession of the Chinese people; people of other civilizations and cultures are welcome to join. Indeed, with a universal perspective in mind, Qian observes, “The status of Kongzi is still superior to that of the emperor…. Kongzi is for the whole world, the emperor is for the state” (Kongzi shi tianxiade, Huangdi shi yiguode 孔 子是天下的, 皇帝是一國的) (Qian 1980; Han 2005: 6.3169).

5  The Zhu Xi Project While Qian Mu consistently continued to engage Kongzi and his thought in numerous writings, he gradually adjoined these with yet another layer—his studies of Zhu Xi and his thought. These studies fit squarely with his approach of affirming the

18

 For a different view see Eber (1993).

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Confucian tradition. The present section retains the pattern of continuity and, accordingly, my discussion primarily dwells on how Qian’s studies of Zhu Xi engage aspects of his studies of Kongzi, such as non-dichotomous oneness, the heart-mind and its capacity to expand, the notion of balance, self-cultivation, and spirituality. To trace the beginnings of Qian Mu’s studies of the thought of Zhu Xi in detail is beyond the scope of the present chapter. Suffice it to mention two relevant landmarks. One occurred during 1944.19 Qian was teaching in Kunming (Huaxi daxue) and upon returning to Chengdu from Chongqing he succumbed to a stomach illness and was bed-ridden for several months. By the time he recovered, he completed his readings of The Conversations of Master Zhu (Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類), and his attention shifted to the process of the evolution of the Learning of Pattern (lixue 理學) during the Song and Ming periods. This development coincided with a visit by Feng Youlan (馮友蘭 1895–1990), who since the 1930s, had been using Western categories to reinterpret and reconstruct both the history and the content of Chinese thought. The latter’s New Learning of Pattern (新理學, 1939) appealed to a rationalized understanding of Zhu Xi with the purpose of producing a new current of thought. The two men engaged in conversation and, among other things, Qian told Feng: “The person who wishes to become a person of the world, needs first to become a Chinese” (Han 2005: 3.1614). The reference to a correspondence between one’s identity and one’s past is obvious. To be sure, a major motive of Qian’s shift toward Zhu Xi’s learning relates to his self-assumed task to consolidate the Confucian transmission of the Way and, at the same time, to promote its self-affirmation. A second landmark on the path that motivated Qian to intensify his studies of Zhu Xi is seen in Qian’s refusal to add his signature to the 1958 Declaration for a Re-appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture. Apparently, Qian’s refusal was connected to his concern with the notion of balance. His proclivity to avoid factions has been mentioned. But a disagreement about content should also be considered. Conceivably, Qian was alarmed by arguments of associates in the Confucian vocation who, from his perspective, were overemphasizing capacities of the heart-mind, such as innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知), at the expense of practical counterbalance. A radical emphasis on the inwardness of the heart-mind creates a distinction between the subjective and the objective that is too sharp to maintain and is no longer compatible with the non-dichotomous, the non-­ dichotomous being a definitive feature of Confucian learning (Isay 2014: 110–111). In 1971, Qian published his five-volume work, A New Anthology and Critical Accounts of Master Zhu (Zhuzi xinxue’an 朱子新學案, Qian 1971; hereafter ZZXXA). Some scholars praise the work as a shifting point or a point of departure in his scholarly career. To Tu Wei-ming (Du Weiming) the ZZXXA “seems to be a new  That same year (1944) Qian mentions the term Xinrujia (新儒家): “I often say that the contemporary Confucians (新儒家) are ‘New Confucians’ (新儒), to differentiate them from Kong and Meng….” (Qian 1944; Han 2005: 3.1636). This is one of the earliest mentions and definitions of this term. For comparison see the discussion in Makeham 2003, esp. pp. 25, 26.

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adventure, marking a significant departure from his career as a cultural historian for almost four decades” (Tu 1974: 442). This observation misses a significant quality of Qian’s prior scholarship and this work in particular. Qian Mu is clear about “the most profound aspect of Zhu Xi’s thought.” In comparison to predecessors such as Zhou Dunyi 周敦颐 (1017–1073), Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077), and the Cheng brothers, Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085) and Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), Qian recognizes a measure of ingenuity on the part of Zhu Xi. But, he remarks, in evaluating a scholarly work, ingenuity is not the primary category. At first glance, what Qian chooses to highlight seems merely on the level of style. He observes that upon reading Zhu Xi’s writings, an overwhelming sense of similarity and convergence is undeniable: “One senses [in Zhu Xi’s writings] conventionality rather than creativity.” He adds, “This is the most profound aspect of Zhu Xi’s thought, yet just there scholars failed to probe deep enough” (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 5.2804). The present account takes this quote at face value. To be sure, Qian’s study is primarily committed to the task of doing away with one-sidedness (benshu yi zai po menhu 本書意在破門戶) as a prerequisite of scholarship, both on his part, and on the part of others. With regard to Zhu Xi, he observes how his scholarship is wide-ranging and profound, there is nothing that it does not encompass, and it also leaves nothing unnoticed. As Qian further comments, it cannot be faulted for one-sidedness. His parallel wish to avoid one-sidedness leads him, apparently, to cancel his own contribution as author, “This book confines itself to Zhu Xi’s account of Zhu Xi” (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2774). On closer examination, “to do away with one-sidedness” is to apply the non-dichotomous approach to one’s scholarly work. Positively, as elaborated above, to avoid one-sidedness is to follow the path of the similar and the convergent, the in-between, aligning to the axis and maintaining balance. Qian’s studies of Zhu Xi were explicitly indebted to these ideas. Qian Mu’s explication of the thought of Zhu Xi begins with an affirmation of the non-dichotomous quality of the latter’s views. He first considers the relations of pattern (li 理) and vital force (qi 氣), and then those of human nature (xing 性) and heart-mind (xin 心) (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2800). As he observes, the discussion of li and qi corresponds to what today we call cosmology and metaphysics, and the discussion of xing and xin corresponds to what is today considered the philosophy of life. Regarding the former, Qian establishes at the outset that although Zhu Xi differentiates li from qi, he considers them elements of a single body rather than two different bodies. He quotes Zhu Xi: “in the world there is no qi without li, just as there is no li without qi. … li cannot be separated from qi” (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2801). This conclusion stands even when Qian Mu obliges himself to discuss temporal differences between li and qi. According to Zhu Xi, li must precede qi, and yet, this temporal difference does not entail any break or gap: “Zhu Xi did not say today exists this li and tomorrow that qi. Though he agreed about earlier and later, he still considered both as components of the same one body, never apart” (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2802). As Irene Bloom observes, “The sort of dualism in these cases [in elaborations of the concept of the [heart-]mind during the Song period] is not a dualism

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of mind and body, or of cognitive and effective; rather the dualism assumed here is that of actual and potential moral capacity” (Bloom 1985: 306). To be sure, the suggested sequence of phases in a process defies the common meaning of dualism, or of polarity.20 Note the affinity between the distinct non-dichotomous logic of the yin and yang (陰陽) relations and Qian’s inclination to avoid polarity and to affirm non-­ dichotomous oneness. To explain Zhu Xi’s perceived stress on li, Qian proposes a differentiation between the human world (renshengjie 人生界) and the universe (yuzhoujie 宇宙 界) and suggests that Zhu prioritizes the former over the latter. Similarly, in reference to the application of the substance and function (tiyong 體用) formula in Zhu Xi’s thought, Qian observes that the latter’s thought is at its best in the delicate analysis that prioritizes the more tangible function (corresponding to manifestations such as heart-mind and its feelings) over the more abstract substance (identifiable with human nature) (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 5.2818). He observes that later scholars repeatedly distinguished the Cheng-Zhu school as protagonists of “human nature is pattern” (xingjili 性即理) and the Lu-Wang school as protagonists of “heart-mind is pattern” (xinjili 心即理). Consequently, the learning of pattern (lixue 理學) and the learning of the heart-mind (xinxue 心學) were distinguished from each other. This distinction, Qian concedes, is inconsistent with the content of Zhu Xi’s scholarship. “Among the scholars of the learning of the pattern, none surpassed Zhu Xi in discussions of the heart-mind.” To the extent that the universe is concerned, the pattern inhabits the vital force (qi), but regarding the human world, he contends, the argument has to refer to human nature that inhabits the heart-mind. The human world emerges out of the naturally-so (ziran 自然) and eventually it must return to the naturally-so. Yet, human beings are preeminent in nature. With them began the Way, and its virtue (daoyi 道義) started the highest ideal of human life and the highest responsibility, as well as the greatest efficacy of the human heart-mind. For this reason, according to Qian’s analysis, the learning of human nature and pattern (xinglixue) is nothing but the learning of the heart-mind (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2809). Alongside the axis of the balanced path, two optional paths are bound to deviate and potentially reach an extreme. One extreme is in the sphere of the natural; the other is within the human. Qian observes that the heart-mind is that which is capable of consciousness, human nature is that which is conscious, whereas the emotions (qing 情) are the mental responses of human nature. From the perspective of the universal, these three (xin, xing, qing) are joined together by human nature; but from the perspective of the human world of culture, that which joins these together is the heart-mind (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2810). These two paths signal the reality of an axis between them, the central and balanced path, which to Qian Mu is the Confucian path. To further illustrate the preeminence of the notion of balance as the category informing Qian’s discussion of Zhu Xi (and generally), consider the concern with

 In the present essay, “polarity” is deemed interchangeable with “duality.”

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the self-cultivated attainment of utmost knowledge (zhizhi 致知) and the investigation of things (gewu 格物) that this achievement requires. As Qian observes, to focus on the internal, that is, to seek the pattern exclusively inside one’s heart-mind, leaves the things unfathomed. Conversely, to focus on the external, that is, to explore the pattern exclusively in (external) things, leaves the heart-mind unfathomed. Both the unfathomed things and the unfathomed heart-mind are instances of imbalance, or, in his terms, “unfathomed pattern” (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2841). Rather, the principal purpose, according to Qian Mu, is to realize integration of heart-mind and things, the internal and the external, and that consists of realizing the state of “heart-mind is pattern.” There begins the process of fathoming the pattern, and there begins sudden enlightenment (huoran guantong 豁然貫通): The myriad patterns outside are just one pattern, and from the perspective of the knowledge of the pattern within the heart-mind, again we know there is but one pattern. Hence the assumption of unity. Therefore, the investigation of things is the subtle exertion of cultivation, and the attainment of the utmost knowledge is the final destination (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 2841–2).

To be sure, integrating heart-mind and things, and integrating the internal and the external, refer to the realization of the non-dichotomous oneness for which balance is essential. Though he does not discuss the notion of balance directly, it is the overriding quality of his message. The notion of balance is not only the overriding quality of Qian Mu’s thought on matters of values and ideas, it is the major criterion for the transmission of the Way. In “Cheng-Zhu and Kong-Meng” he observes: The Confucians represent the main current of the Chinese tradition. The early ones were Kongzi and Mengzi, and later came Cheng and Zhu. These four had the greatest impact. There are varied views with regard to the extent to which their discussions correspond or differ from each other…. As a matter of fact, [however,] Kongzi and Mengzi mainly discussed the Way (dao)… [whereas] Cheng and Zhu mainly discussed the pattern (li) (Qian 1954; Han 2005: 4.2222).

In his ZZXXA, Qian further observes that the transmission from Kongzi to Zhu Xi constitutes the central Way (chuli zhongdao 矗立中道). This is the axis that is the reference for all other schools. Forming the heart of the Confucian tradition, it is also the core of the whole history of Chinese scholarly thought (Qian 1971; Han 2005: 5.2775).

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6  The Philosophy of Life21 To probe deeper into the originality of Qian Mu’s thought, this final section shifts from his scholarship on topics in the history of Chinese thought to focus on a collection of short essays he wrote in the spring of 1948. In 1962, these essays were collected in his Quiet Thoughts at the Lake (HSXSL). Rather than studies of specific issues, these essays are more meditative in nature and are distinguished by their diversity.22 The essays of the HSXSL represent intervals in Qian’s scholarship that reveal more directly his own ideas. As he indicates in the introduction, he self-consciously wrote these essays in a rather unsystematic style. Nevertheless, the present study ventures beyond his original intention to trace correspondence between approaches and ideas in his “scholarly” works and these “meditative” essays, with a view of highlighting their relevance to the present discussion. The following arrangement of Qian’s ideas complements the discussion in sections three to five above and is everywhere suggested in the HSXSL and in his other writings. The originality of the HSXSL is revealed in the way Qian discusses Confucian concerns such as human autonomy, the relations between the one and the many, and the spiritual, in terms of memory, language, and emotions.23 These terms that constitute the matrix of human interrelations were not new in Chinese thought; however, during the twentieth century, awareness of ideas of philosophers such as Henri Bergson (1874–1941), John Dewey (1859–1952), and Bertrand Russell (1870–1972) considerably transformed their usage.24 For the purposes of the present discussion, suffice it to say that the synthesis of memory, language, and emotions preserves patterns of thought discussed above with regard to Kongzi and Zhu Xi, such as non-­ dichotomous oneness, the heart-mind and its capacity for expansion, and the notion

21  The title of this section takes its inspiration from Qian (1980). Similar discussions are characteristic of his writings in general. 22  The chapter titles of the HSXSL are in themselves suggestive of the virtue of balance: (1) Humanity and Nature; (2) Spirit and Matter; (3) Emotions and Desires; (4) Pattern (li 理) and Qi; (5) Yin and Yang; (6) Art and Science; (7) No-self and Immortality; (8) Quality (chengse 成色) and Quantity (fenliang 分兩); (9) The Way (dao 道) and Fate (ming 命); (10) Good (shan 善) and Evil (e 惡); (11) Freedom and Involvement; (12) Struggle and Kindness; (13) The Rules of Propriety (li 禮) and the Law (fa 法); (14) Rush and Leisure; (15) Science and Life; (16) Self and Other; (17) Divinity and Wisdom; (18) Experience and Thought; (19) Spirits and Divinity; (20) The Countryside and the Urban; (21) Life and Consciousness; (22) The Imperceptible and the Perceptible; (23) History and Divinity; (24) Things and Outward Appearances; (25) Human Nature and Fate; (26) The Tense and the Loose; (27) The Deductive and the Conclusive; (28) Intuition and Intellect; (29) The Infinite and the Complete in Itself; (30) Values and the Mind of Kindness. Other such “meditative” essays appear randomly among Qian’s writings or collected in books such as Qian (1987). 23  The following is a revised synopsis of Isay (2009). 24  All three discussed aspects of memory, language and emotions, and were influential in China around the May Fourth protests (1919) and thereafter (Isay 2013a:53–65).

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of balance, while at the same time contextually adapting them to requirements of modern understanding. Memory (jiyi 記憶), to Qian, is consciousness of earlier fusions of consciousness. Inasmuch as consciousness is not merely derived from concrete, external matter, but is an autonomous consequence of earlier conditions of consciousness, memory enables the mind to be conscious both of the images that have so far been imprinted in it and of itself. That which joins the images to each other, making their order comprehensible, is spoken language and script (yuyan he wenzi 語言和文字). Spoken language allows the mind to organize its knowledge about the world. Script allows the recording of what the mind remembers about the internal and external worlds. The spoken and the written forms of language express the mind’s work to the outside. According to Qian, names objectify the images of the will and the images of the mind (Qian 2001: 5–6).25 As mediators of the in-between of stimulus and response, emotions (qing 情), or what Qian calls in several places, desires and wishes (yuwang 欲望), are the inevitable agents of truth and are inseparable from what Westerners call logical thinking.26 He uses the term “warm blood” to denote the inescapable subjective and equally emotional quality in human experience. “The human Way” (rendao 人道), Qian observes, “is the motion of warmth and blood, it is the correlative flow of emotions and desires” (Qian 2001: 68).27 Emotions are life and, more accurately, meaningful life (Qian 2001: 98). A reading of Qian Mu’s HSXSL suggests that memory, language, and emotions together form the context of human life. This context that has a life of its own fits squarely with the non-dichotomous oneness highlighted above in the discussion of Qian’s understanding of the thought of Kongzi and Zhu Xi. It can be conceptually molded further to correspond to the complementary aspects of human nature and heart-mind, as substance (ti) and function (yong) respectively.28 Like in Zhu Xi, as substance, the emotions, language, and memory are human nature. As function, they are the human heart-mind. Zhu Xi’s adaptation of the tiyong formula is thus interpreted in an entirely new context, applicable to a modern perception that is more concrete. Within this living context, the person maintains his unique center of emotions, language, and memory, and there differs from others. At the same time, this person is inseparable from others in sharing the larger, collective context of emotions, language, and memory. In agreement with Mengzi’s “human nature is good” (6A:2), Qian associates the substance (ti) of human life with morality (Qian 2001: esp. chapters twenty-one and twenty-two). Morality is, to Qian, not merely one of several aspects of humanity: it 25  Qian adds that the commentary is apparently subjective yet the subject itself is objectively given. From the point of view of the common agreement on names, their being is not merely subjective. Note how Qian here enlarges and brings up-to-date Kongzi’s rectification of names. 26  On emotions as inseparable from reason in traditional Chinese thought see Solomon (1995). 27  Accordingly, Qian emphasizes, pure and neutral reason is impossible. 28  The discussion that follows on ti and yong revises a flaw that occurs in the broader discussion of memory, language, and emotions in Qian’s thought. See Isay (2009).

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is its essence. It is a class of human intercommunications; it is heart-mind in its most refined sense. Moral relations are to him the necessary, positive, and aesthetic aspect of the relations between two people or more. In one’s moral actions, one’s authentic character and personality is at its best, and this is the most refined feature that is human. The unique status Qian assigns to morality for its role in inter-­ communications, is inseparable from the notion of human autonomy. Within the context of human relations, morality alone is unconditioned: not by some supreme providence, nor by any objective aspect of some truth; neither by things or by matter.29 As he observes, the autonomy of humanity is a dynamic fusion of a person’s interior life and the external world. Autonomy corresponds to the function (yong) of one’s inner heart-mind’s knowledge and emotions as they merge with the outer and dissolve the boundaries between self and things. Therefore, the life of the heart-mind and its dynamic factors of knowledge and emotions must be allowed the utmost freedom and, essentially, according to Qian, nothing whatsoever can prevent their freedom. The affirmation of moral autonomy, sanctioned in Qian Mu’s elaboration of the context of memory, language, and emotions may sound like echoes of his contemporaries’ engagement with Kantian ideas (among others). His discussion, however, betrays no such linking. Rather, the context of memory, language, and emotions strengthens the consistency of his discussions of the inner heart-mind with the thought of Kongzi and Zhu Xi. Indeed, the life that is human—the moral life—is a manifestation of the inner heart-mind: “[T]he only mode of existence that is possible, is the one that entails the inner heart-mind” (Qian 2001: 49). In the context of memory, language, and emotions, the autonomy of humanity is explained in terms of the degree of independence of a person or a community vis-à-­ vis causality. To be sure, the argument in this case involves a differentiation between simple, material causality, on the one hand, and a more complex causality in which mental activities also intervene, on the other. Memory, language, and emotions as interdependent components of the context of humanity subscribe to the latter. Memory and language endow the person with their own internal substance, creating a dynamism that does not exclusively depend on the environment. In this sense, humans act independently of natural and material (i.e. the neutral, the inhuman) causality. Emotions represent the distinctively human, living and valuable fusion of internal dynamism with the external environment. Associated as it is with morality and autonomy, the function of the context made of memory, language, and emotions is to facilitate both personal and collective growth and expansion; that is, to transcend the limitations of body or matter. To the extent that the collective mind of humanity is the accumulated store of this context, the heart-mind of the self, which is small, short, narrow, and temporary, expands in  Qian argues that unlike morality, science, art, religion, and literature are conditioned, as the requirements of science, art, religion, and literature go beyond human relations. Art depends on matter, science depends on objective reason, and religion depends on God. When Qian speaks of religion dependent on God, he is thinking of monotheistic religion. See chapters twenty-one and twenty-two in Qian (2001). For a study of Qian’s criticism of monotheist religion see Isay (2010).

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time and in space far beyond the mortal body, beyond the individual self. As observed above, in his discussions of the thought of Kongzi and of Zhu Xi, Qian points to the capacity of the heart-mind—by the means of its moral virtues—to reconcile and to expand. In HSXSL, Qian compares this capacity to electricity that flows in space. The medium of speaking and recording, he observes, is comparable to the mechanism of turbines and cables by means of which electricity flows and disperses and can be widely utilized. Likewise, expanding in space and advancing in years, the heart-mind resides beyond the self’s body (Qian 2001: 4–9). Since the heart-mind is the context of human history, and given that it encompasses all there is, the heart-mind transcends material causality. It is the spiritual world (Qian 2001: 4–9). Associated with a spiritual quality as it is, the capacity to expand summons the person to join an advanced stage of human life. According to Qian, there are people whose life work benefits humanity and endures regardless of the death of their corporeal body.30 Part of them lives on, as memory, in the work they have done, or in who they were when alive. In some cases, the worth a person produces after their death surpasses their lifetime production. To explain the capacity of those mental remains to expand, Qian observes that the part that is shared in other living people’s minds cannot escape their applications, the missions they impose on it, and the transformations that occur in their minds. Those transformations and missions allot the life that is human with a spiritual or religious (shen 神) quality (Qian 2001: 109–112). This quality refers to the extra value created by the mnemonic expansion of the inner heart-mind’s positive and moral attributes in the collective’s life, an expansion that transcends space and time and epitomizes the most refined essence of humanity.31 The novelty of Qian’s idea of the spiritual and equally the religious is that it is not extraneous to the individual or the collective; it resides within persons and in their relationships. Comparison between the Chinese approach and the monotheistic belief in the spiritual indicates that both aim to link the living with transcendence. Yet at issue are two significantly different conceptions of transcendence. One is entirely within humanity; it depends on experience and is applicable in the world. The other, however, involves belief in an external factor as well. According to Qian, the Chinese conception corresponds to the first. The Chinese exalt the best part in the human framework, the quality that each person possesses, the wisdom that can be realized here and now. In this sense, the Chinese find the spiritual within humanity rather than beyond. …[The Chinese] imagine that man and the spiritual are one (renshen heyi 人神合一)…. When the sage (shengren 聖人) and the self (wo) are identified as one of the same kind, and

 Note the convergence with the discussion of Kongzi in section four above.  As Qian further observes, not only the positive remains; evil “mental remains” may too live on, and similarly be remembered and sometimes increase in the memory of future generations, though apparently such memories are limited. The ‘mental remains’ of those who acted wickedly and sowed destruction and calamity equally continue to exist, yet their extension and increase are limited to the negative level alone, a level that unmistakably does not invite the people’s support. These are bad spirits (gui 鬼) eventually bound to dissolve (Qian 2001: 109–110).

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[when] each person is regarded enlightened for just being a human being, this is actually the exaltation of wisdom (chongshengzhe 崇聖者)…. The exaltation of wisdom establishes a realizable goal…. Accordingly, when the Chinese sought the spiritual to be worshipped, they really apotheosize humanity itself. To the Chinese, both the spiritual and the immortal [person] are… still human! (Qian 2001: 74–77).

The key to the text of the HSXSL and generally to the thought of Qian Mu—the concern with the notion of balance—is further addressed within the framework of the conclusion that follows.

7  Conclusions The contribution of Qian Mu to contemporary New Confucianism is distinguished for exhorting both the affirmation of the Confucian tradition and the concern with the notion of balance. “Balanced Continuity” in the title of this essay communicates the mutual effect of these two ideas. When he started his intellectual journey in the second decade of the twentieth century, prevailing contemporary views were often radical in criticizing the Chinese past. Skepticism about the resourcefulness and the value of the Confucian tradition thrived. Qian’s affirmation of that tradition, a tradition grounded in the central value of filial piety, sent a clear message of confidence in Confucianism in the face of such challenges (Isay 2005). The notion of balance similarly displays a fundamental confidence in the original quality and the resourcefulness of the tradition. In prioritizing the notion of balance in his scholarship, Qian purposefully rationalizes the insistence on the excellence of the Confucian tradition as an inexorable act of self-affirmation. The notion of balance discussed in this essay is dynamic and open to interpretation. As synonymous with approaches such as avoiding factions (budang 不黨) and seeking similarity and convergence rather than difference and divergence, it should be seen in its role of countering radical tendencies. However, as an evaluative criterion, the balance qualification prompts Qian to distinguish Confucians from other currents of thought. Between utilitarian Mohists and leisured Daoists, Confucians occupy the middle position. In the context of the transmission of the Way, the criterion of balance supports Qian’s critical views of currents such as the New Text, the Lu-Wang learning of the heart-mind, Han Learning, and others. The same applies on a broader scale in his criticism of Buddhists and Westerners. Qian Mu’s Kongzi epitomizes the basic criterion for concern with balance.32 The point of departure of his philosophy of life posits the view of non-dichotomous oneness. To Qian, the highest summit of Confucian practice stemming logically from a non-dichotomous viewpoint is participation in the creative process of heaven and earth. Significantly, he affirms the attainability of that end. For that purpose, the distinct feature of the order that is human is grounded in the workings of the

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 Compare with chapter twenty-one, “Dissolving Delusions” (解蔽) in Xunzi.

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heart-­mind and its capacity to expand. Qian proposes for this purpose the reconciliatory virtue of the heart-mind. Typically, Qian denotes the heart-mind more broadly as process: the heart-mind of the Way or of culture and, likewise, the mode of reconciliation or, alternatively, “harmonious agreement,” applies on the personal, the social, and other levels. In such processes, the notion of balance features in Qian’s insistence that reconciliation entails avoiding radical approaches. Similarly, Chinese culture according to his Kongzi studies is distinguished for favoring agreement over clashes and separation. Qian’s Zhu Xi studies serve to explicate the way the affirmation of the Confucian tradition was internalized in his earlier analysis of Kongzi’s thought. The present essay raises two instances indicating the relevance of these studies to the contemporary intellectual scene of his time. Qian singles out Zhu Xi’s conformity with the path of the similar and the convergent as his major virtue. He then similarly associates the latter’s insistence on promoting self-conscious preservation of balance in all matters. The prominence assigned by Qian to the heart-mind in his studies of Kongzi’s thought recurs in his Zhu Xi—contrary to views of leading scholars before the publication of ZZXXA. The balance of the heart-mind is then explained in terms of phases of self-cultivation: the investigation of things and the attainment of the utmost knowledge. The basic requirement refers to the preservation of balance between efforts that concern both the internal and the external. The allusion to the construct of axis (zhong 中) and margins in chapter ten of the HSXSL further sheds light on the idea of balance that is prominent in his Kongzi and in Zhu Xi. There Qian highlights the idea of an axis passing through all human processes, thus underlining the concern with balance. In reference to the recurrence of phases in the processes in nature and in civilization—between peace and war, health and sickness, rest and work, as well as the movement of the calendar and the pendulum clock, the screw and the wheel—Qian postulates the constant axis that exists at the core of all differences and transformations. This axis prevents polarity and affirms non-dichotomous oneness: “…[T]he mover and the moved, internal and external, are inseparable from each other… [and] are [all of] one origin. Both are nothing but the same single motion, regardless of different terms that are used in their discussion” (Qian 2001: 43–47). Non-dichotomous oneness as a whole and, equally, each separate phenomenon, all have their axis, and that axis, according to Qian, is identifiable with the good (shan 善): The so-called constant among the differences and transformations, the ‘axis’ at the core of the never stopping and never ceasing changes, …warrants the definition of ‘goodness’. Goodness is nothing but the constant propensity at the axis of the motion of transformations and its volume. …evil is that which is at the margins (guozhi yu buji ‘過之’ 與‘不及’) (Qian 2001: 45).33

33

 Note the allusion to Analects 11.16.

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By implication, the right course along the axis consists of avoiding excess at either side. The notion and significance of balance can hardly be more directly communicated. The priority he assigns to the notion of balance situates Qian Mu’s writings on a privileged plane. Each of his works can be read as a discussion of a specific topic and stand on its own and, as such, the arguments within exhibit internal logic and meaning. In this regard, scholarly and academic progress, as seen in such feats as archaeological discoveries and, generally, new research accomplishments, turn his studies into objects of justified criticism. Qian’s scholarly enterprise does show occasional inadequacies, to say the least. However, the affirmation of the Confucian tradition and concern for balance, much as these are, too, not exempt from criticism, mark his scholarship as a whole with a quality that transcends various negative effects of time. As expressions of the effort to preserve and revitalize the Confucian tradition, augmented as these are, with the notion of balance, both as approach and as an overriding quality, they share a lasting value. Similarly, Qian Mu’s interpretation that identified Zhu Xi as the proper successor of the Confucian transmission is open to criticism. But regardless of the adequacy of his interpretation, it is notable that he called attention to the problem of balance in Chinese culture. Using the notion of balance as grounds for both Kongzi’s and Zhu Xi’s relevance to the discussion of culture in modern China, he established a direct link between the first master and his great Song successor, and himself, along the course of the Confucian transmission of the Way. An implicit consequence of Qian’s advocacy of non-factionalism and classification of Kongzi and Zhu Xi with the main line of Confucian transmission was to establish his own contribution in this chain.

References Bloom, Irene. 1985. “On the Matter of the Mind: The Metaphysical Basis of the Expanded Self.” In D. J. Munro, ed., Individualism and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 293–327. Ch’ien, Mu. (Qian Mu). 1986. “A Historical Perspective on Chu Hsi’s Learning.” In Richard Shek, trans., in Chan Wing-tsit, ed., Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 32–42. (Qian outlines the priority of the transmission of the tradition over the innovation of the new in the history of Chinese thought, and respectively associates Zhu Xi’s scholarship with the approach of always seeking the similar and the convergent.) Chow, Tse-tsung. 1960. “The Anti-Confucian Movement in Early Republican China.” In A. F. Wright, ed., The Confucian Persuasion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 288–312. Dennerline, Jerry. 1988. Qian Mu and the World of Seven Mansions. New Haven: Yale University Press. (A selective translation of Qian’s biographical reflections at the age of eighty (1983), a study of his scholarship and views of a changing China and the world, includes an interview with Qian.) Dewey, John. 1973. Lectures in China, 1919–1920. R. W. Clopton & T. Ou, eds., Honolulu: East-­ West Center, The University Press of Hawaii. Eber, Irene. 1993. “Kaifeng Jews Revisited: Sinification as Affirmation of Identity.” Monumenta Serica, 41, 231–247.

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Elman, Benjamin A. 1990. Classicism, Politics and Kinship: The Ch’ang-chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Han, Fuzhi 韓復智. 2005. A Chronological Record of Qian Mu’s Writings 錢穆先生學術年譜. Taipei: Wunan tushu chuban gongsi, 6 vols. (A chronological annotated selection of Qian’s writings, supported with the historical, national, and personal context.) Isay, Gad C. 2005. “Qian Mu and the Modern Transformation of Filial Piety.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 32.3, 441–454. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ j.1540-6253.2005.00203.x/abstract. (This article shows how Qian, in his HSXSL, applies the principle of the relations between roots and branches in his discussions of various themes such as one’s personal life, national history, modernity, environment, etc.) ———. 2009. “A Humanist Synthesis of Memory, Language, and Emotions: Qian Mu’s Interpretation of Confucian Philosophy.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 8.4, 425–437. Available at: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11712-009-9137-6. (A study of the ways Qian’s HSXSL discusses traditional Confucian concerns by appealing to the terms of memory, language, and emotions.) ———. 2010. “Qian Mu’s Criticism of Monotheism and Alienation in Modern Life.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy and Culture 6, 303–326. (An analysis in eleven comments illustrates and explains some of the deficiencies that pervade the monotheist and dichotomized mode of living outlined in Qian 2001.) ———. 2013a. The Philosophy of the View of Life in Modern Chinese Thought. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. (A study of the view of life controversy of 1923 within its intellectual context, with an emphasis on the ideas of the supporters of metaphysics.) ———. 2013b. “The Poet and the Historian: Rabnidranath Tagore and Qian Mu’s Criticism of the Modern Age.” In I. Theodor and Yao Zhihua, eds., Brahman and Dao. Lanham: Lexington Books, 263–276. (A comparative discussion of Rabindranath Tagore and Qian Mu’s shared humanist vision of a modern age that would de-center what they both recognized as a Western modernity.) ———. 2014. “To Regain Self-Affirmation: Qian Mu and his Exile Scholarship.” East Asian History 39, 103–116. Available at: http://eastasianhistory.net/39/isay. (A study of Qian’s writings after 1949, with a view of exploring his experience as a scholar in exile.) Makeham, John. 2003. New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mao, Tse-tung. 1969. “Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle.” In Selected Works of Mao Tse-­ tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 425–432. Nylan, Michael, 1999. “A Problematic Model: The Han ‘Orthodox Synthesis,’ Then and Now.” In Ng On-cho et al., eds., Imagining Boundaries Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics. Albany: State University of New York Press, 17–56. Qian Mu 錢穆 1918. An Analects Reader 論語文解. Han 2005 (I), 260–262. (Qian’s first book, a study of Kongzi’s Analects, was basically divided between illuminating the substance of the latter’s ideas and expanding the applications.) Qian, Mu. 1925. Essentials of the Analects 論語要略. Han 2005 (I): 284–306. Qian Mu. 1928. “A Brief Biography of Kongzi and an Evaluation of His Sayings and Learning” 孔 子略史及其學說之地位. Han 2005 (I), 360–362. (One of Qian’s earliest accounts of Kongzi and his teaching.) ———. 1930. A Chronological Record of Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, Father and Son 劉向歆父子 年譜. Han 2005 (I), 372–404. (A historical and philological study of the transmission of the Confucian tradition during the Han period.) ———. 1931a. “Criticizing Gu Jiegang’s ‘Politics and History of the Beginnings and Ends of the Five Virtues’” 評顧頡剛五德终始說下的政治和歴史. Han 2005 (II), 694–707. (A critical review of Gu’s study which, according to Qian, is over-critical.) ———. 1931b. A Survey of National Studies 國學概論. Han 2005 (II), 707–760. (An account of Chinese learning and thought as an independent historical development.)

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———. 1933. “Confucian Scholars’ Discussions of the Goodness of Human Nature and their Method for its Realization” 儒家之性善論與其盡性主義. Han 2005 (II), 923–931. (A discussion of the classical period of Confucian thought as a representation of the main current of the culture of the Chinese people.) ———. 1939. “Transition and Rupture” 過渡與開創. Han 2005 (III), 1223–1225. (Alternatively, “Measured growth and break-through.” An essay in the style of the later HSXSL chapters that considers the understanding of change in history.) ———. 1943. “Kongzi and the Teaching of the Heart-Mind” 孔子與心教. Han 2005 (III), 1560–1566. (A comparative discussion of the Confucian view of life.) ———. 1944. “Cosmological Discussions in the Book of Changes and in the Xiao Dai Liji” 易傳 與小戴禮記中之宇宙論. Han 2005 (III), 1634–1643. (This essay highlights the prevalence of cosmological discussions in the scholarly tradition of China.) ———. 1954. “Cheng-Zhu and Kong-Meng” 程朱與孔孟. Han 2005 (IV), 2221–2224. (Qian’s lecture shows the continuity between the early masters and their Song period followers, designating both as the main line of the transmission of the Confucian Way.) ———. 1971. A New Anthology and Critical Accounts of Master Zhu 朱子新學案. Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 5 vols. Han 2005 (V), 2769–2842. (A comprehensive study with extensive quotes of the various aspects of Zhu Xi’s scholarship.) ———. 1974. A Biography of Kongzi 孔子傳. Han 2005 (VI), 2947–2982. (A chronological account of Kongzi’s life in historical context.) ———. 1979. Exploring the Chinese National Character and Culture from the Point of View of its History 從中國歷史來看中國民族性及中國文化. Han 2005 (VI), 3132–3156. (The Chinese people need to adapt to the passage of time and yet remain authentically Chinese.) ———. 1980. “The Philosophy of Life of the Chinese” 中國人生哲學. Han 2005 (VI), 3166–3178. (A comparative discussion of the nature and distinction of the Chinese culture.) ———. 1983. Reminiscences of My Parents at the Age of Eighty; Miscellaneous Reminiscences of Teachers and Friends, Abridged Edition 八十憶雙親; 師友雜憶, 合刊. Taipei: Dongda tushu gongsi. (Qian Mu’s autobiographical account, late in his life, on his life since early childhood, his family, teachers, and friends.) ———. 1987. The Blind Man Communicates His Late Learning 晚學盲言. Taipei: Lantai chubanshe, 2 vols. (A collection of short essays on the Chinese world of ideas, divided into the disciplines of cosmology and nature, politics and society, and the aspects of personal and moral cultivation.) ———. 1988. “An interview at the age of 93” 九十三嵗答某雜誌問. Han 2005 (VI), 3363–3374. (Qian celebrates his lifelong dedication to Confucian learning.) ———. 1995a. Chinese Scholarship in the Recent 300 Years 中國近三百年學術史. Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 2 vols. (A historical narrative of Qing learning as a continuous evolution of the Song and Ming traditions.) ———. 1995b. Extended Synopsis of National History 國史大綱. Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2 vols. (A history of Chinese civilization with an emphasis on national tradition and values.) ———. 2000. “Discussing Chinese Philosophy” 略論中國哲學. Evaluative Studies of Chinese Scholarship 現代中國學術論衡. Taipei: Sushulou wenjiao jijinhui, Vol. I, 22–29. (This essay highlights the value of Chinese philosophy by discussing it in its own terms.) ———. 2001. Quiet Thoughts at the Lake 湖上閒思錄. Taipei: Lantai chubanshe. (Thirty short “meditative” chapters on various aspects of human life in general and Chinese culture, viewed in a comparative perspective. Authored in the autumn of 1948 and first published in book form in 1962.) Soffel, Christian. 2013. “Chinese Spirit and Tradition; The Political System for Post-War China Envisioned by Qian Mu (1895–1990).” Monumenta Serica 61, 113–138. (A critical study of Qian’s opinions on political issues, written mostly during the 1940s.)

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Solomon, R. C. 1995. “The Cross-Cultural Comparison of Emotion.” In Joel Marks and Roger T. Ames, eds., Emotions in Asian Thought: A Dialogue in Comparative Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 253–308. Tu, Wei-ming. 1974. “Reconstituting the Confucian Tradition (Review of Chu-tzu hsin hsüeh-an, by Ch’ien Mu.” The Journal of Asian Studies 33.3, 441–454. (A review of Qian’s comprehensive study of Zhu Xi’s A New Anthology and Critical Accounts of Master Zhu (1971).) Vickers, E. 2003. “Colonialism and the Politics of “Chinese History” in Hong Kong’s Schools.” Oxford Review of Education, 29 (1), 95–111. Yu Yingshi 余英時. 1991. “Qian Mu and the Contemporary New Confucians” 錢穆與新儒家. Like Recording the Wind Blowing the Water on the Unicorn: Qian Mu and Modern Chinese Scholarship 猶記風吹水上鱗:錢穆與現代中國學術). Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 31–98. (The author discusses the unique status of his teacher, Qian Mu, among other New Confucian scholars in the twentieth century.) Yu, Ying-shih. 2007. “Clio’s New Cultural Turn and the Rediscovery of Tradition in Asia.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 6 (1), 39–51. Available at: http://link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s11712-007-9002-4.

Xu Fuguan: Realizing the Human Spirit David Elstein

1  Introduction Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, originally named Bingchang 秉常and styled Foguan 佛觀,1 was born to a peasant family in Hubei in 1903. As a youth he attended Wuchang First Normal School and Wuchang Academy of Chinese Studies, showing a talent for scholarship. After graduating he had difficulty making a living and so in 1926 he joined the Nationalist (GMD) Army. Around this time, Xu had his first contact with modern political work: first the writings of Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), then Marxism and other economics and philosophy. By the time he went to Japan to study at a military academy in 1930, he had lost interest in reading anything else, particularly the Chinese literature he had grown up with. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931, he returned to China and continued advancing through the ranks during the War of Resistance against Japan, working his way up to the rank of general. In 1942 the Nationalist command sent Xu to Yan’an to liaison with the CCP army there as part of the United Front to resist Japan and he stayed there for some months. Xu thereafter became something of the GMD expert on the CCP. After leaving Yan’an, Xu went to Chongqing, the temporary capital during the war. There he had two meetings that impacted the rest of his life. He met Xiong Shili in person for the first time, and reported that Xiong’s severe scolding of his shallow method of reading completely changed his attitude toward scholarly pursuits and reversed over 15 years of disdain for “thread-bound [i.e. traditional] books” (Xu 1980b: 65). His meetings with Xiong renewed his desire to leave the army and

 At Xiong Shili’s suggestion, he changed his style from Foguan to Fuguan and thereafter used that name in his writings. 1

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return to serious scholarship. It was Xiong who suggested changing his name from Foguan 佛觀 to Fuguan 復觀. Xu was also invited to meet with Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to give his opinions on the CCP. Xu thus had personal acquaintance with both Jiang and Mao Zedong. Jiang was impressed with Xu and after World War II ended and the Chinese government moved back to Nanjing, Xu accompanied Jiang and advised him on how to rebuild the country and win more popular support. However, by 1948 it was clear to Xu that the GMD situation was hopeless and he wanted to be done with politics, though he remained on good terms with Jiang. He officially retired from the army, remaining a member of the GMD party, and in 1949 left China for good. After spending some time in Hong Kong working in intelligence gathering for the GMD, he gave up on political and military work, wanting to return to scholarship. He began teaching at Donghai University in Taizhong, Taiwan, eventually becoming a full-time instructor. Xiong Shili had elected to remain in China after the CCP revolution; however, Xu maintained close relationships with two other disciples of Xiong: Tang Junyi in Hong Kong and Mou Zongsan in Taiwan,2 as the three of them shared a perspective on the significance of Confucianism and opposed the repressive governments in China and Taiwan. Frustrated with the lack of progress toward political reform, he left the GMD. During this time, Xu published the journal Democratic Review, subsidized by Jiang Jieshi even though Xu was an outspoken critic of many policies of the government and strongly favored more democracy in print. As a result of his criticisms, he was eventually forced out of his position at Donghai University, at which point he returned to Hong Kong for several years. After being diagnosed with cancer, Xu passed away in 1982 in Taiwan.3 Xu’s scholarship was extensive and diverse, ranging over the course of Chinese intellectual history to aesthetics and literature. Rather than attempting a comprehensive survey of his scholarly achievements, I have opted to focus on two specific related areas which represent two of his main concerns: the nature of Confucian morality, chiefly represented in his major work A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature, and his defense of democracy from the Confucian viewpoint.4 First, however, we begin with an examination of his approach to thought and his defense of the humanities.

 See their respective chapters in this volume.  In addition to Xu’s own writings, some of the material for the above sketch of Xu’s life was provided by his son Hsü Woo-chun (Xu Wujun), for which I am very grateful. 4  For his aesthetic views, see the chapter “In Defense of Chinese Sensibility: Confucian Aesthetics in the 20th Century”. 2 3

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2  Xu’s Approach to Thought Xu most often referred to his work as intellectual history, yet he was at heart interested in making a case for the continued relevance of Chinese culture. He said himself that he was incapable of pure, disinterested academic research and always wrote something related to the times (Xu 1985, xii). The overarching concerns that animate his considerable body of work are to defend the practical significance of humanistic scholarship, to go beyond overly narrow and scientific methods of research, and to articulate a resolutely humanistic and moral account of the development of Chinese thought that gave importance to personal dignity and the moral subject. He therefore opposed both what he identified as an excessively narrow and empirical approach to intellectual history, and attempts to turn Confucianism into a philosophical theory (hence he had some disagreements with Tang and especially Mou). Xu’s criticism of what he believes to be misguided approaches to intellectual history stems from his views on the purpose of scholarship. It is not merely pursuit of knowledge; it should have an influence on one’s moral character. This is an important factor in evaluating a scholar: “A person’s value as a scholar should not merely be determined by his research achievements. It should also be determined by his sincerity in learning and by his character” (Xu 1990: preface, 6). He singled out Fu Sinian, at the time head of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, for forbidding research on moral values (Xu 1980b: 46). He was very critical of research that focuses entirely on recovering meanings of terms, since they did not consider changes in meaning over time and the context in which words are used (Xu 1990: 1–2). In other work he pointed to Qian Mu as another example of not appreciating Confucian scholarly ideals. He had no objection to science and indeed thought pursuit of scientific knowledge is important and valuable. What he opposed, along with other New Confucians, was the scientism that reduced all knowledge to scientific knowledge (Kwok 1965). If science could not confirm the existence of morality, then so much the worse for science. It was not a reason to call morality into question (Xu 1988b: 243). He felt the problem with Western civilization (not that he had a deep acquaintance with it) was that it was excessively scientific. In the scientific view human beings become merely physical creatures with physical desires. The spiritual and moral dimension is lost, along with the dignity of a human being. This is why humanistic research is absolutely necessary: only this can preserve the value of the human spirit and show that there is more than mere physical existence (Xu 1988a: 88–90). The kind of scholarship pursued by Fu Sinian, Hu Shi, and others taught the denial of the spirit and human dignity. At the same time, Chinese thought is not a system of metaphysics and Xu believed it was entirely misguided to apply the categories of Western metaphysics. One must take this with a note of caution, since as will become clear, Xu is not an empiricist. His main concern is two-fold. First, he believes cosmology should be left to science, not philosophy. Confucianism is fundamentally a form of thought

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concerned with the moral spirit, not explaining physical phenomena (Xu 1988a: 84). And so he did not think much of the cosmological thought of Han dynasty Confucians such as Dong Zhongshu, which integrated Five Phases thought (Xu 1976: 2:357–359). Even the “Great Appendix” of the Yijing, a particularly important source of inspiration for Song dynasty Confucians, ultimately was a wrong turning in Confucian thought according to Xu, since it focused too much on yin and yang as concrete elements (Xu 1990: 199–222). His other concern is about developing Confucianism into a metaphysical system of the type inspired by Western philosophy. Hence he rejected the metaphysical orientation of Xiong Shili, Mou Zongsan, and Tang Junyi (C.  Huang 1995: 153–154). While there is a transcendent aspect to Confucian thought, it is not a transcendence of the type in Western religion, which divides the realm of humanity and the realm of the transcendent creator. In this latter aspect, Xu would agree with David Hall and Roger Ames (Hall and Ames 1987: 12–21), though Xu would reject their claim that there is no transcendence at all in Confucian thought. Confucian thought is definitely not a metaphysical system in the mold of Hegel, which distinguishes Spirit and its realization (Xu 1985: 450–452). This is likely directed to Tang Junyi, who drew inspiration from Hegel.5 Although Xu did not single out Mou Zongsan specifically, it seems that his criticisms of metaphysics also apply to Mou’s construction of a two-level ontology inspired by Kantian thought. Ultimately, for Xu Confucianism is fundamentally a kind of practice based on cultivating the self and realizing the moral nature. This requires a process of moral cultivation (gongfu 工夫) (Ni 2002: 289–290). This is Xu’s definition of gongfu: “[It is work] that takes the self, especially the inner spirit, as its object for achieving a particular kind of goal. In the theory of human nature, the work of the inner spirit to realize the hidden potential of the origin of life and make manifest the source of morality—only that can be called gongfu” (Xu 1990: 460). This is what Confucian thought is about: not constructing a theory, but about practice and realizing morality (Jiang 2006: 5; Xu 1990: 205). Thus, Xu distinguishes Chinese thought from Greek philosophy—indeed from almost all Western philosophy. The goal is not merely understanding, but understanding that manifests in action (Xu 1988a: 82–83). This speaks to his criticisms of purely academic intellectual history. It simply produces knowledge, not a moral realization. It is not a practice that applies to life. This is true of philosophical theorizing as well.

2.1  The Humanistic Spirit East Asian religiosity is perhaps no longer controversial. Buddhism and Daoism are invariably included in textbooks on world religions. The status of Confucianism is more ambiguous. Often included in textbooks and anthologies, it is frequently

 See the chapter “Beyond the Horizon: Late Work of tang Junyi” for more details.

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accompanied by questions: is it ethics or religion? This question of course has a great deal to do with what “religion” means and what the consequences of including or excluding Confucianism are (Sun 2015). Confucians in Asia have generally differed from Western scholars on this question; the ritual elements of Confucianism are not often studied. Liang Shuming, a very influential twentieth-century Chinese intellectual, believed that Confucianism is a religion but an imperfect one compared to Buddhism (Liang and Alitto 2010; Meynard 2011).6 Xu, in contrast, worked to minimize the religious aspects of Confucian thought. Instead he tells a story of progression from reliance on external, supernatural forces to recognition of the locus of control within human beings. This is what he means by Chinese thought (Confucianism in particular) being humanistic. In one of his best-known works, A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature, Xu traces the evolution of views about heaven and human nature from the Shang Dynasty to the Western Zhou and into the Warring States. This is a progressive evolution culminating in the mature theories of Warring States Confucianism, specifically Mengzi, Zhongyong, and Daxue. Shang oracle bone divination, for example, placed the source of human action in the ancestral spirits and the high god Di. Performing divination to know their will was a way of denying the importance of human decisions. This is what Xu identifies as the religious mindset. All cultures start with religion, but he considers it an advance to go beyond this primitive way of thinking (Xu 1990: 15). Here we see why Xu had such a different assessment of religion than Liang Shuming. For Liang, religion (paradigmatically Buddhism) was a way of understanding oneself though practice (Meynard 2011: 84). Xu thinks of religion as not only involving a god or gods, but transferring responsibility for human actions to those spirits. Although Kongzi, for example, did not deny the existence of spirits, their will does not define moral action. Confucianism in Xu’s understanding locates responsibility for choice within the self, and thus is not religious. Essentially, Xu identifies “religion” as akin to divine command theories of morality. When we understand his particular concept of religion, we are better equipped to appreciate why he wants to insist Chinese thought developed beyond religion. A divine command approach is not true morality at all, since it is an escape from taking responsibility for one’s own actions. Han Confucian thought, which turned back to Heaven as a source of moral authority, was thus a step away from autonomy and true morality (Xu 1976: 2:359). In Xu’s view, choice is an inescapable reality. Although he did not use Sartre’s term as far as I know, he thinks of the religious mindset as a kind of bad faith in that it attempts to avoid the fact of choice and responsibility. Such a way of thinking makes moral value impossible. One of the signal advances of Confucian thought in the early period was what Xu called “concern consciousness,” a term which became widely used in Chinese intellectual circles (Davies 2007). Many consider it Xu’s signal contribution to Chinese thought (Fung 1987: 24–25; Z.  Mou 1963: 13). As Xu explains, concern

 See also chapter “Liang Shuming and his Syncretic Confucianism”.

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consciousness is the realization that good and bad consequences follow from one’s choices and one’s actions, and the subsequent sense of responsibility (Xu 1990: 21). It means relying on one’s own efforts to overcome obstacles (Ni 2002: 282–284). Concern consciousness is the converse of religious consciousness. This is what Xu means by the humanistic spirit: humanity’s relying on their own devices and taking responsibility for their choices and the consequences thereof. This is what makes morality possible, and so morality can only exist in a culture that has gone beyond religion (Xu 1990: 37). Xu appears to assume implicitly Kant’s claim that morality must be autonomous. Freedom of the will makes morality possible (Xu 1980b: 199). The connection of moral responsibility to choice is very reminiscent of Kant, who was a major source of influence on New Confucians and whom Xu praised highly (Xu 1988a: 332). Choice and responsibility are key moral concepts for Xu; however, he is absolutely not a Sartrean or a Kantian. There are objective norms that ground correct choices, and he is more concerned with moral cultivation (gongfu) than moral principles. Morality is grounded on an account of human nature that originated with Kongzi, was developed by Mengzi and in the Zhongyong, and finally synthesized in the Daxue.

3  The Concept of Human Nature Xiong Shili’s students, including Xu, identified with the Mengzian line of Confucian thought. His particular take on the theory that human nature is good forms the core of his ethical and political thought; indeed, it could be termed the foundation of his philosophy. Examining his theory of human nature also takes us into some of the more challenging areas of his thought, particularly in moral epistemology. In Xu’s analysis of Chinese thought, the concept of human nature (renxing 人性) itself evolved (one reason he thinks the focus on lexicography is too limiting). It started as a term for describing the desires and abilities people have innately; instincts, as an approximation (Xu 1990: 6). As it developed, however, the human part came to be highlighted. As he describes, in Mengzi we find two distinct conceptions of human nature. The earlier one is Gaozi’s: human nature is essentially the instincts or fundamental desires, such as food and sex, that any animal has (Xu 1990: 187; Mengzi 6A3, 6A4). The other conception is Mengzi’s, where human nature is what distinguishes human beings from other animals; human beings can control their desires and have the capacity for self-mastery (Xu 1990: 161, 165–166). This is how he interprets Mengzi 7B24 on the distinction between nature (xing 性) and destiny (ming 命) and 4B21 on the difference between human beings and animals. Xu’s view of morality as requiring autonomy is evident in how he interprets these passages. In Kongzi as well he sees a development from heteronomous to autonomous morality (Xu 1982: 386–388). Moral action is something qualitatively different than acting on desires. Properly understood, the mature conception of human nature represented in the Four Books is transcendental rather than empirical. It is not a matter of inventorying

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the desires and motivations people actually have. Human nature is a universal and objective reality, which can only be known transcendentally (Xu 1988a: 205; 1990: 65, 86). Again, the impact of Kantian philosophy is clear: an empirical investigation cannot uncover universal truths, nor could it confirm that autonomous action is a reality.

3.1  Moral Action and Desires The mainstream of Confucianism, represented by Kongzi and Mengzi, held that human nature is good. This is of course not a claim about what people in fact do, which could be falsified easily enough. It is rather a claim about a universal capacity for moral action, the ability to make moral distinctions and judgments that is the true self. Specifically, it is the moral capacity of the heart-mind, the four fundamental moral feelings that Mengzi identified: benevolence, rightness, ritual propriety, and wisdom (Xu 1990: 163, 284). The presence of these is what constitutes moral agency and makes human beings different than animals. The question of the value of fulfilling desires has long been a controversy in Confucian thought. Influenced by Buddhism, Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty tended to reject selfish desires, which they saw as the source of immorality.7 Later on, the Qing dynasty Confucian Dai Zhen argued that moral judgments are based on desires, and realizing that other people have similar or identical desires. Mengzi himself spoke of reducing desires, but not eliminating them entirely (Mengzi 7B35). Xu’s position on desires is a little ambiguous. On the one hand, he does take the Neo-Confucian position on the need to overcome selfish desires and the cravings produced by physical existence (Xu 1990: 95). Elsewhere, he seems aware of how the demand to overcome desires could be misused and says that to follow human nature “is not in fact to negate physiological desires entirely, but to subordinate desires to human nature” (Xu 1990: 124). This actually fits better with Mengzi, who also did not entirely reject desires. Desires simply cannot be the source of moral action. Xu does not use the language of autonomy (zilü 自律) as such—though he does talk about self-mastery (zizhu 自主)—but it is clear that he distinguishes two categories of motives. There are the physiological desires associated with the body, which he terms outer, and there are the responses of the heart-mind, which he terms inner. Inner mental life is crucial for moral agency: the mental states of the self are distinct from his actions (Xu 1990: 69). In this respect Xu differs profoundly from some notable Western interpreters, who deny that concepts like choice, intention, responsibility—inner mentality in general—are relevant to understanding Confucian thought, instead characterizing it as social and performative (Ames 1991; Fingarette

7  One has to be precise about what they meant by “selfish”: they did not reject all desires. See (Angle and Tiwald 2017: 97–98)

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1972; Rosemont 1988). These responses of the heart-mind are the four moral feelings, which are not affects in the usual sense of the word. In Mengzi’s paradigm case of seeing a child about to fall into a well, the feeling of alarm and compassion is not a response of the desires, but the direct manifesting of the heart (Xu 1990: 172). Although Xu has a Kantian-inspired distinction between self-motivated action and action based on desire, moral judgment is not a strictly rational process as it is for Kant. Moral awareness is not due to reason, nor is it based on desires. The responses of the heart-mind are something entirely distinct.

3.2  The Heart-Mind, Knowledge, and Moral Awareness Xu distinguishes the moral nature and the cognitive nature of the heart-mind. The moral nature (dexing 德性) is constituted by the four basic moral responses. Fully developing the heart-mind (jinxin 盡心) means to extend the moral responses and overcome selfishness (Xu 1990: 181–183). The basic moral problem is not the mere existence of desires (he recognizes that desires are legitimate to some extent), but the act of separating oneself from the rest of the world and giving excessive weight to one’s own desires and interests, so that one becomes willing to sacrifice others’ for one’s own fulfillment. The solution is to realize fully one’s nature; that is, to extend the moral responses to the point where they become unlimited (Xu 1990: 180). The cognitive nature (zhixing 知性) of the heart-mind is important, but it belongs to a fundamentally distinct category and cannot generate moral responses. The cognitive nature generates knowledge of the external world, but accumulating such facts cannot by itself elicit a moral response (Xu 1990: 240). He does endorse a separation of fact and value. While Xu remains a realist about value, he agrees that values are a different sort of thing than facts about the world. Which is not to say that knowledge is not important or should be neglected. Around the time Xu was writing A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature, debates about science and Confucianism had been re-ignited in Taiwan, now centering around the question of whether Confucian philosophy was a kind of “pan-­ moralism.” The term “pan-moralism” was coined by the Taiwanese liberal philosopher Zhang Foquan in his important book Freedom and Human Rights (Zhang 1993 [1955]). As Zhang and other liberals used the term, it meant to subordinate all other endeavors and values to morality, which became the standard to evaluate everything. They argued that this is why Confucianism obstructed the development of science, because it did not recognize the value of seeking knowledge for its own sake, apart from a moral purpose. Xu does not use the term “pan-moralism” in A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature or his other works as far as I have found. However, there can be little doubt that he knew of this criticism. Zhang Foquan was Xu’s colleague at Donghai University when he wrote the first edition of Freedom and Human Rights and Xu was close friends with the liberal philosopher Yin Haiguang, who developed this criticism extensively in The Future of Chinese Culture (Yin 2009 [1965]) published

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two years after Xu’s book. Xu’s defense of the value of the cognitive nature of the heart-mind seems designed to address this criticism. Knowledge plays two critical roles in Xu’s thought. The first is to “clarify the object of morality”; the second is to “provide rational means for [realizing] morality” (Xu 1990, 287). The second role is essentially the function of instrumental reason described by Hume and Weber. Greater knowledge of the world means a better chance of selecting the right means that will lead to successful action and not violating one’s good intentions inadvertently. The first function is a little murkier as Xu does not give a clear example of what clarifying the object means. An illustration might be Mengzi 1A7, where King Xuan is benevolent to the ox that he saves from being sacrificed, but not benevolent to his people. As Mengzi describes it, the king’s benevolence is misplaced: he is concerned about the ox’s suffering but not about his people’s. It is not that he used the wrong means to save the ox—which did not get slaughtered after all—but that he is mistaken about the proper object for his benevolent feelings. Knowledge can rectify this type of misconception. This particular defense of knowledge would probably not satisfy the liberals. Xu in fact seems to endorse pan-moralism as the role of knowledge is still to lead to greater success in realizing moral intentions. He admits that knowledge that does not in the end relate to the moral concerns of the self, the family, the state, or the world was considered useless knowledge from the traditional Confucian perspective (Xu 1990: 289). However, he goes on to analyze Zhu Xi’s and Wang Yangming’s interpretations of extending knowledge (zhizhi 致知) and eventually comes to a much different conclusion. He endorses Zhu’s widening the scope of what is considered important knowledge to include the patterns of things (wuli 物理).8 Zhu went beyond the limits of the Daxue and opened the door to science (Xu 1990: 298–299). Unfortunately, Xu does not explain why scientific investigation did not continue to develop after Zhu Xi. He takes Wang Yangming to task even more for neglecting the importance of knowledge. Wang focused too much on moral knowledge specifically, the pattern of human nature (xingli 性理), and as a result denigrated the pursuit of more general knowledge of nature and affairs (wuli 物理, shili 事理) (Xu 1990: 304). This was a mistake. Effort should be made to pursue all knowledge (Xu 1988a: 82–83). Huang Yong has argued that even if knowledge of the world is subordinated to moral knowledge in Wang’s thought, since one can never know in advance which facts will be important for moral action there is still reason to investigate everything (Y. Huang 2006: 395–396). Perhaps so, but it still suggests putting a greater priority on research that promises to be immediately practical. Basic scientific research should have less value when the moral payoff is uncertain. Xu seems to believe scientific understanding for its own sake ought to be pursued. In this respect Xu thinks Zhu Xi got it right, though unfortunately the scientific spirit Zhu advocated degenerated.

8  Wuli came to be the translation for “physics” but could also refer to study of nature in general (S. Liu 2003: 100), which is probably what Xu meant.

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As the above implies, Xu sees a significant difference between moral awareness and ordinary cognition. This originates in his views on the importance of motivation and autonomy. If moral knowledge were like knowledge of facts, it would be learning something external to oneself and not realizing one’s own moral subjectivity. This results in Gaozi’s and Xunzi’s positions, where morality has to be imposed from without rather than developed from within the self. Xu has two main objections to such a theory about the source of moral values. First, without some existing motivating force, learning facts about the world does nothing to generate action. Even if one is taught what is good, without caring about the good it will not lead to action. For action to be possible at all, there have to be some inherently existing motives (Xu 1990: 195). The more practical concern, however, is probably more significant. That is that if morality has to be learned, the subject is placed in a passive position and has to be acted on by external forces. From here it is a short step to conclude that the coercive power of the government is necessary to develop moral values (Xu 1988a: 151–155). This would license the activities of the CCP and GMD, which Xu vehemently opposed.

3.3  Epistemology of Human Nature The way Xu distinguishes moral awareness and cognitive knowledge and the emphasis on the inner spiritual domain of morality raises a number of questions about how one comes to know human nature, questions common to New Confucian philosophy. The way Xu distinguishes the two functions of the heart-mind seemingly makes it impossible to demonstrate the reality of the moral responses in anything approaching a scientific way. Since knowledge is of the external world and the moral responses belong to the inner world, anything that can be the object of cognitive knowledge must be external and thus not the true moral responses of the inner self. The empirical approach, as he calls Xunzi’s examination of what people actually do, cannot reveal the inner self (Xu 1990: 224). And yet Xu must offer some reason to believe that the moral responses are real and human nature is good. One reason he gives as evidence that human nature is good is that people have a universal preference for virtue. Note, however, that this is not a naïve claim about what people actually do or even about what they claim they would do in a hypothetical or counterfactual situation. Once desires are involved then self-interest enters into the picture and we no longer have the fundamental nature in its pure form. Xu instead looks at what people prefer in others, especially in rulers. This is what makes the Confucian ideal of rule by virtue possible: the fact that people respond to the virtue of rulers and prefer benevolent rule (Xu 1988a: 109). The suggestion is that we can avoid the complications of self-interest better by looking not at what people do or what they want to do, but what they expect and want from other people. This is a point that generalizes far beyond political preferences. Thieves still value and protect their own property. Formulated in a general moral guideline in the Analects, it became, “Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire” (Analects

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15.24). Although there are questions about how to apply this as a general principle (B. Mou 2004), it provides significant evidence for Xu. Having moral expectations of others indicates a belief that they can live up to them. It attributes the possibility of moral action to people generally (Elstein 2014: 209–210). Even when not articulated as a theoretical belief, it is implicit in the way people act most of the time. The natural objection to this is that it falls far short of proof that everyone is capable of moral responses. I believe Xu must concede this. The way he distinguishes recognition of moral values from facts means he has to recognize that the goodness of human nature cannot be proved in the sense of demonstrated to be a fact. In this respect I believe Xu differs from Mou Zongsan, who criticized Kant for leaving the free will (the foundation of the possibility of morality) as a postulate. This eventually led Mou to his concept of intellectual intuition to confirm the free will.9 Xu, however, avoids this approach. As I understand Xu, the goodness of human nature is not the sort of claim that can be a fact, but that does not mean it is simply a fanciful wish or groundless assumption, either. Xu’s other main method for illustrating the reality of human nature is what he calls “embodied recognition” (tiren 體認). This is the direct awareness of the responses of the heart-mind to relevant phenomena (Xu 1988b: 243), much like Wang Yangming’s innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知).10 When one sees a child about to fall into a well, one has a response of alarm and compassion (Mengzi 2A6). This is a pre-theoretical, pre-reflective response to the suffering of an innocent (H. Liu 2001: 68). We do not understand how it happens, but the feeling cannot be denied (Xu 1990: 125). Xu refers to this as an internal experience (neizai jingyan 內 在經驗) (Xu 1988b: 245). Although elicited by some external phenomenon (such as witnessing the child), the moral response is located within the self—within the heart-mind—and not in the phenomenon. Xu refers to morality as supra-empirical (chao jingyan 超經驗), but this characterization can be misleading. It is true that moral facts cannot be uncovered by investigation of the external world. The moral spirit is not part of the objective world and cannot be validated by external experience. However, Xu resolutely denies that Confucian is a form of idealism, or that the heart-mind is something that transcends the physiology of the body (Ni 2002: 286–287). For this reason, Xu refers to his view as “embodied” (xing er zhong xue 形而中學) rather than metaphysical (xing er shang xue 形而上學) (Xu 1988b: 243; 1990: 84–85). Recognizing the response within oneself, including physical and emotional reactions, is crucial to validating the moral heart-mind. It is all that we have. For Xu, it is a category mistake to think that there could be anything like scientific evidence for morality. This would be to turn morality into something external. The result is likely to be moral relativism or skepticism, or at best something like Xunzi’s view where morality has to be imposed from without. If psychology cannot confirm the existence of a soul (by which he means the moral heart-mind), then that

 See the chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”.  Xu’s term tiren was used by Xiong Shili, who drew it from Wang’s thought (Gao 2001).

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is a failing in psychology (Xu 1988b: 243). The feelings are still experienced and their reality cannot be denied.

3.4  The Importance of Practice As the previous section indicated, the goodness of human nature is a personal realization. It is not a theory to be proved. And so Xu constantly emphasizes the importance of practice. Moral values “take root in concrete human life.” One must live in the real world (xianshi shijie 現實世界) (Xu 1988b: 249). This may be in part directed against Buddhists and their practice of withdrawal from society. However, it also is a caution about turning Confucianism into a form of academic philosophy. Although he makes much of Kongzi’s discovery of the inner world of the person, he also emphasizes that this is not mere theoretical knowledge as in Plato or Hegel, nor a kind of religious escape. It must be realized in the real world (Xu 1990: 70). Xu always remained focused on action. The significance of practice is further illustrated by Xu’s views on virtue and becoming a sage. He thinks of virtue as a practice not only in the sense that it must be manifested in action, but also in the way that a field like medicine is a practice. It is something that one can continuously refine and improve. In Xu’s description of benevolence (ren 仁), for example, it is evident that he understands it in a way that always leaves room for improvement: “On the one hand, it is to make unlimited demands with regard to the establishment and understanding of one’s character, and on the other hand, to feel unconditionally that one has unlimited responsibilities to fulfill with regard to others” (Xu 1990: 91). Unlike Song Neo-Confucians, who usually believed a state of perfection was attainable, the unlimited nature of the demands of benevolence illustrates that Xu thinks one can always do more. He has an aspirational understanding of benevolence. In his discussions of morality in general, the same need for unceasing effort comes out. The mean, for example, requires “unending effort and unending advancement” (Xu 1990: 120). He quotes Mengzi: “The gentleman has a concern to the end of his life” (Mengzi 4B28) and explains, “Without concern there is no benevolence, and one cannot truly understand the spirit of benevolence” (Xu 1990: 184). For one who feels responsible for the whole world, there is always more one can do.11 The moral person is constantly engaged with the real world, trying to improve things.

11

 On the possibility and desirability of this kind of sagehood, see (Angle 2009: 23–29).

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4  Political Thought12 Xu’s political thought developed out of his philosophy of human nature and the essence of the person as a moral subject. He believes politics has a moral mission: it is not simply to provide material needs. And so he is critical of liberal philosophy for neglecting the importance of the moral self and like other New Confucians, believes ethics and politics must be connected. However, he was very concerned about the possibility of political oppression. The need for morality to be autonomous is an argument for the self-defeating nature of political attempts to enforce moral values. He makes a case that democracy provides the best environment for realizing moral subjectivity.

4.1  Xu’s Analysis of Confucianism Like other New Confucians, Xu makes two significant claims in regard to the relationship between Confucianism and democracy: first, classical Confucianism had democratic ideals, and second, due to certain historical factors, these ideals were not realized in practice. The turn to an authoritarian ruler-subject relationship he attributes to Dong Zhongshu in the Han dynasty (Xu 1976: 2:292–293). It is alien to classical Confucianism. Democracy is a natural development of Confucian ideals and it is crucial to the future of Chinese culture to find these ideals in Confucianism. There can be no Chinese culture without Confucianism (Xu 1980a: 279). According to Xu, the highest value in Confucianism and the ultimate source of its democratic ideals is life (sheng 生). Valuing life above all is the true spirit of humanism, and it must come before all other political ideals (Xu 1985: 170–171). Xu means a biological notion of life primarily, so caring for the physical self takes priority over caring for the moral self. This, along with the concern for moral autonomy, is how Xu responded to concerns that the Confucian conception of the good life will lead to totalitarianism. As I elaborate below, this meant for him that it is never right for a government to threaten or harm the physical person with the claim that it will improve them morally. Nor can coercion ever lead to true morality. Xu further emphasizes that respecting life means respecting individual persons. The primary duty of government is providing for people’s material needs; education and pursuit of the good come after that (Xu 1988a: 198), so a Confucian government can never justify harming individuals in the name of either their own good or the good of society as a whole. Xu derives this view from Mengzi (the most common inspiration for Confucian democrats), noting his priority of material wellbeing over moral

 Parts of this section draw on (Elstein 2014) and I am grateful for Taylor & Francis for permission to use this material.

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development (Mengzi 1A3, 1A7, 3A4). However, the priority of life does not lead him to liberal neutrality or separating morality and politics entirely.13 The stress on caring for the people is a part of Mengzi’s well-known idea of “the people as foundation” of the state (minben 民本) (Mengzi 7B14). Xu Fuguan notes the importance of minben in Confucian political thought; however, he recognizes that minben is government for the people, but that is not the same as democracy (Chen 1996: 44; Xu 1988a: 124–125). While he believes there are democratic ideals in Mengzi and at times suggests the lack of democracy was a problem of practice more than theory (Xu 1988a: 224), elsewhere he recognizes the issue is deeper. Even in the best case, Confucian political theory looks at implementing political values from the governors’ perspective and not the perspective of the governed, and so never developed the kind of political agency necessary for democracy. This is why minben did not become democracy (minzhu 民主) (Xu 1988a: 72). Even in theory, early Confucianism politics was not democratic. Classical Confucians (Mengzi especially) stressed ruling for the benefit of the people, but they did not have the institutional structure to make that happen. Nevertheless, Xu claims Confucianism is democratic in spirit. He wrote, “Although Mengzi had indeed never heard of government by the people, we can see the inklings of the principles of government by the people in Mengzi.” He finds such principles in passages such as 1B7 and 5A5, which he understands as arguing the people should have political agency (Xu 1988a: 125–126).14 While this may be stretching the text a bit, Xu is probably on firmer ground with his claim that Mengzi’s doctrine that human nature is good can connect to ideas of human dignity and equality that are foundational for liberal democracy (Xu 1988a: 99). Universal human nature implies a certain kind of equality, and as Mengzi emphasizes it is the moral potential which makes people different from beasts, it is not a great leap to an idea of human dignity in virtue of this nature (see also Bloom 1998).15 However, these ideals can be the basis for democracy, but ideals are not enough. What is necessary are objective institutions to guarantee the realization of these ideals (Xu 1988a: 247–248).16 Xu was well aware of the Confucian ideal of a sage ruling through virtue (Xu 1988a: 99–120). But what required a sage ruler in earlier Confucian political theory is routinized in democracy; the rulers respect the dignity of the people because they have no choice. Virtue is objectified so it no longer relies on caprice. It is these objective structures, which earlier Confucians never thought of, that constitute democracy.

 Although he was sometimes read that way. See his response to Lao Siguang (Xu 1980b: 187–188). 14  In Mengzi 1B7, Mengzi advocates for listening to the people in making hiring and firing decisions and before passing death sentences. In 5A5, he says that what made Shun worthy to succeed Yao as king was the fact that the people approved of him. 15  Gao Ruiquan (2010) makes a compelling case that Xu took what was a theoretical idea of equality in the potential to be a sage in Mengzi, and turned it into practical political ideas. 16  Xu was probably influenced by Mou Zongsan again; see (Z. Mou 1991: 136–137). 13

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Xu’s project is to recover the democratic spirit, because he believes that is the only way to avert the crisis facing Chinese culture. As he says himself, “My political thought is a fusion of the Confucian spirit and democratic political structure” (Xu 1988a: 351). The need for such a fusion distinguished Xu and other New Confucians from conservatives who believed democracy was an inferior Western phenomenon, and from those who followed the May Fourth spirit of completely rejecting Chinese culture for wholesale Westernization.17 Xu’s response to the first camp is that while Chinese culture is valuable, it is not perfect and can be improved through better understanding Western culture.18 Merely holding to the past was not a viable option (H. Liu 2001: 10, 14; Xu 1980b: 42–49). Though Xu largely agreed with liberals such as Yin Haiguang on the basic features of democratic government, he felt their attempts to abandon Chinese culture completely were doomed to failure: it is simply not possible to reject tradition completely (Xu 1985: 429; Xu 1988a: 61–62).19 Perhaps some individuals can, but not a whole society. Thus, the only option is Xu’s view is to find a Confucian basis for democracy. The political ideals in Confucianism must be developed into full democracy.

4.2  Democratic Ideals This section will elaborate further on the democratic ideals Xu Fuguan finds in Confucianism and how to manifest them. Xu emphasizes rule of law, protection of freedom, and the importance of elections. He is a strong proponent of strict limits on government, and is very concerned about excessive politicization so that it dominates all of life. He sees a need for non-governmental social power, which points to something like a civil society. Like liberals, he is concerned with ensuring that government leaves sufficient room for individual development and choice. However, Xu does not uncritically accept all liberal ideas. The common good is still important to him. He still finds room for traditional Confucian ideas of governing through virtue and non-action (wuwei 無為), but interprets them in new ways. Xu considers rule by virtue and non-action the foundations of traditional Confucian political thought and they still apply in a Confucian democracy. In fact, he believes virtue and non-action are necessarily connected: “Rule by virtue is rule by non-action.” However, his interpretation of these ideas is not very traditional. For Xu, non-action means “not ruling the people through one’s personal will and not ruling the people through coercive means” (Xu 1988a: 102). Instead, virtue operates through rituals (Xu 1985: 49). The implications of this for rule of law will be  See the chapter “Contemporary Confucian Political Thought” for more detail.  Like many scholars at the time—and some even now—Xu has a tendency to treat “the West” as a unit. Of course, Western scholars often do the same with “Confucianism.” 19  Xu’s views on Chinese culture are examined more completely in (C. Huang 2009). For a comparison of the philosophies of Xu and Yin Haiguang, see (Xie 2008). For a historical study of Xu’s debates with liberals, see (Lee 1998). 17 18

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discussed below. In his analysis, the sage rulers of the past were just a blank page that the people could fill in however they wanted (Xu 1988a: 232). But getting rid of one’s own preferences is very difficult to do, and the value of democracy is putting structural limits on governors’ ability to rule according to their desires. The people determine the policies and the government implements them (Xu 1988a: 247). Where traditional Confucian politics depended on the ruler being willing to set aside his own preferences, democracy removes the subjective element: the governors must follow the people’s preferences whether they want to or not. Unfortunately, Xu gives little guidance how this can be realized in modern democracies where the public is not closely involved in developing legislation and may not pay much attention to most of what the government does. Elections are the means by which the people can enforce their will on the government, since (in theory) anyone who does not execute the people’s directives will not be elected (or re-elected). However, Xu understood the electoral process can be corrupted, and he realized elections alone do not guarantee a fully democratic process. While he believes political parties are necessary, they must not control the electoral process as the GMD was doing at the time. Fair and free elections at minimum require an environment with freedom of speech, publication, and assembly (Xu 1985: 42–43). Elsewhere, he mentions the need for a distinct social force that stands with the government as an equal, so there are clearly separated political and social realms (Xu 1988a: 76). This idea is not fully developed, but Xu appears to be hinting at a civil society.20 We will see below how Xu expands on the importance of having alternatives to government for personal and social achievement. Though Xu believes there is still a role for rule by virtue of a sort, rule of law is crucial for democracy. Most fundamentally, rule of law is necessary to protect individual rights and maintain social stability (Xu 1985: 53). Xu evidently believes governmental encroachment is the main threat to individual rights, as his discussion of law focuses on having a constitution that regulates the government, and an independent judiciary (Xu 1988a: 128, 340; see also Xie 2008: 182). Thus, law refers mainly to what we might call administrative or regulative law: law that defines and limits the government’s powers (Xie 2008: 182; H. Liu 2001: 167). However, this is certainly not the only kind of law in democratic societies. Confucians have generally had an uneasy relationship with criminal law (Peerenboom 2002: 29–33). The Analects suggests criminal law is opposed to rule by virtue, so a government that has to use law for coercion has failed to realize the ideal (Analects, 2.3, 12.19). Xu takes this ideal seriously as well, as he suggests that ruling by virtue is possible and relying on law and punishment is an inferior way of governing (Xu 1985: 50–52; 1988a: 106). In most cases, he believes influencing people through ritual is better than coercing them with law. Like Kongzi, Xu feels

 Thus, Xie Xiaodong’s criticism that Xu ignores the importance of civil society may be technically correct (Xie 2008: 24), as Xu does not use the exact Chinese term, but a more charitable reading shows him moving in that direction.

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ritual can shape people’s character, but law does not (Xu 1988a: 107–108).21 Xu thus agrees with some contemporary Confucian democrats that ritual should do a great deal of what law does in liberal democracy (Hall and Ames 1999: 214–220; Tan 2003: 183–187). This may sound quite naïve; however, we need to understand Xu’s idea of virtue before evaluating it. According to Xu, there is nothing transcendent or supernatural about virtue. Virtue simply refers to correct conduct, and as described above, human nature is such that people naturally respond to such conduct (Xu 1988a: 104, 108–109). As discussed earlier, this is one kind of evidence that human nature is good. People must respond positively to moral conduct; otherwise rule by virtue cannot work (Xu 1988a: 153). However, while there is a tendency in Confucianism to oppose rule by virtue and rule of law, Xu emphasizes they are complementary.22 A democratic society is based on law (the constitution), which provides a method for institutionalizing and objectifying virtue. By removing the uncertainty of relying on individual virtue, democracy is actually the full realization of the ideal of rule by virtue (Xie 2008: 183–185). This is why Xu believes democracy is the natural path for Confucianism to take. However, he does accept the classical Confucian view that considers law a system of second resort. While he focuses on how law limits the government’s power, he neglects the role of civil and criminal law in protecting individuals from non-governmental domination and in helping develop political agency. As law is a public, formal, and explicitly articulated system, the people can take a greater role in debating and shaping the system of law than rituals, which rely on tacit consent. Where Xu departs from most liberal views is he does not see law as sufficient for good government. Law is necessary, but so is virtue and giving a moral basis for government (Xu 1985: 293–294). Xu believes the problem with Western democracy is it just treats people as physical beings acting to satisfy desires (what he sometimes criticizes as the utilitarian view) (Xu 1980b: 241, 1988a: 88). Western politics is inadequate because it ignores the moral self, assuming people are merely self-­ interested. The common interest is just a result of individual interests limiting and controlling each other; it is not based on awareness of shared morality and respect for human dignity (Xu 1985: 53–54). What needs to be added is the concept of people as moral beings, the virtue dimension. On the other hand, Xu was very concerned about governments enforcing certain moral values on the people. His philosophy of human nature and virtue theory is a response to the political excesses he witnessed. As we have seen above, Xu considers life the primary value in Confucianism, and the government must respect this value above all. Realizing the meaning or purpose of life is secondary and cannot replace the primary value (Xu 1985: 170). This means that a government that harms or threatens to harm its people to force them to realize a certain view of a good human life (even if it is the correct one) acts unjustly.

 This may allay Stephen Angle’s concerns that Xu separates morality and politics too strictly (Angle 2009: 192–193). 22  See Mengzi 4A1 for an earlier statement of such a view. 21

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These phenomena all indicate that Xu advocates clear limits for the government in influencing individual values. An important part of freedom for Xu is the freedom not to get involved. Government is a necessary evil; the best government is one where people are not even aware of it. However, since this is not really attainable, the next best is one where people have the freedom to get involved in government or not as they choose, which democracy offers (Xu 1985: 98–99).23 And this is not just a choice between being involved in government or withdrawing from society (the traditional Confucian choice), but having substantive alternatives such that a fulfilling life in one’s community is still possible, which Xu considers a common, if not universal, human desire. Stephen Angle has pointed out the importance of having some separation between morality and politics in Confucian democracy (Angle 2009: 190–196). Xu highlights another dimension of this: politics cannot be the only game in town for realizing basic human goods. Then the government has too much control over personal values (because people will have to accept the government’s values if they want success) and determines both what success is and who attains it. But this may sound like liberalism, and we need to pay close attention to the differences. For liberals, freedom is often understood as the freedom to determine completely one’s own conception of the good (Mill 1989: 16; Rawls 2005: 72–77). This is not what Xu has in mind. His view is neither that government should impose an idea of the good nor that the individual defines his or her own personal concept of the good. To appreciate this middle position, we first need to look at what government should and should not do.

4.3  Separating Ideology and Politics The fact that a comprehensive view of the good is not imposed by the government is crucial in Xu Fuguan’s understanding of democracy, and something he shares with liberal views. However, he thinks there is an objective good life: a life following the Confucian way and developing one’s nature is manifestly better than the alternative. But this cannot be imposed by others; it is something one must choose for oneself (qv. Analects 12.1). For Xu, democracy is the form of government that is most free from ideology and gives the greatest latitude for self-realization. To appreciate Xu’s non-ideological conception of democracy, it is crucial to understand his distinction between the form (xingshi 形式) of government and its content (neirong 內容). Content is the particular proposals, laws, and policies that address actual concerns; form is that which guides and defines how content is decided and implemented (Xu 1985: 28). In a democratic system, the democratic form sets limits on what content is possible; that is, a law that would dissolve the

 The quote is from Huangfu Mi’s (215–282) Chronicle of Emperors and Kings (Huangfu 1985: 3701:9).

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legislature and judiciary and give an executive supreme power would not be possible. Ideally, form determines how content can be advocated, opposed, and realized; the content of government changes but the form does not. Though Xu recognizes the distinction cannot always be clearly drawn, it is nevertheless useful (Xu 1985: 31–33). Democracy is the form of government, and is not committed to any particular content (other than that which is necessary to preserve that form). The adoption of any doctrine or theory (xueshu 學術) must go through the democratic process, but this process itself is not part of the content of government (Xu 1985: 32, 165). Democracy is a way of making political decisions, not a political decision itself. The concern to preserve the democratic process sets some limits on what policies can be adopted. First, any choice of doctrine or content must always be subject to further negotiation and revision. The public at one time cannot make binding commitments for future generations that override democracy. Hence, Xu says content is like a variable and form is like a constant (Xu 1985: 32). Second, the form must include protection for minorities (Xu 1985: 27). In this way, a certain level of freedom for all is assured, and the free debate necessary for democracy is protected from being silenced by the majority. The restrictions Xu puts on majority rule indicates his theory is similar to republicanism, as does the importance of developing political agency in the public (Xu 1985: 55–56; Xu 1988a: 199). Xu makes a moral argument for democracy: it allows better realization of the potential of human nature for all than other systems. His faith in human nature manifests in trusting people by allowing them to develop their own moral selves.

5  Conclusion Xu has generally gotten less attention from philosophers than his fellow second-­ generation New Confucians Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi. It is true that he never developed a philosophical system on the order of Mou’s moral metaphysics or Tang’s nine horizons. Xu felt establishing a metaphysical system the way they did missed the spirit of Chinese philosophy, which focuses on practice in the lived world. He even came to feel that his teacher Xiong Shili’s focus on the cosmological thought of the Yijing was a mistake. Investigation of the physical world should be left to science. The purpose of philosophy is to realize human nature and understand the realm of values. The kind of system-building that Mou and Tang engaged in did not necessarily lead to the moral realization that Xu felt is the crucial teaching of Confucian thought. An unfailing proponent of democracy, he never laid out a systematic political theory in one place either, instead publishing short articles mainly in his journal Democratic Review. Structurally, his idea of the moral subjectivity of Confucian thought requiring the development of political subjectivity is similar to Mou’s. However, Xu does not posit anything like intellectual intuition to make possible knowledge of the free will, nor does he employ Mou’s concept of self-restriction, which have attracted controversy. His less metaphysical approach may make it

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easier to find connections between Xu’s thought and contemporary Western political and moral theory, which tend to a naturalistic standpoint that will have difficulty with the metaphysical views of Mou. Although he is a somewhat peripheral figure in New Confucian philosophy today, Xu’s approach has more promise for building connections with Anglo-American philosophy. Acknowledgements  Most of this chapter was written while I was on a research fellowship at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taiwan, courtesy of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would like to express my thanks for their support. Thanks to Steve Angle and Jana Rošker for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions.

References Ames, Roger. 1991. “Meaning as Imaging: Prolegomena to a Confucian Epistemology.” In Eliot Deutsch, eds., Culture and Modernity: East-West Philosophical Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Angle, Stephen C. 2009. Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (An innovative take on Neo-Confucian philosophy and specifically the goal of becoming a sage, which includes some discussion of New Confucian political thought.) Angle, Stephen C., and Justin Tiwald. 2017. Neo-Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity. Bloom, Irene. 1998. “Fundamental Intuitions and Consensus Statements: Mencian Confucianism and Human Rights.” In Wm Theodore de Bary and Wei-ming Tu, eds., Confucianism and Human Rights. 94–116. Columbia University Press: New York. Chen, Shaoming 陳少明. 1996. “Xu Fuguan: The Reconstruction of Political Confucianism 徐復 觀: 政治儒學的重建.” Journal of Sun Yat-Sen University 中山大學學報. Davies, Gloria. 2007. Worrying about China: The Language of Chinese Critical Inquiry. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Elstein, David. 2014. Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. New York: Routledge. (Examines in depth the political thought of six recent Chinese Confucian scholars, including Xu.) Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular As Sacred. New York: Harper & Row. Fung, Yiu-ming 馮 耀明. 1987. “Concern Consciousness and the Rebirth of the Confucian Spirit 憂患意識與儒家精神之在生.” In Chak Chi-shing 翟志成 and Fung Yiu-ming, eds., The Final Diary of Xu Fuguan 無慚尺布裹頭歸: 徐復觀最後日記. 21–38. Taibei: Yunchen wenhua. Gao, Ruiquan 高瑞泉. 2001. “Silent Understanding and Bodily Recognition: A Review of Xiong Shili’s Theory of Intuition.” Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 華東師範大學學報 (哲學社會科學版) 33 (5): 106–114. (Examines Xiong's idea of embodied recognition, which inspired Xu.) ———. 2010. “Confucian Socialism or Confucian Liberalism? Looking at the Different Dimension of the Contemporary Confucian Concept of ‘Equality’ through the Work of Xu Fuguan 儒家 社會主義, 還是儒家自由主義?–從徐復觀看現代儒家‘平等’觀念的不同向度.” Academic Monthly 學術月刊 42 (6): 26–34. Hall, David, and Roger Ames. 1987. Thinking through Confucius. Albany: SUNY Press. ———. 1999. The Democracy of the Dead. Chicago: Open Court. (A defense of a pragmatist conception of Confucian democracy, focusing on ritual.) Huang, Chun-chieh 黃俊傑. 1995. “Contemporary Confucians’ Account of Chinese Culture and Their Self-Definition: The Example of Xu Fuguan 當代儒家對中國文化的解釋及其自我

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定位—以徐復觀為中心.” In Shuxian Liu, eds., Collected Papers on Contemporary Ruism: Tradition and Creativity 當代儒學論集: 傳統與創新. Taibei: Academia Sinica Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy. (A study of Xu’s views on the importance of preserving Chinese culture and relevance of Confucianism.) ———. 2009. Xu Fuguan and His Thought in East Asian Confucianism 東亞儒學視域中的 徐復觀及其思想. Taibei: National Taiwan University Press. (A wide-ranging study of Xu's thought.) Huang, Yong. 2006. “A Neo-Confucian Conception of Wisdom: Wang Yangming on the Innate Moral Knowledge (Liangzhi).” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33 (3): 393–408. Huangfu, Mi 皇輔謐. 1985. Chronicles of Emperors and Kings 帝王世紀. Vol. 3701. Congshu Jicheng. Beijing: Zhonghua. Jiang, Lianhua 蔣連華. 2006. Academia and Politics: A Study of Xu Fuguan’s Thought 學術與 政治: 徐復觀思想研究. Shanghai: Sanlian. (One of a number of recent monographs on Xu’s thought and its political implications.) Kwok, D.W.Y. 1965. Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900–1950. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Lee, Su-san. 1998. “Xu Fuguan and New Confucianism in Taiwan (1949–1969): A Cultural History of the Exile Generation.” Brown University. (A historical study of Xu’s life and work after leaving China, including his relations with liberals and other New Confucians.) Liang, Shuming, and Guy Alitto. 2010. Has Man a Future? Dialogues with the Last Confucian. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Liu, Honghe. 2001. Confucianism in the Eyes of a Confucian Liberal: Hsu Fu-Kuan’s Critical Examination of the Confucian Political Tradition. New York: Peter Lang. (The only English monograph on Xu to date.) Liu, Shu-hsien. 2003. Essentials of Contemporary Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Westport, CT: Praeger. (A brief introduction to New Confucian thought.) Meynard, Thierry. 2011. The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming: The Hidden Buddhist. Modern Chinese Philosophy 3. Leiden; Boston: Brill. (The best English account of Liang Shuming’s thought. Mill, John Stuart. 1989. “On Liberty.” In Stefan Collini, eds., On Liberty and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mou, Bo. 2004. “A Reexamination of the Structure and Content of Confucius’ Version of the Golden Rule.” Philosophy East and West 54 (2): 218–248. Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1963. The Unique Characteristics of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學的特 質. Hong Kong: Rensheng Publishing. ———. 1991. Authority and Governance 政道與治道. Revised edition. Taibei: Student Books. (Mou’s most complete statement of his political philosophy.) Ni, Peimin. 2002. “Xu Fuguan.” In Chung-ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (A useful introduction to Xu’s life and thought.) Peerenboom, Randall. 2002. China’s Long March toward Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, John. 2005. Political Liberalism. Expanded edition. New York: Columbia University Press. Rosemont, Henry. 1988. “Why Take Rights Seriously? A Confucian Critique.” In Human Rights and the World’s Religions, edited by Leroy S.  Rouner, 167–182. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Sun, Anna. 2015. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Tan, Sor-hoon. 2003. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany: SUNY Press. (Another pragmatist take on Confucian democracy, very different than New Confucian understandings.) Mengzi. 2008. Translated by Bryan W. Van Norden. Indianapolis: Hackett Xie, Xiaodong 謝曉東. 2008. Contemporary New Ruism and Liberalism: A Comparative Study of Xu Fuguan’s and Yin Haiguang’s Political Philosophy 現代新儒學與自由主義:徐復觀殷海

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光政治哲學比较研究. Beijing: Dongfang. (Compares the political thought of these two major figures who were also close friends.) Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀. 1976. Intellectual History of the Han Dynasties 兩漢思想史. Revised. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Taibei: Student Books. (A sequel of sorts to his history of ideas of human nature, extending through the Han period.) ———. 1980a. Miscellaneous Writings of Xu Fuguan: On the Chinese Communist Party 徐復觀 雜文: 論中共. Taibei: Times Publishing. (Collects Xu’s writings on communism, to which he was strongly opposed.) ———. 1980b. Miscellaneous Writings of Xu Fuguan: Reflections 徐復觀雜文: 記所思. Taibei: Times Publishing. (Collected essays on a variety of topics.) ———. 1982. “Investigation of a Fundamental Problem in Chinese Intellectual History: Explaining ‘At Fifty I Knew the Mandate of Heaven’ in the Analects 有關中國思想史一個基題的考察-釋論語五十而知天命.” In Additional Collected Essays on Chinese Intellectual History 中國 思想史論集續編. Taibei: Times Publishing. ———. 1985. Between Academia and Politics 學術與政治之間. Taibei: Student Books. (A collection of journal articles primarily from the Fifties and Sixties, which contains some of his most important political writings.) ———. 1988a. Confucian Political Thought and Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights 儒家 政治思想與民主自由人權. Edited by Xinyi Xiao. Revised edition. Taibei: Student Books. (Another collection of early journal articles on various political topics.) ———. 1988b. “The Culture of the Heart-Mind 心的文化.” In Collected Essays on Chinese Thought 中國思想史論集. Taibei: Student Books. (One of Xu’s most important essays in which he lays out his understanding of morality.) ———. 1990. A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature: The Pre-Qin Period 中國人性 論史: 先秦篇. Taibei: Commercial Press. (A detailed monograph examining the development of the idea of human nature from prehistorical times through the end of the Warring States.) Yin, Haiguang 殷海光. 2009. The Future of Chinese Culture 中國文化的展望. 2 vols. Collected Works of Yin Haiguang, 1 and 2. Taibei: Taiwan University Press. (A defense of the need to develop liberal democracy in China and Taiwan.) Zhang, Foquan 張佛泉. 1993. Freedom and Human Rights 自由與人權. Taibei: Commercial Press. (Probably the first major work of liberal philosophy published in Taiwan, which inspired much opposition from New Confucians.)

Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978) Ady Van den Stock

1  Introduction The modern Confucian thinker Tang Junyi 唐君毅 was born in 1909 in Yibin 宜 宾, Sichuan 四川 province. Exposed to the Confucian tradition from an early age under the influence of his father, the teacher and scholar Tang Difeng 唐廸風 (1886–1931),1 Tang went on to study philosophy, first at Peking University and subsequently at National Southeast University (later renamed National Central University) in Nanjing, from which he graduated in 1932. After holding various teaching positions at universities on the mainland, Tang moved into voluntary exile in Hong Kong a few months before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. He would spend the rest of his life in the British colony up to his death in 1978.2 For a great part of his career, Tang researched and taught at the famous New Asia College (Xinya shuyuan 新亞書院) in Hong Kong. Tang had cofounded the direct predecessor of this institute along with the historian Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990) and the economist Zhang Pijie 張丕介 (1905–1970) in the same month Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC, before going on to establish the College formally in 1950. Tang continued teaching at the philosophy department of the newly founded Chinese University of Hong Kong, into which the College was incorporated in 1963, up to his retirement in 1973.3

1  Only one of the elder Tang’s works has survived, namely the brief commentary Outline of the Mengzi (Mengzi dayi 孟子大義). 2  A hefty collection of memorial essays was already published a year later. See Feng (1979). For a more recent collection, see Tang (2016), volume 37 and 38. 3  For more detailed biographical information, see Tang (2006), Lau (2007), and Lau (2019). In-depth analyses of Tang’s intellectual approach to his experience of exile can be found in Fröhlich

A. Van den Stock (*) Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_11

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Over the course of an active scholarly life, Tang authored more than 15 (often multi-volume) monographs and over 300 articles. Apart from outlining and detailing his own constructive philosophy, his writings deal extensively with many (if not most) aspects of the Chinese philosophical tradition, all while engaging in a sustained encounter and dialog with Western thinkers from Plato to Hegel and Whitehead. A first edition of his complete works was published between 1984 and 1991 in 30 volumes in Taiwan, with a second revised and expanded edition (2014, Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju 台湾學生書局, 30 vols.) as well as a mainland Chinese redaction of the Taiwanese edition (2016, Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe 九州 出版社, 39 vols.)4 appearing more recently. Given his massive philosophical output and his dense and prolix style of writing, Tang Junyi’s thought defies easy summary. Moreover, his lifelong concern over revitalizing Chinese traditions of thought, most prominently of course Confucianism, lent his work a comparative character and scope which was in many ways unprecedented, stretching across a vast historical and culturally heterogeneous terrain. Most accounts in the available secondary literature focus on his concept of the “moral self (daode ziwo 道德自我)” as a basic point of entry to his philosophy as a whole. Indeed, from earlier, more existentially oriented and loosely structured works such as The Experience of Human Life (Rensheng zhi tiyan 人生之體驗) and The Establishment of a Moral Self (Daode ziwo zhi jianli 道德自我之建立) (both first published in 1944) to what is probably is his most focused, tightly organized, and systematic work, Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason (Wenhua yishi yu daode lixing 文化意識與道德理性) (1958) and all the way into the final phase of his career,5 Tang consistently addressed both the “inner” parameters of individual moral subjectivity as well as the “outer” historically and culturally specific conditions for leading a morally responsible, and thus authentic and fully human life. While showing a distinct fondness for metaphysical issues, Tang combined this speculative predilection with a strong sense of urgency, if not mission. As such, Tang’s overarching concern with the “moral self” was translated into a body of work which spans across the various subdisciplines of philosophy and cannot be confined

(2017: 61–107) and Hok (2017). For a broader contextualization of Chinese émigré intellectuals (including New Confucians) in relation to the global political and intellectual landscape of the Cold War period, see Yung (2015). On the history of the New Asia College, see Chou (2012). 4  Volumes 34 and 35 of this edition respectively contain an extensive life chronology (nianpu 年譜) and a richly illustrated biography. 5  Cai Renhou 蔡仁厚 has divided Tang’s philosophical output into roughly three stages: (1) his early “Three Books on Human Existence” (rensheng sanshu 人生三書), (2) his writings on cultural, moral, and socio-political philosophy such as The Spiritual Values of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua zhi jingshen jiazhi 中國文化之精神價) (1953), The Development of the Chinese Humanist Spirit (Zhongguo renwen jingshen zhi fazhan 中國人文精神之發展), and Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason (Wenhua yishi yu daode lixing 文化意識與道德理性) (1958), as well as what Cai considers to be the “transitional work” Introduction to Philosophy (Zhexue gailun 哲學概論) (1961), and (3) On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy and The Horizons of the Mind, as a combination and integration of his research into the history of philosophy and creative philosophical work. See Cai (2005: 129).

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within the category of “moral philosophy” alone. This is one of the reasons why I disagree with the approach adopted by commentators who ascribe, to give but a few examples, a full-blown “philosophy of history,” “philosophy of culture,” or “political philosophy” to the New Confucian thinker. Apart from the fact that many of Tang’s forays into these areas remained more tentative, fragmentary, and underdeveloped than his reputation as a systematic thinker may lead one to believe, it also tends to reify what are actually different aspects running through most, if not all, of his writings into neatly separated disciplinary categories. As we will see below, this is precisely one of the problems with which he tried to come to terms in his philosophizing. In this chapter, I will provide an introduction to Tang’s late thought, which is generally seen as culminating in his monumental Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Mind (Shengming cunzai yu xinling jingjie 生命存在與心靈境界). Tang’s swan song was first published in 1977 and still stands as a sui generis example of the persistent efforts to articulate a comprehensive system of philosophy in modern Chinese intellectual history, which extend from Tang’s erstwhile teacher Xiong Shili’s 熊十力 (1885–1968)6 epochal New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness (Xin weishi lun 新唯識論) from 1932 to Chen Lai's 陳來 (b. 1952) recent Ontology of Benevolence (Renxue bentilun 仁學本體論) from 2014. Although Tang has remained somewhat overshadowed by the imposing figure of his lifelong friend Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), he is still recognized as one of the most creative, prolific, and philosophically challenging representatives of the New Confucian current in modern Chinese thought. Apart from introductory surveys of Tang's whole oeuvre (Zhang 1994; Li et al. 1995; Chan 2002), scholars have provided us with more specialized studies of his views on the interpersonal dimension of human existence (Ames 2010; Schmidt 2012), ethics (Cheng 1995), history and culture (Huang 2010), epistemology (Lei 2017), spirituality (Ng 1998; Ng 2004), love (Cheung 1998), nature (Julien 1983), Buddhism (Chiu 2016; Zhang 2016; Van den Stock forthcoming), wisdom (Van den Stock 2018), and the much neglected religious (Peng 2012: 295–367; Liao 2015) and socio-political dimensions of his thought (Fröhlich 2010; Fröhlich 2017: Major forthcoming).7 However, to date, his more theoretically oriented, seemingly “purely philosophical” works, namely Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Mind (hereafter abbreviated to The Horizons of the Mind or HM) and the Introduction to Philosophy (Zhexue gailun 哲學概論) from 1961,8 as well as the massive

 On the relation between Tang and Xiong, see Guo (1991) and Zhang (2016: 327–360).  Two extensive overviews of the secondary (mainly Chinese-language) literature on Tang are Chen (2008) and Yang and Mou (2011). For a collection of critical essays by prominent scholars from mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan, see He (2005). An earlier such collection which resulted from the first international symposium exclusively devoted to Tang’s work is Huo (1990–1992). The Journal of the Yibin Academy 宜賓學院學報 published in Tang’s hometown in Sichuan is one of the main outlets for research articles on the New Confucian’s work in mainland China. 8  On the significance of the latter work, see Peng (2007). 6

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historiographical study of traditional Chinese thought developed throughout the six thick volumes of On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy (Zhongguo zhexue yuanlun 中國哲學原論) have remained largely understudied in the existing secondary Western-­language literature.9 Generally speaking, the latter is still quite sparse. This is undoubtedly in part due to Tang's reputation as a “pan-moralist” thinker, whose metaphysical and epistemological considerations are supposedly derivative of, or at least subordinate to, a traditionalist reassertion of a Confucian ethical outlook as a new normative basis for modernity, cloaked in a vocabulary considerably indebted to the transcendental idealism of Kant and Hegel.10 Additionally, recent critics such as Jiang Qing 蔣慶 (b. 1953) have rather simplistically dismissed Tang’s work, along with that of other “second generation” New Confucians, as hopelessly out of touch with socio-political issues, while failing to account for the close connection between his speculative endeavors and the historical reality of modern society with which he tried to come to terms (see Fröhlich 2017; Van den Stock 2016). The considerable challenges faced by readers of Tang, who must be willing to struggle through his labyrinthine style and spiraling mode of argumentation,11 have probably also not helped entice them to enter the “nine-­ clawed divine dragon (九爪之神龍)” (HM, 26) of The Horizons of the Mind (on the nine “horizons,” see Sect. 3.2). The present chapter does not have the ambition of comprehensively addressing all of the remaining lacunae in the available scholarship on Tang. Instead, I have decided to focus on the more restricted topic of what can summarily be described as the relation between philosophy and religion in Tang's late work, particularly in The Horizons of the Mind. Although this choice may at first seem arbitrary and rather narrow, I hope to make it clear in what follows that addressing this issue is not only relevant for gaining a better understanding of his magnum opus, but also for grasping the general orientation of his mature thought as a whole. Accordingly, the next part of this chapter (see Sect. 2) will be devoted to fleshing out the broader historical background of the nexus between the philosophical and the religious in Tang’s writings and describing the close link between his meta-philosophical reflections on the one hand and his own vision of (Confucian) philosophy as a possible remedy for the ills of modern society on the other. While I will provide a more detailed outline of the overall setup and intention of The Horizons of the Mind below (see Sect. 3), a few additional introductory remarks 9  For brief surveys of the content of the “nine horizons”, see Bresciani (2001: 312–325) and Steinbauer (2005: 167–174). For a more detailed, step-by-step overview, see Huo (2006: 122–175). To date, Steinbauer’s monograph is the only book-length study of The Horizons of the Mind in any Western language. Two extensive Chinese-language studies are Zhang (2011) and Shan (2011). Tang’s work figures prominently in Jana Rošker’s recent study of the “second generation” of New Confucian thinkers (Rošker 2016). Thomas Metzger also engages at length with Tang’s work in Metzger (1977) and Metzger (2005: 185–290). 10  On the role of German idealism in the work of Tang (and Mou), see Jiang (1992) and Pong Wenberng’s chapter in this volume. 11  See the interesting excursus on Tang’s writing style in Steinbauer (2005: 103–106). Also see Thomas Fröhlich’s illuminating remarks in Fröhlich (2017: 124–130).

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are in order here. The Horizons of the Mind is a challenging and at times baffling work which skirts and defies the boundaries between the various subdisciplines of philosophy as well as between philosophical argumentation and a religious sense of mission. This is perhaps not to be wondered at, since Tang set himself the goal of providing a comprehensive philosophical account of the entire range of possible cognitive activities and of charting the development of the mind from simple sense perception to a religious identification with one’s community and the cosmos as a whole. As such, the idea is not only to know the world but to circumscribe the conditions for, in some sense, saving it (see below). This should already make it clear that Tang’s last work is far from just another treatise on epistemology or a straightforward phenomenological inquiry. In effect, he treats epistemology, as a specific subdiscipline of modern philosophy which inquiries into the conditions and functioning of knowledge, as merely one transitory stage in a much more expansive and wide-­ ranging trajectory of the human mind. Although it would be exaggerated to ascribe a teleological perspective to Tang, the spiritual journey described in The Horizons of the Mind is not entirely open-­ ended, insofar as the final and highest “horizon” (jingjie 境界, see Sect. 3.1), that of Confucianism, counts as the place where all previous stages of cognitive and ethical development find, if not a permanent or fixed settling ground, then at least something like a firm resting place.12 The criticism most commonly leveled against Tang is that he tended to reduce every conceivable phenomenon to an embodiment of morality (see Chan 2002: 318). This charge is often accompanied by the related accusation that this moralizing tendency reached its apex in The Horizons of the Mind, where Confucian morality stands at the end-point of the whole system, thus effectively erasing the relative independence of other spheres of human knowledge and action which are not straightforwardly identifiable as moral. However, as will hopefully become clear in the concluding section of this chapter (see Sect. 4), the tension as well as continuity between his epistemological and ethico-religious positions is much too complex and sophisticated to warrant simply dismissing Tang as an overambitious “pan-moralist.” Still, as a comprehensive philosophical system grounded in a Confucian moral vision, The Horizons of the Mind does seem to be caught in a delicate balancing act between its systematic theoretical ambitions on the one hand and its practically oriented outlook on human cognitive and religious development on the other. While it falls outside the scope of this chapter to offer a definite evaluation of the respective merits and shortcomings of Tang Junyi’s last work, it is my hope that the following outline and analysis of his main arguments will provide the reader with the necessary means to further explore and elucidate his thought in all its richness and complexity.

 It goes without saying that my account of Tang’s magnum opus is not meant to be exhaustive. There are enough philosophical puzzles in The Horizons of the Mind to keep scholars occupied for quite some time to come. My chapter will mainly draw on the general introduction (HM 2006: 1–28), the concluding parts (chapters 28–32, HM 2006: 545–641), and the postscript (HM 2006: 642–703) of the book.

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2  T  owards Philosophical and Religious Inclusiveness and the Inclusion of Religion in Philosophy 2.1  Philosophy, Religion, and the Pathologies of Modernity As a starting point, it will prove helpful to have a short look at a text entitled “My Choices in Philosophy and Religion” (Wo duiyu zhexue yu zongjiao zhi jueze 我對 於哲學與宗教之抉擇) from 1954, which was later published as an appendix to The Reconstruction of the Humanist Spirit (Renwen jingshen zhi chongjian 人文精神之 重建) with the intention of providing Tang's readers with a more personal document outlining his philosophical and religious development throughout the years (cf. HM 2006: 668–677). The first thing we should point out here is that the title of this essay is often misleadingly translated as “My Choice between Philosophy and Religion,”13 which precisely misses the point Tang is trying to make throughout these pages. As soon becomes clear in the course of this text, the gradual turn away from reductive, objectivist accounts of reality and human existence towards the assertion of “innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知)” in his philosophical trajectory also at the same time constituted a distinct religious choice. “Innate moral awareness” counts as the unobjectifiable faculty and universal moral kernel of human consciousness which serves to “dominate” (zhuzai 主宰) and regulate all other cultural and spiritual activities (Tang 1954: 579–580, cf. Tang 1956: 337–338). As such, liangzhi denotes both something like the irreducible subjective dimension of all cognitive, moral, and political endeavors, insofar as these always remained linked with the inner moral life of human subjects, as well as the condition of the possibility for a future human-­ centered religiosity seen as continuous with the spirit of traditional Confucianism. In Tang's view, the anthropological universality of “innate moral awareness” could provide a neutral meeting ground for the various world religions and even serve to avoid religious conflicts from breaking out (Tang 1954: 587. Cf. Tang 1956: 369).14 As the final arbiter of moral judgments, religious convictions, and the deeper significance of seemingly value-neutral activities such as scientific research, liangzhi is the expression and realization of tianzhi 天知 or “heavenly knowledge” within the human personality, a form of knowledge which “can only confirm itself through an awakening insight (只能自己印證覺悟者)” (Tang 1954: 581–582, also see Fröhlich 2017: 113, 129). Such “heavenly knowledge” then is not be understood in purely epistemological terms, as the knowledge of an object distinct from and opposed to the subject, but rather as a form of self-knowledge and self-­transformation in which human beings become aware of and identical to the moral essence they share in common with the universe as such.

 See for example the English translation by Yuk Wong, Tang (1974a).  According to Tang, the dominant position of Confucianism throughout Chinese history can be credited with having precluded major religious wars (between Daoism and Buddhism in particular). See Tang (1963: 461).

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The fact that Tang presents liangzhi, a concept with specific history in Neo-­ Confucian thought, as a universal conceptual space allowing for philosophical and religious reconciliation as well as individual moral “awakening” already confronts us with a paradoxical aspect of his Confucianist universalism which recurs in The Horizons of the Mind: while Tang employs a model of human consciousness and subjectivity in which the latter are inherently free from any absolute restrictions and attachments, and thus, logically speaking, cannot become contingent upon specific cultural determinations,15 he at the same time assumes that these characteristics and capacities of the mind are only fully realized within Confucianism as the highest spiritual horizon of cognitive development and ethico-religious self-cultivation. The progression of the mind and its inherent faculty of liangzhi through the various horizons analyzed in his last work thus at the same time coincides with the unfolding of a distinct hierarchy, one where Confucianism is seen as a consummate embodiment and realization of liangzhi as a universal property of human nature. In this sense, Confucianism qualifies as “uniquely universal” (Masuzawa 2005: 23) for Tang. Paradoxically enough, the cultural nationalist pathos which runs through the work of many modern Confucian philosophers such as Tang thus has to be understood in the context of their varied attempts to reassert the normative validity of the Confucian tradition within broadly universalist terms endowing Confucianism with a new global appeal.16  As one of the anonymous reviewers of this chapter rightly pointed out, this seems to conflict with the outlook adopted by Tang in Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason from 1958, where Tang appears to insist on how the mind (and more particularly, the latter’s moral dimension) is both manifested within and realized as various forms of “cultural activity” (wenhua huodong 文化活 動). However, Tang’s approach to the category of “culture” in itself testifies to the abovementioned paradox: while counting as a mode of particularization in which supposedly universal human capacities and faculties gain concrete existence within a particular society, “culture” simultaneously functions as a universal domain of human activity in which consciousness is externalized in the outer world. In other words, while various “cultures” obviously display significant (religious, philosophical, political, etc.) differences for Tang, the underlying assumption seems to be that their overall mode of “spiritual” consistency is always concretely expressed as culture. Differences between cultures go hand in hand with their formal equivalence as cultures. In short, the concept “culture” allows for uniformity without homogeneity (see Van den Stock 2016: 107–109). As such, “culture” mirrors the universality Tang ascribes to the inner structure of the mind, which is externalized within, but can never become contingent upon or reducible to its particular cultural embodiments. The reader may note that this paradoxical relation between the mind and its cultural embodiments runs parallel with what I take to be Tang’s overall epistemological outlook on the relation between “mind” and “horizon” (see below Sect. 4). 16  As we will see further on, Tang approaches the notions of particularity and universality in a highly dialectical manner. Perhaps this approach could also be understood as being aimed at defusing the abovementioned paradox. However, such a dialectics of universality and individuality, in which both concepts are posited as being interdependent and count as the preconditions for each other’s realization, does not in itself offer any sufficient grounds for elevating Confucianism in particular to the status of an ideal locus where the “absolute singularity” (see below) of the moral self comes finally into its own. Tang’s elevation of Confucianism to a supreme and unchallenged position at the apex of his system undermines his own dialectical approach, since he must assume that some singularities are more “universal” and “absolute” than others. In other words, the paradox of particularistic universalism, which is still very much visible in modern Confucian thought

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In an earlier text, Tang Junyi had already clarified the stakes behind his reappraisal of religious belief in the modern age: nothing short of a “cooperation between human beings and heaven (tian 天)” is required to save humanity from total “thingification (wuhua 物化)” at the hands of Marxist historical materialism and Chinese Communism, which he saw as having become perverted forms of religion in their own right (see Tang 1950: 19–23; Tang 1956: 333–335). Interestingly enough, he also described the historical advent of Chinese Marxism in quasi-theological terms, as the “vengeance” (baofu 報復) enacted upon the Chinese tradition for its supposed neglect of the material dimension of existence (Tang 1950: 22). What is perhaps even more remarkable is that Tang used the term wuhua in a way that is quite close to the Marxist concept of “reification” (Verdinglingung) (see Lukács 1971), which is now routinely rendered as wuhua in modern Chinese. While Tang’s use of the notion of wuhua remains largely metaphorical and somewhat underdeveloped, the parallels between his idea of wuhua and the Marxist concept of reification, as a pathological instance of the more general and neutral phenomenon of “objectification” (Vergegenständlichung), are instructive. Within the Marxist tradition, the notion of reification refers not so much to the logical “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” where something general and abstract is treated as a discrete entity, but rather to the exact opposite, namely to the reduction of concrete, individual entities to mere incarnations of an abstract regularity which remains entirely beyond their control.17 In Tang’s view, the process of reification is the result of an outlook on human beings as mere “things,” as cogs in an abstract totality, instead of as living and singular forms of existence. For Tang, such a totality has its exact correlate in the collectivism of Communist society, where the worst social consequences of industrial production are combined with a totalitarian political system. In his view, the reified outlook governing modern societies fails to do justice to the irreducible particularity of individual human beings, while also remaining blind to the universality of liangzhi present in each and every one of them as their innermost nature. The fact that liangzhi as a universal human quality cannot, at least on a philosophical level, be reified, implies that one should steer clear both of objectivist

to this day, is never really resolved in Tang’s oeuvre. Instead, it resurfaces every time certain human (moral) capacities put forward as universal sources of normativity are claimed to be only fully realized in what is factually merely one particular socio-historically contingent embodiment of the universal. 17  For instance, the qualitative differences between various forms of labor in capitalist society vanish into the homogeneity of value-producing labor, which is quantified and measured according to constant and convertible units of abstract time. In turn, the distinct use-value of the commodities (or services) produced in capitalism is subsumed under their relative exchange value, which is grounded in the abstract equivalence of value as expressed in money. In a more general sense, reification refers to the process in which the particularity of individual beings and things (as producers/consumers and commodities) is swallowed up by abstract social structures, with very tangible and often deleterious consequences. The fellow-traveler of the Frankfurt School Alfred Sohn-Rethel coined the term “real abstraction” to provide an alternative description of this process (Sohn-Rethel 1978).

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scientism and materialism in philosophy, as well as from a degeneration of belief into rigid and mutually exclusive religious dogmas. Furthermore, Tang’s argument for the religiosity of the Confucian tradition seems to hinge on the latter’s supposed recognition of the encompassing and transcendental18 nature of the heart-mind (xin 心) and its “innate moral awareness,” which can never be reduced to what it conditions. The transcendental status of liangzhi does not necessarily need to be translated into specific myths, rituals, or articles of faith in order for it to qualify as a universal foundation for religious belief, that is to say, as a place where human beings can “settle themselves and establish their lives (anshen liming 安身立命)” (see Tang 1956: 365–366, 372). In other words, such a place is not to be located in any particular creed, but rather can be discovered through the “auto-archaeological process” (Ng 2004: 391) of “turning back (huitou 回頭)” towards the heart-mind and its faculty of liangzhi as such. Consequently, Tang’s “Confucian” religious belief to a large extent coincides with a “confidence in the transcendental self as a subject (超越的自我之主體之自信)” (Tang 1956: 368). At the very least, these initial remarks should suffice to make it clear that the boundaries between philosophy and religion are far from rigid in Tang Junyi's oeuvre, and that the central concept of liangzhi in which the immanent and the transcendent meet defies any neat separation of epistemological from soteriological concerns.

2.2  Beyond Philosophy In the introductory chapter to The Horizons of the Mind, it quickly becomes apparent that the outlook Tang presented more than twenty years earlier essentially remained unchanged and, if anything, became even more clear-cut in his later work. Here, he unambiguously declares that the goal of philosophy consists in “becoming a teaching” or “forming a teaching (cheng jiao 成教)” (see HM 2006: 14–16, 699–700). We will have to gradually flesh out what he means by this throughout the remainder of this chapter. To begin with, like many other (if not most) modern Chinese thinkers, Tang expected philosophy to be much more than just an academic discipline equipped with its own technical set of research objects and methods aimed at the accumulation of knowledge.19 For one thing, as he acknowledged at several instances in his writings, his own interest in philosophy grew out of personal  Note that I use the term “transcendental” in a broadly Kantian sense, that is to say, as referring to what makes experience or knowledge possible, not to what is categorically beyond experience/ knowledge (i.e., “transcendent”). Admittedly, in the context of Tang’s conception of liangzhi, the boundaries between what is “transcendental” and “transcendent” are not always so clear-cut, in the sense that this form of “knowledge” is assumed to have the potential to lift human beings above a conception of human existence as something reducible to purely “immanent” constituents (such as is the case for example in materialism) and thus susceptible to “reification.” 19  The concern over the modern reduction of philosophy to mere academic study is something Tang shared in common with Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1903–1982) in particular. See David Elstein’s chapter on Xu in this volume. 18

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and existential concerns and was intimately tied up with a consciousness of human finitude and imperfection (see HM 2006: 668–669).20 Moreover, Tang believed that philosophical thought could serve as a unifying and integrating force over and against the differentiation, specialization, and compartmentalization characteristic of the modern order of knowledge and life in contemporary society. In short, philosophy should strive towards unity on an epistemological as well as on an existential level (see Tang 1961: 9–10).21 Following its own normative requirements, philosophy must attempt to reach beyond the safe confines of institutionalized academic inquiry, since it is a form of knowledge defined by an awareness of what makes us human and an (implicit or explicit) insight into the intrinsic ability of the mind not to be constrained by external limitations (see Tang 1961: 813–815). As he writes towards the end of his Introduction to Philosophy: The greatest philosophy in the world should truly be a philosophy capable of immediately manifesting itself through any given natural human trait and of immediately being present within the transformation of humanity through teaching [jiaohua 教化],22 in order to instantaneously testify to what makes us human, thus bringing human beings to self-­consciousness concerning their own humanity. This is not a philosophy reserved for specialists, but one that any human being can come to understand and gain insight into on his own. If those of us specialized in the study of philosophy can genuinely grasp the fact that we are endowed with a heart-mind that operates without limitations, then we should ultimately also allow our heart-minds to operate outside of [the confines of] specialized philosophy in order to come to an understanding of this supreme form of philosophy. Such a form of philosophy transcends systems and is truly omnipresent; moreover, it is also able to transcend language and can be simply tied up with the self-awakening of any human being within a single concentration of the mind (世間最大的哲學, 亦實當為能由人之任何自然的人性之當下 的表現, 人類之教化之當下的存在, 以對於其所以為人, 當下加以指證, 以使人自覺其 為人之哲學。而此亦是不專門學哲學的人, 人人所能自明自悟之哲學。而我們學專 門之哲學者, 如真悟得我們之有一無所不運之心, 則最後亦當使此心, 運於所謂專門 之哲學之外, 以了解此最大之哲學。此最大之哲學, 是一超系統, 而真無所不在, 亦可 超語言, 而可只系於人人之一念之自悟之哲學). (Tang 1961: 815)

Accordingly, the ultimate task of philosophy consists in leading back towards an “unlimited form of life (無限的生命)” (HM 2006: 11), in which “unlimited” refers both to the infinite potential of the mind to engage in a multitude of (cognitive and practical) activities, as well as to a form of existence which does not allow itself to be imprisoned within any single predetermined field of knowledge and action. After  “My studies during the last decades can actually be seen as nothing more than explanations of and footnotes to a series of experiences I had in my youth. (數十年來吾之為學, 實只做得為吾少 年時之此數度之經驗之明與注之事)” (HM 2006: 702). 21  “Philosophy is a form of reflection concerning the realm of thought and the realm of existence, a learning meant to perfect human behavior within the existential dimension and to allow human beings to attain a form of existence in which their knowledge and action are brought into connection (哲學是一種對於知識界與存在界之思維, 以成就人在存在界中之行為, 而使人成為一通 貫其知與行的存在之學)” (HM 2006: 12, Cf. HM 2006: 9–10). 22  The Confucian concept of jiaohua 教化, which I have translated here as “transformation through teaching,” refers to the traditional idea that the Confucian teachings are endowed with the normative potential to effect a veritable transformation both in the self and in society at large. 20

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all, for Tang, the very possibility of the philosophical quest for truth and the formulation of universally applicable principles and propositions is dependent upon the “great impartiality and selflessness (大公無私)” of the mind, displayed in the ability to relinquish its attachment to the specific conditions in which it finds itself. In his view, it is only because of such “selflessness” that a concept can refer to more than one particular entity (located in determinate spatiotemporal conditions) and become accessible to other human beings (see Tang 1958: 320–323). This means that even the very use of general concepts to designate singular entities has a cognitive as well as an ethical dimension for Tang. However, in Tang’s view, most philosophical systems are incapable of genuinely including viewpoints which run contrary to their internal logic within themselves, and thus “fail to observe [their own] encompassing outlooks from an [even more] encompassing perspective (不能有對遍觀之遍觀)” (HM 2006: 13). Instead, such systems tend to turn into subsumptive forms of false universality, which maintain their self-identity through the exclusion of everything they cannot assimilate, an approach he often associates with Hegel's idealism (see HM 2006: 15, 679).23 In Tang’s conception of philosophical thought, reflexive second-order observation (“encompassing the encompassive”) seems to have strong normative dimension. Such encompassiveness is geared towards preventing philosophy from leaving behind a “fragmented world (破裂之世界),” where different philosophical systems assert their own visions of the totality of existence without trying to come to terms with the existence of competing, equally encompassive views. Again, this “fragmentation” can be understood in a cognitive as well as an existential sense, since the quest for philosophical inclusiveness is part and parcel of Tang’s encounter with the larger socio-political consequences of modernization. While he maintained that, in a certain sense, “all philosophies are philosophies of philosophy (哲學皆是哲學的 哲學),” he argued that the more such inclusiveness is actively embraced and pursued, the more authentic philosophy will become, and the better it will be able to offer an effective response to pressing social and existential problems (see HM 2006: 14). As we can see, Tang’s meta-philosophical reflections are grounded in a specific philosophical outlook, one where universality is not to be bargained for at the expense of particularity. This general normative requirement is obviously tied up with the socio-political dimension of his thought as well (see Tang 1955). As we already saw in the above, he faulted Marxism and communism for their willingness, and indeed eagerness, to sacrifice individual human beings and any notion of individuality as such in pursuit of a totalistic form of social and national liberation. The

 For Tang’s critique of what he takes to be the German Idealist eradication of particularity and disregard for the dependence of the absolute on the particular (more specifically, the human personality) as its proper locus of realization, also see HM (2006: 59): In Tang’s view, the idealist “view from above (上觀)” on individuality as incarnations of “Absolute Spirit” is deficient in that it “has not properly come to terms with the importance of the fact that the ‘absolute’ can only exist through its dependency on the will and spirit of a relative human personality. (未能正視此“對”唯 依於相對之人格之意志與精神而存在之義).”

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“reified” human being in communist society is merely an empty shell of a generic notion of “humanity” stripped of every trace of “benevolence” (ren 仁). The historically determinate background of Tang’s view on individuality forces him into the position of having to keep a delicate balance between particularity and universality. This becomes clear on a more abstract level as well. More specifically, Tang gives a positive twist to the paradoxical fact that the singularity of a particular entity can only be named and expressed by means of the general, abstract concepts of “individuality” or “the self” (as such), concepts which necessarily transcend the singular entity designated in a given cognitive act (see HM 2006: 36). Deploying a logic of mutual recognition clearly indebted to Hegel, Tang argues that the singularity and finitude of individual human beings actually serves as the starting point for the realization of the universal and as the foundation for the ethico-religious purpose of “establishing humanity to the utmost (立人極)”: When we speak of the “self” of one's own life, we are not merely emphasizing [the existence of] each [separate] individual human being, but rather stressing the “self” belonging to all these individuals. Without this [singular] self proper to each and every one of them, there would be no individual human beings […] It is only when I look upon myself as a singular self and when all human beings regard themselves as singular selves that I and all individual human beings become able to establish humanity to the utmost. Therefore, the “singular” has a universal significance as well. Such a singular self could also be called an absolute singularity (此所謂吾人生命之“吾人,”則不只重在言一一人, 而重在言一一 之“吾”。離此一一之吾, 則無一一之人。[...] 唯吾自視為唯一之吾, 人人皆自視為唯 一之吾, 然後吾乃能立人極, 人人乃皆能立人極。故此“唯一”亦有普遍義。此唯一之 吾, 亦可為一對之獨體). (HM 2006: 10–11)24

In the extensive and highly informative postscript to The Horizons of the Mind (HM 2006: 661–703),25 we get a clearer and more vivid picture of what the “fragmented world” with which philosophy is faced (and which it tends to reproduce on a conceptual level) looks like and what is at stake in striving for philosophical inclusiveness without recourse to the violent subsumption of the particular within the  Cf. HM (2006: 5): “Even though what are usually called generic concepts which are constituted by abstracting from particular entities might be said to hold a higher status in comparison to the latter, this by no means logically implies that generic concepts necessarily include the content of the particular entities in question. However, the mental activity which constructs such generic concepts always has to pass through a knowledge of such particulars in order to envelop, transcend, and transform them, [because it is] only then that abstract, generic concepts can be constructed. Accordingly, when one claims that generic concepts occupy a higher place, then this is [only] true in a derived or secondary sense (一般所謂特殊事物加以抽像, 所構成之類概念, 其亦可對特殊 事物稱高層位者, 固不必邏輯上包涵此特殊事物之容。然構成此類概念之心靈活動, 恆必先 經此特殊事物之認知, 而包涵之、更超化之, 方構成此抽像之類概念; 而此類概念之稱為居 高層位, 即為一引申義或第二義上之高層位).” For Tang’s argument concerning the impossibility of bare self-assertion through an eradication of all otherness (described in logical terms, as the “becoming-genus of the particular”, 個體之類化性) which largely follows Hegel’s dialectics of mutual recognition in the “lordship and bondage” section of the Phenomenology of Spirit, see HM (2006: 80–83). 25  The postscript is entitled 哲學之教化的意義, which could be translated both as “On the Meaning of the Transformation of Philosophy into a Teaching” and as “On the Meaning of Transformation through Philosophy as a Teaching” 24

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universal. For Tang Junyi, the modern age has confronted humanity with the very real possibility of total self-annihilation, particularly due to the invention of the atom bomb. Much like Heidegger, Tang does not consider the existence of something like the atom bomb to be a merely “technological” matter. Rather, he sees it as a reflection of the fact that social reality and visions of society have become hegemonized by one specific mode of observation, namely the horizon of scientific-­ philosophical “detached reflection” (guanzhao lingxu 觀照虛靈) (the fifth of Tang’s nine “horizons,” see below). The bleakness and apparent hopelessness of the modern condition requires a religious belief in the ability of humanity to courageously confront the possibility of its own destruction head-on and to continue to “establish the way of human beings between heaven and earth (立人道於天地間)” (see HM 2006: 661–663). In describing the broader historical background behind the rise of the scientific worldview and its destructive imposition of the abstract on the concrete, Tang explicitly mentions the assault on religion following the Renaissance in the West. In doing so, he links the predicament of modernity to the decline of religion and the detachment of philosophy from its religious-existential moorings in Greek antiquity and medieval Scholasticism. In his view, the scientific and philosophical turn towards quantifiable sense perception and the increasing differentiation of spheres of existence and knowledge is enmeshed with the atomization of individuals into functionally prescribed roles and the instrumentalization of cultural and academic undertakings for political and economic purposes. As a consequence, philosophy has degenerated into something like a residual discipline, bereft of its religious dimension, while at the same time succumbing to irrationalism due to an end of belief in the power of reason and moral ideals. Although religion and philosophy share a common moral concern in that they are intrinsically oriented towards matters which transcend individual interests, in an “age where the divine and the demonic are intermingled (神魔混雜之時代),” these endeavors remain vulnerable to being exploited for goals which may be diametrically opposed to their own intentions (see HM 2006: 663–666). In the face of these challenges, Tang adopts a strongly messianic, soteriological tone and claims that the responsibility for devising a “way to save the world (救世 界之道)” lies with religious morality and philosophical wisdom. Just like the “innate moral awareness” in which they are grounded, the latter should somehow assume a “dominating” position vis-à-vis specific fields of knowledge and action which have been torn asunder in the modern world. Moreover, in this capacity, philosophy and religion must acquire the ability to positively transform human existence and to provide a common ground for different (rationally defensible) philosophical, religious, and moral convictions, thus yielding a “philosophy characterized by the virtue of benevolence which resonates with all modalities of morality (與一切道德相感通之仁德之哲學)” (HM 2006: 668). It is crucial to stress that these ambitious expectations are tied up with a rejection of the Hegelian view of philosophy as the final manifestation of “Absolute Spirit” (see HM 2006: 435–438; Van den Stock 2016: 258–262). Tang faults Hegel for disregarding the fact that all forms of cognitive and speculative activity are not

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merely self-referential and self-sufficient, but necessarily occur in relation to the irreducible particularity of the object with which they engage. As such, the object of thought cannot simply be subsumed under speculative activity, since that would amount to annulling the drive that keeps philosophy and all other forms of mental activity going. Thought without an object sufficiently different from itself is no longer thinking (see HM 2006: 559–560). Instead, Tang proposes that “the goal of speculation lies in bringing that which it thinks about to the fore. When the latter has already been pushed to the foreground, speculation hides itself behind what it thinks about, retreating after having accomplished what it set out to do. (思辨之目標, 在凸出所思辨者所思辨者既已凸出, 此思維即隱於此所思辨者之後, 更功成而身退)” (HM 2006: 560). In other words, the final goal of philosophy is to retreat behind its object after it has brought the latter to light, instead of treating its actual subject matter merely as a disposable springboard for its own self-assertion. When philosophy, understood as an attempt at arriving at a rational and comprehensive system of knowledge, retreats into the background, a space is opened up for a return to actual everyday life, which the philosophical endeavor is never fully capable of rationalizing. Philosophizing may be a necessary stage in the process of becoming a consummate person, but should not become an end in itself. While philosophical reasoning provides human beings with the conceptual means to become aware of and think through their own moral essence, it risks overshadowing and even harming the latter. Left to its own devices, philosophy ruthlessly pursues its drive towards systematization and rationalization without “turning back” towards the innate moral knowledge at the heart of human existence. Although it is not immediately clear how this is supposed to work on a more practical level, Tang clearly assumes that it is this very same “retreat” or “retirement” (引退) of philosophy which enables human beings to return to everyday life and the pretheoretical immediacy of “feelings stemming from human nature (xingqing 性情)” (see Huang 2011; Liu 2017). Such a retreat from philosophy requires a “great reversal in the direction of one's existential activity (生命活動方向之大轉 折)” (HM 2006: 681, cf. Tang 1956: 312), which can lead human beings out of what Tang calls the “prison” of a disengaged observational stance and bring them back to moral and religious practice as the final goal of philosophical speculation, which the latter can point to, but not exhaustively realize. For Tang, “feelings stemming from human nature” are the place where moral and religious ideals are already fully present and accessible in a non-discursive manner. Their metaphysical status ensures that they are not inert or powerless simply because they have not yet become fully manifest in a reality which always remains marked by imperfections. This implies that “feelings stemming from human nature” are not so much objects of knowledge in the usual sense, but rather constitute the source of normativity present in every subject, that is to say, the essence of the human being identical to “heaven (tian).” As such, these feelings allow human beings to short-circuit the deadlock of the narrowly epistemological (observational) attitude which Tang associates with the philosophical endeavor. Epistemology can only hope to “encircle (圈住)” the objective world and to capture it within the overarching category of

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what it considers to be knowable. However, in doing so, it will never encounter nor confront what he calls the “inner boundary (内在的邊際)” of its own purely observational stance, namely the essential nature of humanity manifesting itself in these feelings, which serve as a preconceptual basis for spiritual practice accessible to all human beings (see HM 2006: 681–683).While it may seem as if Tang is simply driving a wedge between knowledge and value, we will have to further clarify the complex entanglement of normative (ethico-religious) and epistemological requirements with reference to the overall structure and intention of The Horizons of the Mind in the next section.

3  T  he Horizons of the Mind: “Affective Resonance” and the Persistence of the Subject 3.1  The Relation Between Mind and Horizon As Tang Junyi immediately indicates in his opening remarks to Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Mind, the three terms “life (shengming 生命),” “existence (cunzai 存在),” and “mind” or “consciousness (xinling 心靈)” in the title of his book are to a certain extent interchangeable, insofar as they can all be taken together as designating “an existing and conscious form of life (存在而有心靈的生命),” “a consciousness which is alive and can exist (有生命能存在之心靈),” or “an existence which is endowed with consciousness and life (有心靈生命的存在)” (HM 2006: 1). This already suggests that the various “horizons (jingjie 境界)” of the mind unfolded throughout this work are not to be understood in a narrowly epistemological sense, as distinct perspectives of observation, but also at the same time point towards different modes of existence (see HM 2006: 10).26 For Tang, jingjie has a much broader reach than the words “thing” or “object,” since it can refer to the actual and the real as well as what is merely latent and illusory, and is thus not limited to the givenness and presence of objects in the usual sense. He thus insists that it covers a wider conceptual range than the Buddhist term jing 境 (viṣaya, a field of cognitive objects) and the related Yogācāra notion of ālambana (suoyuan 所, “cognitive object”) by which Tang admits being inspired. Crucially, the mind itself is also capable of constituting a “horizon” in its own right when it becomes its own “object” of observation and affective or intentional concern. The word “horizon” not only covers objects of perception in general, but is extensive enough to refer to the broader condition in which a given phenomenon presents itself to and affects an observer as a living being (see HM 2006: 2).27 This is also the reason why Tang

 The last (sub)section in Tang’s description of a particular horizon outlines the practical consequences and/or socio-political dimension of the mode of observation/existence under discussion. 27  On the function of jingjie in modern Chinese thought and Neo-Confucianism, see Wu (2002) and Han (2014) respectively. 26

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chooses the evocative term gantong 感通 or “affective resonance” (literally: ­“sensing and connecting”)28 to describe the relation between the mind as a living form of existence on the one hand and its various horizons on the other. While it is admittedly difficult to come up with an adequate translation for gantong, it is not so hard to see what Tang is getting at with this notion: unlike the term “knowledge,” gantong is meant to encompass the cognitive (zhi 知), affective (“emotion,” qing 情), as well as intentional (“will,” zhi 志) activities of the mind in relation to the horizons in which it is situated and through which it moves and develops itself.29 “Affective resonance” is tied up with the essential human ability to be emotionally affected by (ganshou 感受) and to intentionally respond to (ganying 感 應) things in the world (see HM 2006: 9–10, 18). That being said, the fact that Tang speaks of “affective resonance” should not be taken as implying that there is always an a priori correspondence or harmonious overlap between mind and horizon. Within the relations of “resonance” between mind and horizon, the latter necessarily “arise and cease together (起息),” regardless of whether the one is external to the other or not, and regardless of whether the horizon in question is illusory or real, actually present or merely exists in memory or anticipation (see HM 2006: 3–4, 545). Gantong is thus a much more primordial phenomenon than truth or falsehood. Mind and horizon “resonate” even when the horizon in question has no correlate in “objective reality,” which simply refers to a specific instance of “resonance,” more precisely one favored in scientific reasoning. Subjective illusions, dreams, or hallucinations for instance can also be analyzed as designating a kind of resonance between mind and horizon which is expressive of a certain truth-content, in the sense that it provides us with valuable information concerning the mind-horizon relation itself. In The Horizons of the Mind, we are thus far removed from a conception of truth as an adequation between subject and object. For Tang, subject and object are not neatly separable poles of a disembodied, purely epistemological relation. The connectivity and codependency between horizon and mind is thus not a transcendental guarantee for truth, but rather counts as the condition of the possibility for any world whatsoever to arise within self-enclosed, “worldless” (Heidegger 1995: 176) existence. Even the bare fact that a certain mode of (subjective) observation can mistake itself concerning the nature of a particular object-horizon is grounded in the positive connective capacity of the mind and its rich variety of cognitive, affective, and intentional activities, which are able to enter into all kinds of connections with each other, thus giving rise to the possibility of confusion (混) from which, in turn, delusion (妄) can arise. As Tang puts it succinctly: “Without such connectivity, there would not be any confusion, nor would delusions arise (無 此通, 亦無此混, 而無此妄)” (HM 2006: 7). Consequently, by using the concept of  Tang culled this term from a passage in the Great Commentary (Da zhuan 大傳) on the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經). See Tang (1973: 142). For an extensive study of Tang’s notion of gantong in relation to the Yijing, see Liu (2014). 29  See also chapter “Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on Human Nature,” where this term is translated as “transference”—Ed. 28

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gantong, Tang tries to make clear that the fundamental interpenetration of subjective and objective aspects of mental activity precedes and conditions any possible correspondence between mind and cognitive object. Between the mind and a specific horizon, there is thus always a form of “resonance” far surpassing the default epistemological situation of an active “subject” observing a passive “object.” Tang argues that the Chinese terms for subject (zhuti 主體) and object (keti 客體) are in themselves already indicative of a form of epistemological “hospitality” in which we find a relation of mutual deference between the observer and the observed: as the host (zhu 主), the subject (zhuti) welcomes and accommodates the object (keti) as its guest (ke 客), who in turn responds to this invitation by appearing to the subject (see HM 2006: 2, cf. HM 2006: 533; Tang 1953: 138; Tang 1967: 281; Tang 1964: 291). Through his emphasis on the “vacuous potency (xuling 靈)”30 of the mind, Tang construes the cognitive relation as one of deference, meaning that knowledge as such is grounded in “an openness of [the mind] towards other forms of existence, which allows it to retreat and yield in order to accommodate other beings (對其他存在之開朗, 而自退屈, 以容其他存在)” (HM 2006: 243, also see Steinbauer 2005: 110–116).31 In this sense, “affective resonance” is identical to benevolence (ren 仁) (see HM 2006: 363).

3.2  The Nine Horizons of the Mind The elementary phenomenological factum of gantong clearly constitutes the central conceptual matrix of The Horizons of the Mind. For Tang Junyi, all possible relations between horizon and mind can be unfolded from within “affective resonance,” regardless of whether they are oriented toward the objective world, the subject itself, or even toward what lies beyond the limits of possible experience. On the other hand however, Tang is obviously not content to simply dive into the infinite stream of possible mind-horizon relations without further ado, but insists on prearranging these relations within a determinate structure, one supposedly reflecting the intrinsic developmental tendency of the mind and the basic phenomenon of “affective resonance” itself (see HM 2006: 17). While harboring deep suspicions about the  My translation of this term is based on that of Thomas Fröhlich. See his captivating discussion of Tang’s taxonomy of knowledge in Fröhlich (2017: 118–130). Also see Zhang (2017). In parsing the compound xinling, Tang states that xin 心 refers to the internal dimension of the mind, whereas ling 靈 denotes the ability to connect and resonate with the external world and already in itself refers to “affective resonance”. See HM (2006: 1). 31  In an earlier work, Tang had already interpreted the Daoist quest for “vacuity” (xu ) as a form of cognitive receptivity to the myriad things, which he compared to Kant’s concept of the transcendental unity of apperception (see Tang 1953: 93–98), while adding that Daoism did not conceive of the relation between the mind and things primarily in epistemological terms, but rather situated it in the broader context of an identification of the self with the world and the cosmos at large. For a discussion of the link between the idea of the “vacuous potency of the mind” and an attitude of openness towards other cultures, see Tang (1974c: 820–822). 30

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reductive, if not outright destructive, tendencies of philosophical systems as we saw in the previous section, Tang himself is hardly immune to the temptations of systematicity and structural coherence. Important to bear in mind in this respect is that The Horizons of the Mind purports to provide a transcendental account of all possible mind-horizon relations and thus has the ambition of covering the entire scope of mental activity in the broadest sense of the term, including practical and religious aspects which are not simply epistemological in nature. As an unintended consequence, The Horizons of the Mind seems to have become more well-known for its overall organizational structure than its actual contents, specifically for dividing the different horizons of mental and existential activity into three objective, three subjective, and three trans-subjective and trans-objective horizons, yielding a total of nine jingjie. By Tang’s own admission, the division of “affective resonance” into nine horizons is to some extent arbitrary (see HM 2006: 17). The basic epistemological distinction between subject and object used in this tripartite division is supplemented by a far from transparent and somewhat artificial arrangement of mental activity into “vertical (zongguan 縱觀),” “horizontal (hengguan 橫觀),” and “sequential (shunguan 順觀)” modes of observation (guan 觀), which in turn correspond to the equally fluid triad of “instrinsic constitution (ti 體),” “aspect (xiang 相),” and “function (yong 用)” (see HM 2006: 17–22; Steinbauer 2005: 61–76).32 In the absence of clear definitions of the terms which constitute the structural backbone and organizational rationale of his system, we are forced to try and reconstruct Tang’s approach in a simplified manner. In sum, for Tang, ti (literally, “body”) refers to the “intrinsic constitution” of a certain entity, which is logically prior to (“above” or “below,” depending on how one chooses to phrase it) its phenomenal appearance(s). Observing the ti or “intrinsic constitution” of a given entity hinges on drawing a distinction between “upper” and “lower” levels in the world and thus establishes a “vertical” relation within a certain horizon of observation. As Tang makes clear, the prime example of such an “intrinsic constitution” (ti) is the subject (zhuti 主體) itself (see HM 2006: 2, 19), as the true protagonist of The Horizons of the Mind. If a relation between mind and horizon is approached from the perspective of its ti, the mind itself moves to the center of attention. On the other hand, inquiring into an entity’s “intrinsic constitution” can obviously also yield philosophical perspectives, such as atomism, which are patently not related to, let alone focused on, the subject, but which attempt to interpret reality in terms of its ultimate (“underlying”) constituents. However, Tang’s transcendental approach will lead him to argue that even such explicitly nonsubjective or anti-­subjective perspectives always already presuppose the involvement of the subject (see Sect. 3.3). In contrast to the “vertical” perspective proper to the observation of a thing’s “intrinsic constitution,” xiang (aspect) denotes an  This famous triad harks back to the influential sixth-century Mahāyāna Buddhist text called the Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論 (Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith) (see HM 2006: 20), which continued to be of central importance in modern Chinese intellectual history in general and New Confucian philosophy in particular. On this last point, see the forthcoming volume edited by John Makeham provisionally entitled The Awakening of Faith and New Confucian Philosophy.

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entity’s various determinable characteristics. Such aspects or characteristics are accessible “horizontally” in terms of “inner” and “outer,” that is to say, without reference to a deeper or logically prior level of analysis. Observing the variety of shapes and forms of mental activity in terms of their xiang implies focusing on the objective side of the mind-horizon relation as expressed within a certain instance of “affective resonance.” Finally, yong (function) refers to the dynamic manifestations of the mind-­horizon relation within a particular “sequence” of events (separable into “before” and “after”), thus focusing on how something develops and “behaves” in the world. In short, when one approaches a given relation between mind and horizon “sequentially” as displaying a certain “function,” the primary focus lies on what this relation “does” rather than on what it “is” (its ti) or what it “has” (particular xiang). As such, “intrinsic constitution,” “attribute,” and “function” can be seen as the conceptual equivalents of nouns, adjectives, and verbs respectively (see HM 2006: 21). In nominal terms, a horizon-mind relation is substantialized into a specific, nonreducible underlying reality. When expressed adjectivally, the same relation is approached in terms of the “aspects” or “characteristics” it displays. The “functional” mode of observation makes us see things in terms of what the relation in question performatively accomplishes. Crucially, Tang insists that ti, xiang, and yong are three dimensions of the same, more primordial reality, that is to say, that of “affective resonance” as such. By combining the logic of “vertical,” “horizontal,” and “sequential” modes of observation outlined in the above with the subject-object distinction which the very notion of “affective resonance” is meant to in some sense transcend, Tang provides us with a complex chart of what are supposedly all possible modes of mental activity. Although the highly poetic and evocative names of the various jingjie are notoriously difficult to translate, it is not impossible to provide a highly simplified drive-by summary of their contents: The first three “object-oriented” horizons deals with (1) concepts of individuality and principles of individuation, (2) ideas of categorization (genus and species), and (3) notions of causality. The middle three “subject-­ oriented” horizons provide an analysis of (4) sense-perception, self-consciousness, spatio-temporality, and intersubjectivity (5) “pure meaning” devoid of any objective reference as deployed in logic, mathematics, geometry, art, and philosophy, and (6) moral practice. Finally, the last three horizons in which the distinction between subject and object is transcended provide extensive discussions of (7) (Christian) monotheist, (8) Buddhist, and (9) Confucian outlooks on human existence. Schematically, the overarching structure of the “nine horizons” can be represented as follows: Mode and orientation of “affective resonance” (gantong 感通) Ti 體 (intrinsic constitution): vertical mode of observation (zongguan 縱觀)

Objective horizons 1. 萬物散殊境 (horizon of the scattered myriad things)

Trans-objective and trans-subjective Subjective horizons horizons 4.感覺互境 (horizon 7. 歸向一神境 of the fusion of sense (horizon of the return to one perception) divinity)

240 Mode and orientation of “affective resonance” (gantong 感通) Xiang 相 (aspect): horizontal mode of observation (hengguan 橫觀) Yong 用 (function): sequential mode of observation (shunguan 順觀)

A. Van den Stock Trans-objective and trans-subjective Objective horizons Subjective horizons horizons 8. 我法二空境 5. 觀照虛靈境 2. 依類成化境 (horizon of detached (horizon of the (horizon of the emptiness of self and observation transformation into dharmas) classes) 9. 天德流行境 6. 道德實踐境 3. 功能序运境 (horizon of the flow (horizon of functioning (horizon of moral of heavenly virtue) practice) in order)

Suffice it to say here that this arrangement of the relations between mind and horizon, as various manifestations of “affective resonance,” is not merely intended as an externally imposed arrangement (even though it strikes this particular commentator as being precisely that), but as expressing a hierarchical progression of the mind to a consummate Confucian position within the last of the three “trans-­ subjective and trans-objective horizons.” In other words, the structure of the nine horizons is not simply a conceptual representation of mental activity, but also counts as a veritable roadmap to moral and spiritual development. Horizons which are located on a hierarchically lower level are not annulled through this progression, but rather preserved and “contained” (包涵), or as Hegel would have said, “sublated” (Aufgehoben), within more advanced horizons (HM 2006: 5). As Tang emphasizes with respect to the last three horizons in particular, once the distinction between subject and object has been transcended, we are no longer concerned with providing human beings with “knowledge” (zhishi 知識) of the world, but rather with a performative type of “wisdom” (zhihui 智慧), that is to say, with a “teaching of life and existence” (生活生命之教) (HM 2006: 25).

3.3  Mind and Horizon Between Resonance and Transcendence In my view, while unfolding the rather fuzzy conceptual logic of organization behind Tang’s nine horizons is hardly devoid of interest in its own right, an exaggerated focus on the organizational structure risks remaining largely unhelpful for providing readers unacquainted with his thought with a sense of orientation or an idea of his basic intentions in devising this work.33 By contrast, there is something far more elementary and arguably a lot more significant which seems to have escaped  Since there is hardly an unambiguous logic underlying the transitions from one horizon to the next (see Steinbauer 2005: 163), it is perfectly feasible for many of the sections in The Horizons of the Mind to be read in isolation. Even the introductory and conclusive parts of the book are not free of long digressions which have no real bearing on the overall argument. My point in making these comments is not to downplay the systematic ambitions (let alone the philosophical relevance) of Tang’s book, but rather to indicate that its (dubious) reputation as a “system” should not scare away

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the attention of most commentators. This is the simple fact that the transcendence of the distinction between subject and object seemingly reserved for the last three “absolute” or “metaphysical” horizons, in which Tang engages with monotheism,34 Buddhism, and Confucianism respectively, is actually present and operative throughout the whole architectonic of the nine horizons. Indeed, according to Tang himself, the entire structure of this architectonic can be encapsulated in one single (and simple) phenomenon, namely the interpenetration between subject and object taking place within “affective resonance.”35 In turn, the latter can be further condensed into “a single thought-moment (一念),” ultimately leading back to the “absence of notions (無念)” (HM 2006: 558). The immediate and primordial identity of subject and object in what William James called “pure experience” qualifies as something like a “zero horizon (零數之境)” (HM 2006: 555) presupposed by the totality of Tang’s system. The codependency of mind and horizon implies that even the first six purely “objective” and “subjective” horizons are already defined by an interplay of observer and observed or experiencer and experienced which can never be reduced to one of the two poles of “affective resonance.” The first of the nine horizons for instance ostensibly deals with a realm of bare objectivity, where everything bears the “mark of mutual externality (互外相)” and in which there is only a multitude of wholly singular (唯一無二) entities, “mutually scattered and aligned with each other in the world, or in time and space (相互散殊 於世界或時間、空間中)” (HM 2006: 29–30). However, Tang's reflections soon lead him to introduce a distinction between the empirical and the transcendental self: the latter cannot be reduced to the status of a mere object amongst others, since it is characterized by “intentional activities (指向活動)” without which categories such as “individual entity,” “externality,” “space,” or “time” would be meaningless and groundless (see HM 2006: 67–79).36 As such, the subject is already present in

readers who are only or specifically interested in one or a certain number of the topics Tang addresses. 34  Actually, the scope of the 7th horizon of “the return to one divinity (歸向一神境)” is much more restricted, and mainly deals with proofs for the existence of God in the Western philosophical tradition. Tang’s critique of ontological arguments for the existence of God boils down to the idea that such proofs simply depart from the supposed completeness and perfection of God, as a notion which somehow logically and necessarily implies and includes its own “existence.” In doing so however, no positive reference is made to the existence of things in the world (including the very processes of thought where arguments for the existence of God take place) which remain wholly contingent upon the divinity. By contrast, for Tang, the very concept of existence presupposes some sort of connection to the immanence and imperfection of this-worldly being. He thus argues that any notion of God should start out from a positive confirmation of the immanent existence of the world and individual entities in the world. See HM (2006: 406–412). 35  See HM (2006: 553–554), where Tang unfolds the entire conceptual matrix of his book through the simple example of the perception of patch of white. 36  Concomitantly, as Tang argues in the second horizon, the subject is not merely one class (lei 類) amongst others. See HM (2006: 88).

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the background of the first horizon as a fundamental presupposition of objectivity (see HM 2006: 548–549). Still, Tang attempts to resist the temptation to simply implode the objective world into the subject, for reasons which transcend the level of epistemology. Interestingly enough, in his view, the problem of the relation between the mind and its horizons closely resembles that of the relation between God and the world in Christianity, which he discusses in the first of the three “absolute horizons.” If God is seen as completely transcendent to the world, the latter's existence becomes wholly contingent and dispensable, and the concept of God “swallows up” the created objective world. Alternatively, if God is conceived as immanent in or even identical to His creation, He runs the risk of no longer being distinguishable and “drowning” in the world (see HM 2006: 403–406). In contrast to the Christian tradition, where the observer God engenders what he observes before bestowing approval on his creation, Tang emphatically claims to follow the Chinese tradition in speaking of a process in which “heaven and earth open up and the myriad things emerge (天開地 辟而萬物生)” (HM 2006: 51), that is to say, of a co-arising of observer and observed or subject and object. Within this line of reasoning, even the simplest instance of perception is conditioned by a fundamental openness of the mind allowing it to defer to and accommodate sense data within its own “vacuity (xu)” or “space (kongjian 空)” (see HM 2006: 52).37 However, at the same time, Tang Junyi stresses that sense-­perception is not merely receptive, but rather constitutes a “self-moved activity (自動的活動)” on the part of the mind (HM 2006: 53). Indeed, from the onset, it becomes clear that the subject-object identity encountered in the notion of “affective resonance” does not entail a straightforward annulment of the distinction between mind and horizon. There are thus clear limits to what William Ng describes as Tang’s “even-handedness towards the subjective and objective aspects of human consciousness” (Ng 2004: 379). What we might call the “relative autonomy” of the mind vis-à-vis its object-horizons is asserted unambiguously from the beginning of his book: in resonating with and being connected to a specific horizon, the mind is never constrained by and limited to the latter (see HM 2006: 3, cf. HM 2006: 589–590). It always retains the potential of maintaining a certain distance from and transcending what it observes, “like a wild goose in flight threading in the slushy snow, not remaining where it leaves the marks of its feet (如飛鴻踏雪泥, 飛鴻不留於其指爪之所在)” (HM 2006: 3).38 Consequently, the subject cannot be identified as a mere conglomerate of its “aspects (xiang)” and “functions (yong),” that is to say, its various states and activities throughout the horizons, as if it did not have its own “intrinsic constitution (ti).” Instead, it constantly remains present (常在) and persists throughout its entire trajectory (see HM 2006: 584–585).

 In one of the only explicit references to Heidegger in The Horizons of the Mind, Tang alludes to his conception of Dasein as “ex-isting” in the world and of its openness towards being as precondition for the appearance of a world. Cf. HM (2006: 63). 38  Tang is paraphrasing a famous poem by Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101). Tang also invokes theses verses to make a similar argument in Tang (1962: 23). My translation is based on Owen (1996: 678). 37

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At times, Tang’s arguments for the “relative autonomy” of the mind over and against its horizons of observation and experience seem to come dangerously close to his description of the mind’s complete detachment from any external reference to an objective reality in the fifth “horizon of detached observation (guanzhao lingxu jing 觀照凌境).”39 Tang presents such detachment from the objective world as the precondition for reflective modes of observation such as science, logic, and philosophy. However, as we saw in the above, he argued that the imposition of this abstract manner of observation on social reality had led to negative consequences in the modern world, specifically by severing philosophy from religion as a form of transformative existential practice. It would seem that Tang remains torn between asserting the autonomy of the subject from the objective world on the one hand, and the idea that such autonomy leads to a harmful form of detachment from social reality and everyday existence on the other. As I will further explain in the next section, it is thus of crucial importance for Tang to draw a distinction between such potentially pathological “scientific” detachment on the one hand, and the autonomy of the subject in its journey through the various horizons on the other (see HM 2006: 346–348; Van den Stock 2016: 232–233). The challenges he faces in doing so are considerable, since even in the last three “religious” horizons, where the distinction between subject and object is supposed to have been finally overcome, the sublation of subjectivity and objectivity continues to take place firmly within the subject’s playing field: The transcendence of subject and object [in these horizons] still proceeds by assimilating the object to the subject, which is why they remain dominated by the subject. In the transition from self-consciousness to the transcendence of self-consciousness, there is also a self-consciousness of the transcendence of self-consciousness. Therefore, these three horizons could also be called the horizons of an absolute subject in which the distinction between subject and object is transcended (此超主客, 仍循主攝客而更進, 故仍以主為主 其由自覺而超自覺, 亦自覺有此超自覺者 故此三境亦可稱為超主客之對主體境). (HM 2006: 25, emphasis added)40

4  A  “Space for Spirit”: Tang Junyi’s Religious Turn from Philosophy Towards Everyday Life and Back Tang was clearly aware that his assertion of the relative autonomy of the mind over and against its object-horizons risks relapsing into a form of idealism which runs contrary to his most fundamental philosophical convictions. There can be no  See HM (2006: 346), where Tang invokes the same verses by Su Shi. The fifth horizon occupies an intermediary position in the whole book as a “pivot” that can lead both “downwards” (back towards the objective “horizon of common secular life (一般世俗生活之境)” as well as “upwards,” towards the transcendent, religious dimension of existence. See HM (2006: 250, 321). 40  According to Steinbauer (2005: 127), Tang’s entire project in The Horizons of the Mind can be understood as follows: “the self-development of the mind towards more elevated horizons coincides with the unfolding of the mind’s own capacities, a [process] of ‘finding itself within itself’ (ein Zu-sich-selbst-Finden).”

39

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“affective resonance” if the object-pole is reduced to a chimerical externalization of subjective awareness. Such an idealist approach leads to the “great self-attachment (大我執)” and “great arrogance (大傲慢)” of solipsism (see HM 2006: 596–597). The solipsist attitude undoes the subject’s positive accomplishment of having emancipated itself from bare objectivity (while also remaining irreducible to the general categories of thought it uses to know the world, see HM 2006: 586–588, 604) and undermines its own spiritual growth. In doing so, the mind paradoxically “sinks away into its own upward ascension as such (自陷於此向上翻升之事之本身)” (HM 2006: 597). Tang’s remarks suggest that this the exact point where the limitations of philosophical systems anchored in self-consciousness become clear and the philosophical effort to subordinate the world to conceptual categories begins to topple. Even an attempt on the part of the subject to steer clear of “self-attachment” by “limiting its own self-consciousness (限制其自己之自覺心)” (HM 2006: 597), that is to say, by acting as a “hospitable body” (zhuti 主體) and deferring to the irreducibility of the objective world, can be reabsorbed into the closed circuit of self-consciousness. After all, consciousness is able to become aware of its ability to limit itself vis-à-vis its object and can employ this ability as yet another means to assert its dominance over the objective world, which has no such possibility of self-limitation.41 There is thus no easy way out of the “arrogant” self-assertion of the subject, “because knowledge of the fact that [self-consciousness] has the ability to limit itself can in turn still lead to self-inflation, causing self-consciousness to look upon the limitations it is aware of as inferior to itself, so that the self-conscious mind can still proclaim itself to be free of limitations because it is aware of them (因此知限 制自己之知, 還可更自動浮起, 而以其所知之限制, 屬於其自覺心之下; 則此自 覺心之知此限制, 仍可自謂不受限制)” (ibid.).42 Moreover, although the pathological distance between subject and object can be conceptually transcended on a philosophical level, everyday life remains characterized by division and disconnectedness: “the kind of life indicated by the concept of the affective resonance between subject and object remains [limited to] all sorts of specific emotional states where subject and object resonate with each other. In turn, these various emotional horizons can still remain scattered next to each other and disconnected from each other in our everyday life (此主客之感通之概念之所指之生活, 仍為種種特殊之主客 感通之情境 此諸情境, 在吾人之日常生活中, 仍可是一一散列, 而互不相通)” (HM 2006: 559). As such, the conceptual identity between subject and object itself stands in stark contrast to their actual division in reality. This is why, as we already

 David Elstein has made the intriguing suggestion that this might be read as a covert criticism of Mou Zongsan’s notion of the “self-negation” or “self-restriction” (ziwo kanxian 自我坎陷) of moral reason. 42  Again, the target of Tang’s critique seems to be Hegel. See Hegel (2010: 106–107) (§ 60). As Hegel argues here (against Kant’s limiting concept of the “thing in itself”), “it is merely a lack of consciousness not to realize that the designation of something as finite or limited contains the proof of the actual presence of the infinite, the unlimited, that the knowledge of a boundary can exist only insofar as the unbounded exists on this side, in consciousness.” 41

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saw in the above, Tang argues that philosophy must “retreat” and give way to a “rationalization of immediate existence” (當下生活之理性化) (see HM 2006: 559–662), that is to say, to moral and religious practice as the proper place where “affective resonance” can be accomplished on a performative level. At first sight, this turn from philosophical thought to ethico-religious practice may seem straightforward enough, even if it remains rather abstract and nondescript. However, matters are complicated by an unresolved tension in Tang's late work between his celebration of the pretheoretical immediacy of religious practice on the one hand, and the irreducible persistence and transcendental status of the subject on the other. This tension might be briefly characterized as one between religion (spirituality) and philosophy (conceptual reflection) as such. As we have seen, Tang’s programmatic call for philosophy to “withdraw” in order to reveal and return to its preconceptual basis in everyday existence coincides with a movement towards religious faith and spiritual practice. In his view, the reconciliation of the immanence of everyday life with a transcendent, religious orientation is best exemplified by the ninth and highest horizon of consciousness and existence, that of Confucianism. The Confucian affirmation of everyday existence and the primordial affective relations between family members allows human beings to attain a form of “transcendence of the world within the world” (see HM 2006: 501–506). In arguing for the religious character of Confucianism and its ability to accommodate certain aspects of Christianity and Buddhism in order to enrich the Chinese tradition, Tang introduces an important qualification: religious beliefs, such as in the existence of a transcendent deity or karmic retribution should only be used “negatively,” that is to say, only insofar as they can contribute to the spiritual progress and moral development of the self. If religion becomes divorced from subjective sincerity and personal effort, such beliefs can become sources of “attachment” in their own right (see HM 2006: 489, 563–571, 687). For example, believers may become fixated on the promise of reward in the afterlife instead of being concerned with the cultivation of self and others in the here and now. This may cause the search for moral perfection in everyday life to degenerate into a mere tool for a religious quest that leads human beings down a “demonic path (魔道)” (see HM 2006: 649–650). Additionally, such an approach towards religion reintroduces an unbridgeable gap between the everyday self on the one hand and wholly transcendent religious ideals on the other, so that the former relapses into the observational and speculative stance of philosophy and science. Purely transcendent religious ideals can only be gazed at, but not practiced, let alone realized. Consequently, Tang insists on the need to establish and safeguard what he describes as a “space for spirit (jingshen de kongjian 精神的空間),” a space where the mind as the subject of spiritual practice is able to maintain a proper distance from its various beliefs by realizing that the latter are ultimately dependent on itself, and not the other way around (see HM 2006: 574–576). Accordingly, subjective autonomy is explicitly elevated above any possible dissolution of the subject into one of its many possible objects of belief. In his own words, “human beings should simply preserve such transcendent beliefs, in order to allow for a resonant connection between their belief and what they believe in, so that belief becomes a part of

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the self-awareness of the mind, instead of seeing the self-awareness of the mind as something belonging to what they believe in (人只當存此超越的信仰, 以此信仰 感通於所信仰, 而此信仰即屬於其心靈之自覺, 而非此心靈之自覺屬於此所信 仰者)” (HM 2006: 574). While Tang offers no concrete details of the ritual or ethical practices required for or beneficial to creating and maintaining such a space for the spiritual autonomy of the self over and against its own beliefs, this much is clear: he assumes that it is the human mind itself which is uniquely equipped to safeguard its own autonomy over and against its object-horizons, including the specific religious beliefs he discusses in the last three “absolute horizons,” where the distinction between subject and object is supposed to have been transcended altogether. If religious beliefs are merely observed (both in the epistemological and practical sense of the word) on a first-order level, the mind will never be in a position to recognize them as contingent upon its own subjective involvement. In this case, even deeply moral and socially beneficial religious beliefs risk becoming a barrier to attaining subjective self-­ fulfillment. Such beliefs are mere “objects” lacking the spontaneity and reflexivity of the subject, since they remain incomplete and imperfect without an awareness of subjective self-determination. In this sense, Tang’s turn from philosophy as a selfreflective endeavor back towards the pretheoretical immediacy of innate moral feelings remains subordinated to the autonomy of subjectivity as a space for ethico-religious autonomy. Tang’s transcendental presuppositions are thus joined rather uneasily with his insistence that spontaneous moral feeling and action are ultimately superior to philosophical speculation. Crucially, this “space for spirit,” which serves to uphold the autonomy of the self-conscious mind over and against religious belief, is also present on the levels of intersubjectivity and spiritual self-transformation, as a guarantee for individual autonomy in relation to other human beings and for the “autonomy” of the morally imperfect subject vis-à-vis itself, allowing it to observe and remedy its own shortcomings. As the ultimate condition for autonomous spiritual self-cultivation, the “space for spirit” prevents “self-awareness from becoming subordinate to and bound by what is aware of (自覺之隸屬黏附於其所覺)” (HM 2006: 575). Tang indicates that cultivating and expanding this “space for spirit” not only takes place within moral practice in a restricted sense, but also comes about through the many seemingly value-neutral and objectively oriented cognitive activities of the mind throughout the various “purely objective” and “purely subjective” horizons. The spiritual value of a seemingly amoral practice such as logical reasoning hinges on its implicit but ineluctable assertion of the dominion of the subject over the object. Tang's religious motives are thus to a large extent coterminous and continuous with the epistemological self-assertion of the mind throughout the infinite variety of observations and experiences within its horizons. In short, the philosophical requirement according to which the transcendental subject should always retain a more stable “intrinsic constitution” (ti) that cannot be accounted for merely in terms of the immanent unfolding of its activities coincides with the autonomy of the self in relation to religious belief.

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There is thus nothing outside of or beyond the horizons, except for the minimal but irreducible distance between mind and horizon as such, which persists throughout the entire “horizonal” spiritual development of the subject. As we have seen in the course of this chapter, Tang Junyi seems to go back and forth between the ethico-­religious desideratum of effectively translating “affective resonance” into the domain of human existence on the one hand, and the epistemological assertion of an irreducible gap between subject and object as the condition of the possibility for knowledge in general and philosophical and scientific knowledge in particular on the other. Indeed, paradoxically enough, it would seem that in Tang’s philosophical system, the transcendental status of the subject and its irreducibility to the various object-horizons overlaps with the possibility of arriving at a positive ethico-­religious transformation of self and others: In the process of gaining a foothold in the [ultimate] horizon where they exhaustively realize their nature and establish their lives and while going through all of the other horizons [leading up to this ultimate sphere], human beings should rouse up their own mind, which is capable of observing all of these horizons, and suspend it above them, so that there always remains a certain distance between the mind and the horizons it observes, thus giving shape to a space for spirit. Although the self-awareness of the mind will always take up its proper place within itself, without becoming attached or subordinated to the horizons it observes, what human beings observe is still nothing but these various horizons. However, the self-conscious mind itself is on equal footing with the moral mind which exhaustively realizes its nature and establishes its life, allowing the self-conscious and the moral mind to serve as each other’s function, so that we could also say that they are two different manifestations of one and the same mind. (人在立於盡性立命之境, 以此諸境時, 則人必須將其 能觀此一切境之心靈, 向上提起, 以懸於上, 以與此所觀境間, 時時有一距離, 以形成 一精神的空間 此心靈之自覺, 永正位居體於其自身, 而不戮附隸屬於其所觀之境, 則 人之所觀者, 雖仍只是此諸境 然此心靈之自覺自身之位, 則與盡性立命之道德心靈之 位平齊, 而可與之相互為用, 亦可更之為同一心靈之不同表現也) (HM 2006: 576). Acknowledgements  I would like to thank David Elstein and the anonymous reviewers for their numerous helpful suggestions and critical remarks. All remaining shortcomings are my own.

References Ames, Roger T. 2010. Achieving personal identity in Confucian role ethics: Tang Junyi on human nature as conduct. Oriens Extremus 49:143–166. (Ames draws upon what he takes to be Tang’s “pragmatic naturalism” and his processual understanding of human existence as fundamentally constituted by and within the varying constellations of immediate interpersonal relations as a philosophical resource for outlining the contours of a Confucian “role ethics.”) Bresciani, Umberto. 2001. Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian movement. Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies. (Contains a general overview of Tang’s life and works and a concise summary of the contents and structure of The Horizons of the Mind.) Cai, Renhou 蔡仁厚. 2005. The grand new Confucian doctrinal classification in the twentieth century 二十世紀新儒家的大判教. He 2:126–141. (Discusses Tang’s and Mou Zongsan’s appropriation of the Buddhist device of “doctrinal classification.”) Chan, Sin Yee. 2002. Tang Junyi: Moral idealism and Chinese culture. In Contemporary Chinese philosophy, eds. Cheng Chung-Ying, Nicholas Bunnin, 305–326. Oxford: Blackwell. (This

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introductory chapter offers a helpful outline of Tang’s entire philosophical output, while also critically engaging with the New Confucian’s perceived tendency toward “pan-moralism.” Includes a brief overview of the structure and content of the “nine horizons,” a list of Tang’s Complete Works with translations of the titles of individual books, as well as a limited overview of secondary literature on Tang.) Chen, Weiran 陳學然. 2008. Survey of research on Tang Junyi with an index of books and articles 唐君毅研究概況及書目文獻索引. Bulletin of Studies in Chinese Literature and Philosophy 中國文哲研究通訊. 18(4):187–226. Cheng, Kevin Shun Kai. 1995. Karl Barth and Tang Junyi on the nature of ethics and the realization of moral life: A comparative study. PhD dissertation, Berkeley Theological Union. (Though not easy to gain access to, this is one of the only available studies which provides a sustained comparative study of Tang’s work with that of another (Western) thinker. Revealingly enough in the context of this chapter, the thinker in question is a theologian rather than an academic philosopher.) Cheung, Chan-fai. 1998. T'ang Chün-i’s philosophy of love. Philosophy East and West 48(2): 257–271. (Offers an intriguing window into the early Tang’s work and his quasi-messianic self-image at the time.) Chiu, King Pong. 2016. Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan thought: A Confucian appropriation of Buddhist ideas in response to scientism in twentieth-century China. Leiden/Boston: Brill. (To date, the most detailed study of (Huayan) Buddhist elements in Tang’s work in any Western language. Also see Zhang 2016.) Chou, Grace Ai-Ling. 2012. Confucianism, colonialism, and the cold war: Chinese cultural education at Hong Kong’s New Asia College, 1949–76. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Feng, Aiqun 馮愛羣. 1979. Essays in memory of Tang Junyi 唐君毅紀念集. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (This collection includes a chronology of Tang’s life and a short descriptive overview of the content of his major books and articles. Among the authors of the memorial essays themselves we find important figures such as Cai Renhou 蔡仁厚, Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Lao Siguang 勞思光, Lin Chen-kuo 林鎮國, and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀.) Fröhlich, Thomas. 2010. ‘Confucian democracy’ and its Confucian critics: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on the limits of Confucianism. Oriens Extremus. Zeitschrift für Sprache, Kunst und Kultur der Länder des Fernen Ostens 49:167–200. (Discusses Tang’s understanding and often surprisingly critical attitude toward democratic politics with a keen eye to the broader historical context.) ———. 2017. Tang Junyi: Confucian philosophy and the challenge of modernity. Leiden/Boston: Brill. (Fröhlich’s book is arguably the most illuminating and historically informed introduction to Tang's work as a whole in any language and convincingly demonstrates how his metaphysical and religious positions are inseparable from his socio-political stance.) Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇. 1991. Tang Junyi and Xiong Shili 唐君毅與熊十力. Huo 3:128–141. Han, Christina. 2014. Envisioning the territory of the sages: The Neo-Confucian discourse of jingjie. Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture 22: 85–109. He, Renfu 何仁福. 2005. Critical essays on Tang Junyi: his life and works 唐學論衡:唐君毅先 生的生命與學問 (2 vols.). Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe. (This formidable collection of essays and articles by some of the most prominent scholars specialized in Tang’s philosophy from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan touches upon virtually every aspect of his thought.) Hegel, G. W. F. 2010. Encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences in basic outline. Part I: Science of logic. Translated and Edited by Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O.  Dahlstrom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1995. The fundamental concepts of metaphysics. World, finitude, solitude. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. HM. 2006. Life, existence, and the horizons of the mind 生命存在與心靈境界. Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe [1977].

Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978) 249 Hok, Yin Chan. 2017. A critique of colonialism and capitalism: Tang Junyi’s views on plurality and openness. In Confucianism for the contemporary world: Global order, political plurality, and social action, eds. Hon, Tze-ki and Stapleton, Kristin, 167–182. Albany: State University of New  York Press. (Provides a historical analysis of the emergence of Tang’s Confucian “humanism” against the background of his experience of the colonial dimension of modernity in Hong Kong and emphasizes aspects of Tang’s work that might serve as a resource for articulating a critique of global capitalism.) Huang, Kuan-min 黃冠閔. 2011. Tang Junyi’s theory of affective resonance between the horizons: A clue into its topology 唐君毅的境界感通論: 一個場所論的線索. Journal of Tsinghua University 清華學報 41(2):335–373. (Though not for the uninitiated, this article is one of the most in-depth analyses of Tang’s notion of gantong 感通 (“affective resonance”) which takes into account the broader moral and practical goals of his philosophy.) Huang, Zhaoqiang 兆強. 2010. Scholarly learning and worldly engagement: Tang Junyi’s philosophy of history and his ultimate concerns 唐君毅的史哲學及其終極關懷. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (This voluminous and sprawling study mainly deals with the socio-­political problems and concerns which animate and inform Tang’s whole philosophical project, in which the author identifies a veritable “philosophy of history.”) Huo, Taohui 霍韜晦. 1990–1992. Collected essays from an international symposium on the thought of Tang Junyi 唐君毅思想:國際會議論文集 (4 vols.). Hong Kong: Fazhu chubanshe. (Edited by one of Tang’s most prominent students, this massive collection of essays stemming from an international symposium organized in Hong Kong in 1988 to mark the tenth year of Tang’s death contains contributions by luminaries such as Tu Wei-ming 杜維明, Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇 Jing Haifeng 景海峰, Lee Ming-huei 李明輝, Thomas A. Metzger, and Ng Yu-Kwan 吳汝鈞.) ———. 2006. A reading guide to selected works of Tang Junyi唐君毅著作選導讀. Hong Kong: Fazhu chubanshe. (Guides the reader through a selection of Tang’s most important works, including The Horizons of the Mind, though generally more by way of paraphrase than actual analysis.) Jiang, Nianfeng 蔣年豐. 1992. The postwar Taiwanese experience and Hegel in the thought of Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan 戰後台灣經驗與唐君毅、牟宗三思想中的黑格爾. In Experiences of local development in postwar Taiwan 光復後台灣地區發展經驗, eds. Lai Zehan 賴澤涵 and Huang Junjie 黄俊桀, 37–100. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongshan renwen shehui kexue yanjiusuo. Julien, François. 1983. La conception du monde naturel, en Chine et en Occident, selon Tang Junyi (La valeur de l’esprit de la culture chinoise). Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 3: 117–125. Lau, Kwok-keung 劉國. 2007. Life chronology of Tang Junyi. Appendix to Wm. Theodore de Bary, Confucian tradition and global education, 101–104. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. ———. 2019. Retrieved 03 September, 2019, from https://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/youngwriter/ tang/. (This website contains a wealth of textual as well as visual material related to Tang.) Lei, Aimin 雷愛民. 2017. Knowledge and horizon: The function and place of knowledge in Tang Junyi’s theory of the nine horizons of the mind 知識與境界: 知識在唐君毅心靈九境論中的 作用與定位. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. (Systematically and critically engages with Tang's epistemology in his last work and the broader spiritual function of knowledge as a part of self-cultivation in his oeuvre as a whole.) Li, Shuyou 李書有, Zhang, Xianghao 張祥浩, & Ren, Lingling 任玲玲. 1995. A study of Tang Junyi 唐君毅學案. In Individual studies of modern New Confucians 現代新儒家學案, eds. Fang Keli 方克立, Li Jinquan 李錦全, vol. 3, 1–386. Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe. (Brief overview of Tang's philosophy which includes a selection of passages from his major works and a chronological overview of his writings.) Liao, Xiaowei 廖曉煒. 2015. Confucianism and religion: Tang Junyi’s approach to religion and its significance 儒學與宗教:唐君毅的宗教論述及其意義. In  Collected essays twenty-first century contemporary Confucianism 1: The global prospects of Confucianism 二十一世紀當 代儒學論文集 1:儒學之國際展望, eds. Li Ruiquan 李瑞全, Yang Zuhan 楊祖漢, 247–264.

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Taoyuan: Zhongyang daxue ruxue yanjiu zhongxin. (Describes and analyzes Tang’s approach to religion and the religiosity of the Confucian tradition.) Liu, Leheng 劉樂恆. 2014. The problem of ‘affective resonance’ in Tang Junyi’s conception of the Book of Changes. 唐君毅易學思想中的“感通”問題. Yijing Studies 周易研究 3:38–47. (Offers an interpretation of Tang’s notion of gantong which departs from his understanding of the Book of Changes in On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy.) ———. 2017. A ‘metaphysics of affective resonance: Arguments concerning feelings stemming from human nature in the later Tang Junyi “感通形上學”——年唐君毅心性問題的論證. Journal of the Yibin Academy 宜賓學院學報 2:1–9. (Detailed analysis of how the late Tang combined metaphysical inquiry with an insistence on the affective dimension of human existence and knowledge in The Horizons of the Mind.) Lukács, Georg. 1971. History and class consciousness. London: Merlin Press. Major, Philippe. forthcoming. Writing philosophy from the periphery: Lixing as a foundational empty signifier in Tang Junyi’s Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason. (In one of the only available studies of Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason and Tang’s concept of “reason”/”rationality” (lixing 理性), Major makes a broader case for paying attention to the close nexus between relations of power, visions of textual authority, and conceptions of human nature in New Confucian philosophy.) Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The invention of world religions. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. Metzger, Thomas A. 1977. Escape from predicament: Neo-Confucianism and China’s evolving political culture. New York: Columbia University Press. (In this by now classic study, we find one of the first and still often invoked engagements with Tang’s work in Western scholarship which situates his thought within the development of Confucian political thought since the late nineteenth century.) ———. 2005. A cloud across the pacific: Essays on the clash between Chinese and Western political theories today. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. (Presents Tang as an archetypal “epistemological optimist” and explores the socio-political ramifications of the New Confucian’s alleged philosophical faith in the perfectibility of human existence and society.) Ng, William. 1998. T’ang Ch’ün-I on transcendence: Foundations of a New-Confucian religious humanism. Monument Serica 46:291–322. (Argues that Tang’s humanism seeks to integrate the transcendent and immanent aspects of human existence and thus entails an irreducibly religious dimension which Tang actively attempted to dissociate from monotheistic (Christian) approaches to transcendence. Includes a concise summary of the “nine horizons” in Tang’s latest work.) ———. 2004. Tang Junyi’s spirituality: Reflections on its foundation and possible contemporary relevance. In Confucian spirituality, eds. Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker, vol. 2, 377–398. New York: Crossroad. (Characterizes Tang’s philosophy as profoundly spiritual in nature and examines the closely interrelated normative, existential, and epistemological aspects of his thought.) Owen, Stephen. 1996. An anthology of Chinese literature. Beginnings to 1911. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company. Peng, Guoxiang 彭國翔. 2007. Tang Junyi’s view on philosophy, specifically in his Introduction to Philosophy 唐君毅的哲學觀: 以《哲學概論》為中心. History of Chinese Philosophy 中國 哲學史 4:110–118. (Draws attention to Tang’s much neglected philosophical “textbook” from 1961 as a resource for reconstructing Tang’s highly idiosyncratic and comparatively informed understanding of the category of “philosophy.”) ———. 2012. Hermeneutics and constructive thought in the Confucian tradition: From pre-Qin Confucianism and Song-Ming learning of principle to contemporary New Confucianism儒家 傳統的詮釋與思辨:從先秦儒學、宋明理學到現代新儒學. Wuhan: Wuhan daxue chubanshe. (The first and second chapters of the third part of this book provide in-depth analyses of Tang’s approach to religion and Indian philosophy respectively. These chapters contain a wealth of quotations from relevant texts in Tang’s oeuvre.)

Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978) 251 Rošker, Jana. 2016. The rebirth of the moral self: The second generation of modern Confucians and their modernization discourses. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. (Contextualizes Tang’s thought within the broader New Confucian endeavor of articulating a philosophical understanding of modernity which emphasizes the centrality of morality and attempts to safeguard a place for the cultural and epistemological particularity of the Chinese and Confucian tradition.) Schmidt, Stephan. 2012. Humanity as trans-individuality: Tang Junyi’s (1909–1978) philosophy of renwen humanism. In Shaping a humane world: Civilizations – axial times – humanisms, eds. Oliver Kozlarek, Jorn Rusen and Ernst Wolff, 257–280. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. (Engages with the normatively charged and religiously colored category of “humanism” in Tang’s thought in relation to his conceptualization of the entwined notions of individuality and intersubjectivity.) Shan, Bo 單波. 2011. The mind in connection with the nine horizons: The space for spirit in Tang Junyi’s philosophy 心通九境: 唐君毅哲學的精神空間. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. (Highly useful study of The Horizons of the Mind which also provides an overview of Tang's whole intellectual development and discusses the position of religiosity (understood as “immanent transcendence”) in his work at length. Appendix 1 contains an extensive overview of available research on Tang’s work.) Sohn-Rethel, Alfred. 1978. Intellectual and manual labour: A critique of epistemology. London: Macmillan Press. Steinbauer, Anja. 2005. Tang Junyis System der neun Horizonte des Geistes. Hamburg: Hamburger Sinologische Gesellschaft. (To date, this comprehensive and clearly argued work remains the only existing book-length study of Tang's Horizons of the Mind in any Western language.) Tang, Duanzheng 唐端正. 2006. Biographical sketch of Tang Junyi  唐君毅傳略. Hong Kong: Fazhu chubanshe. Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. [1950]. The religious spirit and modern humanity 宗教精神與現代人類. In Tang 1974b, 19–38. ———. [1953]. The spiritual values of Chinese culture 中國文化之精神價. Guilin: Guangxi shifandaxue chubanshe, 2005. (One of Tang Junyi’s most widely read works. Intended by its author to supplant what he took be his earlier and largely immature attempts to formulate a philosophical typology of the basic traits of Chinese culture, this wide-ranging analysis of the putative “spirit” of Chinese culture which Tang first started working on after he had left the mainland reflects his broader historical and social concerns over the fate of the Chinese and particularly Confucian tradition in the modern world. As his preface to the 1978 reprint bears out, Tang conceived of this work as a rough outline of his entire philosophy.) ———. [1954]. My choices in philosophy and religion 我對於哲學與宗教之抉擇. In Tang 1974b: 556–589. ———. [1955]. The relation between the rational mind and the individual, social organizations, and the state 理性心靈與個人、社會組織及國家. In Tang [1957]: 191–232. ———. [1956]. Religious belief and modern Chinese culture 宗教與現代中國文化.  In Tang [1957]: 329–391. ———. [1957] The development of the Chinese humanist spirit 中國人文精神之發展. Volume 6 of Tang 1984–1991. (With a strong focus on problems in the field of society and politics, Tang saw this book as a sequel to The Reconstruction of the Humanist Spirit (see Tang 1974b). In charting the development of “Chinese humanism” against the backdrop of the rise of global modernity, Tang discusses its relation to the Western tradition of humanism, the challenges posed by modern science, the respective merits and deficiencies of democratic politics, the connection between the state, individual, and society, as well as the apparent tension between humanism and religiosity in the modern era.) ———. [1958]. Cultural consciousness and moral reason 文化意識與道德理性. Volume 20 of Tang 1984–1991. (Arguably Tang’s most systematically organized work. Provides a quasi-­ transcendentalist account of the various aspects of human “cultural activity” (family life, economic activity, politics, philosophy and science, art, religion, and morality itself) as “mani-

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festations” of the moral self and as being grounded in the latter’s quest for self-transcendence and thus self-transformation.) ———. [1961]. Introduction to philosophy 哲學概論 (2 vols.). Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 2005. (Structured as a philosophical textbook and written in a relatively accessible style, one of the most ambitious and at times rewarding aspects of this work is its strongly comparative dimension. It draws upon Chinese, Western, as well as Indian traditions of philosophy in outlining what Tang takes to be the most fundamental notions and theories in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Tang’s bibliographical references at the end of each chapter are a useful resource for getting a sense of his reading habits and sources of inspiration.) ———. [1962]. Wisdom and morality 智慧與道德. Volume 3.2 of Tang 1984–1991. ———. [1963]. The establishment of Confucianism as a learning and a teaching and the end of religious conflict 儒家之學與教之樹立及宗教紛爭之根絕. In Tang 1974b: 456–492. ———. [1964]. Chinese culture and philosophy 中國文化與哲學. In Tang 1974b: 287–300. ———. 1967. The individual and the world in Chinese methodology. In The Chinese mind: Essentials of Chinese philosophy and culture, ed. Charles A.  Moore, 264–285. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ———. [1973]. On the origins of Chinese philosophy: A reconstruction of the concept of ‘dao’, volume 2 中國哲學原論:原道篇卷二. Volume 15 of Tang 1984–1991. ———. 1974a. My option between philosophy and religion. Chinese Studies in Philosophy 5 (4): 4–38. ———. 1974b. The reconstruction of the humanist spirit 人文精神之重建. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. (Collection of articles originally published in 1955. An invaluable, if not the single most important, resource for studying Tang’s socio-political philosophy, his approach to the modern encounter between Western and Chinese traditions of thought, and his conception of the place of religion in modern society.) ———. [1974c]. The significance and foundation of cultural exchange in the modern world 現代 世界文化交流之意義與根據. In Tang 1974b: 799–829. ———. 1984–1991. The complete works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集 (30 vols.). Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. ———. 2016. The complete works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集 (39 vols.). Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe. Van den Stock, Ady. 2016. The horizon of modernity: Subjectivity and social structure in New Confucian philosophy. Leiden/Boston: Brill. (This study touches upon Tang's encounter with German Idealism in the context of his critique of historical materialism and his confrontation with the socio-political and epistemological consequences of modernity.) ———. 2018. The semantics of wisdom in the philosophy of Tang Junyi: Between transformative knowledge and transcendental reflexivity. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 13 (1): 39–54. ———. forthcoming. Being, seeing, and believing: Ontological, epistemological, and soteriological commitments in the late philosophy of Tang Junyi and the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith. (Explores Tang’s interpretation of one of the most crucial and controversial texts in Chinese and East-Asian Buddhism in On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy in the light of his own mature constructive philosophy.) Wu, Jiang 吳疆. 2002. What is jingjie? Defining Confucian spirituality in the modern Chinese intellectual context. Monumenta Serica 50:441–462. (Outlines the vicissitudes of the concept of “horizon” (jingjie), which the author interprets as a useful category for describing the New Confucian conception of spirituality as a whole, in modern Chinese intellectual history by examining the work of Wang Guowei 王國維, Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, Tang Junyi, and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三.) Yang, Hu 楊虎. 2015. On the notions of ‘affective resonance’ and ‘mind’ in Tang Junyi’s philosophy 論唐君毅哲學中的‘感通’與‘心靈’. Monthly Journal of Theory 理論月刊 7:31–35. (Critically analyzes the complex relation between the notions of “affective resonance,” “mind,” and “horizon” in the later Tang’s work. Yang argues that Tang’s conception of this relation points toward, but ultimately fails to fully come to terms with, the analytical and indeed onto-

Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978) 253 logical priority of “affective resonance” over and against the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity around which the structure of The Horizons of the Mind is organized and within which it continues to operate.) Yang, Yongming 楊永明, & Mou, Hualin 牟華林. 2011. Overview of research on Tang Junyi in mainland China 大陸唐君毅研究綜述. Journal of the Yibin Academy 宜賓學院學報 11(4):12–17. Yung, Kenneth Kai-chung. 2015. Cold war currents and Chinese émigré intellectuals, 1949-1960. Twentieth-Century China 40 (2): 146–165. Zhang, Xianghao. 張祥浩. 1994. A study of the thought of Tang Junyi 唐君毅思想研究. Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe. (One of the first book-length studies of Tang’s thought to be published in mainland China. Though far from concise, this book is mostly useful for readers looking for an outline of the New Confucian’s main philosophical ambitions, writings, and concepts.) Zhang, Yixin 張怡心. 2011. Tang Junyi’s theory of the mind permeating the nine horizons 唐君毅 的心通九境論. In A history of Chinese Confucianism - The modern age 中國儒學史—現代 卷, ed. Hu Jun 胡軍, 431–493. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. (General overview of Tang’s philosophy focused on his conception of the “moral self” and the basic organizational logic of The Horizons of the Mind.) Zhang, Yunjiang 張雲江. 2016. An investigation into Tang Junyi’s Buddhist philosophical thought 唐君毅佛教哲學思想研究. Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe. (The most in-depth study of Tang's engagement with various Buddhist currents of thought available, which also extensively discusses Tang's indebtedness to Buddhism in The Horizons of the Mind in comparison to the work of Xiong Shili and other modern Confucian thinkers as well as Song-Ming Neo-­Confucians. Often somewhat digressive, quite polemical, and rather hard-going on non-­ Buddhologists. Readers can consult the relatively free-standing chapters according to their own specific interests.) ———. 2017. The vacuous potency and radiant awareness of the mind: The grounding of Tang Junyi’s constructive metaphysics in moral self-cultivation ‘靈明覺心’: 唐君毅建構形而上 學的道德修養基礎. Research in the Social Sciences 社會科學研究 1:136–140. (Charts the intricate relation between Tang’s metaphysical and practical (soteriological) concerns as potentially offering a new hermeneutic approach to the reinvention of traditional Chinese thought in modernity.)

Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism Ming-huei Lee

1  Life and Intellectual Background Mou Zongsan was born to a rural family in Qixia County, Shandong Province, China in 1909. During his childhood and youth, he first received a Chinese traditional-­style private school education and later a new Western-style school education. In 1927, he began to take preparatory college courses at Beijing University, and two years later he formally enrolled in the Department of Philosophy of Beijing University. At that time, under President Cai Yuanpei’s 蔡元培 (1868–1940) leadership, Beijing University became the academic and cultural center of the nation, well-known for its liberal atmosphere and tolerant spirit. It is in such an environment that Mou Zongsan’s philosophical thought began to take form. Among all his teachers at Beijing University, he was influenced most by Zhang Shenfu 張申府 (1893–1986) and Jin Yuelin 金岳霖 (1895–1984). He learned mathematical logic from Zhang and modern Western philosophy from Jin (Mou 2003l: 37; Mou 2015a, 2015b: 57–58). During this period, however, it is was Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968) who exercised a decisive influence upon Mou’s philosophical thought over his lifetime. Mou met with Xiong in Beijing in 1923. In Chap. 5 of his Autobiography at Fifty, Mou explains the profound influence of this meeting upon his life. In short, this meeting made Mou realize that Chinese learning is an “existential comprehension” of life rather than merely a “conceptual comprehension” of it. To demonstrate this, Mou mentioned a speech that Xiong Shili made to Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990): “You said that liangzhi (original knowing, 良知) is a hypothesis. How could you say so? Liangzhi is an authentically real presence that needs to be affirmed in imminent self-awareness” (Mou 2003j: 78; Mou 2015a: 122). Like Mou Zongsan, Feng Youlan has also been regarded as a representative figure of modern New M. Lee (*) Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_12

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Confucianism. For Mou, Feng’s comprehension of Chinese philosophy stops merely at the conceptual level, far from reaching the existential level. Later on, Mou coined the term “learning of life” for the existential approach of Chinese philosophy. He entitled a short book of his Learning of Life (Mou 1970). This can be said to be a clear positioning of his academic direction by Mou himself. After he graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Beijing University in 1933, he passed through many places, but his job-hunting was not smooth. During that time, he joined the Chinese National Socialist Party founded by Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (Carson Chang, 1887–1969), another important figure of modern New Confucianism, and worked as editor-in-chief of Rebirth (再生 Zaisheng), the Party’s official publication. After the Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, Mou fled to the southwest of China, which was unoccupied by the Japanese army. From 1942 to 1945, he took teaching positions first at Western China University (Huaxi daxue 華西大學) in Chengdu and later at Central University (Zhongyang daxue 中 央大學) in Chongqing. After the end of the war in 1945, he taught at several universities in Nanjing, Wuxi, and Hangzhou. The Chinese Communist Party won the civil war and took power over all mainland China in 1949. Not identifying with the Communist regime, Mou Zongsan fled to Taiwan. For him and other New Confucians who fled to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other places, the fall of the mainland into the hands of the Communist Party, which believed in Marxism and Leninism, not only meant a new government taking over from the old one, but also the degeneration and demise of Chinese culture and a huge setback for China on its way to democratization. Beginning in 1950, he taught at Taiwan Teachers’ College (later renamed National Taiwan Normal University) in Taipei. In 1956, he transferred to Donghai University in Taizhong and taught there. In 1961, he moved to Hong Kong, a British colony at that time, and taught at Hong Kong University and Chinese University of Hong Kong. After he retired from his teaching post at Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1974, he continued his teaching at New Asia Institute in Hong Kong. But he frequently went to Taiwanese universities to work as visiting professor there. From then on until his death of illness in Taipei in 1995, he continuously traveled back and forth between Taiwan and Hong Kong, engaged in teaching tasks. We might divide the development of Mou Zongsan’s philosophy into two periods with 1949 as a demarcation line. In the early period, his interest was mainly in Western philosophy. He spent plenty of energy studying logic and mathematical philosophy, and his major achievement was the book Canon of Logic 邏輯典範 (1941). This 600-page long book mainly discusses modern logic, but in part one of this book, entitled “Logical Philosophy,” he provides a comprehensive analysis of the development and transformation from traditional logic, i.e., the Aristotelian logic, to modern logic. In addition, Mou Zongsan also wrote the book Critique of the Cognitive Mind in 1949. Several chapters of the book were first published in journals, but the two volumes of the whole book were not published until 1956 and 1957, respectively, in Hong Kong. As indicated by its title, the book was aimed at Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Just as Mou points out in the “Preface,” the book “amounts to rewriting the

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Critique of Pure Reason” (Mou 2003h: 10). The main purpose of the book is to use Kant’s philosophical approach to incorporate logic and mathematics as construed by Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) into pure understanding. In addition, it is reasonable to say that Mou Zongsan was the first Chinese scholar who fully introduced to China and digested the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947). In his Autobiography at Fifty, he provides a detailed description of the process of his absorbing Whitehead’s philosophy when he studied in the Department of Philosophy at Beijing University (Mou 2003l: 38–52; Mou 2015a: 59–80). According to his own account, at that time he was simultaneously reading Whitehead’s works and studying the Han version of the Book of Changes, and completed the book A Study of Chinese Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy According to the Book of Changes,1 borrowing the concepts in Whitehead’s philosophy. This marks the start of his research of Chinese philosophy. In the early stage of his academic career, in addition to the aforementioned book on the Book of Changes, Mou only published one small book on Chinese philosophy: Wang Yangming’s Teaching on the Extension of Original Knowing. 2 After he fled to Taiwan in 1949, he reflected on why and how the road to democracy failed in China, and consequently published three books including The Philosophy of History (1955), Moral Idealism (1959), and The Principle of Legitimation and the Principle of Governance (1961). The three books contain Mou’s views of traditional Chinese politics and modern democratic politics, and their main points will be discussed later in section four.

2  Kant and the Reconstruction of Chinese Philosophy In addition to his realistic, political concern, in the latter stage of his career, Mou Zongsan’s main concern is the reconstruction of Confucian tradition, and Kant’s philosophy plays a crucial role in the process.3 On the one hand, Mou translated Kant’s major works into Chinese based on their English editions. First, the Chinese translations of Critique of Practical Reason and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals were published in 1982 as one book entitled Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Moreover, he added many annotations to the Chinese edition of Critique of Practical Reason, in which he frequently compared and contrasted Confucian and Kant’s ideas. The following year, the Chinese translation of Critique of Pure Reason was published. The Chinese edition is not a complete translation however, because  The manuscript of the book was completed in 1932, but it was not published until 1935 in Tianjin. Later on, the book was reprinted by Taipei Wenjin Press in 1988, and its title was changed to Natural Philosophy and Moral Implications in the Book of Changes. 2  The book originally appeared as a research paper, divided into two parts, which were published in journals in 1947 and 1948, respectively. In 1954, it was published in the form of a book. 3  See also chapter “The Influence of German Idealism on the Contemporary New Confucians”—Ed. 1

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“Transcendental Doctrine of Method” was not included. The two volumes of the Chinese translation of Critique of Judgement were published in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Mou introduced the translation with a long essay entitled “A Dispute over the Validity of Taking the Principle of Purposiveness as the Transcendental Principle of Aesthetic Judgement,” questioning Kant’s view. Besides, he also translated both the first part of Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, entitled “Concerning the Indwelling of the Evil Principle with the Good, or, On the Radical Evil in Human Nature,” and the second part, entitled “Concerning the Conflict of the Good with the Evil Principle for Sovereignty over Man” (Mou 2003g: 379–420). On the other hand, Mou Zongsan also authored several books dealing directly with the convergence of Confucianism and Kant’s philosophy, including Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy (1971), Appearance and Thing-in-itself (1975), On the Perfect Good (1985), and the two books Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy (1983) and Fourteen Lectures on the Convergence of Chinese and Western Philosophy (1990), both of which were compiled by his students based on the recordings of his lectures. Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy illustrates the gist of each philosophical school in China through comparison of Chinese and Western philosophy. Fourteen Lectures on the Convergence of Chinese and Western Philosophy demonstrates the basic direction of Chinese philosophy through comparison of Kant’s and Chinese philosophy. In the book Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy, Mou Zongsan, following Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) interpretation of Kant’s philosophy in the book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, first clarifies the connotations of the concepts of “appearance,” “thing in itself,” “intellectual intuition,” “transcendental object,” etc. Then he points out that, though Kant does not admit that human beings have intellectual intuition, and ascribes it instead to God, all the three religions in Chinese tradition—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—claim that human beings can experience and verify the “infinite mind” that we possess—the “original mind” (benxin, 本心) and “original knowing” (liangzhi, 良知) in Confucianism, the “mind of Dao” (daoxin, 道心) and the “profound wisdom” (xuanzhi, 玄智) in Daoism, and the “true eternal mind” (zhenchangxin, 真常心) in Buddhism—which amounts to claiming that human beings possess intellectual intuition. Based on this, he concludes that, only after admitting that human beings possess intellectual intuition, can “moral metaphysics,” which is contained in Kant’s philosophy but could not be established, be truly completed. Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology,” for Mou, is not able to fulfil this mission. In the book Appearance and Thing-in-itself, Mou Zongsan further examines the distinction between “appearance” and “thing-in-itself” in Kant’s philosophy, in order to establish the framework of “bilevel ontology,” i.e., ontology in the realm of appearance and ontology in the realm of thing-in-itself. For Mou, Kant’s philosophical framework of “appearance” and “thing-in-itself” can serve as the common model for all philosophical thinking. However, based on the immanent critique of Kant’s philosophy, Mou particularly points out that, because Kant does not admit that human beings possess intellectual intuition, he is not able to stabilize and

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complete the distinction between “appearance” and “thing-in-itself.” Therefore, Mou interpreted Kant’s concept of “thing-in-itself,” not as usually understood, as an epistemological concept, but as one with value-connotation, although he points out that Kant had never clearly expressed this thought (Mou 2003i: 7–8, 12–14; cf. Mou 2003k: 310).4 In Mou’s view, an epistemological concept of “thing-in-itself” is not sufficient to support Kant’s transcendental distinction between “appearance” and “thing-in-itself,” since the “thing-in-itself” in this sense lies always beyond human knowledge. In order to solve this problematik, Mou appeals to the thesis that human beings are indeed finite, but have access to the infinite—a common conviction of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (Mou 2003i: 24-31). In the first chapter of his book On the Perfect Good (1985), Mou Zongsan translated and annotated the first part of Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, entitled “On the Radical Evil in Human Nature.” In the following two chapters, he adopted Kant’s principle of “autonomy” to interpret most sections of Mengzi 6A and several sections of Mengzi 7. In Chaps. 4–6, he follows Kant’s question of “the highest good” to illustrate the patterns of “perfect teaching” in Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and through this, he aims to answer the question of “how to unify virtue and happiness” raised in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. In the first 3 sections of Mengzi 6A, Mengzi debated the issue of human nature with Gaozi 告子. Mengzi put forward the theory of the goodness of human nature, and Gaozi asserted the neutrality of human nature. According to the traditional view, Gaozi put forth both a formal definition of human nature (xing 性) that “the inborn is what is meant by nature” (Mengzi: 6A3; Lau 1984: 2: 222/223) and a substantial definition that “desire for food and sex is nature” (Mengzi: 6A4; Lau 1984: 2: 224/225). Mou points out that with the formal definition of “human nature,” Gaozi actually talks about “possession at birth” in a biological sense. This is totally different from what Mengzi means by “human nature” when he says that “humanity (ren 仁), righteousness (yi 義), propriety (li 禮), and comprehension (zhi 智) are not imposed upon me from the outside, but possessed innately by me” in a transcendent sense (Mengzi: 6A6; Lau 1984: 2: 228/229). The substantial content with which Mengzi endows human nature is what he calls “four buddings” (siduan 四端): compassion (ceyin 惻隱), shame and dislike (xiuwu 羞惡), yielding and deference (cirang/gongjing 辭讓∕恭敬), and discrimination between right and wrong (shifei 是非) (Mengzi: 2A6, 6A6; Lau 1984: 1: 66/67, 2: 228/229). According to Mengzi, however, the “four buddings” are revelations of the “original mind” or “original knowing.” Mou Zongsan construes Mengzi’s “four buddings” as a “sense of morality” (Mou 2003c: 18). In this, Mou sees the different views of the moral subject between Mengzi and Kant. In the framework of subjectivity in Kant’s later philosophy, the moral subject is a purely rational subject, with all feelings including the moral feeling being excluded from it. According to Mou’s understanding, Mengzi’s “original mind” or “original

4  In my opinion, Kant had not only implicitly, as Mou emphasizes, but explicitly indicated the notion of “thing-in-itself” as one with value connotations. For this point, see M. Lee (2018b).

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knowing” simultaneously contains both a rational and emotional aspect; it is both mind and heart (cf. Mou 2003f: 284–288). As such, the “four buddings” are both feeling and reason (Mou 2003a: 1:131). For later Kant, although moral feeling is a subjective result which moral laws impose upon will, it still belongs to the sensible level. But Mou points out that moral feeling does not necessarily belong to the sensible level; it can be elevated to the transcendent level as a universal and a priori but at the same time concrete feeling. Mou dubs this feeling “ontological feeling” 本體 論的覺情 (Mou 2003a: 3:308). Mou Zongsan does not provide a further explanation of this kind of “ontological feeling,” but we can construe its meanings in term of modern phenomenological ethics. German philosopher Max Scheler (1874–1928) summarizes Kant’s dualistic philosophical framework as follows: a priori = formal (=rational) a posteriori = material (=sensible)

Scheler argues that this dichotomy cannot cover all possible realms, and there should be a third realm, that is, the a priori and material realm (Scheler 1966: 72f., 81f.). He ascribes the “feeling of value” (Wertfühlen) to this “a priori and material” realm. He particularly employs the term “Fühlen” to heighten the activity of “feeling of value,” in contrast to ordinary “emotion” (Gefühl). Here, the term “a priori” indicates the direct, first-hand, and intuitive intentional grasp of values. This is completely compatible with Mengzi’s description of “four buddings.” In this sense, we can say that Mengzi’s “four buddings” belong to what Scheler calls “feeling of value” (Lee Ming-huei 2017b: 101). In Mengzi 6A4 and 5, there is a debate between Mengzi and Gaozi 告子, and between Gongduzi 公都子, who represents Mengzi, and Mengjizi 孟季子, who stands for Gaozi, respectively. Whereas Mengzi and Gongduzi advocate “the internality of humanity and righteousness,” Gaozi and Mengjizi uphold “the internality of humanity and externality of righteousness.” According to Mou Zongsan’s interpretation, Mengzi’s “the internality of humanity and righteousness” contains the connotation of autonomy, while Gaozi’s “the internality of humanity and externality of righteousness” implies the notion of heteronomy. In short, Gaozi’s advocate of “the externality of righteousness” indicates his realistic stance of heteronomy, which assumes that moral laws and duties are determined by objective facts or objects. Mengzi rejects this point of view explicitly, and insists that moral laws and duties come from the moral subject, not determined by the object. This is obviously the viewpoint of “moral autonomy.” Adopting Kant’s concept of autonomy to interpret Mengzi’s “the internality of humanity and righteousness” is a significant philosophical innovation of Mou Zongsan. In addition, despite the fact that Mou Zongsan’s Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality (three volumes, 1968–1969) is a work on Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, it presupposes a Kantian interpretative framework. In the first part of volume one of the book, “Introduction,” Mou elaborates in detail the

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principle of autonomy in Kant’s ethics. But at the same time, he also points to the shortcomings in Kant’s ethics and the point where Confucianism is superior over Kant, that is, since Kant conceives of freedom of human will as a “postulate,” he can only constructs a “metaphysics of morals”: a metaphysical or a priori explanation of morals. Consequently, he is not able to build a moral metaphysics based on the direct experience and witness of “original knowing” itself, a kind of intellectual intuition, as Confucianism does. In addition, Mou Zongsan points out that the whole meaning of Kant’s concept of autonomy cannot be fully developed within the framework of his own moral philosophy, because Kant presupposes a dualism of the rational and the emotional in the moral agent—a viewpoint which Friedrich Schiller also criticizes. Kant’s strict separation of the rational from the emotional means that the moral subject can function only as a “principium dijudicationis,” not at the same time as a “principium executionis.” In other words, the moral subject in Kant lacks the power of self-­ realization. That means a narrowing of the autonomy of the moral subject as its moral self-legislation. For Mou, it is because of this narrowing and the deprivation of intellectual intuition in man that Kant is not in a position to establish a moral metaphysics. Instead, Mou sees the prototype of moral metaphysics in Confucianism. In the concept of autonomy and the philosophical-anthropological unity of the rational and the emotional, Mou Zongsan finds the criteria for the grouping of different systems within Confucianism. Accordingly, he counts Kongzi, Mengzi, the author(s) of Zhongyong (中庸, the Doctrine of the Mean), and the commentators of Yijing (易經, Book of Changes) in the mainstream of the pre-Qin Confucianism. Instead, Xunzi荀子 is ascribed to another stream of Confucianism, because he has established an ethics of heteronomy. For the same reason, Mou excludes the Han Confucians from the mainstream of Confucianism, because they appealed to—in Kant’s terms—a “theological ethics,” hence an ethics of heteronomy. Furthermore, the Confucians of the early Northern Song Dynasty Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073), Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077) and Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085), according to Mou Zongsan, belong to the aforementioned mainstream. Then, there was a further development of Confucianism into three systems: (1) that of Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (Xiangshan, 1139–1193) and Wang Yangming 王陽 明 (1472–1529); (2) that of Hu Hong 胡宏 (Wufeng, 1100–1155) and Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周 (Jishan, 1578–1645); and (3) that of Cheng Yi 程頤 and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). The first two systems lead to a moral philosophy which is founded on the autonomy of the moral subject. The difference between them consists only in their approaches: The first system starts subjectively from a philosophical-­ anthropological thesis on human heart-mind, while the second one starts objectively from ontological assertions about Heaven (Tian 天). For Mou, these two systems reveal the two aspects of the mainstream of Confucianism. In contrast, the third system is excluded from the mainstream, although Zhu Xi developed a comprehensive philosophical system and thereby exerted tremendous influence on the subsequent development of Confucianism. The reason for this lies in Mou’s judgment that this system is intellectualistic, and therefore based on the heteronomy of moral subject. Therefore, he judges Zhu Xi as “founding a lineage on separate stems”

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(Mou 2003a: 1:45–54). Mou’s classification and assessment of Song-Ming Neo-­ Confucianism are the most original yet most controversial point he made. After the 1960s, in addition to the works mentioned earlier in this section, Mou Zongsan authored three important works: Inherent Ability and Xuan-Metaphysics (1963), Buddha-Nature and Prajñā (two volumes, 1977), and From Lu Xiangshan to Liu Jishan (1979). The first work discusses the philosophy of the Wei and Jin era (about 3rd to 4th centuries). The third work explores Confucian philosophy in the Song and Ming dynasties, and is regarded as a sequel to his Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality. The second work investigates Buddhist philosophy and its schools in the Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties (about 5th to 9th centuries). In this work, Mou delves into the theory of “perfect teaching” of Huayan and Tiantai Buddhism in detail, and provides a theoretical basis for his later discussion of “perfect good,” which is the topic of the next section.

3  The Perfect Good and Perfect Teaching The last three chapters of the book On the Perfect Good deal with the issue of “perfect teaching” in Chinese philosophy through discussion of Kant’s “highest good, summum bonum.” Since Lin Tongqi has made a complete and detailed examination of the issue (Lin 2004), I shall only provide a brief overview of it here. In Chaps. 4 and 5 of On the Perfect Good, Mou Zongsan discusses Kant’s concept of “the highest good.” When Kant puts forth the concept of the highest good, he first points out that the term “highest” in the concept might mean “supreme” or “perfect,” and he adopts the latter meaning when he talks about the highest good (Kant 1788: 110f). Therefore, Mou’s translation of the concept as yuanshan 圓善 (the perfect good) not only matches Kant’s original meaning very well, but also can connect it to the issue of “perfect teaching” in Chinese philosophy. “The highest good” as construed by Kant contains not only virtue but also happiness, and it is a proportional combination of the two (Kant 1788: 111). For Kant, this combination is necessary, because the furthering of the highest good is an a priori necessary object of our will and is commanded by the moral law (Kant 1788: 114). Kant, however, stresses that the two components of the highest good, that is, virtue and happiness, are heterogeneous and thus must not be logically derivable from each other. We are neither supposed to reduce logically the concept of happiness to that of virtue, as the Stoics did, who said that to be conscious of one’s virtue is happiness; nor are we supposed to reduce logically the concept of virtue to that of happiness, as the Epicureans did, who said that to be conscious of one’s maxims as leading to happiness is virtue. That is to say: the connection of virtue to happiness must be synthetic and thus based on causality (Kant 1788: 111). In the actual world or the phenomenal world, it is impossible that the will of us human beings completely complies with moral laws, and a virtuous person does not necessarily enjoy happiness. This compels us to “postulate” the continuous existence of the soul in the afterworld to make the unity of virtue and happiness possible

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in the afterlife, and consequently to prevent the requirement of “the highest good” from falling through. This is the postulate of “the immortality of soul” (Kant 1788: 122). In order to secure the unity of virtue and happiness, we must also “postulate” the existence of an omniscient and almighty intelligence, the God. This is the postulate of “the existence of God” (Kant 1788: 124). Mou Zongsan agrees that the realization of “the highest good” must be guaranteed by an “infinite intellectual mind,” and God is a sort of “infinite intellectual mind.” But he further points out that Kant’s “God” is a “realized,” “hypostatized,” and “personalized” infinite intellectual mind, and this sort of personalized infinite intellectual mind is determined not by reason but by “egoistic passion,” and consequently it possesses a fabricated nature (Mou 2003j: 239, 244f., 249; cf. Kant 1976: A583/B611, footnote). For him, the infinite intellectual mind determined by reason can only appeal to Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and each of the three Chinese traditions reveals the infinite intellectual mind in its own way. This inevitably concerns the issue of “perfect teaching.” “Perfect teaching” is originally a concept used in critique of teachings in Buddhism. In lectures 15–17 of his Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy, Mou Zongsan provides a complete explanation of the concept of “perfect teaching” in Buddhism. Buddhism is composed of many schools and systems, and perfect teaching does not belong to any of them. Whereas these schools and systems belong to the first order, perfect teaching belongs to the second order. The systems of the first order all have their particular contents, and they must be grasped through conceptual analysis. This way of grasping is dubbed “differentiating expression.” Furthermore, because these systems have particular contents, they all belong to “disputable dharmas.” Perfect teaching, in contrast, does not aim to establish a special system; instead, it attempts to conduct a “critical examination” of all systems. Since it is a teaching, it is a system; but it does not take the form of a system. This sort of critical examination relies not on conceptual analysis but on “non-­ differentiating expression” or paradoxical expression. Besides, since perfect teaching does not have particular content, what it expresses belongs to “indisputable dharmas.” But the “critical examination” we are talking about here is not the “critique” in the Kantian sense. In order to explain this sort of “critical examination,” Mou Zongsan distinguishes between “perfection” in two different senses: functional perfection and ontological perfection. According to him, whereas the former is expressed by the concept of “prajñāpāramitā” in the Mahā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, the cardinal classic of the Emptiness School, the latter is expressed by the concept of “Buddha-nature” in the Lotus Sūtra, the cardinal classic of the Tiantai School. The purpose of prajñāpāramitā is to dissolve barriers between all principles (dharmas) and reach full comprehension of these principles in order to sweep away attachments and thus to return to the true suchness of all dharmas. Since it represents a subjective attitude, it is only functionally perfect. In contrast to this, the perfect teaching of the Lotus Sūtra is intended to explain the objective existence of all dharmas in light of the idea of Buddha-nature. Therefore, it is ontologically perfect. For Mou, the true “perfect teaching” must present ontological perfection.

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Buddhists classify all living beings into ten dharma realms (法界), namely, deities (天), humans (人), asuras (阿修羅), hell beings (地獄), hungry ghosts (餓鬼), animals (畜牲), the hearers of Buddha-dharma (聲聞), the self-enlighteners (緣覺), bodhisattvas (菩薩), and buddhas. In Chinese Buddhism, both the Huayan school and Tiantai school put forth the theory of “critique of teachings,” and both consider themselves “perfect teaching.” But for Mou, the “perfect teaching” of Huayan School is not really perfect, because in this school, becoming a buddha means clinging only to the realm of buddha to break off the other nine dharma realms; in other words, buddhahood cannot secure the existence of other nine dharma realms. In the perfect teaching of the Tiantai School, however, becoming a buddha means instantiating the buddha realm in the other nine dharma realms without detaching from any one of them.5 It is in the absoluteness of buddha that completely secures the necessity of the existence of all dharmas. So in the buddhahood attained, happiness is where virtue is, and vice versa, because the perfect teaching regards buddhahood itself as virtue, and the existence of dharmas as happiness, with the two always harmoniously combined. Such combination is no more synthetic, as Kant assumed, but must be analytic. Mou Zongsan also applies the concept of “perfect teaching” in Buddhism to Daoism and Confucianism. For our purposes, we shall discuss only the “perfect teaching” in Confucianism. Mou finds the Confucian “perfect teaching” in the learning of the Ming Confucian master Wang Yangming. Before embarking on a discussion of the Confucian “perfect teaching,” we have to examine Wang Yangming’s theory of “extension of original knowing” (zhi liangzhi 致良知) first. Wang Yangming propounds the theory of “extension of original knowing” through his interpretation of the text of the Confucian classic Great Learning (daxue 大 學).There are four core concepts concerning the effort of moral cultivation in Great Learning; they are gewu 格物, zhizhi 致知, chengyi 誠意, and zhengxin 正心. Among the four core concepts, the Song and Ming Confucians have given different interpretations of gewu and zhizhi, and consequently formed different theories of effort of moral cultivation. According to Wang Yangming’s interpretation, gewu means rectification of things or actions, zhizhi means extension of liangzhi, chengyi means sincerity of intentions, and zhengxin means rectification of mind. Based on these four core concepts, Wang Yangming puts forth his famous “Four-Sentence Teaching:” That which has neither good nor evil is the mind-in-itself; That which has good and evil is the activation of intentions; That which knows good and evil is liangzhi; That which performs good and removes evil is the rectification of actions. (Wang Yangming 2011: 1:133)6

According to Mou Zongsan’s interpretation, xinzhiti 心之體 (mind-in-itself) in the first sentence and liangzhi (original knowing) in the third sentence  See also chapter “New Confucianism and Buddhism”—Ed.  Lin Tongqi’s translation with minor modifications by me (Lin 339).

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designate the same thing, and both of them refer to the infinite intellectual mind, belonging to the transcendent level. Yi 意 (intention) in the second sentence and wu 物 (thing or action) in the fourth sentence, however, both belong to the empirical level (Mou 2003j: 313f). For Wang Yangming, “mind-in-itself” as infinite intellectual mind is the criterion to judge good and evil, and it lies beyond good and evil in this sense. Therefore, “having neither good nor evil” in the first sentence does not mean value neutrality but moral absoluteness. “Mind-in-itself” forms “intention” when it descends to the empirical level. Because of the influence of our sensibility, “intention” has good or evil. “Mind-in-itself” as original knowing, can distinguish between good and evil. Then we perform good and remove evil in accordance with the demand of original knowing: This is the effort of “rectification of action” (cf. Mou 2003b: 195–196). Here wu is construed as action. Because the four items in the Four-Sentence Teaching are said to be in a state of being (you), that is, “having its form of identity,” so this teaching is also called the doctrine of “Fourfold Being” (siyou 四有). But in the Four-Sentence Teaching, the four items pertain respectively to the empirical and the transcendent levels, and are not yet unified. Therefore, Mou Zongsan claims that the Four-Sentence Teaching is not yet the Confucian perfect teaching, but merely the preparatory stage that paves the way to the perfect teaching. For Mou, the true Confucian perfect teaching was put forward by Wang Longxi (1489–1583), the most brilliant disciple of Wang Yangming, and is known as the doctrine of “Fourfold Non-being” (siwu 四無) (Mou 2003j: 316). The doctrine of “Fourfold Non-being” is included in the following text: The Master [Wang Yangming] sets up his teaching in response to contingent situations. This is called expediencies (quanfa 權法). We must not be rigidly attached to its fixed formulations. Substance, function, manifestation, and subtlety, are all simply one and the same incipience. The mind, the intention, the knowing [of liangzhi], and the thing are all simply one and the same event. If we realize that the mind is the mind without good and evil, then the intention is the intention without good and evil, the knowing [of liangzhi] is the knowing without good and evil, and the thing is the thing without good and evil. For the mind without [the form of] a mind is to be concealed in its profundity, the intention without [the form of] an intention is to be round and perfect in its response, the knowing without [the form of] knowing is to be tranquil in its substance, and the thing without [the form of] a thing is to be unfathomable in its function. (Wang Longxi 1970: 1:89f.) 7

Mou Zongsan uses traditional Chinese philosophical concepts to explain “Fourfold Non-Being,” and it is very difficult to translate these concepts into modern Chinese language. For our purposes, I shall only briefly summarize their main points here. First of all, the doctrine of “Fourfold Being” presupposes the distinction between the empirical level and the transcendent level and the confrontation between the subject and the object, therefore, it can only be presented by “differentiating expression.” In the doctrine of “Fourfold Non-Being,” however, the mind, the intention, the knowing [of liangzhi], and the thing all do not have the form of identity as they do in “differentiating expression”; instead, they all have no form of being in  My translation with reference to Tu Weiming’s and Lin Tongqi’s (Tu 1979: 163f.; Lin: 341).

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“non-differentiating expression.” As such, all of them are neither good nor evil (Mou 2003j: 316). Mou Zongsan further points out that the “without” in the “mind without [the form of] a mind” is defined only in a functional sense but not in the ontological sense, because Confucianism definitely has the mind on the ontological level, but it merely expresses the function of the mind in the form of “without a mind” (Mou 2003j: 317). The same is the case with the “intention without [the form of] an intention.” According to Mou, this means to be free from the intentions which are activated by the participation of our sensibility, thereby functionally purging intention of any form of identity (Mou 2003j: 318). As for the “knowing without [the form of] knowing,” it means that liangzhi as knowing has neither intentions nor things as objects on empirical level, thereby it has no form of subjective knowing (Mou 2003j: 318). In the same context, the moral action as thing no longer assumes the form of an object set against liangzhi as the subject. To use Kant’s words, the thing in its state of non-being pertains to the transcendent level as thing-in-itself, but not to the empirical level as appearance (Mou 2003j: 318f.). For Mou Zongsan, the “perfect teaching” contained in the aforementioned sentences of “Fourfold Non-Being” reveals not only functional perfection but also ontological perfection. Functional perfection is shared by all the three Chinese traditions including Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and it is not sufficient to display the characteristics of the Confucian “perfect teaching.” It is only in ontological perfection that the characteristics of the Confucian “perfect teaching” lie. Although according to Mou’s above analysis, the “perfect teaching” in the Tiantai school in Buddhism also concerns the ontological level, this sort of “perfect teaching” is in essence not a true “perfect teaching,” because it, unlike the Confucian “perfect teaching,” does not presuppose an infinite intellectual moral mind, which can bring all things in the cosmos into being and make them exist through the function of its creative will (Mou 2003j: 328). In a strict sense, the “perfect teaching” of Buddhism and Taoism can preserve the existence of all things in the cosmos merely on the functional level, and only the Confucian “perfect teaching” is able to preserve the existence of things on the ontological level. In the all-penetrating and all-­ pervasive moral creation of the infinite intellectual moral mind, happiness appears wherever virtue goes, and vice versa, that is to say, virtue and happiness collapse into one paradoxically, and the highest good is thus theoretically justified.

4  Philosophical Reflection on China’s Modernization Now let us turn to Mou Zongsan’s philosophical reflection on China’s modernization. We might start our discussion with the “Manifesto on Chinese Culture to the People of the World” published jointly by Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), Zhang Junmai, and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1903–1982) in 1958. In the “Manifesto,” they admit that “in Chinese culture and history, there are no institutions like the modern Western democratic system, modern Western science, and

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various practical technologies. This makes China fail to realize true modernization and industrialization” (Tang et al: 35). Therefore, they insist that “Chinese culture must accept the culture of the West or of the world” (Tang et al. 1991: 34). But they believe that Chinese culture itself has an “intrinsic demand” for the development of democratic politics and modern science and technology, therefore they particularly emphasize: We believe that the ideal that Chinese culture should develop from its intrinsic demand is to make Chinese people, starting from the Confucian doctrine of heart-mind and nature, become self-consciously not only “the subject of moral practice,” but also “the political subject” from the political perspective, as well as “the cognitive subject” and “the subject of the activities of practical technology in the world of nature and knowledge.” (Tang et al. 1991: 34)

The reason why I especially stress the term of “intrinsic demand” is because the signers of the “Manifesto” oppose expanding the ideal of Chinese culture through “the method of addition” (Tang et al. 1991: 34). On the one hand, they accentuate that traditional Chinese culture not only contains the “seed” of democratic thought, but also stress the importance of science and technology. On the other hand, they need to explain why traditional Chinese culture actually failed to develop democratic politics and modern science and technology. In terms of science and technology, their explanation is that Chinese culture overemphasizes moral practice, and lacks the scientific spirit of “knowledge for knowledge,” therefore it is not able to establish a theoretical science (Tang et al. 1991: 35f). Concerning the issue of why traditional Chinese culture did not give rise to democratic politics, they ascribe the reason to the fact that, though traditional Chinese culture emphasizes the importance of the establishment of the moral subject, it was not able to move a step forward to establish the political subject of the people, which, in return, made their moral subject unable to be truly established (Tang et al. 1991: 41f). What is stated in the “Manifesto” is, after all, only a guiding principle. It is Mou Zongsan who provides a complete philosophical elaboration of it. All the arguments are included in the two books Philosophy of History and The Principle of Legitimation and the Principle of Governance. In Philosophy of History, he puts forth a pair of concepts: “synthetically rational spirit” and “analytically rational spirit” (Mou 2003d: 192–200). In The Principle of Legitimation and the Principle of Governance, he further propounds two pairs of concepts: “functional presentation of reason” and “constructive presentation of reason,” and “intensional presentation of reason” and “extensional presentation of reason” (Mou 2003e: 51–61, 143–178). Mou Zongsan uses the three pairs of concepts to demonstrate the different conceptual patterns represented by Chinese culture and Western culture, respectively. The two pairs of concepts, “functional presentation of reason and constructive presentation of reason” and “intensional presentation of reason and extensional presentation of reason,” are exchangeable. But the first pair is used more broadly, whereas the second pair is mainly used in the political realm. What the three pairs of concepts are intended to express is actually the same idea, and the foundation underlying them is also the same intellectual framework. Mou Zongsan coins the term “self-negation of original knowing” to name the framework.

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Here I would rely only on Mou’s explanation of “functional presentation of reason” and “constructive presentation of reason” to summarize his main points. According to Mou, the functional presentation of reason is “to absorb the object to the subject” or “to absorb things to the mind.” Its defining feature is to remove the confrontation: It either absorbs the object into the subject of itself, or projects itself into the object and becomes the absolute. If we must distinguish between the subject and the object, the relation might be dubbed “Sub-ordination.” The constructive presentation of reason is opposite to this. Its defining feature is juxtaposition, and it turns to Co-ordination via juxtaposition. The functional presentation of reason is practical reason, whereas the constructive presentation of reason is theoretical reason or speculative reason (Mou 2003e: 58). Mou Zongsan’s aforementioned statement presupposes Kant’s idea of “the primacy of practical reason in its association with speculative reason” (Kant 1788: 119ff.). According to this theory, the Confucian “original knowing” belongs to the functional presentation of reason, and it is revealed by practical reason. Democracy and science, on the other hand, presuppose the constructive presentation of reason, and they are revealed by theoretical reason. As far as democratic politics is concerned, original knowing does not demand democratic politics directly; instead, it will first turn into theoretical reason, and then establish a constitutional democracy through institutional speculation. The turn in the middle is intended to establish the political subject of the people. This dialectic process is what is called “self-negation of original knowing.”8 As for the issue of science, in his book Wang Yangming’s Teaching on Extension of Original Knowing, he already began to employ the theory of “self-negation of original knowing” to illustrate the relation of original knowing and knowledge. In this respect, original knowing by no means demands scientific knowledge directly; instead, it first turns into theoretical reason, and then establishes scientific knowledge through the framework of juxtaposition of the subject and the object. The turn in the middle is intended to build our cognitive subject. Mou Zongsan’s theory of “self-negation of original knowing” aims to react to the criticism from Taiwanese liberals such as Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962), Yin Haiguang 殷海光 (1919–1969), and Zhang Foquan 張佛泉 (1908–1994). The liberals believe that, since traditional Chinese culture did not give rise to science and democracy in the past, it must contain factors unfavorable for their development; therefore, to pursue the modernization of China, we must abandon traditional Chinese culture, at least its core, especially the Confucian tradition. New Confucians criticize this sort of “method of addition,” and they particularly emphasize that all cultural innovation must be based on traditional culture, because foreign cultural elements cannot be transplanted directly, and it must assimilate them through the innate development and adjustment of its own tradition. Like Taiwanese liberals, the four signers of the “Manifesto” all agree that China must establish a constitutional democracy. Zhang Junmai was even the drafter of the Constitution of the Republic of China, which was enacted in Nanjing in 1947,

 See also chapter “Contemporary Confucian Political Thought”—Ed.

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and is still being implemented in Taiwan up to now. In The Principle of Legitimation and the Principle of Governance 政道與治道, Mou points out that, although “the principle of governance” in China had grown mature in the past, the issue of “the principle of legitimation” had never been solved.9 Consequently, the change and transmission of political power continuously relied on violence, and China was trapped in a vicious cycle of order and disorder. He believes that only the establishment of a democratic system can fundamentally solve the problem of legitimation in China. Different from those liberals, Mou, however, does not regard Confucian tradition as an obstacle to the establishment of a democratic system in China. On the contrary, he emphasizes that after undergoing a theoretical transformation, Confucian tradition can provide justification for modern democracy. This belongs to what Heiner Roetz calls “reconstructive hermeneutics of accommodation” (Roetz 1999: 257). The theory of “self-negation of original knowing” is just this sort of theoretical transformation.

5  Influences and Critiques Of modern New Confucians, Mou Zongsan is probably the most influential representative figure. He discussed almost all fields of traditional Chinese philosophy and put forth unique interpretations. These fields include Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Neo-Daoism, School of Names, etc. As far as Western philosophy is concerned, as mentioned earlier, Kant’s philosophy is the one he studied most deeply, and he adopted the concepts and frameworks of Kant’s philosophy to interpret Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism. For researchers of Chinese philosophy, Mou’s works have already obtained quasi-classical status. This, however, does not mean that his ideas have been accepted by most scholars, but means that these ideas cannot be overlooked, no matter one agrees with them or not. The situation resembles what Zheng Xin states in the “Preface” to his Overview of Kant’s Learning: “Surpassing Kant, there would be new philosophies; skipping over Kant, however, there will be bad philosophies only” (Zheng 2003). Likewise, we can also say that researchers of Chinese philosophy may disagree with Mou Zongsan’s interpretations and ideas; but, skipping over them, it is impossible to understand Chinese philosophy properly. Besides, as mentioned earlier, New Confucians’ 1958 “Manifesto” puts forth the theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism,” and Mou provides philosophical justification of it with the notion of “the self-­ negation of original knowing.” This can be said to be the most explicit political statement of New Confucianism in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Mou Zongsan’s influence, however, has been largely limited to the Sinophone world, because there are no translations in Western languages of his major works so 9  In a nutshell, “the principle of legitimation” (zhengdao 政道) deals with the problem of legitimation in the transmission of political power, whereas “the principle of governance” (zhidao 治道) refers to the arts of ruling in politics.

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far. Up to now, only his Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy (中國哲學十九 講), Autobiography at Fifty (五十自述), and a collection of essays have English translations (Mou 2014, 2015a, 2015b). In addition, The Specificities of Chinese Philosophy (中國哲學的特質) has a French edition (Mou 2003m). But all these are not Mou Zongsan’s major works. In recent years, his philosophy began to draw serious attention in Western academia, and several works particularly on him appeared. To the best of my knowledge, there are six book monographs on Mou Zongsan in Western languages so far. Among them, three discuss Mou’s moral philosophy (Billioud 2012; Ehrhardt 1997; Lehmann 2003); two explore his interpretation of the Tiantai sect of Buddhism (Kantor 1999; Clower 2010); one examines his thought in general (Chan 2011). Of course, these works alone are far from sufficient for Western academia to fully understand Mou’s philosophy All great philosophers—Kant, for example—encounter questioning and misunderstanding from various aspects, and Mou Zongsan is no exception, of course. In terms of interpretation of Chinese philosophy, the most common criticism of Mou is that when he adopts concepts in Kant’s philosophy to interpret Chinese philosophy, he misunderstands or distorts the original meanings of these concepts. Some even stress that the concepts of Kant’s philosophy are not suitable to interpret Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism. As mentioned earlier, Mou judges Zhu Xi as “founding a lineage on separate stems” based on Kant’s concept of autonomy. Because of Zhu Xi’s authoritative position in Song-Ming Confucianism, this judgement stirred up uneasiness in many people, even in Mou’s disciples. There are many critics of this sort, and I can take only a few examples for discussion. Taiwanese scholar Huang Jinxing 黃進興 published a paper entitled “The So-called ‘Moral Autonomy’: A Case of the Limitations of Interpreting Chinese Thought in Terms of Western Notions” (Huang 1994). In the paper, he questions the validity of Mou Zongsan borrowing Kant’s concept of autonomy to interpret, categorize, and judge Confucian thought. In his view, the philosophy which is inherently related to Confucian ethics is not Kant’s ethics, but the British school of moral sense represented by philosophers like Francis Hutcheson (1694–1747) and David Hume (1711–1776), a school which is categorized by Kant as a type of heteronomy (Huang 1994: 14f.).10 Inspired by Huang Jinxing, mainland Chinese scholar Yang Zebo 楊澤波 makes a similar criticism of Mou’s interpretative approach. As he argues, Mou Zongsan’s borrowing Kant’s concept of autonomy to interpret Confucian philosophy puts him in an unsolvable theoretical predicament (Yang 2006).11 Besides, Hong Kong scholar Fung Yiu Ming 馮耀明 published an essay entitled “Conceptual Relativism and Chinese Philosophy,” criticizing Mou’s interpretation of Confucianism from the perspective of methodology. Fung thinks that in terms of theoretical paradigm, the philosopher closest to Confucianism is not Kant, but Plato (Fung 1989: 303–306).12

 For a response to Huang Jinxing’s question, see Lee Ming-huei (2018a).  For a response to Yang Zebo’s question, see Lee Ming-huei (2001). 12  For a response to Fung Yiu Ming’s question, see Lee Ming-huei (2017a). 10 11

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Even Mou’s disciple Lee Shui Chuen 李瑞全 feels uneasy about Mou’s judgement and categorization of Zhu Xi’s ethical system as a heteronomous type. He published an essay entitled “The Type of Zhu Xi’s Ethics Reconsidered” in an attempt to categorize Zhu Xi’s ethics as an autonomous type by distinguishing between two different autonomous types of ethics (Lee Shui Chuen 1993a, 1993b).13 Mainland Chinese Kant expert Deng Xiaomang 鄧曉芒 criticizes Mou for contradicting their original meanings as defined by Kant when he uses the terms “thing in itself,” “intellectual intuition,” and “transcendental” (Deng 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). But, the fact is that Mou Zongsan intentionally re-interprets the aforementioned concepts of Kant; it is by no means a misreading (Lee Ming-huei 2009). In terms of political thought, as mentioned earlier, Mou Zongsan also stirs up considerable questioning and misunderstanding for using the notion of the “self-­ negation of original knowing” to justify the theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism.” Liberal thinker Lin Yusheng 林毓生, for instance, published the article “The Predicament of New Confucianism in Promoting the Theory of Democracy and Science in China,”14 questioning the logical connection between Confucian tradition and democratic thought. In response to Lin’s question, I argued, “The term ‘developing’ as in ‘developing democracy from Confucianism’ or ‘negation’ as in the ‘self-negation of original knowing’ does not indicate a logical necessity, as construed by Lin, or a causal necessity, as conveniently thought by ordinary people; instead, it refers to a practical necessity in a dialectical process” (Lee Ming-­ huei 2016a). Mou Zongsan uses the Chinese word “ziwo kanxian自我坎陷” to translate the English term “self-negation.” Because this term derives from studies of Hegel, Taiwanese scholar Chen Zhongxin 陳忠信 criticizes the theory of “self-negation of original knowing” from the perspective of a critique of Hegel (Chen 1988).15 Probably out of concern to avoid misunderstandings like this, American scholars David Elstein and Stephen C. Angle suggest translating “ziwo kanxian 自我坎陷” as “self-restriction” (Elstein 2012: 198; Elstein 2015: 50; Angle 2012: 25). In addition to a detailed discussion of Mou Zongsan’s adoption of the notion of “self-­ negation of original knowing” to prove the link between Confucian tradition and democratic thought, Elstein also mentions questioning and criticism of Mou for his argument (Elstein 2012; Elstein 2015: 43–66). Angle elaborates in detail on the theory of “self-negation of original knowing,” and clarifies varied misunderstandings of it (Angle 2012: 24–35).

 I do not agree with Lee Shui Chuen’s opinion. For a response to his question, see Lee Ming-huei (1993a, 1993b). 14  This article was first published in Zhongguo shibao’s “Renjian fukan” 中國時報·人間副刊 (China Times supplement “Renjian”) in September 7 and 8, 1988; later, it was included in his book Political Order and the Plural Society (政治秩序與多元社會), retitled “Predicament of New Confucianism in Promoting the Theory of Democracy in China” (新儒家在中國推展民主的理論 面臨的困境). See Lin (1989: 337–349). 15  For a response to Chen Zhongxin’s question, see Lee Ming-huei (2016b). 13

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Taiwanese scholar Jiang Nianfeng 蔣年豐 makes a unique criticism of Mou Zongsan’s view of democracy. As mentioned earlier, Mou adopts Kant’s philosophy to reconstruct Confucian thought. Under the inspiration of John Rawls’s “Kantian liberalism,” Jiang deplores that Mou Zongsan was not able to utilize Kant’s legal and political philosophy, as Rawls did, to lay a foundation for democracy in China (Jiang 2005: 258). The debate on democracy between New Confucians and Taiwanese liberals took place in the 1950s, and at that time Rawls’s A Theory of Justice was not published yet. Naturally it was not possible for Mou to reference Rawls’s theory. Moreover, even in the 1950s West including Germany, Kant’s legal and political philosophy did not draw sufficient attention. Under such circumstances, it is no surprise that Mou Zongsan overlooked Kant’s legal and political philosophy. As a matter of fact, it was not only Mou; even Taiwanese liberals at that time did not think of the possible connectedness between Kant’s philosophy and liberalism due to the Cold War mode of thinking. Although Mou does not pay special attention to Kant’s legal and political philosophy, in his works of political philosophy, he repeatedly emphasizes that liberalism must be based on moral idealism. This undoubtedly affirms the possible theoretical connection between Kant’s philosophy and liberalism, with only one link missing from the theoretical chain: Kant’s legal and political philosophy. If this conception of Jiang Nianfeng can be realized, it will necessarily push Mou Zongsan’s political philosophy a step forward, which is also the direction of my scholarly effort.

References Angle, Stephen C. 2012. Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism. Malden: Polity. (Discussion of the reconstruction of Confucian political philosophy in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China and the varied problems facing Confucianism in today’s society.) Billioud, Sébastien. 2012. Thinking through Confucian Modernity: A Study of Mou Zongsan’s Moral Metaphysics. Leiden: Brill. (Discussion of the moral metaphysics established by Mou Zongsan through adoption of Kant’s philosophy.) Chan, N.  Serina. 2011. The Thought of Mou Zongsan. Leiden: Brill. (Outstanding introduction of the background of the formation of Mou Zongsan’s philosophy and overview of his major philosophical ideas.) Chen, Zhongxin 陳忠信. 1988. “Examination of New Confucians’ ‘Theory of Developing Democracy from Confucianism’” 新儒家「民主開出論」的檢討. Studies of Taiwan Society 臺灣社會研究 1 (4): 101–138. (Criticism of Mou Zongsan’s theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism” following Louis Althusser’s critique of Hegel’s historical teleology.) Clower, Jason. 2010. The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiantai Buddhism in Mou Zongsan's New Confucianism. Boston: Brill. (Detailed discussion of Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of the thought of Tiantai Buddhism and its significance.) Deng, Xiaomang 鄧曉芒. 2006a. “An Example of Mou Zongsan’s Misreading of Kant: Regarding ‘Transcendental’” 牟宗三對康德之誤讀舉要(之一)――關於「先驗的」. In his Questions of Kant’s Philosophy 康德哲學諸問題, 278–297. Beijing: Sanlian shudian. (Discussion of Mou Zongsan’s misreading of Kant’s concept of “transcendental.”)

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———. 2006b. “The Second Example of Mou Zongsan’s Misreading of Kant: Regarding ‘Intellectual Intuition’” 牟宗三對康德之誤讀舉要(之二)――關於「智性直觀」. In his Questions of Kant’s Philosophy 康德哲學諸問題, 297–318. Beijing: Sanlian shudian. (Discussion of Mou Zongsan’s misreading of Kant’s concept of “intellectual intuition.”) ———. 2006c. “The Third Example of Mou Zongsan’s Misreading of Kant: Regarding ‘Thing in Itself’” 牟宗三對康德之誤讀舉要(之三)――關於「物自身」. Study and Exploration 學 習與探索 6: 1–6. (Discussion of Mou Zongsan’s misreading of Kant’s concept of “thing in itself.”) Ehrhardt Pioletti, Antje. 1997. Die Realität des moralischen Handelns. Mou Zongsans Darstellung des Neokonfuzianismus als Vollendung der praktischen Philosophie Kants. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. (Discussion of the moral metaphysics established by Mou Zongsan through adoption of Kant’s philosophy.) Elstein, David. 2012. “Mou Zongsan’s New Confucian Democracy.” Contemporary Political Theory 11 (2): 192–210. (Introduction and discussion of Mou Zongsan’s view of democracy.) ———. 2015. Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy. New  York: Routledge. (Introduction and discussion of the views of democracy of Hong Kong and Taiwan scholars including Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, and Lee Ming-huei and mainland Chinese scholars Deng Xiaojun, Jiang Qing, and Bai Tongdong.) Fung, Yiu Ming [Feng Yaoming] 馮耀明. 1989. “Conceptual Relativism and Chinese Philosophy” 概念相對論與中國哲學. In his The Methodological Problems of Chinese philosophy 中國哲 學的方法論問題, 289–310. Taipei: Yunchen wenhua shiye gongsi. (Discussion of conceptual relativism in studies of Chinese philosophy with Mou Zongsan as an example.) Huang, Jinxing 黃進興. 1994. “The So-called ‘Moral Autonomy’: A case of the Limitations for Interpreting Chinese Thought in Terms of Western Notions.” 所謂「道德自主性」:以西 方觀念解釋中國思想之限制的例證. In his Ascending the Holy Realm: Power, Belief, and Legitimacy 優入聖域: 權力、信仰與正當性, 3–24. Taipei: Yunchen wenhua shiye gongsi. (Discussion of the problems of Mou Zongsan adopting Kant’s concept of “autonomy” to interpret Chinese philosophy.) Jiang, Nianfeng 蔣年豐. 2005. “Legal and Political Subject and Modern Society—Issues Confucianism Should Consider Today” 法政主體與現代社會――當前儒家應該思考的問 題. In his Oceanic Confucianism and the Legal and Political Subject 海洋儒學與法政主體, 255–271. Taipei: Guiyuan tushu gongsi. (Argument of adopting Kant’s legal and political philosophy to prove the link between Confucian tradition and democratic politics.) Kant, Immanuel. 1788. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. In Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 5. 1–163. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968. ———. 1976. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. (A= 1st edition of 1781, B= 2nd edition of 1787). Kantor, Hans-Rudolf. 1999. Die Heilslehre im Tiantai-Denken des Zhiyi (538–597) und der philosophische Begriff des ‘Unendlichen’ bei Mou Zongsan (1909–1995): Die Verknüpfung von Heilslehre und Ontologie in der chinesischen Tiantai. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. (Discussion of the thought of Zhiyi, a master of Tiantai Buddhism, and Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Tiantai Buddhism.) Lau, D.C. trans. 1984. Mencius. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Lee, Ming-huei [Li Minghui] 李明輝. 1993a. “Can Zhu Xi’s Ethics Be Categorized as an Ethics of Heteronomy?” 朱子的倫理學可歸入自律倫理學嗎? In Lee Shui Chuen, Philosophical Development of Contemporary New Confucianism 當代新儒學之哲學開拓, 226–233. Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe. (Re-affirmation of the reason that Zhu Xi’s ethics belongs to the ethics of heteronomy.) ———. 2001. Mou Zongsan’s Interpretation of Mengzi’s Theory of Heart-Mind and Human Nature Re-examined 再論牟宗三先生對孟子心性論的詮釋. In his Mengzi Revisited 孟子 重探, 111–131.Taipei: Linking Publishing Co.(Discussion of Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Mengzi’s theory of heart-mind and human nature and response to questioning and criticism it encountered from varied aspects)

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———. 2009. “How to Inherit Mou Zongsan’s Intellectual Legacy?” 如何繼承牟宗三的思想 遺產?. Reflexion 思想 13: 191–203. (Discussion of the fate of Mou Zongsan’s philosophy in Sinophone academia, clarifying various misunderstandings of it) ———. 2016a. “How to Develop Democracy and Science from Confucianism?” 儒學如何開出 民主與科學?. In his Confucianism and Modern Consciousness 儒學與現代意識, enlarged version, 1–21. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press. (Response to Lin Yusheng’s criticism of contemporary New Confucians’ theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism.”) ———. 2016b. “History and Its Purpose” 歷史與目的. In his Confucianism and Modern Consciousness 儒學與現代意識, enlarged version, 159–184. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press. (Response to Chen Zhongxin’s criticism of Mou Zongsan’s theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism.”) ———. 2017a. “Mou Tsung-san’s Interpretation of Confucianism: Some Hermeneutical Reflections.” In his Confucianism: Its Roots and Global Significance, 13–25. Edited by David Jones, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. (Examination of the questions raised in Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Confucianism and of the disputes it provoked from the perspective of hermeneutics.) ———. 2017b. “Confucianism, Kant, and Virtue Ethics.” In his Confucianism: Its Roots and Global Significance, 92–101. Edited by David Jones, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. (Argument questioning the prevailing trend of employing the theory of virtue ethics to interpret Confucian ethics.) ———. 2018a. “Confucianism and Autonomous Morality” 儒家與自律道德. In his Confucianism and Kant 儒家與康德, enlarged version, 11–46. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. (Defending Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Confucianism against Huang Jinxing’s criticism.) ———. 2018b. “Why Kant’s Concept of ‘Thing-in-itself’ has Value-Connotations? – A Discussion of Mou Zongsan’s Interpretation” 康德的 “物自身”概念何以有價值意涵?―為牟宗三的詮 釋進一解.Journal of Yunnan University (social sciences edition) 雲南大學學報: 社會科學版 17 (2): 53–62. (Defending Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of Kant’s notion of “thing-in-itself” as one with value-connotations.) Lee, Shui Chuen [Li Ruiquan] 李瑞全. 1993b. “The Type of Zhu Xi’s Ethics Reconsidered” 朱子 道德學形態之重檢. In his Philosophical Development of Contemporary New Confucianism 當代新儒學之哲學開拓, 206–225. Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe. (Argument for categorizing Zhu Xi’s ethics as an ethics of autonomy by distinguishing between two types of autonomy.) Lehmann, Olf. 2003. Zur moralmethaphysischen Grundlegung einer konfuzianischen Moderne. ‘Philolosophisierung’ der Tradition und ‘Konfuzianisierung’ der Aufklärung bei Mou Zongsan. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitatsverlag. (Detailed discussion of the New Confucianism that Mou Zongsan establishes by adopting Kant’s philosophy.) Lin, Tongqi 林同奇. 2004. “Mou Zongsan’s Spiritual Vision: How Is Summum Bonum Possible?” In Tu Wei-ming and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds., Confucian Spituality, Vol. 2. 323–352. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co. (The most complete and concise study in English of Mou Zongsan’s theory of the perfect good). Lin, Yusheng 林毓生. 1989. “The Predicament of New Confucianism in Promoting the Theory of Democracy in China” 新儒家在中國推展民主的理論面臨的困境. In his Political Order and Plural Society 政治秩序與多元社會, 337–349. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. (Argument questioning the validity of Hong Kong and Taiwan New Confucians’ theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism.”) Mou, Zongsan牟宗三. 1970. The Learning of Life 生命的學問. Taipei: Sanmin shuju. ———. 2003a. Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality 心體與性體. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, vols. 5–7. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003b. From Lu Xiangshang to Liu Jishan 從陸象山到劉蕺山. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vol. 8. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003c. Moral Idealism 道德的理想主義. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生 全集, Vol. 9. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003d. The Philosophy of History 歷史哲學. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先 生全集. Vol. 9. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co.

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———. 2003e. The Principle of Legitimation and the Principle of Governance 政道與治道. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集. Vol. 10. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———, trans. 2003f. Kant’s Moral Philosophy 康德的道德哲學. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vol. 15. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003g. Collection of Mou Zongsan’s Translations and Essays 牟宗三先生譯述集. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vol. 17. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003h. Critique of the Cognitive Mind 認識心之批判. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vols. 17&18. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003i. Appearance and Thing in Itself 現象與物自身. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vol. 21. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003j. On the Perfect Good 圓善論. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, vol. 22. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003k. Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學十九講. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生全集, Vol. 29. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003l. Autobiography at Fifty 五十自述. Complete Works of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三先生 全集, vol. 32. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. ———. 2003m. Spécificités de la philosophie chinoise. Introduction by Joël Thoraval, translated by Ivan P. Kamenarović and Jean-Claude Pastor. Paris: Editions du Cerf. ———. 2014. Late Works of Mou Zongsan: Selected Essays on Chinese philosophy. Translated and edited by Jason Clower. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2015a. Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy. Translated by Esther C. Su. California: Foundation for the Study of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. ———. 2015b. Autobiography at Fifty: A Philosophical Life in Twentieth Century China. Translated by Lu Ming-yeung & Esther C. Su. California: Foundation for the Study of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Roetz, Heiner. 1999. “The ‘Dignity within Oneself’: Chinese Tradition and Human Rights.” In KarlHeinz Pohl, ed., Chinese Thought in a Global Context, 236–261. Leiden: Brill. (Exploration of the theoretical link between Confucian tradition and the concept of “human rights” with Mengzi’s thought as focus). Scheler, Max. 1966. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Bern: Francke. Tang, Junyi 唐君毅 et al. 1991. Chinese Culture and the World 中國文化與世界. Complete Works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集, vol. 4. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. Tu, Wei-ming. 1979. “An Inquiry into Wang Yang-ming’s Four-Sentence Teaching.” In his Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. (Detailed elaboration of the background and philosophical implications of Wang Yangming’s “Four-Sentence Teaching.”) Wang, Longxi 王龍溪. 1970. Complete Works of Wang Longxi 王龍溪全集. Taipei: Huawen shuju (photomechanical copy). Wang, Yangming 王陽明. 2011. Complete Works of Wang Yangming 王陽明全集. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe. Yang, Zebo 楊澤波. 2006. “Critical Review of the Theory of Autonomy” 自律論論衡. In his Critical Review of Mou Zongsan’s Theory of Three Systems 牟宗三三系論論衡, 170–300. Shanghai: Fudan University Press. (Discussion of the theoretical difficulties that Mou Zongsan encounters in interpreting Confucian thought with Kant’s concept of autonomy.) Zheng, Xin 鄭昕. 2003. Overview of Kant’s Learning 康德學述. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan. (A brief introduction to Kant’s philosophy.)

Li Zehou: Synthesizing Kongzi, Marx, and Kant Andrew Lambert

1  Introduction Li Zehou has been described as, “the most creative living Chinese philosopher as well as the most controversial” (Ding 2002: 246), and as “the most influential thinker in the Chinese mainland throughout the 1980s….the pacesetter of the intellectual agenda in humanities in China” (Lin Tongqi, quoted in Cheek 1999: 114; see also Lin 2003: 589). Born in Hunan in 1930, Li graduated from Peking University in 1954 and joined the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences the following year. Although his writings were first published in the 1950s, the upheaval and political instability of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) meant that he did not attain prominence until a series of works were published from 1979 onwards. He became an important public figure, and is credited with providing inspiration for the Chinese democracy movement of the 1980s. Partly as a result of his perceived associations with the reform movement, he left China in 1992 and moved to the United States, where he still resides. Li has the distinction of being one of only two Chinese thinkers to serve as Fellows of the International Institute of Philosophy (IIP) in Paris—Feng Youlan (馮友蘭) was the other. Li has written more than 30 books and his work is wide-ranging. He has produced a three volume history of Chinese thought (Li 1979b, 1985a, 1987), a critical review of Kant’s philosophy (Li 1979a), critical discussions of Marxism (Li 1987), a commentary on the Analects (Li 2007), a popular study of art and beauty in the Chinese tradition (Li 1981), popular surveys of his own work (Li 1990), a scholarly study of aesthetics in the Chinese tradition (Li 1988), and many theoretical works in aesthetics (Li 1985b). Li remains active, and most recently has engaged with Michael Sandel on the place of justice in Chinese social thought (Li 2016). Several A. Lambert (*) City University of New York, College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_13

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of his works dealing with aesthetics are available in English (Li 1994, 2006, 2010), and translations of other major works are being published (Li 2018a, 2018b, 2019, forthcoming).1

2  Contextualizing Li’s Thought: Articulating a Chinese Modernity To better understand Li Zehou’s work, it is helpful to locate it within the social and historical contexts to which Li was responding. Specifically, his work can be understood as a contribution to the struggle to establish the intellectual foundations of a Chinese modernity. As China transitioned away from the long-lived dynastic system that had ended early in the twentieth century, there was intense debate in China about what forms of social and political order should take its place. Marxism emerged as the governing ideology after the Communist revolution, but this did not settle the outstanding social questions. In the period of liberalization that followed Mao’s death, intellectuals like Li Zehou emerged and found a new role. Instead of being tasked with providing justifications for state policy and the ruling ideology, they were free, to some extent, to explore new ideas that could inform policy and popular consciousness. Li Zehou duly became one of the most active and widely read of Chinese thinkers during the 1980s and 1990s, offering a humanistic vision for Chinese society that explored what makes human beings human beings. Any proposed vision of a modern China had to address at least three, potentially conflicting, issues. These were: the place of tradition, especially Confucian thought, in twentieth-century China; the role of Western learning and culture; and the future of a Marxism with Chinese characteristics. Within the public debate about China’s future path, which spanned many decades, some advocated the adoption of Western values and science as a cure for China’s ills (Hu Shi 胡適, 2013), and some Marxism (Chen Xujing 陳序經1990, 1995; Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 1993). Others sought to promote the standing of traditional Chinese culture, to the point that it might even provide solutions to problems of Western modernity (Liang Shuming梁漱溟 2001). What made Li Zehou’s contribution distinctive was the willingness to draw from all these disparate frameworks, in an attempt to synthesize them into a unified system of thought. Li draws most extensively from three intellectual sources—Marx, Kant, and classical Confucian thought—creatively adapting what he regards as the most valuable elements of each thinker or tradition. From Marx, he took the idea that the starting point for social analysis and philosophical theorizing is material and cultural, and not the individual. In Li’s words, “ultimate reality is the social practice of material production, from which grows the production of symbols (language being the main part of this symbol production)” (Li 2006: 39). How people experience the  A detailed bibliography of Li’s work can be found in Jana Rošker (2018).

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world is largely determined by the social practices within which they exist. Li also develops a form of historicism: society, including ideas and technology, evolves over time, giving rise to new forms of social consciousness. Li paid particular attention to the early Marx (2007), and developed Marx’s idea of the humanization of nature (ziran de renhua 自然的人化, Li 2006: 37). For Marx, humans were attached to nature, and humans were characterized by their development of tools to reproduce their means of existence within nature: “Man lives on nature—means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die” (Marx 2007: 31). The humanization of nature refers to two processes. First, through primitive tools and later science and technology, humans mold the external world into a more hospitable environment. At the same time, and partly through a symbiotic relationship, the transformed external environment also molds the inner life of people, creating what Li called “Spiritual Civilization.” However, Li has little use for the Marxist notion of class as a category of social analysis; nor does revolution play an important role in his thinking. Indeed, Li is often regarded as a conservative thinker in this respect, offering a vision of how a modernizing China might transform without social conflict. As Lin Min points out (Lin 1992: 971), Li’s ideas provided some of the philosophical basis for Deng Xiaoping’s modernization program. Li’s idea of an evolving national cultural identity, grounded in an ancient past and developing slowly as successive layers of cultural practice and meaning accumulate, could be seen in Deng’s appeal to a national culturally-grounded ‘Chinese’ identity. It is a measure of the depth and complexity of Li’s thought that, despite his interest in continuity, he fell from favor with the authorities because he was seen as siding too closely with the reformers. Despite his great debt to Marx and Engels, Li believes that they, “failed to place sufficient emphasis on human beings’ inner psychology” (Li 2018a, vii). Li turns to Kant to overcome this perceived deficiency in Marxist theory. From Kant, Li takes the ideas of a rational human subject, whose experiences are conditioned and directed through certain foundational cognitive structures and categories. But whereas Kant identified necessary and universal categories of experience that all rational human subjects rely upon to make sense of the sensible world, Li denies that these basic categories are ‘synthetic a priori’ (i.e., providing the structures that make possible conscious experience, while not themselves formed through experience). Basic concepts and categories might, for the individual subject, be necessary or universal, but their origin lies in social life and external forces of production. Li thus attempted to marry Kantian ideas with Marxist theory. He acknowledged the primacy of the social in determining human consciousness and thought, but he was also concerned with the structure of the rational human mind (which Li sometimes refers to as the “emotio-rational” structure of the mind). Through analysis of the latter, and unlike Marx, he sought to articulate an inner realm in which innovation and imagination could arise, and influence could flow in the opposite direction, from the individual into the world. In particular, Li develops Kant’s notion of the rational will. Humans’ ability to willfully override desire and even apparent self-­ interest, for the sake of moral conduct, is a distinctive ‘suprabiological’ ­(超生

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理chaoshengli) feature of human nature, and distinguishes humans from animals. The ability to exert such rational control, even if reason is socially conditioned, motives Li’s rejection of reductive evolutionary or sociobiological explanations of human behavior: “A human being is not merely a biological entity; to become a human being, necessarily means to possess an inner, conscious rational moral character” (Li 2016: 20; trans., Rošker 2020: 39). Li differs from Kant, however, in his conception of a universal humanity or moral community. For Li, respect for humankind as a whole was not to be found in the reflective space of reasons; rather it was an awareness that emerged historically. As technology and social practices evolved and the range of human interactions and communities expanded, human thought and awareness developed the idea of common ground shared by all human beings (Li 2006: 87). In his work on aesthetics, Li echoes Kant in regarding the aesthetic as a distinct realm of human experience, separate from the intellect and practical matters, and an important site of human freedom. Li’s work is thus an attempt to restore the status of the individual person— through his interest in subjectivity and the person as a sensuous being—in the face of orthodox Marxist claims that impersonal social and economic forces determined the structure of inner subjective life. While historical and material forces shape personal sensibility, they do not entirely determine it. That said, however, Li does not move from Kant to the individualism of liberalism. Understanding human beings as pursuers of private ends, such that “the whole society exists for the individual,” is “unhistorical” (Li 2018a: 348). The understanding of people should include social and historical context.2 While Kant’s framework provided a possible escape from the determinism of Marxism, the latter offered, according to Li, a corrective to the way in which Confucian thought had developed in the Chinese tradition. He used Marxist and Kantian thought to develop new interpretations of themes and terms from classical Chinese philosophy (discussed below), such as the unity of humanity and the cosmos (tianren heyi 天人合一) and the Confucian ideal of humaneness (ren仁). Li traced the transformations in their meaning from ancient China to the New Confucians, and offered a Marxist critique of how they were developed by the Song and Ming Neo-Confucians and their later followers. (See Li’s three volume history of Chinese thought). Li believed that seminal figures such as the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi placed excessive focus on inner-directed self-cultivation and appeal to abstractions (Li 2019: 258–260). As a result, they paid insufficient attention to the role of the natural environment and the social world in conditioning and cultivating people. In this, Li draws heavily on the Marxist emphasis on science, and the need to develop technologies that were integrated with nature, thereby providing people with a higher standard of living—something that the ‘unscientific’ late Chinese dynastic period failed to do. 2  Li finds similarities here between his and Kant’s thought. He highlights the teleology in Kant’s philosophy of history, and Kant’s neglected account of the role of sense experience and human history in social progress (Li 2018a: 349–350)—a reading of Kant that Li finds shared with some Western scholars (Wood 1999: 245–248).

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Thus, at a time when Maoist voluntarism was still prominent in the public imagination, Li sought to promote a more scientific method for a modernizing nation. In his History of Classical Chinese Thought, Li explores how Confucian ideas, specifically those of the Neo-Confucians, informed Mao Zedong’s version of Marxism. Influenced by Song-Ming Neo-Confucian fascination with inner cultivation, Mao embraced a naïve confidence that human will alone could achieve revolutionary change. He believed that Chinese peasants could rise up and transform their society through strength of will. This led Mao to issue a misguided call for the peasants to develop backyard steel-producing furnaces to help meet the country’s need for steel, which lacked sufficient regard for the technological challenges of producing high-­ quality steel (Li Zhisui 李志綏 2011: 272–278). In his opposition to Maoism, Li’s thought can thus be perceived as reformist and anti-establishment, resisting the surge of national fervor and political circumstances that allowed little freedom for skeptical critical analysis. Understanding Li’s work as an attempt to articulate a Chinese modernity—one that integrated traditional Chinese culture and Confucian learning, China’s recent Marxist past, and Western learning and philosophy—prepares the reader for an encounter with the details of Li’s thought. We turn first to his work on aesthetics.

3  Li Zehou’s Aesthetics Li is well known, particularly in the Anglophone world, for his work on aesthetics. His aesthetic theory developed over several decades (see, for example, Li 1980b, 1994, 2010), and is not confined to discussions of art, but instead aims at a comprehensive explanation of the role of the sensuous and affective in human life. Moral beauty—as the refining of inner nature and finding accord with external nature—is the highest human end. Li thus belongs to that line of Chinese thought that treats aesthetics as being at the heart of society and education (Samei 2010: x). Aesthetics is central to traditional Chinese thought because, according to Li, it is a “one world” (yigeshijie 一個世界) tradition (Li 2016: 1069). In the Abrahamic tradition, human purpose is linked to metaphysical dualism, an other-worldly transcendental realm and a human nature that is originally flawed; but the Chinese tradition celebrates this life and views humans as integral to nature. The moral aspiration of the tradition has always been to create a great harmony on earth, not to facilitate private salvation. To develop this traditional theme, Li again draws on Marxist themes, particularly the connection between beauty and society. Li regards aesthetics as a discipline that must respond to social and historical change while also confronting issues beyond art and literature. But Li rejects the crudest form of Marxist aesthetics. Unlike Mao Zedong, for example, Li rejects the demand that all art promote social goals such as the interests of a social class or revolutionary change.3 Instead, aesthetics must

 See Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” (Mao 1980).

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t­heorize the relationship between humans and productive forces. Aesthetics thus reflects how culture shapes personal sensibility. It should explain, for example, how and why many people’s experience of the aesthetic is as domesticated consumers, concerned with, “the color of the wallpaper, the grouping of the furniture, and even the form of a small cup or lampshade” (Li 2006: 35). Thus, in keeping with how aesthetics has been approached in the Chinese tradition generally, Li’s conception of aesthetics is very broad and addresses, “The material and spiritual civilization of humanity as a whole” (Li 2006: 36). For the sake of simplicity, Li’s account of beauty can be divided into two components, an account of what makes an object beautiful (which Li calls “the root of beauty”), and an explanation of aesthetic experience (the feelings and attitudes involved in encounters with beauty). Here, ‘object’ is to be understood broadly, to include events and states of affairs as well as physical objects such as paintings. To be beautiful an object must possess certain objective characteristics, and must be perceived by someone who is able to appreciate it: there is no beauty without people, and beauty is encountered in the sensuous realm. Such an account of beauty contrasts with claims that it is found in the intellectual realm, in things such as elegant mathematic formulae. Li intends his view to contrast with two other, more familiar accounts of what of makes objects beautiful, which Li calls “objectivism” and “subjectivism” (Li 2006: 51). Objectivism includes formalism—the claim that beauty resides in a-temporal features of the object, such as proportion or symmetry. Another objectivist account claims that beauty derives from the spirit or idea made manifest by an object, as in the case of religious iconography. Subjectivist accounts explain beauty through a person’s experience of it rather than objective properties of the object. Feelings, imagination, or attitudes create beauty. Both objectivist and subjectivist explanations of beauty face problems. If beauty is objective then, all things being equal, why don’t people have the same response to the same object? And if beauty is merely subjective, then why do people take themselves to be responding to objective features of the object when they experience beauty? Li offers a creative response to the problems facing both accounts, with a theory that incorporates elements of both approaches. His theory explains how beauty has a root in objective properties; why some properties but not others arouse feelings of beauty; and how the aesthetic attitude involved in the experience of beauty arises.

3.1  The Root of Beauty Li first seeks to explain how beauty comes into being. He argues that the root of beauty is humanized nature (e.g., Li 2006: 53): human practice and its effects on the world result in certain objects becoming able to move us aesthetically. Li writes, We cannot seek after the origin or essence of beauty merely from the mind or psychology or merely from the natural properties of matter, but should follow Marx’s directions of the view of practice, of humanized nature. To put it in the abstract language of classical

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p­ hilosophy, beauty is the unity of truth and goodness, that is, the unity of regularity and purposiveness, and manifests social utilitarian content…Any beauty must possess perceptual natural form. Without form (image), no beauty is possible. This form is nothing more than the humanized nature. (Li 1980b: 17, quoted in 2006: 55)

Beauty arises when objects or practices unify two important elements. The first is understanding and control of the natural world and the laws that govern it (“regularity”). The second is human striving and goal-directed practice, which improve the world for humans (“purposiveness”). When humans marry the laws of nature with human purpose in a form that can be perceived, then beauty arises. Such forms represent humanized nature, since they are the point at which human striving (purposiveness) has come to terms with natural order (regularity). Without this union, either humans would have remained in a primitive state, viewing nature as magical and beyond human control, or their practices would have been in tension with nature and tended to collapse. Beautiful things thus came into existence over time as humans developed tools that enabled adaptation to the natural world and the directing of it, bringing about practices that brought human benefit. Li’s approach to aesthetics is thus consistent with Marx’s guiding ideal of human self-creation through productive activity. Non-alienated labor, able to work creatively with the materials of the natural world, is aesthetic activity.4 Examples of beauty as humanized nature include high-speed trains, skyscrapers, and great bridges (Li 2006: 64). In the case of trains, for example, they and the experiences involving them are beautiful because they integrate awareness of and response to the laws of nature (the physics of building tunnels, aerodynamics, transmission of energy, etc.) with human goals (transporting many people quickly and safely over long-distances, etc). It might be asked: why should this kind of practice and its objects be thought of as beautiful? Li’s reply is twofold, both of which highlight the complex nature of beauty. First, the sensuous form is not merely a perceptual appearance, such as the sleek and dynamic train; it is also a manifestation of the rational. The object (the train) is also an embodiment of accumulated reason, and humanity’s capacity to understand and direct the world. Such objects represent human practical reason at its productive best. Li calls this process ‘sedimentation’ (積澱jidian), whereby “The rational deposits itself into the sensuous” (Li 1979a: 415, Li 2006: 57). Successive layers of human practice are built upon earlier ones over time, refining or replacing them, and conditioning how people conceptualize and feel towards the world. Second, the object is beautiful because it is the embodiment of the most substantial notion of human freedom—the ability to successfully adapt to the world and establish stable social practices that promote human well-being. In doing so, humans liberate themselves from natural necessity and make the natural environment amenable to human ends. Li offers the Zhuangzi’s story of Cook Ding as an example of 4  Marx also appeals to beauty as a practical ideal: “…[M[an knows how to produce in accordance with the standard of every species and knows how to apply everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty” (Marx 2007: 32).

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such cultivated freedom (Li 2006: 58). Beauty emerges only after struggle and the achievement of practical mastery—both in human history and in individual lives. Further, in so far as beauty is understood in terms of freedom, then beauty does not simply refer to the object produced (the train), but also refers to the more abstract activity of setting and achieving material goals (crossing a mountain range, and building a transport system that realizes this). Note that while the origin of beauty here is something objective—those objects or practices that integrate the natural world and human purpose, and produce social benefit—what constitutes a beautiful object is historically situated. It evolves over time as understanding of the natural world and the laws governing it deepens, and as human needs and interests evolve.5 Humans’ use of tools and technology develop, and ever more complex patterns of laws and regularity are revealed, to which humans then respond with new technologies. In the past, those in agricultural societies enjoyed the process of growing vegetables, but in contemporary urban communities most people are able only to appreciate the colors and tastes of vegetables; the practices integral to their production no longer arouse an aesthetic response (Li 2006: 65). Similarly, the high-speed trains of today might seem crude and limited in 100 years, while what is beautiful in the future might include forms that we could not find beautiful today. This might include environmentally friendly forms of life. Also, what is recognized as beautiful can also vary between societies or traditions, as human needs and practices vary in different geographical and cultural areas. This variation will have limits though, in so far as some needs are rooted in universal human biology.

3.2  Aesthetic Sensibility In addition to explaining the root of beauty, or what it is that humans find beautiful, Li also provides an account of the aesthetic attitude, and what leads the human subject to experience beauty. To understand this second inquiry, consider how something might be objectively beautiful but not appreciated as such. What must the (human) subject be like such that it can experience beauty? Li is responding here to other accounts of aesthetic experience that he considers inadequate. These include the theory of psychic distance (Bullough 1912), which holds that beauty arises when people focus solely on the sensual experiences deriving from objects, ‘distancing’ them from the concerns of the self that might otherwise distort or prevent the aesthetic experience. Li also rejects the claim that the experience of beauty is solely the projection of emotions by the subject onto the object. 5  Compare Li’s historicist account of beauty with Marx’s insistence in final pages of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy that certain art forms are possible only during certain historical moments or social formations. “Is the conception of nature and of social relations which underlies Greek imagination and therefore Greek (art) possible when there are self-acting mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs?” (Marx 2000: 128).

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Li’s account is based on his theory of sedimentation and an explanation of the human subject through the existence of cultural-psychological formations (wenhua-­ xinli jiegou文化心理結構) (Li 2019: xii, Li 2010: x, Li 2018a: 328). This is the idea that external social practices and forces (‘culture’) condition or ‘mold’ (taoye陶冶) how people experience the world (their ‘psychology’). This includes concepts and feelings. The “cultural” includes material life (tools, practices, etc) and social entities (ideals and norms)—i.e., all those aspects of the external social and material world that find representation in human consciousness (as concepts, emotions, personal attitudes and so forth). Thus the particular form and features of the social world structure how people think about their world and what they value. This includes their aesthetic sensibility, which Li calls the “aesthetic psychological construction” (Li 2006: 89). This is the part of people’s inner lives that is sensitive to aesthetic concerns, and includes relevant desires, feelings, and habits of perception. As society evolves, so does the cultural-psychological formation of people and also their aesthetic sensibility. This framework leads Li to make various claims about the nature of aesthetic experience. First, what is aesthetically appealing has a cultural grounding. As with the cultural-psychological formation, the formation of the aesthetic sensibility also takes place on different levels: human or species-wide, communal or cultural, and individual. Different traditions can thus have different aesthetic sensibilities due to local variations in both natural environment and social practices. In China, for example, Li claims that a “very long and highly developed neolithic agricultural society” and the influence of Confucian and Daoist ideas resulted in a preference for line over color, and implied meanings over explicit and unambiguous statements, while the imagination was more important to generating aesthetic experience than perception and mimesis, something made evident by the properties of Chinese painting (Li 2006: 90). Second, aesthetic experience acquires a veridical or reliable quality. As the product of social practices, aesthetic sensibility is rooted in an objective (or inter-subjective) external world in a way that purely subjective responses are not. It is “social and rational, but disinterested” (Li 2006: 93) and, compared with responses or emotions that arise from more selfish or private ends or concerns, judgments arising from it are more communally orientated. People whose lives are structured by shared social practices are likely to be moved by the same objects. Furthermore, there is an increase in aesthetic sensibility and aesthetically-driven activity over time. As noted above, over time humans acquire increased ability to realize beauty in the world through technology; but they also become more able to appreciate it. The human senses become more refined over time, such that people are increasingly able to appreciate a wider range of sounds and music, visual arts and so on. Similarly, advancing practical skills make possible the creation of more complex forms of beauty. There has been an evolution from primitive cave paintings to the works of Picasso. In fact, there is a shift in the place of beauty in human life more generally. As humans achieve greater control of the external world and develop ever richer psychological and conceptual resources to recognize and enjoy beauty, so people become more concerned with beauty. It becomes central to human life. Li describes this increased importance of the aesthetic as the “sociality of

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sensuousness” (Li 2006: 93). It constitutes a distinguishing characteristic of humans, and separates them from animals. Animals use their senses for utilitarian ends, such as finding food to survive. Humans, though also once in this state, have transcended it. They enjoy the senses for their own sakes. Beauty thus becomes a goal of human thought and action. This explains why people are increasingly concerned with the aesthetic details of their everyday lives, from clothing to wallpaper.

3.3  Technology and Beauty: A Worrying Combination? The strong emphasis on technology central to Li’s conception of beauty might arouse concern, in so far that beauty here seems to consist in achieving control of the natural world and imposing human order upon it. This contrasts sharply with accounts of beauty that start from recognition of the intrinsic beauty of natural ecosystems, pristine nature, or grand mountain vistas. Of greater concern is that the natural world in Li’s account has value only instrumentally, for its contribution to human well-being when properly mastered. Some ecologically-mind ethicists have argued that nature has intrinsic value (Naess 1989), and that the correct attitude towards it is one of reverence. Such attitudes are thought to be important because they prevent the degradation of the natural world. Li offers several responses to such charges. First, he is aware of the danger posed by unchecked technological growth and instrumental rationality to human sensuousness or aesthetic sensibility, and warns against allowing such alienation (Li 2006: 70). More importantly, Li argues that greater technological control might actually lead to enhanced interest in nature as an aesthetic object. In the past, humans were trapped in subsistence living. But as humans have escaped from debilitating labor with the help of technology, and secured themselves against most existential threats, so they have become more able to appreciate beauty. They can now regard the natural world as an aesthetic object, and are attracted to violent storms, wild deserts and desolate landscapes as sensuous forms. Accordingly, people might become more concerned with the preservation of the natural environment. This coming to appreciate ‘wild’ nature is, along with directing nature, also part of the process of “humanization of nature” (Li 2006: 72). Thus, Li argues, understanding the laws that govern the natural world and being able to modify it in accordance with human need is not a barrier to greater environmental concern but a prerequisite for it. Furthermore, this process of the humanization of nature is accompanied by a second process, in which the direction of influence runs the other way. Humans also adjust to nature, which Li calls the “naturalization of humans” (ren de ziranhua人 的自然化). In its simplest sense this is the idea that humans must respect the laws of nature as they look to make the natural environment more homely. Building homes on flood plains without regard to seasonal variations will result in insecurity. Humans’ adjustment to nature is more subtle than this, however. They also adjust the rhythms of their own lives to the rhythms found in nature. Chinese health arts

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such as Qigong and Taiji, as well as other techniques such as yoga, are ways in which the rhythms of the human body are adjusted to the rhythms of the natural world (Li 2006: 138). This, along with the complementary humanization of nature, is necessary for the complete union of humans and nature (tianren heyi 天人合一). Li also glosses this traditional notion of unity in ecological terms, as “the integration of the embodied mind and the natural world” (Li 2019: 322). Li thus locates this traditional idea within a novel framework, which incorporates both China’s recent Marxist past and the traditional concern with aesthetics. As his creative reinterpretation of tianren heyi suggests, Li’s aesthetic theory was crucial to another aspect of his work—locating traditional Chinese thought within a framework that contributed to the discussions about Chinese modernity. The two complementary processes central to his aesthetics, the humanization of nature and the naturalization of humans, along with other novel concepts, enabled Li to offer new perspectives on the tradition, and the figure of Kongzi in particular.

4  Li Zehou on the Chinese Tradition One of Li’s notable achievements was the rehabilitation of Kongzi, at a time when the orthodox Marxist account rendered the name synonymous with feudalism and oppression (Li 1985a). He achieved this by offering two contrasting assessments of Kongzi, one critical and one appreciative. Thus, in a style representative of much of his work, he avoided direct denial of the orthodox view while adding to and contextualizing it—sublimating it—on the way to a more inclusive understanding. Li agreed that Kongzi, in seeking to defend and restore the Zhou ritual and social codes, advocated economic and political recommendations that were backward looking and regressive, “preferring a society with all people being equally poor over a society tending to polarization of wealth and power” (Li 1980a: 103). Ultimately, the dynamic historical changes opposed by Kongzi enabled the overthrow of the technologically and economically stagnant rites-based clan networks. In their wake, more advanced forms of economic and social organization emerged during the Qin and Han dynasties. Such progress was not without tragedy, however, and Kongzi offered prescient criticisms of developments in his society. A stable and proto-democratic clan system, in which clan elders were able to focus on communal needs, was destroyed. Brutal wars of annexation followed in which these communal and humane qualities were lost. Li points out that a more balanced assessment of Kongzi should recognize that, “he was against ruthless oppression and exploitation and championed the cause of ancient clan rule with its comparative moderation, showing the democratic and communitarian] side of his thinking” (Li 1980a: 105). Furthermore, utilizing elements of Marxist theory, Li showed how Kongzi presented a complex and influential philosophical system. Rooted in Chinese antiquity, this came to constitute the defining characteristics of the Chinese people, the definitive cultural-psychological formation of the tradition (Li 2019: 7). The Confucian

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tradition emerged from existing social practices of primitive society and institutionalized certain aspects of that form of life, and Li emphasizes two features in particular: hierarchical clan-based social order and ritual. The social order of pre-Confucian society was already constituted by networks of hierarchical clan ties. This included socially prescribed roles, which demanded deference to elders, and patrilineal lines of descent from father to son (Li 1980b: 100). This form of social life shaped the emotional sensibilities and attitudes of the people, such that sons were inclined to feel reverence towards, and obey, fathers. Part of the genius of Kongzi, according to Li, was that he provided a rationale for the social system by recognizing that such commitments were grounded in biological human nature. Humans are biologically inclined to certain emotional responses, and most powerful of all is the emotional bond between parent and offspring. Children are inclined to feel love for parents, and grief at their death. The discussion of three years of mourning for parents in Analects 17.21 illustrates this psychological explanation of early Chinese social life, and Li describes it as “the most crucial passage in the text” (Li 2007: 305). In it, Kongzi’s follower Zai Wo expresses skepticism about the need for 3 years of mourning upon the death of a parent, and suggests that one year is sufficient. Kongzi advises Zai Wo to do as he sees fit, but notes that “when the junzi is in mourning, fine foods are not sweet to him, music brings no joy, living in luxury brings him no comfort; therefore, he does not indulge in these things” (17.21, trans. Eno 2015). Upon Zai Wo’s exit, Kongzi condemns him for ‘lacking benevolence’ (不仁buren). This passage shows that established social norms are not the product of blind custom or unquestioned tradition; nor do they reflect a crude logic of repayment, with three years of mourning a return on three years of care received while an infant. Rather, mourning practices are a response to emotional need. The outward condition upon the death of a parent—being unable to enjoy ordinary life and pleasures—reflects a rich inner emotional life that is the ground of human bonds. Li suggests that Confucian thought not only recognized the biologically-­ grounded nature of human response, but also the need to cultivate and mold these powerful motivations. Human susceptibility to the conceptual and emotional molding of the conscious mind is the grounds of Li’s discussion of human nature. Humans’ raw, biological nature is shared with animals, such as horses and dogs (cf. Analects 2.7). But the capacity to acquire cultural-psychological formations, thus integrating social life and inner personal consciousness, is distinctively human. It enables people to transcend their original natures and attain a higher, more cultivated state. It is the source of the difference between being merely ren (人a biologically-­defined person) and becoming ren (仁benevolent). Li describes the Confucian virtue of benevolence (ren) thus: Fundamentally, benevolence is a consciousness of one’s human nature  - a nature that is fundamentally biological or animalistic (as expressed in the parent-child relation), and yet distinct from the animal (expressed in filiality). In this view, those emotions of our human nature are both the ultimate reality and the very essence of what it means to be human. This is the starting point of Kongzi’s humanism, and indeed of all Confucian humanitarianism, as well as its theory of human nature. (Li 2010: 40)

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The key to developing benevolence was filial piety, the parent-child relationship. This was to be cultivated through ritualized practice, and formed the foundation for both the cultivated individual and a harmonious society: “This socialized relation [father-son] comes to be regarded as the ultimate human reality, the ultimate essence of what it means to be human” (Li 2010: 41). This sensibility, forged in the family, is then extended outwards: “The basic human emotion of filial affection is…expanded to become the essentially human sentiment that ‘all men are brothers’” (45). This psychology of communal caring became enshrined in, and perpetuated through, social practices and rituals and became the “motivating force behind the life and existence of Confucian officials and scholars throughout the ages” (43).6 The second prominent feature of primitive society absorbed by Confucian thought was the use of the rites and music. Li argues that primitive culture in China was characterized by “shamanistic song and dance centered on sacrificial ritual [that] consolidated, organized, and reinforced primitive communities, arousing and unifying human consciousness, intention and will” (Li 2010: 3). Rituals became central to the Chinese tradition because the practical social enactment of them has an effect on the imagination and categories of understanding (concepts) of the participants. Rituals generate normative rules and imaginative associations in the minds of participants, which then govern and order social interaction. This was an early illustration of how cultural-psychological formations arose: ritual practices are internalized as ideas in people’s minds, and these form an ordered structure through which the subject experiences the world. Crucially, these ideas also correspond to and sustain an ‘external’ practical social order, including everyday tasks and tool usage. For example, rituals focusing on crops and harvests generate the concept or image of a harvest, provide instruction in how to farm, and organize peoples’ daily activities and the community more broadly. Rituals also ordered the emotions, causing people to experience the same emotions towards the same objects and social situations. This was one crucial aspect of the ideal of ‘harmony’. Rituals also provided a shared object of beauty, which further unified the community. What was beautiful about rituals was not only their intrinsic form, in the way that cave painting might be regarded as beautiful on account of its colors and shape; the ‘beauty’ was found in the emotions aroused among participants. ”Fervid dancing and mystical ceremonies” stirred intense feelings, including joy, which fully engaged participants both physically and mentally. Fear and awe were also integral to rituals, and all were instrumental in creating social order in an often perilous and chaotic world. Through such intense experiences concepts were imbued with motivational force, while attitudes or emotions could be redirected and aligned with others in the group to create social stability. The Confucians inherited and upheld these beliefs about ritual and music.

6  An illustration of how Li’s aesthetic theory ties in with his account of Confucian thought is his claim that the sincere concern for others, compassion for the masses and the shared experience of suffering later became the criterion for evaluating Chinese artists. Li cites, for example, the depth of fellow-feeling and humanitarian concern in Du Fu’s poetry (Li 2010: 43–44).

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To summarize, Li highlights how ritual can mold mental concepts and emotional dispositions, as well as the inner psychological structure of benevolence. In doing so, he revealed how Confucian thought, which had been dismissed as feudal and backward, was a rational response to the world, one that grounded the moral nature of social relations in biological reality.

5  Li Zehou on Aesthetic Self-Cultivation Li combined his work in aesthetics and Confucian thought to develop an account of the highest form of personal cultivation as a refined aesthetic sensibility. This view is summarized in Analects 8.8, “Be awakened by poetry, be established by ritual, be perfected in music.”7 Loosely echoing Kongzi’s autobiographical statement in 2.4, each part of this three-part developmental account of character involves an important dimension of aesthetic cultivation. Li claims that “Be awakened by poetry” refers to all literary forms, and by extension all sources of basic knowledge about the world—politics, history and so forth. Just as Kongzi urged his followers to read the Book of Songs (詩經) to develop a richer vocabulary with which to describe the world (17.9), here the goal is a more sophisticated conceptual grasp of the subtleties of the world around. Li describes this as “establishing the structure of the intellect and the will” or the “internalization of rationality” (Li 2010: 49). Importantly, the acquired ideas are not merely rational or intellectual; they include a motivating element since they are the product of a shared social history, one that assigns value to those particular ideas. Ideally, a learned person can appeal to and utilize these shared images and motifs in guiding the conduct of others, since they resonate with, and have an emotional impact on, others in that tradition. For example, Confucian poetry has featured recurrent, shared motifs that are believed to consistently move the reader, such as the benevolent person’s sadness at witnessing the suffering of others. The phrase “Be established by ritual” expresses a different aspect of aesthetic cultivation. Ritual is important for three reasons. First, ‘ritual’ refers to passive training of character and the internalization of external regulations. This might include the learning of daily greeting for parents, which involves internalizing such conduct and forming a habit. Second, ritual here also refers to active practical mastery. The human subject meets the world in an immediate and direct way, and must learn to manipulate physical objects appropriately, by gaining an understanding of how these objects work and the laws that govern them. This category of rituals requires application and practice to master, and includes the six arts with its practical disciplines such as charioteering and archery. Ritual is thus a means to being practically effective in the world in general. It produces people who are able to work

7  Li claims that Analects 7.6 conveys a similar position: “Set your intention upon the way, rely on its virtue, lean on benevolence, and wander in the arts.”

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with and make use of objective laws of nature as well social norms and customs. Such a subject can serve in government, skillfully maintain good relations with others, and generally make a difference in the world. The connection of ritual with Li’s emphasis on technology and the humanization of nature as the source of beauty is clear, but this view of ritual also grounds Li’s criticism of the Neo-Confucians. Li believed that they placed too great an emphasis on inner spiritual cultivation, neglecting the need to attain a mastery of practical affairs and assuming social authority (waiwang 外王) would follow directly from ‘sageliness within’ (neisheng 內聖). The third function of ritual, discussed above, is the molding of incipient biologically-grounded emotional responses, which begins with the parent-child relationship. When refined by ritual, such feelings are constitutive of the Confucian ideal of benevolence (ren), and provide a reliable guide to action. However, neither of these two processes of character development are the “ultimate perfection or supreme realization of the human personality.” Such ‘perfecting’ requires music. Li writes, “If the self-cultivation of the gentleman does not include the study of [the rites] and music it is impossible for him to become a complete person (成cheng)” (Li 2010: 50). How does music achieve this? The simplest answer is that it cultivates an emotional responsiveness. One who is exposed to and taught to appreciate music has a fuller or richer range of emotional responses. Analects 11.26 illustrates how this form of personal cultivation is prized. Therein, Kongzi declares his delight with Zengxi’s vision of the good life, “I would like, in the company of five or six young men and six or seven children, to cleanse ourselves in the Yi River, to revel in the cool breezes at the Altar for Rain and then return home singing.” The ‘complete person’ resides in and enjoys his emotions, and moreover, his practical responses to the world proceed via his emotional sensibilities and yet are reliable or ‘on the mark’. Although a higher realm of human experience, the emotional realm is not separated from the intellectual and practical dimensions of human cultivation but is built upon the achievements of these other two realms. Li writes, “The aesthetic is purely sensuous but at the same time comprehends a history of rational sedimentation; it is natural but at the same time incorporates the accumulated achievements of society” (Li 2010: 50). Cultivated persons are thus the embodiment of the forces that Li identifies as driving social progress in general. Their rational sensibility reflects the sedimentation of traditional knowledge and social practices; they have mastered many practices and their emotional reactions are structured by them, and they find beauty therein. This highest state of cultivation is what Kongzi was referring to in Analects 2.4 when he declared that, at 70 he was able to “follow the desires of the heart without overstepping the bounds of the right.” The claim that the highest ideal in Confucian thought was the cultivation of a practical aesthetic sensibility, and that the Confucian tradition came to define the Chinese tradition, leads Li to identify Chinese culture as a culture characterized by sensitivity to delight (legan wenhua樂感文化; sometimes translated as a ‘culture of optimism’) (Li 2019: 317–324). Analects 6.20 is one source of such a view: “To know something is not as good as to esteem it, and to esteem it is not as good as to

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delight in it.”8 Li’s use of the term le is very broad, incorporating both cultural and affective elements. The categorization is intended to contrast with classifications of cultures as guilt cultures, shame cultures or cultures of concern9—the former is often ascribed to the ‘West’ and the latter two to China. Li rejects both of these two characterizations of Chinese culture. The phrase legan wenhua is intended to highlight how China lacked a transcendental religious or supernatural realm from which foundational meanings of human life could be drawn. Similarly, Li claims that the mode of rationality that came to dominate in China was robustly pragmatic—there was little interest in speculative metaphysics or abstract philosophical systems, at least during the formation of the Chinese tradition during antiquity. This further undermined any efforts to derive existential meaning from abstractions. The deepest levels of human meaning could come only from the human realm, and the realm of sociable human relationships and the everyday in particular. In such a tradition, pleasure or delight thus becomes foundational, including those that are realized through well-ordered social interaction. The kind of delight or pleasure that become the end of human action and the process of self-cultivation was not a crude or physical pleasure, however. It was a complex state that becomes possible only through education and increasing mastery of the social world, and emerges as an aesthetic sensibility. Kongzi was a figure who roamed in delight, allowing his sense of le to effortlessly guide his conduct, but he was not a simple hedonist.

6  Assessing Li Zehou’s Work The breadth of Li’s scholarly interests, the volume of his work and the tendency for his ideas to evolve through successive iterations make simple assessments of Li’s work difficult. The following discussion focuses on a selection of issues relevant to his contributions to contemporary Chinese thought. Li’s treatment of Marxism has aroused much debate. Gu Xin (1996), for example, views Li’s understanding of Marxism as merely a continuation of a Hegelian-­ Marxist materialist-dialectic—whereby the evolving means of production and technological forces determine subjective consciousness and ethics. Such a reading, if true, has two consequences. First, it reduces the philosophical importance of Li’s work, by locating it within an already-familiar and orthodox line of thought. Second, it suggests that Li’s work might be a validation of the Chinese Communist Party and 8  In Li Zehou’s words, “This pleasure…is a spiritual realization and a freedom to live, in which human wisdom and virtuous behavior are sedimented and transformed into a psychological noumenon that transcends the foundation of wisdom and morality upon which it is built” (Li 2010: 52). 9  A ‘culture of concern’ refers to Xu Fuguan’s categorization of classical Chinese culture as one of ‘concern consciousness’ (youhuan yishi憂患意識), which was intended to contrast with cultures characterized by guilt. For more on Xu’s thought here see (Ni 2002).

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its political approach; unlike some of his contemporaries, Li avoids any call for radical reform of the social system. Others, however, have denied that Li’s understanding of Marxism can be understood in this way. Some have argued (Chong 1996; Cheek 1999) that Li’s work is couched in Marxist language out of political expediency. Li Zehou wrote using a language of the ruling ideology to avoid being labeled as a counter-revolutionary. But this does not mean that his works were orthodox. Chinese intellectuals have often used the language of an official discourse to avoid censorship, without being committed to the ideology. Li’s contemporary, Zhang Dainian (張岱年) wrote a dictionary of key Chinese philosophical terms that initially included similar judicious use of phraseology and rhetoric (1989), although much of that language was later removed as the political climate changed (Zhang 2002). Also, Li’s use of familiar Marxist terminology made it easier to influence his target audience, and engage the Chinese people on the question of Chinese modernity. An entirely new theoretical framework would have hindered Li’s pragmatic goal of stimulating wide-ranging debate. Other writers (e.g., Cauvel 1999) argue that Li offered a truly innovative modification of Marxist ideas. His analysis might begin from Marxist concerns and use some Marxist language but he is, to use his own term, a ‘post-Marxist’. He seeks to develop Marxist thought in novel ways, discarding misguided ideas and reworking original themes into a novel vision of human nature and the highest form of human community. On this reading, Li is sincerely interested in Marxism, rather than merely paying lip-service, but seeks to reformulate some of its central ideas. Many of his neologisms support this reading, indicating a novel integration of the Chinese tradition and Marxist themes. Cultural-psychological formation is one example; another is Li’s phrase “Western base and Chinese application” (xiti zhongyong 西體 中用; Li 1987: 311–341). This is a response to a slogan created by Zhang Zhidong’s (张之洞) that was associated with the Self-Strengthening Movement (自強運動), “Chinese Learning as substance, Western Learning for application” (zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong 中學為體, 西學為). That earlier slogan defended traditional Confucian learning, while promoting China’s adoption of Western technology and economic ideas. Li’s reworking of the slogan implied that a Western materialist framework should be used to understand the fundamental social and ontological processes that had shaped life in China, while traditional Chinese thought could guide more practical and social affairs. This question of interpretation matters for the Western reader of Li’s work. At a time when relatively few professional philosophers work on Marxist thought, encountering a body of work replete with Marxist terms and influence might lead the reader to conclude that Li’s work is another example of academic work laden with outdated dogma, or one intellectually constrained by the demands of a certain political climate. But Li’s work, set against the intellectual backdrop of China in the 1970s and 1980s, is arguably an independently-minded reconstruction of the more enduring elements of the Marxist tradition. It can be read as an attempt to develop a Chinese Marxism that moved away from the more questionable parts of Marxist and Maoist thought, such as a teleological and millenarian account of history, or the conviction that the peasant masses offered the best model of how to be proletarian

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revolutionaries.10 It also parted from Maoism in its rejection of a crude voluntarism and anti-imperialist tone, and neither state nor party have a prominent role in Li’s thought. The nuance and novelty of Li’s work gives the reader reason to persevere with his occasionally opaque language and speculative claims, and entertain more deeply his intellectual vision. Li Zehou’s work is also important for its suggestion of a middle path between westernization and Chinese nationalism. Li Zehou’s theory of sedimentation—the concepts or ideas through which the human subject understands and experiences the world are the product of an evolving historical and social milieu—has consequences for the question of how to articulate a Chinese modernity. Specifically, Li’s thought provides a way to navigate between two conflicting views. One is that so-called ‘Western’ values such as liberalism, democracy and Christianity, should define China’s future path. On the other hand, traditionalists or nationalists offer some version of the idea of the specialness of Chinese culture, as something to be preserved and insulated against Western influence. Some versions of this view also hold that classical culture and thought is not fully appreciated by those not raised within the tradition. Li provides an alternative approach to such views. He is not unique among Chinese thinkers in trying to find a path between these two extremes, but he provides a distinctive account of one such middle way. On the one hand he takes seriously the idea of ‘culture’ and the differences between cultural traditions; however, he does not defend the idea of a culture having an essence, something that must be preserved at all costs. The open nature of the driving dialectical relationship between the human subject and its environment means that the cultural and psychological formation that comprises the Chinese tradition is always open to the absorption and accumulation of new practices and ideas, including those from outside of China. However, at the same time, such evolution is rooted in a distinct tradition of cultural transmission, stretching back to the clan systems and ritualized practice of Chinese antiquity. This includes the ideas through which subjects cognize the world and affectively experience it. As a result, doctrines that offer far-reaching and foundational claims about the nature of the world or the human subject, such as Christianity or liberalism, cannot become dominant in China in any simple way—for they can have influence only in so far as they fit with or can be integrated into existing categories and concepts that define the Chinese worldview at the present time. Such a nuanced position seems largely correct: there is a Chinese tradition that exerts a wide-ranging and coherent influence on an emerging Chinese modernity; but it is

 A feature of Chinese Marxist theory was expediency. Caught up in an intense revolutionary struggle, Chinese Marxists did not have the leisure for in-depth study of classical Marxist theory that the Western intelligentsia had enjoyed; expediency demanded practical doctrines. After 1949, official orthodoxy demanded that theorists cleave to the official party line, with only a small number of Marxist-Leninist texts approved for discussion by party czars (Maurice Meisner 1985: 3). See also Brugger and Kelly (1990). On the relation of Maoist thought, Marxism, and Leninism see Benjamin Schwarz (1979) and Richard Pfeffer (1976). A recent creative attempt to once more integrate Marxist and Confucian thought is Chen Weigang 陳維綱 (2014).

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not monolithic or inert. New ideas or practices can become sedimented into the evolving cultural-psychological formation of the tradition. It remains an open question whether the cultural-psychological formation of those in China and those outside will at some future point become similar. Finally, Li’s work can serve as a source of ideas for discussions beyond the Chinese tradition. In recent debates with Michael Sandel on the role of justice in the good society, for example, Li claims that harmony is a higher regulative ideal than justice (Li 2016). Justice relies on reason and logical discourse to generate rules that order society, but Li seeks greater recognition for the role of the emotions in creating stable social arrangements. This assertion rests on a confidence that an order emerges from the natural and historical realms that, if trusted and allowed to influence affective responses, can harmonize human actions and desires, as well as human relations and the relation between humans and the natural world. This source of order, however, is not always represented in explicit rational discourse and negotiation. Customary norms, for example, might be expressions of norms that accommodate such well-grounded emotional responses, even if no explicit rational justification for them is apparent. Li argues that insistence on the integration of reason and emotion is a feature of the Chinese philosophical tradition, in contrast to the sole focus on logical reasoning found in the tradition upon which Sandel draws. The regulation of social morals and markets through both emotional and rational responses is, pace Sandel, the most secure way to protect the common good and bring about the good life for all. Li’s work also invites us to rethink the place of the aesthetic in everyday life. Typically, Anglo-American aesthetics has kept a narrow focus, focusing on questions deriving from art and often approaching questions of beauty from within this framework (Saito Yuriko 2007; Sherri Irvin 2008). While this is now changing,11 discussions in aesthetics are often confined to areas of human conduct outside of the public realm and moral debate, and are removed from the concerns of daily life. However, Li’s theory suggests that the role of the aesthetic in guiding action should be recognized as much broader. Aesthetic experience is a pervasive guiding force in everyday life, and this demands a more thoughtful exploration of the intersection between the aesthetic and the ethical. Li’s work might thus enrich the efforts of those in the Euro-American tradition who have sought to develop similarly broad accounts of aesthetics, such as John Dewey (1980) and Irvin (2008). Li offers the provocative suggestion that ‘beautiful’ aesthetic experience can itself play a defining role in what counts as meaningful forms of life (Lambert 2018). Echoing the figure of Kongzi at 70 (Analects 2.4) who resided in feelings that reliably guided conduct, a cultivated aesthetic sensibility might somehow bridge the divide between areas of human life that are currently compartmentalized, such as work and leisure. It could provide guidance in each area of life, and perhaps indicate what forms of labor or work are more worthwhile. This is possible because Li believes that the story of human evolution is one in which beauty (including

 See, for example, Nyugen (2020) and Saito (2007).

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harmony) eventually becomes the highest guiding ideal for human life. Li thus invites us to consider how the sensuous nature of human experience, rooted in shared and stable social practices, can be trusted to guide human action, on a more-­ or-­less equal footing with the ideals of individual deliberation. Similarly, how aesthetic values or experiences might govern and direct human relationships, as Li claims they did for the early Confucians, is a discussion that has barely started. The imaginative and richly suggestive thought of Li Zehou prompts us to confront such questions.

References Brugger, Bill, and David Kelly. 1990. Chinese Marxism in the post Mao era. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bullough, Edward. 1912. ‘Psychical distance’ as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle. British Journal of Psychology 5 (2): 87–117. Cauvel, Jane. 1999. The transformative power of art: Li Zehou’s aesthetic theory. Philosophy East and West 49(2):150–173. (Discussion of Li’s aesthetic theory by a long-term collaborator) Cheek, Timothy. 1999. Introduction: A cross-cultural conversation on Li Zehou’s ideas on subjectivity and aesthetics in modern Chinese thought. Philosophy East and West 49(2):113–184. (A discussion of Li’s notion of subjectivity and its relation to aesthetics) Chen, Duxiu 陳獨秀. 1993. Warning the youth 警告青年. In Selected works of Chen Duxiu 陳獨 秀文章選編, ed. Chen Duxiu, vol. 1, 73–78. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House. Chen, Weigang. 2014. Confucian Marxism: A reflection on religion and global justice. Leiden: Brill. (A recent attempt to integrate Confucian and Marxist thought) Chen, Xujing 陳序經. 1990. The way out for Chinese culture 中國文化的出路. In From westernization to modernization 從西化到現代化, ed. Luo Rongqu罗荣渠, 389–390. Beijing: Peking University Press. ———. 1995. A defense of total westernization 全盤西化的辯護. In Walking out of the East: Selected collection of Chen Xujing’s thoughts on culture, ed. Tang Yijie湯一介, 280–283. Beijing: China’s Broadcasting Press. Chong, Woei-lien. 1996. Mankind and nature in Chinese thought: Li Zehou on the traditional roots of Marxist voluntarism. China Information 11(2-3):138–175. (An exploration of the historical intellectual context within which Li’s theories emerged) Dewey, John. 1980. Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books. (Important text in pragmatist aesthetics) Ding, John Zijiang. 2002. Li Zehou: Chinese aesthetics from a post-Marxist and confucian perspective. In Contemporary Chinese philosophy, eds. Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, 246–259. London: Blackwell Publishers. (Explores Li’s attempts to combine Marxism and Chinese aesthetics) Eno, Robert. 2015. Analects of Confucius, translated by Robert Eno. The analects of confucius: An online teaching translation (v2.21). Indiana University-Bloomington. ­http://www.indiana. edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf Gu, Xin 顧昕. 1996. Subjectivity, modernity, and Chinese hegelian Marxism: A Study of Li Zehou’s philosophical ideas from a comparative perspective. Philosophy East and West 46(2):205–245. (Discusses the importance of Hegelianism to Li's thought) Hu, Shi 胡適. 2013. The civilizations of the east and the west. In English writings of Hu Shih: Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, ed. Chou Chih-P’ing, vol. 2, 27–38. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Irvin, Sherri. 2008. The pervasiveness of the aesthetic in everyday experience. British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (1): 29–44.

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Lambert, Andrew. 2018. Determinism and the problem of individual freedom in Li Zehou’s thought. In Li Zehou and confucian philosophy, ed. Roger Ames and Jia Jinhua, 94–117. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. Li, Zehou 李澤厚. 1979a. A critique of critical philosophy: A review of Kant 批判哲學的批判— 述評. Beijing: People’s Press. (An Interpretations of Kant’s critical philosophy based on Li’s own historical ontology) ———. 1979b. A history of modern Chinese thought 中國近代思想史輪. Beijing: People’s Press (An overview of Chinese thought from the Taiping Rebellion to around the 1911 Revolution) ———. 1980a. “A revaluation of confucius” 孔子再坪價. Social Sciences in China 2(1):99–127. (Li’s influential attempt to rehabilitate the historical figure of Confucius after the Cultural Revolution) ———. 1980b. Aesthetics 美學. The Journal of Object and Field Aesthetics 3:164–173. ———. 1981. The path of beauty 美的歷程. Beijing: People’s Press. (Historical overview of Chinese art and aesthetics from antiquity to modern times) ———. 1985a. A history of classical Chinese thought 中國古代思想史論. Beijing: People’s Press. (Overview of the main schools of classical Chinese thought, including the Neo-Confucians) ———. 1985b. Collected essays on the philosophy and aesthetics of Li Zehou 哲學美學文選. Changsha: Hunan People’s Press. ———. 1987. A history of contemporary Chinese thought 中國現代思想史論. Beijing: Dongfang Publishing. (Discusses modern intellectual figures, such as Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, and Mou Zongsan) ———. 1988. Chinese aesthetics 華夏美學. Hong Kong: Sanlian Publishing. (The evolution of aesthetic thought and sensibility across various classical schools and thinkers) ———. 1990. An outline of my philosophy 我的哲學提綱. Taibei: Fengyun Shidai Publishing. (An overview of the key features of Li’s philosophical approach and method) ———. 1994. The path of beauty: A study of Chinese aesthetics. Translated by Gong Lizeng. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. (Translation of美的歷程; the first book-length English translation of LI’s work) ______. 2006. Four essays on aesthetics: Towards a global view. Lanham: Lexington Books. (The second English language work on Li’s aesthetics, after The Path of Beauty) ———. 2007. Reading the Analects Today 論語今讀. Tianjin: Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences Press. (Li’s interpretation of the Analects and glosses on key passages) ———. 2010. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition. Translated by Maija Bell Samei. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (English translation of華夏美學, Li’s history of Chinese aesthetics by school or movement) ———. 2016. A response to Michael Sandel and Other Matters 回應桑德爾及其他. Translated by Paul D’Ambrosio and Robert Carleo III, Philosophy East & West 66(4):1068–1147. (A critical discussion of Sandel’s account of justice and its relation to harmony) ———. 2018a. A new approach to Kant: A confucian-Marxist’s viewpoint. Translated by Jeanne Haizhen Allen. Singapore: Springer. (Translation of Li’s seminal work on Kant, 批判哲 學的批判—述評) ———. 2018b. The origins of Chinese thought: From shamanism to ritual regulations and humaneness. Translated by Robert Carleo III. Leiden: Brill. (Translation of several articles by Li on shamanism and ritual). ———. 2019. A history of classical Chinese thought. Translated, with a philosophical introduction, by Andrew Lambert. New York: Routledge. (Translation of the first volume of Li’s 3-­volume history of Chinese thought, 中國古代思想時論). ———. forthcoming. Outlines of philosophy. Translated by Paul J. D’Ambrosio et al. (Translation of 哲學綱要). Li, Zhisui 李志綏. 2011. The private life of Chairman Mao: The memoirs of Mao's private physician. New York: Random House Publishing. Liang, Shuming 梁漱溟. 2001. Eastern and western cultures and their philosophies (extracts). In The Chinese human rights reader: Documents and commentary, 1900-2000, eds. Stephen

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Angle and Marina Svensson, 101–114. London: M.E. Sharpe. (Historically significant if dated comparison of Western, Indian and Chinese culture) Lin, Min. 1992. The search for modernity: Chinese intellectual discourse and society, 1978-88 The case of Li Zehou. The China Quarterly 132: 969–998. Lin, Tongqi 林同奇. 2003. Philosophy: Recent trends in China since Mao. In Encyclopedia of Chinese philosophy, ed. Antonio Cua, 588–597. London: Routledge. Mao, Zedong 毛澤東. 1980. Talks at the Yan’an forum on literature and art. In The selected works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume III. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. Marx, Karl. 2000. A contribution to the critique of political economy. Translated by S.W.  Ryazanskaya. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Retrieved from https://www.marxists. org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Contribution_to_the_Critique_of_Political_ Economy.pdf ———. 2007. Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. Translated and edited by Martin Milligan. New York: Dover. Meisner, Maurice. 1985. The Chinese rediscovery of Karl Marx: Some reflections on post-Maoist Chinese Marxism. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 17 (3): 2–16. Naess, Arne. 1989. Ecology, community and lifestyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ni, Peimin 倪培民. 2002. Practical humanism of Xu Fuguan. In Contemporary Chinese philosophy, eds. Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, 281–304. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Nyugen, Chánh Thi. 2020. Games: Art as agency. New York: OUP. Pfeffer, Richard. 1976. Mao and Marx in the Marxist-Leninist tradition: A critique of “The China Field” and a contribution to a preliminary reappraisal. Modern China 2 (4): 421–460. Rošker, Jana. 2018. Following his own path: Li Zehou and contemporary Chinese thought. Albany: SUNY Press. (Survey of some major themes in Li’s thought) ———. 2020. Li Zehou’s ethics and the structure of confucian pragmatic reason. Asian Studies VIII (XXIV) 1: 37–55. Saito, Yuriko. 2007. Everyday aesthetics. London: OUP. (Argument for greater consideration of everyday life as the source of important aesthetic experiences) Samei, Majia Bell. 2010. Translator’s introduction. In Li Zehou, ed., The Chinese aesthetic tradition, translated by Majia Bell SAMEI. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1979. Chinese communism and the rise of Mao. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Influential history of the rise of communism in China) Wood, Allen. 1999. Kant’s ethical thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhang, Dainian 張岱年. 1989. A handbook of concepts and categories in classical Chinese philosophy 中國古典哲學概念範疇要論. Beijing: Academy of Social Sciences. ———. 2002. Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, translated and edited by Edmund Ryden. New Haven: Yale University Press (English edition of Zhang's 1989 Chinese book, Handbook)

Liu Shu-hsien and the Effort Toward a Global Philosophy Yat-hung Leung

1  Introduction Liu Shu-hsien (Shuxian) 劉述先 (1934–2016), who had his ancestral home in Ji’an in Jiangxi province, was born in Shanghai. Originally named Yanyan 衍言, he was given Shu-hsien 述先 as his “school name” (xueming 學名).1 His life, as he described in his sixties, can be divided into four stages: (1) Shanghai, 1934–1949; (2) Taiwan, 1949–1964; (3) The United States, 1964–1981; and (4) Hong Kong, 1981–1999 (Liu 2007b: 2); and we can supplement it with (5) Taiwan, 1999–2016. In his childhood in Shanghai, Liu was immersed in traditional thought by his father Liu Jingchuang 劉靜窗, especially Confucianism and Buddhism. Liu Shu-hsien received his bachelor’s (1955) and master’s degrees (1958) at the Department of Philosophy at National Taiwan University, where he studied under Thomé H. Fang 方東美, a contemporary New Confucian. He then taught at Tunghai (Donghai) University for 6 years. In 1964, he went to Southern Illinois University to pursue a Ph. D. under Henry Nelson Wieman’s supervision. He taught there after graduation (1966) and obtained a full professorship in 1974. In 1981, he resigned the position and became Chair Professor of the Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, until his retirement in 1999. He then moved to Taiwan and become affiliated with the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy of Academia Sinica. Liu also contributed to the promotion of Chinese philosophy by being active in the Society of Asian and Comparative Philosophy and International Society of Chinese Philosophy.

 The “school name,” also called xunming 訓名, is a separate formal name used by the child at school. En passant, I use the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system for most names.

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This chapter introduces (1) Liu’s exploration into philosophy of culture that led to (2) his reconceptualization of philosophy, namely, the construction of “systematic philosophy” (xitong zhexue 系統哲學), which can be illustrated by (3) his creative interpretation of “one pattern, many manifestations” (liyi fenshu 理一分殊); (4) his construction of a global ethic and facilitation of interreligious dialogue; (5) our assessments of such endeavors, before elaborating (6) his three classifications concerning Confucianism; and (7) his elaborations on Zhu Xi 朱熹 and Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲.

2  T  he Exploration of Philosophy of Culture and the Urge for a Reconceptualization of Philosophy Growing up in the mid-twentieth century, a period of international and social instability, Liu had the problematiques of “the meaning and value of life and the future of China” (Liu 1974: 1) and identified his lifelong mission as “to find a communicative bridge between the traditional and the modern, the East and the West, humanity and technology, ideal and reality” (Liu 1994: 20). Liu started with a deep investigation into philosophy of culture, which led to his reconceptualization of philosophy. First, Liu found that various cultures have different prime symbols and thus have different emphases on cultural manifestations. Absorbing Oswald Spengler’s view, Liu contended that “the fundamental distinction between various cultures lies not in race or geographical environment, but in the differences in the prime symbols (jiben fuhao 基本符號)” (Liu 1970: 215).2 Different cultures may have their own major prime symbols that lead to their different emphases on cultural manifestations, including various cultural institutions or “cultural items” (wenwu 文物), such as politics, art, or religion (see Liu 1966: 192, 194; cf. Liu 1970: 18, 213–214).3 It is because when people face different environments and learn different lessons while coping with challenges, “they have different historical heritages, exploit different potentials of humankind due to their selective attentions, and this constitutes the several distinctive types of culture” (Liu 1966: 189).4

2  For Liu, such prime symbols can be referred to as “idea” (guannian 觀念), “cultural mentality” (wenhua xintai 文化心態) (Liu 1966: 201), or “soul” (linghun 靈魂) (Liu 1970: 28). 3  While the manifestation is necessary for the elaboration of the prime symbol, it is the latter that determines the manifestation. 4  Spengler examined nine cultural groups and identified their prime symbols and the relevant “souls.” For instance, he took the Apollonian soul as the core of Greek culture and the Faustian soul as the core the contemporary Europe, and thought that China has a moral soul, whereas India has a religious soul (see Liu 1970: 41–42). It may be controversial to say that a specific culture only has one prime symbol or one specific soul. A sympathetic reading of Liu and Spengler is that such broad characterizations have the pros of a vivid comparison but the cons of overgeneralization and overlooking of subtleties.

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Besides, Liu observed that all human cultural achievements are expressions of networks of significance. Liu examined Ernst Cassirer’s “philosophy of symbolic forms” and highlighted the “functional unity” (gongneng tongyixing 功能統一性) of the cultural structures (xinggou 型構) or forms (xingshi 形式).5 According to Liu’s understanding of Cassirer, all human cultural achievements are networks of significance (yiyi xiluo 意義系絡) (the so-called “symbol” [fuhao 符號]) spread out from the lively heart-mind (xinling 心靈); and each network of significance appears to have its rules and reveals a certain structure (the so-called “form”). (Liu 1966: 41)6

Religion, language, art, history, and science are different forms that express the different significance or meaning created by human intellect. These activities “express the function of the symbolic form of the active soul” and Cassirer thereby “obtains a complete idea of functional unity” (Liu 1970: 188).7 However, Liu had some objections. First, rejecting Spengler’s deterministic view of history and culture, Liu maintained that, with creative power and wisdom, people can change their prime symbols to cope with the changing circumstances.8 History is thereby not “destined” (dingming 定命) but can be created (zaoming 造命).9 Second, Liu objected to Cassirer’s view that cultural achievements reveal a progressive development, namely, the establishment of science that appears later is more advanced and valuable than other aspects of culture. Liu also complained that there is no treatment of ethics and value in Cassirer’s philosophy (see Liu 1970: 203–208). Here comes Liu’s view on philosophy of culture. He thought that “each cultural achievement has its only obscurations and biases”; and we can progress by extracting the essence of different forms of culture from the existing cultures good at those forms (see Liu 1970: 212). The immediate problem is the encounter between the East and the West. More specifically, he judged that “the crisis of the world today lies in our heart-mind’s loss of its way” (Liu 1970: 222), and this turned him to a broader issue of philosophy: Our goal is to reestablish the fundamental value intrinsic to our life.… We have to set up a healthy aspiration to life, which can contain the pros of the East and the West and abandon

5  Liu investigated deeply into Cassirer and he even translated Cassirer’s An Essay on Man into Chinese (Cassirer 1944; trans. as Liu 1959). 6  The translation of yiyi xiluo 意義系絡 as “network of significance” is my suggestion, as Liu did not provide one. 7  That is, cultural achievements are “networks of significance” or “ideas” (which Liu read from Spengler) that reveal certain forms; and for Liu the process reveals a significance structure in which significance is made possible. The following sections will show that Liu’s elaboration is in line with it: cultural achievements that express significance and value come from the creativity of human heart-mind, which Confucianism takes as benevolence (ren 仁). 8  Liu’s example is that some cultural groups in Central Asia may join a larger cultural group, classical or Arab, out of choice (see Liu 1970: 89–90). 9  Liu writes,“While people’s choices seem to be affected by inheritance, environment, and numerous external conditions, the genuine determination still lies in the basic free will of human beings” (Liu 1970: 218).

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their cons. We have to learn from the West and develop the purely intellectual realm, the realms of art, religion, and also some practical realms of life. Also, we have to learn from the Eastern cultural ideal of internal completeness and peace. (Liu 1970: 222–223; emphasis added)

The rationale is that We first establish in our heart-mind (xinling 心靈) the full significance intrinsic to our life and extend it to gauge all the realms of significance in life and assign them their appropriate places.…There are the political, moral, philosophical, and artistic aspects in life. Every individual can be put into a healthy cultural setting to exercise their talents and reveal their significance of life. (Liu 1970: 223; emphasis added)

Namely, reflection on culture leads to a more fundamental, wholesale exploration of the value and significance (or meaning) of life and its various cultural achievements; only then can we “settle ourselves and establish our lives” (anshen liming 安身立 命) (e.g., Liu 1993: 223).10 This brings us to Liu’s reconceptualization of philosophy.11

3  T  he Construction of Systematic Philosophy (I): Explicating the Common Ground of the Existent and Value Liu developed his project of “systematic philosophy,” which is an open system that pays attention to creativity and process (see Liu 2004: 289) and has two basic problems: (1) Is it possible for us to find a common origin or basis for such rich and manifold contents of world and life, and can such a common origin or basis then be diversified into different realms of being (cunyou 存有) and value (jiazhi 價值)? (2) Is it possible for us to construct a system to include the contents of world and life—which are so rich and manifold that they even represent profoundities and contradictions—where such contents can be mixed into a whole but with order, and all can have their appropriate places in such a system? (Liu 1987: 322)

This section explicates the first problem and the next section the second. Concerning the first problem, Liu’s answer is that the existent obtains significance and value in virtue of the heart-mind. Cassirer’s view of functional unity points out that all human cultural achievements, such as myth and language, are all  I translate shen 身 as “self” instead of “body,” as for Confucians, it is agency or self that is the concern of cultivation. Besides, Liu sometimes put it as “settling down our heart-mind (xin 心) and establish our life” (e.g., Liu 1974: 2, 12; Liu 2001: 163). The meaning is equivalent as the heartmind is the agency of the self. 11  Liu criticized some narrow conceptions of philosophy, like logical positivism, which maintains that statements which are not analytic and cannot be empirically verified or falsified lack cognitive significance or meaning. Liu found it a bad philosophy, for it neglects many essential aspects of life, including the issues of value and significance (see Liu 1966: 7, 13). 10

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related to the application of symbols, despite being different in their subject matters (see Liu 1987: 323). However, it is insufficient for Liu’s question, as Cassirer “has yet to explore further the common origin of being and value” (Liu 1987: 323). To do so, Liu suggested taking philosophy as “philosophy of significance,” which holds that philosophical explorations focus on the significance structure (yiyi jiegou 意義 結構) (see Liu 1987: 307).12 Liu said, In a purely material world, the term “significance” (yiyi 意義) is itself insignificant.13 Only after the heart-mind emerges in the cosmos is the term “significance” itself significant. It is because the heart-mind itself is not only a kind of existent (cunzai 存在), it also looks for an understanding of others’ and its own existence and generates a judgement. (Liu 1966: 108–109)14

Namely, the world we can grasp is already something that involves our selections instead of a purely factual world and is thereby a world of a network of significance. For instance, when we select the network of significance of physics, correlatingly, there unfolds the reality of a broad world of physics; whereas a poet, say, will not perceive such a world. Liu said, “When human beings select another network of significance, there will always be some other existing reality correlating (xiangying 相應) to it” (Liu 1966: 110).15 Such a selection simultaneously implies an embodied recognition of fact. Before such an embodied recognition (tiren 體認), although the facts in the world do exist, they are not significant (see Liu 1966: 110).16 Under such a philosophy of significance, both the existent and value depend on significance, or more pertinently, are derived from the significance structure. According to Liu, we can also use the idea of “horizon” (jingjie 境界) to describe the network of significance. I suggest that there are two usages of horizon. Horizontally, it refers to the realm of culture, whereas vertically, it can denote the gradation of value and can thus be talked of in terms of “level” within the same realm of culture. While the horizontal sense is already demonstrated, for the vertical sense we can look at Liu’s demonstration of the Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming 王陽明’s saying, which reveals that we have the ability and freedom to obtain different results using the significance structure. Wang said, “In a single day a person experiences the entire course of history,” for our clear vital force (qi 氣) and calm  “Philosophy of significance” is a term he borrowed from Hermann Keyserling (Liu 1966: 89).  In some cases, “meaning” and “significance” (and thereby “meaningful” and “significant”) are interchangeable in translating Liu’s use of “yiyi.” 14  While in this paragraph Liu used the term cunzai 存在, which I translate as “the existent” or “existence,” I conjecture that here it can translated into “being,” as I take him as denoting something that amounts to “that which has the ontological status.” 15  Liu said, “In the world of life, it is not a mere idea of ‘correspondence’ (duiying 對應), but a complicated idea of ‘correlation’ that determines what the reality of life is” (Liu 1966: 105). 16  The idea of recognition with embodiment or embodied recognition has its history in Xiong Shili 熊十力 (e.g., Xiong 1973: 38) and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (e.g., Xu 2002: 243). Tu Wei-ming 杜維明 expounds the series of concepts with “embodiment.” For instance, he regards “embodied knowledge” (tizhi 體知), as “the sensibility and awareness of the human heart-mind” (Tu 2014: 117). It is knowledge experienced personally and has the function of creative transformation (Tu 2002: 358). 12 13

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spirit deteriorate from midnight to dawn, morning, and especially in the afternoon when we meet people and deal with affairs, and return to such clarity and calmness when it comes to night. Wang said that, as we have innate knowing (liangzhi 良知) and if it is not disturbed by the vital force, we can always remain a person in the world of the morning, i.e., a sage (see Wang 2014: 131; in Chan 1963b: 238). Liu found Wang’s description a phenomenological one and highlighted that Wang asserted that via our conscious selection and effort, in terms of horizon (jingjie 境界), we can always maintain the world of the pure and clear night air of Fuxi 伏羲. Here, we can see the huge difference between human and beasts. The world of beasts is determined by instinct…. However, …people not only open up different horizons, but are also more conscious and free to select their horizon when they have higher cultural development. (Liu 1987: 329)

We have the freedom to explore and select a different horizon to live in. In short, the existent obtains significance and value in virtue of the heart-mind. Specifically, while “networks of significance” denotes various human cultural achievements that manifest the creativity of the heart-mind, the “significance structure” denotes how significance is generated. Also, we can speak of horizon to denote a network of significance to highlight the realm and level one is in.17

4  T  he Construction of Systematic Philosophy (II): Assigning the Contents of the World and Life Using the Idea of “One Pattern, Many Manifestations” The second problem of systematic philosophy concerns the possibility of constructing a system to include the contents of the world and life so that they, despite their complexities and contradictions, can be assigned with their proper places. As following Cassirer, the expressions of various symbols in cultures are differentiated. Liu thought that, if the symbols or forms of culture are not put at their appropriate places, they will “transgress (yuyue 踰越) their scope and there comes pan-­scientism from science, pan-moralism from morality, pan-aestheticism from art, pan-­ pragmaticism from pragmaticism” (Liu 1966: 278). Namely, a certain aspect of  Here I suggest that this whole enterprise reveals Liu’s broadened view of metaphysics. Liu noted that “metaphysics” traditionally means ontology (cunyoulun 存有論), which investigates the ultimate reality; and in some usage, metaphysics involves cosmology (yuzhoulun 宇宙論) (see Liu 1987: 267). In Liu’s broadened conception, “metaphysics” includes our perspective towards the world and life, including how we see things as true, valuable, good, and so on; we somehow have some metaphysical presuppositions (see Liu 1987: 265). Liu appreciated some views in the twentieth century. For instance, R.  G. Collingwood took metaphysics as a study that examines our absolute presuppositions (juedui jishe 絕對基設), which cannot be proved (see Liu 1987: 280). Paul Tillich took metaphysics as a study that examines ultimate concern (zhongji guanhuai 終極 關懷). We all have some ultimate commitment to rely ourselves upon, such as god or money (see Liu 1987: 281–282). And one’s perception of the world and actions follow from the metaphysical view that he or she holds. The presuppositions imply the selection of an idea or attitude.

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culture has its effective scope, beyond which a transgression will occur, leading to undesirable consequences.18 Here we can see Liu’s creative use of Chinese philosophy, namely, the idea of “one pattern, many manifestations” (liyi fenshu 理一分 殊),19 and his elaboration of it by using “the pattern of two roads” (liangxing zhi li 兩行之理) and the necessity of “circularity (huihuan 迴環).” The idea “one pattern, many manifestations” first appeared in Cheng Yi 程頤’s reply to a student’s question on Zhang Zai 張載’s “Western Inscription” concerning the debate between the Confucians and Mohists over universal love and love with distinction  (see Cheng and Cheng 2004: 609). For the Confucians, while benevolence is the root (i.e., one pattern), its manifestations toward different objects and in different situations can be different, so that there is the difference of stronger or lesser love (i.e., many manifestations). For the Confucians, the Mohists who treat others’ fathers as one’s own father only understand the theoretical oneness (i.e., one pattern) but not the practical many (many manifestations). Apart from this ethical implication, the idea also has metaphysical and cosmological implications, for Zhu Xi made the metaphor of “the moon reflected on ten thousand rivers” (yue yin wan chuan 月印萬川): “Yin 陰 and yang 陽 are vital forces and belong to the principle of differentiation (fenshu yuanze 分殊原則), whereas the great ultimate (taiji 太極) is pattern (or principle) (li 理) and belongs to the principle of unity (tongyi yuanze 統一原則)” (Liu 1993: 160). The one pattern is a transcendent being, and it is immanent or inherent in the world as differentiated. “One pattern, many manifestations” can help achieve harmony (hexie 和諧) between various cultures and between various cultural achievements. Liu said, “Harmony does not mean conformity” (Liu 1966: 271) and such harmony is a “heterogenous harmony” (yizhi de hexie 異質的和諧) for there are inevitable differences in human life, including different endowments of talents and interests and different encounters in life (see Liu 1966: 270–273). “One pattern, many manifestations” can assign these numerous items their appropriate places to prevent them from smothering other cultural creations (see Cheng 2014: 32). The same wisdom can be applied to the encounter of East and West, which implies the encounter of cultures having different cultural emphases (see Liu 1966: 279). Liu concluded that, Exploring along the direction Cassirer pointed to, we find that pattern is one while manifestations are many. Not only can there be a relationship of harmony with differences (he er bu tong 和而不同) among various symbolic forms, but also we take the same methodology for comparative philosophy of Eastern and Western cultures.…. Some [cultures] lay particular stress on science, some on art, some on morality, some on religion. And the religion they develop can be of different types. There can be a strained relation between the types of  For instance, the rationales in natural science cannot deal with the problem of value or ethics adequately. 19  Liu’s own translation reads “one principle, many manifestations” (Liu 2010: 184;  Liu 2011: 106); however, for consistency with the present volume, here I use “pattern.” Another translation by Liu reads “principle is one while manifestations are many” (Liu 2003c: 369). The interchangeability of “pattern” and “principle” is a complicated issue. While in most cases of the single concept of li, especially when it stands alone, I adopt “pattern” for consistency, in some cases I adopt the term “principle” for it can better express the sense of being a rule or a rationale. 18

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culture, but under the higher functional point of view, we can also achieve a harmonious synthesis of them. (Liu 1987: 332–333)

Here, the “function” points to the creation and expression of significance of human beings, which has the same source or origin, namely, what Liu called “creative creativity” (chuangzao de chuangzaoxing 創造的創造性) (see Liu 1966: 267). For Liu, such a creative creativity is the Confucian pattern or principle of benevolence, which is the “one pattern,” namely, the root or the ground for the many manifestations, such as the cultural developments including science, morality, religion, art, and so on. We can analyze the principle from two aspects. The first is along the pair of “regulative principle” (guiyue yuanze 規約原則) and “constitutive principle” (goucheng yuanze 構成原則). Liu said that “one pattern” can only be understood as the “regulative principle” along the clue [of thought] from Kant to Cassirer, but not the “constitutive principle” within a system.20 Therefore, it is not the content of knowledge and cannot be proved; however, it is the principle that we must take as a “postulate” when we pursue any knowledge. (Liu 2010: 184).

Cheng Chung-yi 鄭宗義 took religion as an example to show that “one pattern, many manifestations” works as a “regulative principle”: Different religions do have their different contents and constitutive principles (their history, creeds, rituals, organizations, etc.); however, by genuine mutual conversation and understanding, it is not difficult to notice that each of them has ethical teachings that affirm universal human nature, orient and transform life, as well as the constitutive function of leading people from the finite to the infinite. Only having understood it will we understand why “one pattern, many manifestations” can provide a regulative principle (not constitutive principle) and have the effect of functional unity (not substantial unity), which achieves the effect of heterogeneous harmony (not homogeneous harmony) and appropriate positioning. (Cheng 2014: 34)

The “one pattern” functions as a regulative principle that makes manifestations possible and assigns them to appropriate places (i.e., “positioning” in Cheng’s words). The second aspect is about the dialectical relation between the one and many in the “one pattern, many manifestations.” To reiterate, this one pattern in Confucianism is the principle of benevolence, which is prominently revealed by its creativity. Liu said, When the unceasing life-giving heavenly way (tiandao 天道) has to express its creative power, it has to be manifested in particular materials and thus has its limitations. While its future creation will necessarily transcend this limitation, the present creativity has to be manifested in the present conditions of time and space. Then, the finite (youxian 有限) (immanent [neizai 內在]) and infinite (wuxian 無限) (transcendent [chaoyue 超越]) possess a kind of dialectical relation of mutual opposition and unity. (Liu 1993: 172)

That is, despite being infinite, the creativity must manifest itself in the finite space and time; and such a manifestation has its infinite source. Liu stressed that we must take both the one and the many into account. That leads to his suggestion of “the

 Liu named it as “constitutional principle” elsewhere (e.g., Liu 2001: 22).

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pattern of two roads.” Liu abstracted the idea of “two roads” (liangxing 兩行) from the chapter of “Discussion on Making All Things Equal” in Zhuangzi (see Watson 2013: 11). “Walking on the two roads” here means understanding and settling rightness and wrongness from the point of view of the way (dao 道).21 Cheng Chung-yi found that this paragraph “represents the two roads that take into account both the one and the many, as well as the transcendent and the immanent” (Cheng 2014: 37).22 The balance between the one and the many can ensure that one’s manifestations are from the right source of benevolence and one’s inner mentality or capacity of benevolence can be manifested and is not idle talk (see Liu 1993: 238–239). But how can we achieve such a balance? This leads Liu to his idea of “the necessity of circularity.” The so-called circularity means that we “must first walk from the ‘immanent’ to the ‘transcendent’ and then from the ‘transcendent’ back to the ‘immanent’” (Liu 2015: 252). The former part is revealed by Kongzi’s saying that “I start from below and get through to what is up above” (xiaxue er shangda下學而 上達) (Analects 14.35; in Lau 2010: 143) and Mengzi’s that “For a man to give full realization to his heart-mind is for him to understand his own nature (xing 性), and a man who knows his own nature will know heaven” (Mengzi 7A.1; adapted from Lau 2003: 287). According to Cheng’s interpretation, this former part is the necessary route to grasp the substance (ti 體), namely, the “one pattern”; whereas the latter part can be seen in the saying in “The Doctrine of the Mean” (Zhongyong 中 庸): “What heaven mandates to man is called human nature. To follow our nature is called the way. Cultivating the way is called education” (adapted from Chan 1963a: 98). Cheng described it as the implementation after grasping the substance (see Cheng 2014: 39). According to such an analysis of culture under a broad systematic philosophy, then, a healthy cultural development will have to grasp the source, namely, the one pattern, by seriously engaging in the manifestations, and to keep a healthy balance of the two roads. Different cultures can learn from each other.

 Namely, rightness and wrongness are mutually depending. Cheng Chung-yi, following Liu’s spirit, highlights another paragraph in “The Great and Venerable Teacher” in Zhuangzi, which reads: “In being one, he was acting as a companion of Heaven. In not being one, he was acting as a companion of man. When man and Heaven do not defeat each other, then we may be said to have the True Man” (Watson 2013: 44). 22  Liu also delineated the idea of two roads in Confucianism and Buddhism (see Liu 1993: 189–239). In fact, such idea of Liu already appeared in Liu’s early work: “Here one important key is that we have to awaken. We view ‘one pattern’ and ‘many manifestations’ with equal attention and rub them into an inextricable whole. Only by then can we create and obtain the healthiest emotional style of life that has yet to be adequately promoted” (Liu 1966: 273). 21

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5  C  onstruction of a Global Ethic and Facilitation of Interreligious Dialogue Liu’s construction of a global ethic and facilitation of interreligious dialogue are in line with his systematic philosophy. Hans Küng suggested that there is another “paradigm shift” as significant as the Renaissance and urged us to have a kind of global awareness. He warned that there would not be world peace without peace among religions (Küng and Kuschel 1993). Küng’s friend Leonard Swidler even said, “Dialogue or Death!” (Swidler 1999: 16). Since joining the World Religion and Human Rights Conference in 1989, Liu echoed Küng and Swidler, engaging himself in the construction of a global ethic and interreligious dialogue. In 1995, Liu wrote a response to Küng’s A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World Religions. In 1997, Liu participated in the conferences for Universal Ethics Project of the UNESCO in Paris and Naples. In 1998, he attended the meeting on the promotion of the Universal Ethics Project in Beijing. In 2005, he delivered a keynote speech at the conference on “Chinese Philosophy and Global Ethics” held at Tunghai University (see Liu 2001). Let us examine why the issues of global ethic and interreligious dialogue are related at the outset. First, while Hans Küng hoped to make peace among religions, he noted that “while religion aims at the transcendent absolute, it has an inextricable relation with the actual human world. The moral imperatives in the Ten Commandments show a good example” (Liu 2001: 7). That is, the talk of religion inevitably leads to discussion of action guidance and norms. Second, according to Swidler, what A Global Ethic suggests “is not to construct an ‘ethics’ (lunlixue 倫 理學), but to seek for minimalist consensus and adopt an attitude for an  ‘ethic’ (lunli 倫理)” (Liu 2001: 108).23 While conceptually or theoretically, such a task may not be related to religious issues, in reality it is very often so. Thus, Liu brought our attention to the relation between the  global ethic and religious dialogue. Nevertheless, we try to look at religious dialogue first. Let us introduce Hang Küng’s observations and suggestions. As Liu read, what Küng wanted to deal with is that, On the one hand, what religion yearns toward is the absolute truth. On the other hand, all religions need to live together in peace. If we cannot reconcile these two aspects and launch a conversation and communication between the religions, then many conflicts in reality are inevitable. (Liu 2001: 5)

According to Liu, Küng found three strategies ineffective. The first is the fortress strategy, which is exclusive. It assures that one’s own religion is the only real religion. Then, “peace among religions” is only possible when there is only one real  Liu said that a global ethic is “not a Buddhist, Christian, Marxist or any factional ethics, but a global ethic developed through dialogue. …That is a kind of basic attitude that differentiates good and bad” (Liu 2001: 93). As I read Liu, “ethics” denotes the normative doctrine in a particular and specific level, while “ethic” denotes the basic rationale or purpose of a normative doctrine.

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religion. The second is a kind of downplaying, which thinks that problem of truth is not applicable to religion; and everyone can believe in their own religion and neglect the conflicts and contradictions. The third is a strategy of tolerance, which holds that while only one’s own religion grasps the ultimate truth and the other religions only the surface of the truth, one can still embrace other religions. However, this strategy involves an arrogant attitude and offers no help to the problem (see Liu 2001: 5–6). Küng’s suggestion is that each religion should have the courage to criticize and examine itself and lead to conversation (see Liu 2001: 6). He wanted to find some universal moral norms, for as mentioned above, religion cannot be cut off from the actual human world. In the development process of various religions, he discovered the common concept of the religions in the world is not “God” but “Humanum” (humanity), for Buddhism may be seen as atheistic. All religions tell us to treat each other humanely (see Liu 2001: 21; Liu 2013: 245). Liu thus elaborated Küng’s view: While the religious faith of each person can be different, we can develop a kind of awareness of humaneness and establish the universal standard of “genuine human nature” (zhenshi renxing 真實人性). All those which can help manifest the genuine human nature are what we are to pursue. Contrarily, all measures that treat people in an inhumane or beastly way are what we are to oppose. Speaking positively, a real religion must be conducive to the development of human nature and it must have a certain standard for good and evil, truth and falsity. Speaking negatively, only the hypocritical evil cults will act inhumanely. It is impossible for such deed to have a “holy” source; and those evil cults must be renounced. (Liu 2001: 9)

Before we go into detail concerning ethics or religious ethics, we can now explain how we are to deal with religious differences and facilitate interreligious dialogues. For Liu, the idea of “one pattern, many manifestations” is useful. Here, the “one pattern” refers to the transcendent, ultimate thing. It is just as what Paul Tillich called “God above God,” which cannot be illustrated clearly but is not totally incomprehensible. All names, such as God, Allah, the heavenly way (tiandao 天道), the great ultimate (taiji 太極), are already differentiated manifestations (see Liu 2001: 79).24 We all grasp the ultimate being in a particular time and space and tradition. Then, “No single religion can have the exclusive possession of the absolute truth” (Liu 2001: 10). Liu found Laozi’s saying precisely pertinent here: “The dao that can be told of is not the eternal dao” (adapted from Chan 1963a: 139). Then, one should, as Küng suggested, reflect and examine one’s own religion and start a conversation with other religions. While we will find some inevitable differences and should be tolerant, there are also many common values, within which humaneness or humanity is the fundamental one (see Liu 2001: 79). However, Liu thought that holding consensus among all spiritual traditions does not mean having one religion that unifies all religions. He said,

 While Buddhism does not hold an ultimate being, it has its grasp of ultimate reality, namely, one that is grasped by the wisdom of the middle way (madhyamika): to adopt “dependent origination” to view the phenomenal world (the immanent) and “emptiness” to view the ultimate world (the transcendent) (see Liu 1993: 187, 199–211).

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Y. Leung The best we can hope is maintaining one’s own faith, but deepening and enriching it by interreligious dialogue through sympathetic understanding of other religions. Better still, we shall proceed to incorporate wisdom or insights from other spiritual traditions. This is a never-ending process. (Liu 2013: 246)

Here Liu highlighted one important goal of doing comparison is to have spiritual transference (gantong 感通) with other religions: I think that the so-called minimalist consensus does not mean to select the commonalities and neglect the differences and to find the common denominator. …If we try to select the commonalities and neglect the differences of ethics of different religions, I am afraid that we will get more conflicts than commonalities. … In fact, what we look for is a spiritual transference, which does not require the identity of opinions and subject matters. In other words, what we want is what Cassirer called “functional unity,” but not “substantial unity”. (Liu 2001: 19–20)

Liu suggested us to have a double vision: On the one hand, to view from the outside, there are many real religions and all roads lead to Rome. On the other hand, to view from the inside, the religion that I put my life wholeheartedly to embrace is indeed the only real religion. (Liu 2001: 10)

Thus, reminding ourselves of the “one pattern,” various religions can respect and communicate with each other. Then, how about a global ethic? Liu warned us that while absolutism may be out of date, pluralism has the danger of relativism when it emphasizes differentiation (see Liu 2001: 211). The idea of “one pattern, many manifestations” is also helpful in finding a third way. According to “one pattern, many manifestations,” all written moral principles or precepts are particular, differentiated manifestations of the one ultimate, transcendent principle. That is, they are “limited by particular time and space and cultural tradition and cannot be absolutized” (Liu 2001: 78). While the one pattern cannot be written concretely, we can still find some common important values and principles for help. Küng discovered the common concept of the religions in the world is not “God” but “Humanum” (humanity) and we can find that there is such a humane principle manifested in the so-called Golden Rule: “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others,” or in positive terms: “What you wish done to yourself, do to others” (see Liu 2001: 21). Küng listed Four Irrevocable Directives: ( 1) Toward a Culture of Nonviolence and Respect for Life; (2) Toward a Culture of Solidarity and a Just Economical Order; (3) Toward a Culture of Tolerance and a Life in Truthfulness; (4) Toward a Culture of Equal Rights and Partnership between Men and Women. (Liu 2013: 245–246; cf. Liu 2001: 24)25

 These directives can be contested. For instance, despite the broad rationales put forward in A Global Ethic, there are vast differences in how the second directive is conceived (see Liu 2001: 30–31). Also, concerning the fourth directive, it may be objected that some forms of Islam, evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, etc. show no interest in the equal rights of men and woman. Küng and Liu could respond by restricting the universality of the directive while maintaining its

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Liu found that these are the results of a contemporary formulation of the Four Ethical Commandments handed down since Moses: thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery. There are no difference[s] from Buddhist monastery rules, or Confucian virtues formulated in positive terms: humanity (ren), righteousness (yi), trustworthiness and wisdom (xin and zhi), and propriety (li). Each tradition starts from its own grassroots and then meets in the middle. (Liu 2013: 246; emphasis original; cf. Liu 2001: 69–76)

While each culture may have different specifications for the moral precepts, the basic rationale is the same (see Liu 2001: 26–27). Such can be called a minimalist consensus on ethic; and precisely because of its being a minimalist one, “it does not limit us to make further pursuits or make us cancel the difference between different traditions and different cultures” (Liu 2001: 222). Rather, “we can admit the limitations and even shortcomings of our own culture and be willing to absorb others’ strengths” (Liu 2001: 222; cf. Liu 1974: 82–83). We should be able to see the applicability and the appropriateness of certain manifestations of the one pattern in our tradition.26 The lack of freedom of marriage and gender inequality in ancient China are old habits; that is, undesirable outcomes caused by the ways the “one pattern” was expressed in the past. In this sense, upholding “one pattern, many manifestations,” Confucianism has the ability to make ethical judgments according to the changing circumstances, i.e., to decide which actions are best conducive to manifest the pattern of benevolence. Liu thus called Confucian ethics a situational ethics (see Liu 1974: 42–44; cf. Liu 2001: 78).27

6  Assessing Liu’s Systematic Philosophy To recap, Liu’s exploration of philosophy of culture pushed him to figure out the fundamental value intrinsic to life and to assign different cultural aspects their appropriate places. His systematic philosophy shows that the common ground of the existent and value is derived from the significance structure as delineated in the philosophy of significance. Various contents of life are arranged by his creative use of the Chinese idea of “one pattern, many manifestations,” where one pattern means the principle or pattern of benevolence. A complete execution is explained by the ideas of “the pattern of two roads” and “the necessity of circularity.” Following such

majority. Instead of the universality of such a factual claim, Liu’s concern is what goals all religion ought to come to given the basic value of humanum. 26  Liu said, “We need to carefully select the living and the dead elements in the tradition” (Liu 1974: 45). 27  “The heart-mind of benevolence is a transcending principle and will not vary because of the differences in time and space. The execution of the way of benevolence, however, is related to the understanding of practical circumstances and will vary according to time and space” (Liu 1974: 44).

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rationale, Liu facilitated the construction of a global ethic and interreligious dialogue. Let us examine his enterprise. The first inquiry is whether the network of significance or horizon is speculative or groundless. Liu found it is not in two senses. First, it does not mean that the existent and value are purely subjective and that they are pure human inventions independent of the world. Referring to Edmund Husserl’s structure of intentionality, Liu highlighted that “Consciousness is always the consciousness of something.” And the two aspects, namely, the capacity (neng 能) and that which [is obtained] (suo 所), reveal a correlation.28 “Significance” is the product of the integration of the subjective and the objective. Neither does it merely belong to the subjective, nor the objective. Neither idealism nor materialism can provide an appropriate theory of significance. (Liu 1987: 298)

Significance and thereby the horizon it represents are also the product of the integration of the subjective and the objective. Second, Liu said, “Personal experience does not merely mean personal preferences. One must provide his grounds. …But there should be certain standards for whether it can conform to the heart-mind” (Liu 1987: 288–289). Although experience cannot reach abstract universality, such as those reached by logic, it can still achieve a specific universality, which means it should be possible on the inter-subjective level. The second inquiry, as a set, is: Is there any network of significance or horizon better than others? If so, how can we figure it out? What if there are conflicts between different horizons? I suggest that there are two layers of concern. First, to speak of horizon horizontally, i.e., in the sense that forms of culture have the same regulative principle but different constitutive principles, there is not a standard to judge which of these manifestations is the highest level. For instance, while the realm of art and the realm of politics are functions or manifestations of the creative heart-mind, they are different as they have different purposes, objects, scopes of effectiveness, etc. An ensuing worry is whether taking benevolence of Confucianism the regulative principle may lead to pan-moralism. For some, pan-moralism is the stance that takes moral consciousness to transgress and infringe upon other cultural realms (such as literature, politics, economy), downgrading their value, subordinating them to morality, and making them tools to express morality (see Li 2016: 83–85, cf. Wei 1989: 85–86). Cheng Chung-yi replied on behalf of Liu: While Confucianism understands the benevolent heart-mind from the ethical aspect..., the transference of such heart-mind is not limited to the ethical, but is the creative source of various significance or values. Also, it regulates the appropriate places that various significance or values ought to have in an ideal life and culture. This is not pan-moralism but a moral idealism. (Cheng 2014: 11)

Moral idealism does not swallow up other cultural realms but admits their independent significance. Liu’s systematic philosophy precisely demarcates various cultural

28

 Liu borrowed Husserl’s phrase and calls this “noetic-noematic correlation” (Liu 1987: 294).

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realms their appropriate places without penetrating the ethical.29 However, Cheng did note that Liu had yet to provide a theoretical explanation for it and directed us to other endeavors, such as Tang Junyi 唐君毅’s (see Cheng 2014: 11; Tang 1986). Another layer concerns the vertical sense of horizon, namely, the gradation or level within the same network of significance. For Liu, the level of horizon is judged according to the regulative principle. Consider the horizon in terms of morality illustrated in Wang Yangming’s paragraph. Someone’s choosing the horizon of the beast is worse than choosing that of the sage, for one neglects one’s moral capacity and allows himself to be controlled by our animal instincts, injuring the principle of benevolence. Next, consider the case of interreligious comparison. For Liu, the common inclination of world religions is to “protect human rights, liberate women, manifest social justice, and condemn the immorality of wars” (Liu 2001: 8), and it is encapsulated in the transcendent regulative principle of benevolence. Then, for instance, forms of Islam that strictly limit women’s opportunities for public roles in society closing off their chance for greater moral development may be judged wrong, or at least less satisfactory than other traditions free of so. Here, Liu urged us to reinterpret the living elements of a tradition that can help deal with contemporary world. Some constitutive principles that helped achieve benevolence in the past have already lost their effectiveness. That is why we have the pursuit of freedom of marriage, gender equality, and so on since the May Fourth Movement (see Liu 2001: 78–79). A related issue is the intolerance between different religions. Liu did admit that some differences between the constitutive principles are inevitable. Again, intolerance of alternative beliefs and cruelty to followers of other religions are to be condemned according the regulative principle (see Liu 2001: 79). The third inquiry is then about implementation: How should we select a network of significance? Liu did note that different peoples’ selections of different significances or values are sometimes made in accordance with practical needs (see Liu 1966: 189; see Cheng 2014: 33–34). Then, “we cannot abstractly fulfill all the values at the same time,” as according to “law of compensation,” when one selected a value of certain aspect, that of other aspects will of be whittled down. For instance, when one determined to be an outstanding scientist, the network of significance of science will gradually reveal itself to him; however, due to selective attention, when one is too attentive to one specific area, the reality of other aspects, such as morality and art, are relatively concealed to him. (Liu 1966: 110)

What troubles us is that we are destined to make a certain selection, so the question is how to make the correct selection or assign proper balance to different aspects. To Liu, there is no easy answer. But as long as we know that all aspects have the same origin, there is no point for being hostile to certain cultures (see Liu 1966: 110–111) or “to take conflicts and contradiction as the ultimate thing” (Liu 2001: 22); also, we should no longer confine ourselves to certain aspects and should be open to learn

 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 regarded Confucianism as a “moral idealism,” which means that all individual and social activities ought to take ideal as the ground, while ideal must be rooted in the moral heart-mind (moral rationality) (see Li 2016: 80; Mou 1985: 24).

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and develop the others.30 That is why he thought that, in terms of content, while Chinese culture is to learn from Western ones, especially science and democracy (e.g., Liu 1966: 250–252; Liu 1997: 202; Liu 1986b: 347), the West is to learn from the East about morality and explore their perspectives on significance and ideal life (e.g., Liu 1970: 222–223; Liu 1974: 11–12; Liu 1997: 203). In terms of the two roads, “the Chinese have to make more effort toward the particularization (zhixu 致 曲) and differentiation processes; whereas the Western people are over-­differentiated, which inevitably leads to disintegration. They must learn from our wisdom of one pattern too” (Liu 1997: 204). The last inquiry is a more critical one: We said in the second inquiry that we should adjust the constitutive principle according to the changing circumstances so as to better achieve the aim of the regulative principle. However, does “one pattern, many manifestations” imply a higher level of monism?31 Liu anticipated this question and explicated that Confucianism as an ultimate concern has a unique twofold character. On the one hand, Confucianism is a particular model that has transcendent and immanent aspects as we talk about the “two roads” above (see Liu 1993: 238–239) and competes with other religious tradition. On the other hand, “it is the only religion that can merge with any other tradition, as the ultimate commitment to the heavenly way and benevolent heart-mind does not hinder those who are Confucian Christians or Muslims” (Liu 2001: 169). Liu’s examples are Robert Neville and John Berthrong, who claim to belong to Boston Confucianism (see Liu 2001: 173, n. 19). As I read, Liu was confident that the openness of Confucianism can help relieve the worry of monism; and this can be supported with the empirical investigation that the major traditions do hold sympathy or compassion as the core value (see Liu 2001: 76).

7  Three Classifications Concerning Confucianism Let us turn to Liu’s contributions to Chinese philosophy and start with his three classifications about Confucianism.32 First, he suggested a tripartite classification of Confucianism: (1) Spiritual Confucianism. The tradition of great thinkers such as Confucius, Mencius, the Cheng [brothers], Zhu [Xi], Lu [Xiangshan], and Wang [Yangming] that has been revived by Contemporary Neo-Confucians as their ultimate commitment.

 Despite the limitation of selective attention, such an openness in attitude and pursuit of learning the others are possible for Liu, under the scheme of “one pattern, many manifestations.” 31  I am grateful to the editor for this question. 32  For other contributions Liu made to Chinese philosophy, see e.g., Liu (2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d, 2007a, 2013). 30

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(2) Politicized Confucianism. The tradition of Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, Ban Gu 班固, and others that served as the official ideology of the dynasties and had taken ingredients from schools of thought such as Daoism, Legalism, and the Yin-Yang school. (3) Popular Confucianism. Belief at the grassroots level that emphasizes concepts such as family values, diligence, and education and can hardly be separated from other beliefs in popular Buddhism and Daoism, including, for example, various kinds of superstitions. (Liu 1998: 13–14; see also Liu 2003b: 23) Even though in reality “the three are intricately related to one another,” this distinction is significant as “Confucianism may mean different things to different people” (Liu 2003b: 23). For instance, Liu criticized John K.  Fairbank for his term “Confucian state,” for Fairbank “did not realize at all that such a political system has no necessary relation with the classical Confucian ideals” (Liu 1974: 94). This classification clarifies the subject matter. And it is obvious that what Liu focused on is spiritual Confucianism. Liu also made a classification about Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, which gives more respect to the history of intellectual transmission. Liu had some disagreement with Mou Zongsan’s tripartite division of the Neo-Confucians. For Mou, the three branches are: (1) Hu Hong 胡宏— Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周 branch, which revived some of the insights of Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤, Zhang Zai, and Cheng Hao 程顥 in the Northern Song period by building on the “Doctrine of the Mean” and The Commentaries of the Book of Changes and especially put forward the idea of “taking the heart-mind to mark the nature” (yi xin zhu xing 以心著性); (2) Lu Xiangshan 陸象山—Wang Yangming branch, which focused on The Analects and Mengzi and heavily emphasized the heart-mind; and (3) Cheng Yi — Zhu Xi branch, which focused on The Great Learning and thought that the pattern “exists but does not act,” which is different from the other seven major Song-Ming Neo-Confucians Mou highlighted (see Mou 1968: 49). Liu casted doubt on the first branch, for while “speaking in terms of philosophical model, Mr. Mou’s tripartite division has its basis,” Liu thought that, from the viewpoint of history of thought, from Hu Hong to Liu Zongzhou, “there is no inheritance of thought at all” (Liu 1993: 246). The Hunan school had been overwhelmed by Zhu Xi and had already waned in the late Southern Song period. Also, Hu’s and Liu Zongzhou’s thoughts have some incompatibilities besides  similarities. For instance, Liu Zongzhou objected to Wang Longxi’s 王龍溪 “overstepping” and insisted that human nature is good, whereas Hu Hong aimed at highlighting the transcendental aspect of the substance of nature and thus advocated that nature is without good and evil. Therefore, Liu maintained the second and third branches, whereas replaced the first branch with “Zhou Dunyi— Zhang Zai—Cheng Hao,” whom Mou saw a development of the idea of “one route” of Cheng Hao (see Liu 1993: 250). Another noteworthy classification is about the naming issue of the so-called Contemporary Neo-Confucianism and the grouping of the Contemporary Neo-­ Confucians. Liu mentioned that

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Concerning the naming, “Contemporary New Confucianism” is the widely accepted name in Mainland China. Liu said that this naming represents the broadest understanding: “whoever affirms that the basic concepts and value of Confucianism can have their contemporary significance through creative interpretation can be attributed to this group” (Liu 2015: 194). Besides, Liu came up with the framework that he called “four groups in three generations”: The First Generation: Group I: Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988), Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), Ma Yifu 馬一孚 (1883–1967), and Carsun Chang 張君勱 (1887–1969) Group II: Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990), He Lin 賀麟 (1902–1992), Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990), Thomé H. Fang 方東美 (1899–1977) The Second Generation: Group III: Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1903–1982) The Third Generation: Group IV: Yu Yingshi 余英時 (1930–), Liu Shu-hsien (1934–[2016]), Cheng Chung-ying 成中英 (1935–), and Tu Weiming 杜維明 (1940–) (Liu 2003b: 24-25)

Here come a few issues. First, while all these figures can be broadly regarded as “Contemporary New Confucian” scholars, there is another narrower line, which takes the famous “Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture” as the gauge and the “learning of the heart-mind and the nature” (xinxing zhi xue 心性之學) as the basis of understanding Chinese cultural tradition (see Tang 2011: 119–184). It can be traced back to Xiong, the master of Tang, Mou, and Xu. This opened the line of Neo-Confucianism in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas, which is succeeded by Tu and Liu and is called “Contemporary Neo-­ Confucianism” (dangdai xinrujia 當代新儒家). Secondly, some scholars do not make the distinction between the two groups (which Liu did according to their ages) and have different classifications. For instance, Jana S.  Rošker did not make the distinction of the first two groups and put Thomé H. Fang in the second generation, for Fang was the teacher of some of the members of the third generation (see Rošker 2016: 30–31). Third, Liu included Qian Mu in the second generation. However, Yu Yingshi 余英時 objected to this, for if we take a Contemporary New Confucian to be “any scholar who study Confucianism seriously and without any bias,” Qian can be regarded as one, but such definition is too broad and insignificant; if we take it to be a scholar contributing philosophical elaboration and development, Qian was not one as he was a historian;33 if we take it to mean a scholar of the Xiong faction, Qian was obviously not one (Yu 1996: 125–126). But as Cheng Chung-yi suggested, if we take Contemporary New Confucianism or Contemporary Neo-Confucianism as 33

 Rošker also held this view (see Rošker 2016: 31).

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a “large movement in intellectual thought since the 20th century that revives Confucianism to cope with the modernity represented by the West,” the movement thus can include those who at least think that Confucianism has its contemporary significance, without necessarily sharing the exactly identical thoughts (Cheng 2014: 28). Liu thought that this framework, while not perfect, can help avoid some meaningless disputes (see Liu 2015: 194–195).

8  Studies on Zhu Xi and Huang Zongxi Liu’s investigations into Zhu Xi and Huang Zongxi are also remarkable. His book (Liu 1982/1995) explicates the development and completion of Zhu’s thought.34 Liu’s interpretative contributions include highlighting the heart-mind as the pivot of Zhu’s philosophy (see Liu 1995: 230–268).35 Another is Liu’s elaboration using the ideas of monism and dualism. In terms of metaphysics, Zhu suggested a “constitutional dualism”; namely, in theory, pattern is regarded as ontologically prior to vital force; whereas in terms of functionality or practicality, Zhu suggested a “functional monism,” namely, “in actuality, we can never find a state in which pattern and vital forces are separate from each other” (adapted from Liu 2003c: 899; cf. Liu 1995: 274–283). Liu explained further that such a functional monism is not limited to cosmology but also includes moral psychology, for while the heart-mind and nature are dual in metaphysical terms, they are monistic in terms of functionality or practicality (see Liu 1995: 651–653). Besides, although Liu basically agreed with Mou Zongsan’s judgment that Zhu Xi deviated from the path of Mengzi as Zhu failed to acknowledge the identity of heart-mind and pattern (see Mou 1984: 41), Liu revealed a more sympathetic understanding and emphasized Zhu’s contributions to inner cultivation and educational procedures (see Liu 1995: preface page 3). Liu emphasized on the significance of Huang Zongxi and highlighted the “paradigm shift” during the Ming-Qing transition. While Huang is often regarded as an outstanding intellectual historian, as he complied The Records of Ming Scholars and laid the groundwork for The Records of Song-Yuan Scholars, he also had his own philosophy. In his A Study of Huang Zongxi’s Philosophy of Mind (Liu 1986a), he  I refer to the 1995 version (3rd version). It first introduces Zhu’s life, his succession of school of thought, his exploration into the issue of “equilibrium” (zhong 中) and “harmony” (he 和), and his “Doctrine of Benevolence”, which paves the way to his completion of thought: the tripartite division of heart-mind (xin 心), nature (xing 性), and emotions (qing 情), as well as the metaphysics illustrated by the non-reducibility (buza 不雜) and non-separation (buli 不離) between pattern and vital force (qi 氣). Liu also examined the historical status and the modern significant of Zhu’s thought and the relation between Wang Yangming’s thought and Zhu’s. 35  Liu wrote that, “In terms of ontology, the heart-mind belongs to vital force, but possesses the myriad patterns. In terms of epistemology, the extension of knowledge and the investigation of the pattern must be carried out by the heart-mind. In terms of ethics, only the heart-mind has the function of determination. It is no doubt that the concept of heart-mind occupies a pivotal place in Zhu’s thought” (Liu 1995: 261). 34

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examined Huang’s succession of his master Liu Zongzhou, selective adoption of Wang Yangming, and criticisms of Zhu Xi’s thought and judged that Huang’s thought is faithful to his teacher, but led to a change of paradigm. Liu said, [Huang’s] philosophy was a further development of Liu Tsung-chou [Zongzhou]’s thought, as he still worked within the accepted paradigm that had both a transcendent perspective and an immanent perspective… Although his intention was to promote this paradigm, his mission was a total failure. In addition, his many-sided interests inadvertently contributed to the new current of thought with a radically different paradigm that abandoned the transcendent perspective of the Neo-Confucian tradition. …It is in this sense that there is something tragic about his life and work, and it is also from this perspective that I see Huang Zongxi as the last in the Neo-Confucian tradition. (Liu 1998: 231–232)

After Huang, Confucianism entered a paradigm shift, which maintains an immanent monism that “openly challenged the authority of [Song-Ming] Neo-Confucian philosophy by declaring that the transcendent li (pattern) divorced from human desires had become a tool for killing people” (Liu 1998: 253–254). Cheng Chung-yi, Liu’s disciple, elaborated on this clue and analyzed this paradigm shift (Cheng 2009).

9  Conclusion Liu’s work was a magnificent philosophical endeavor. In order to find the way for future cultural development, he delved into philosophy of culture. Diagnosing the problem of the present culture as one of our heart-mind’s losing its own way, he found a reconceptualization of philosophy necessary. With his creative interpretation of the Song-Ming Neo-Confucian idea of “one pattern, many manifestations,” he constructed a systematic philosophy to explain value and significance and assign different realms of life their appropriate places. His construction of a global ethic and interreligious dialogue come under the very enterprise. Meanwhile, he contributed to scholarly research into Chinese philosophy. In short, anyone concerned with future cultural development, significance and values of life, and the comparative approach to these issues cannot afford to miss the insights of Liu.

References Cassirer, Ernst. 1944. An Essay on Man. New Haven: Yale University Press. (translated by Liu Shu-hsien 劉述先. 1959. An Essay on Man 論人. Taipei: Wenxing.) Chan, Wing-tsit. (tr.). 1963a. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. ———. (tr.). 1963b. Instructions for Practical Living, and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by WANG Yangming. New York: Columbia University Press. Cheng, Chung-yi 鄭宗義. 2009. The Transformation of Confucianism between Ming and Qing Dynasty: From Liu Jishan to Dai Dongyuan 明清儒學轉型探析: 從劉蕺山到戴東原. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.

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——— 鄭宗義. 2014. “A Philosophical Exploration between the Global and the Local: The Philosophy of Mr. Liu Shu-hsien.” 全球與本土之間的哲學探索——劉述先生的哲 學思想. In CHENG Chung-yi 鄭宗義 and LIN Yue-hui林月惠, eds., A Philosophical Exploration between the Global and the Local: A Festschrift for Mr. Liu Shu-hsien in Honor of His Eightieth Birthday 全球與本土之間的哲學探索:劉述先先生八秩壽慶論文集. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. Cheng, Hao 程顥, and Cheng Yi 程頤. 2004. The Works of the Two Chengs 二程集. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Küng, Hans, and Karl-Josef Kuschel, eds. 1993. A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. London: SCM Press. Lau, D. C. (tr.). 2003. Mencius. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ———. (tr.). 2010. The Analects. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Lee, Ming-huei [Li Minghui] 李明輝. 2016. Confucianism and Contemporary Consciousness 儒 學與現代意識. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press. Liu, Shu-hsien 劉述先. 1966. The Philosophical Beliefs and Methods of the New Era 新時代哲 學的信念與方法. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press. (The founding work of Liu that explicates his examination of existing philosophies and cultures and construction of systematic philosophy.) ——— 劉述先. 1970. A Tentative Exploration of Philosophy of Culture 文化哲學的試探. Taipei: Zhiwen chubanshe. (Liu’s examinations of Oswald Spengler’s and Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of culture and the preparation of his own account.) ——— 劉述先. 1974. The Choice of the Emotional Style of Life 生命情調的抉擇. Taipei: Zhiwen chubanshe. (An anthology of Liu’s reflections on Chinese philosophy and philosophy in the contemporary world.) ——— 劉述先. [1982/1995]. The Development and Completion of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought 朱子哲學思想的發展與完成. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (A comprehensive study on the development and completion of Zhu’s thought with an analysis on Zhu’s historical status and the contemporary significance of his thought.) ——— 劉述先. 1986a. A Study of Huang Zongxi’s Philosophy of Mind 黃宗羲心學的定位. Taipei: Yunchen wenhua. (A detailed illustration of Huang Zongxi’s philosophy of mind via explications of Huang’s succession of Liu Jishan, selective adoption of Wang Yangming, and criticisms of Zhu Xi.) ——— 劉述先. 1986b. An Exploration of Culture and Philosophy 文化與哲學的探索. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (An anthology of Liu’s reflections on the predicaments of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, the pursuit of comparative philosophy, and the issue of tradition and modernization.) ——— 劉述先. 1987. An Anthology of Chinese and Western Philosophies 中西哲學論文集. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (An anthology containing Liu’s elaborations on traditional thought, investigations into western thought, and exploration of systematic philosophy.) ——— 劉述先. 1993. The Tangle between Ideal and Reality 理想與現實的糾結. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (An anthology of Liu’s reflections on the current political and cultural situation and value redirection, creative reinterpretation of tradition, and comparative studies on world cultures.) ——— 劉述先. 1994. The Investigation of Tradition and the Modern Age 傳統與現代的探索. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju. (An autobiography of Liu.) ——— 劉述先. 1997. Eternity and Present 永恆與現在. Taipei: Sanmin shuju. ——— 劉述先. 1998. Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. (An introduction to Classical and Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism.) ——— 劉述先. 2001. Global Ethic and Interreligious Dialogue 全球倫理與宗教對話. Taipei: Lixu wenhua. (An anthology of Liu’s investigations into global ethic and interreligious dialogue.) ——— 劉述先. 2003a. “An Integral Understand of Knowledge and Value: A Confucian Perspective.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30.3-4: 387-401.

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——— 劉述先. 2003b. Essentials of Contemporary Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Westport, CT: Praeger. (An introduction to Contemporary Neo-Confucian philosophy, which explains the background of the school of thought and the major figures including Feng Youlan, Xiong Shili, Thomé Fang, Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, and the third generation.) ——— 劉述先. 2003c. “Li: Principle, Pattern, Reason.” In Antonio S. Cua, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, New York and London: Routledge. ——— 劉述先. 2003d. “Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi).” In Antonio S. Cua, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. New York and London: Routledge. ——— 劉述先. 2004. Essays on Contemporary New Confucianism 現代新儒學之省察論集. Taipei: Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. ——— 劉述先. 2007a. “Democratic Ideal and Practice: A Critical Reflection.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34.2: 257-275. ——— 劉述先. 2007b. The Revival of Confucianism 儒學的復興. Hong Kong: Cosmos. (An anthology containing Liu’s lectures, interviews, and articles on various topics including his own intellectual development, the development of Confucianism, global ethic and interreligious dialogue, etc.) ——— 劉述先. 2010. The Paradigm Reconstruction and Interpretation of Confucian Philosophy 儒家哲學的典範重構與詮釋. Taipei: Wanjuanlou. (An anthology containing discussions on the elaborations and development of contemporary Neo-Confucianism and investigations into Song Neo-Confucianism.) ——— 劉述先. 2011. “Reflection on Glocalization from a Neo-Confucian Perspective.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38.1: 105-117. (An article illustrating the possibility of glocalization and interreligious or intercultural understanding via the idea of “one pattern, many manifestations.”) ——— 劉述先. 2013. “A Reinterpretation and Reconstruction of Confucian Philosophy.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 40, supplement: 239-250. (An article that explains Confucianism as a spiritual tradition, highlights its core ideas, and develops especially the concept of “one pattern, many manifestations” that can enrich the debate between universalism and particularism.) ——— 劉述先. 2015. The Three Epochs of Confucian Philosophy 論儒家哲學的三個大時代. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. (Liu’s speeches for the Ch’ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture in 2005 at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which explicate his views on pre-­ Qin Confucianism, Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, and contemporary New Confucianism.) Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1968. The Substance of Heart-mind and the Substance of Human Nature (Vol. 1) 心體與性體 (第一冊). Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju. ——— 牟宗三. 1984. From Lu Xiangshan to Liu Jishan  從陸象山到劉蕺山. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. ——— 牟宗三. 1985. Moral Idealism 道德的理想主義. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. Rošker, Jana S. 2016. The Rebirth of the Moral Self: The Second Generation of Modern Confucians and their Modernization Discourses. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Swidler, Leonard. (ed.). 1999. For All Life: Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic: An Interreligious Dialogue. Ashland: White Cloud Press. Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1986. Cultural Consciousness and Moral Rationality 文化意識與道德理性. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. ——— 唐君毅. 2011. On the Drifting Away of Chinese Culture 說中華民族之花果飄零. Taipei: Sanmin shuju. Tu, Weiming 杜维明. 2002. “Body and the Embodied Knowing” 身体与体知. In GUO Qiyong 郭 齐勇 and ZHENG Wenlong 郑文龙, eds., The Collection of Tu Weiming (Vol. 5) 杜维明文集( 第五册). Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe. ——— 杜维明. 2014. “On ‘Embodied Knowing’ of Confucianism: The Implication of Moral Knowing” 論儒家的“體知”——德性之知的涵義. In KONG Xianglai 孔祥來 and CHEN Peiyu 陳佩玉, eds., Selected Writings of Tu Weiming on Thought and Scholarship 杜維明思想 學術文選. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Wang, Yangming 王陽明. 2014. Complete Works of WANG Yangming  王陽明全集. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.

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Watson, Burton. (tr.). 2013. The Complete Translation of Zhuangzi. New  York: Columbia University Press. Wei, Zhengtong 韋政通. 1989. Confucianism and Modernization 儒家與現代化. Taipei: Buffalo Book Co. Xiong, Shili 熊十力. 1973. The Primary Sequel to the Selected Sayings of Shili 十力語要初續. Taipei: Letian chubanshe. Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀. 2002. “The Culture of the Heart-mind” 心的文化. In An Anthology on the History of Chinese Thought 中國思想史論集. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. Yu, Yingshi 余英時. 1996. A Discourse on Contemporary Confucianism 現代儒學論. River Edge, N. J.: Global Publishing Co. Inc.

Onto-Generative Hermeneutics: Cheng Chung-Ying’s Philosophy of Understanding and Truth On-cho Ng

1  Situating Onto-Generative Hermeneutics The problem of interpretation and understanding has for quite some time taken center stage in the humanities. Much thinking and theorizing has been engendered in the domain of textual exegesis and cultural analysis, based on the rather amorphous, but also analytically catalytic, notion of intersubjective understanding (Verstehen). The central goal of such rumination is the apprehension, through the hermeneutic process, of the deep meaning embedded in texts (including social and cultural landscapes) and generated by events and actions. This process is more than exegesis that aims to arrive at a correct understanding or true knowledge, in the sense of comprehending a scientific theorem or proposition; it is the quest for authentic understanding as a generative and continuing process that is human living and flourishing. Hermeneutics as a broadly capacious and putatively comprehensive philosophical approach is based on what can be called the hermeneutic imperative of existence, that is, in order to live, one cannot dispense with the need to read, interpret, and understand, and this intricate process inexorably involves the historical situatedness and contingent circumstances of the one who lives, and thus who interprets. Interpretation is thus the constant immersion of the subject in the process of seeking and reaching understanding. In this broadly defined hermeneutics, the focus is no longer simply on interpretation but also increasingly on understanding itself, whose relation with the readers’ psychology as the subjective component of comprehension is intimate, if not inextricable. Dilthey’s philosophy of understanding premised on Erlebnis (experience), further mediated and elaborated by Heidegger and Gadamer, has very much become a philosophical mainstream (Kubin 2005; Pan and Xin 1995: 215–217). A notable and important recent tributary of this mainstream is O. Ng (*) Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_15

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Cheng Chung-ying’s theory of interpretation, which not only enriches, amplifies, and complements, but also challenges and subverts, the European espousal. That Cheng is suitably positioned and equipped for this critical task owes much to his intellectual development. After completing an undergraduate degree in the Foreign Literature Department at National Taiwan University in 1955, he pursued graduate studies in the University’s Philosophy Research Institute, becoming a student of Fang Dongmei. He began his graduate training in Philosophy at the University of Washington, where he obtained his M.A. upon the submission of a thesis on G. E. Moore’s epistemology in 1958. In the fall of that year, he entered Harvard University’s Philosophy Department, where he specialized in logic, philosophy of mathematics, and scientific epistemology, producing a doctoral dissertation on epistemological questions in the philosophy of C. S. Peirce and C. I. Lewis in 1963. He also commenced thereafter his academic career in the Philosophy Department at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, where he is still currently based, despite numerous scholarly sojourns in a vast array of academic institutions all over the world. Cheng’s early publications, understandably, explored Peirce’s inductive logic, but already in 1965, he published his first article in English on “classical Chinese logic,” which paved the way for his entry into the terrains of Chinese and comparative philosophy, the goal of which was to enhance our understanding of the Anglo-­ European philosophical traditions while exploring the ways of using this new understanding to further and expand our account and construal of Chinese philosophical counterparts. An example of this amalgamation and commingling is his 1971 philosophical translation of Dai Zhen’s essay, “Yuan shan (original goodness)” (Cheng 1971), in which he brought his western philosophical insight to bear on Dai’s intellectual concerns. This cross-cultural exploration over the years led to Cheng’s systematic philosophical endeavor of constructing a hermeneutics that gets at the heart of the acts of reading and understanding as deep human experiences that are rooted in the being of reality itself (Pfister 2008: 62–71; Cheng 2008: 1–28). It is fair to say that Cheng has been continuing and expanding Heidegger’s effort to reframe Kant’s answer to the fundamental question of just what humanity is, thereby engendering hermeneutics in the contemporary sense. For Heidegger, Kant’s averment of the unknowability of the thing-in-itself forestalls the transcending of phenomena. While Kantian deontology might be applied to an individualized, determined, and unalterable world, its effectual practicality in the variegated and diverse human world might be limited. In the end, Heidegger is dissatisfied with Kant’s identifying natural laws with human laws, which renders humanity into an object. The latter’s categorical imperatives, being entirely objective and transcendent, and therefore ultimately inhuman, cannot take full account of the question of what humanity is. Heidegger seeks to enliven and substantiate his own metaphysics with an authentic anthropology. Humanity, in terms of Sein (Being), cannot be reduced to an object. Human beings are acting subjects with lived experience (Erleben), defying static categorization and knowledge. To figure out the what-ness, as it were, of things in human terms entails investigation of its how-ness and why-­ ness. Truth, therefore, is grounded on the self-disclosure of Being, which acts freely

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and reveals itself. In that sense, being is the foundation of hermeneutics insofar as hermeneutics is Being’s activity, and this resultant ontological hermeneutics thus serves as the new basis of metaphysics. Instead of trying to enhance our knowledge of the world by correct methods (epistemology), Heidegger seeks to penetrate the conditions in which human beings possess, and indeed are, the world (ontology). Understanding is not the result of method with which we arrive at correct interpretation of things. Rather, it is integrally a part of our primal being-in-the-world. It is well known that he uses the concept and term Dasein (being-there) to convey the idea that as we apprehend things, we are also apprehended by them. Our reflection on them cannot be separated from our relationship with them (Tran 2015: 1–13). Gadamerian hermeneutics aims at deconstructing and dismantling the scientistic conception of reality that grew out of the Cartesian philosophical project, which was further strengthened by Kant’s universalizable moral imperative based on pure practical reason, so much so that modes of knowledge outside the remit of the scientific method have been given short shrift. For Gadamer, the resulting knowledge is conceptually disembodied, narrowly instrumental, and mechanistically technical, neglecting the fundamental problems of humanity by objectifying them. One may say that Gadamer seeks to reveal the ontological structures of understanding, whose foundation was the historical tradition, as opposed to some free-standing objectivity according to which interpretations are engendered and manufactured. New understanding unfolds within and out of history primarily as the retrieval of tradition (How 1995: 36–100). As such, it can be aptly described, in Paul Ricoeur’s words, “hermeneutics of faith” (Ricouer 1981: 6, 34). To this German strain of hermeneutic approaches we must add the French postmodernist and deconstructionist ones, which view with suspicion the Enlightenment espousals of universality, truth, rationality, and progress. Theorists like Foucault and Derrida locate the human subject forever in a precarious and liminal situation of discursive indeterminacy and historical contingency. Deconstructionist theory repudiates the assumption that texts have intentional, retrievable meanings, whereas upholders of the Enlightenment tradition maintain the recuperability of authorial intentions and textual meanings (Scott Jr 1987: 130–158). Thus, despite the paradigmatic call for the recovery and decoding of meaning as authentic human understanding, there is no consensus as to what hermeneutics is. Interpretation and understanding are protean exercises, once we consider the multi-­ layered relations between the texts, understood in the broadest sense, and the readers, the surety and status of meaning and significance quickly dissolve. This brief rehearsal of some the main Western hermeneutic approaches, which limns a picture of fissure, is precisely the fitting prolegomenon that we need for an examination of Cheng Chung-ying’s onto-generative hermeneutics. First, Cheng’s innovative philosophy of onto-generative hermeneutics takes its initial cues from Western theories, even though in its mature form, it draws from Aristotelean realism, Whiteheadian creativity, notions of change in the Yijing, and Zhu Xi’s cosmo-ontological metaphysics of pattern (li 理) and matter (qi 氣). This polytropism, though underpinned by deep understanding of what Confucian and Chinese thoughts are, is the result of Cheng’s employment of and engagement with the Western conceptual tools outlined

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above. Second, Cheng’s thought is a direct response to what he perceives to the weakness and incompleteness of the Western hermeneutic approaches in that they are confined by the narrow, epistemological bounds of Western theories of reading, interpretation, and understanding, which his theory seeks to transcend. Third, Cheng’s response to, and engagement with, both the Chinese and Westerns traditions and traits of hermeneutic thinking, amounts to a conscious form of global philosophy which is, in its essentials, intercultural comparative philosophy. What animates Cheng’s hermeneutic thought is his ambitious transcultural agenda of bridging elements from the West and China. Needless to say, in specific cultural and historical terms, there are distinctly Chinese and Western philosophical approaches, produced in varying space and time. We may continue to read and interpret these traditions and their canonical texts and classics so as to understand their respective worldviews, sense of reality, and vision of truth. But their ability to tell us just what truths (or truth claims) matter in a specific cultural setting, in our cosmopolis, has global implications, to the extent that it is by taking into account the different versions of “truths” as best we can that we may come to know the world. Therefore, the classics of China and the West are more than historical artifacts; they are trans-historical documents, insofar as they contribute to our understanding of the global world in which we now live. There must be some degree of universalizability of both the Chinese and Western approaches. Plato’s Republic is worthy of reading but so is the Analects. Thus, when we read today, we must read trans-­ historically and cross-culturally, that is, comparatively. This epistemological presumption of inevitable comparison is the raison d’être of Cheng’s hermeneutic thinking—we read not in isolation but in concert with each other.

2  I nterlocution with Gadamer and the Unfolding of Onto-Generative Hermeneutics First and foremost, Cheng’s principal interlocutor is Gadamer, with whom he thinks and whom he personally met in Heidelberg on May 17, 2000 at Gadamer’s invitation (Cheng 2008: 18). It thus behooves us to briefly survey the ways in which Cheng’s thought interacts with, complements, and challenges Gadamer’s. As is well-known, Gadamer, following Heidegger, focuses on the historicity of the read text as well as the reader’s historical situatedness. Traditional “prejudices” are thus intrinsic to understanding, together with the reader’s “mood” (Stimmung) that conditions the interpretation of a text, which invariably contains excess of meaning, as it is a present “inexhaustible source of possibilities of meaning rather than as a passive object of investigation” (Gadamer 1976: xix). In this “fusion of horizons” of meanings, which are at once concealed and revealed in tradition, especially in traditional language use, the past comes to us as something yet to be completed, and in that the sense, the meaning of a text always transcends the intention of its author (Gadamer 1976: xxv).

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Similarly, Cheng subscribes to the idea that the historical context of a text cross-­ fertilizes with readerly imperatives, such that our reading of the Analects or the Zhouyi demands knowledge of the historical production of the texts and also the changing context of the text’s interpretation. But while Gadamer sets great store by the historical “thrownness” of a text’s meaning, thereby giving short shrift to authorial intents, Cheng sees complementarity and mutual reinforcement in the two sets of meaning: “An onto-hermeneutical reflection in my view would involve two types of considerations: the meaning of the historical development and the meaning of the theoretical construction or reconstruction of an experienced reality [i.e. text and/or tradition]” (Cheng 2000: 33). To fathom the meaning is therefore to pay due attention to its historical status while looking closely at its internal logic, so as to attain higher levels of “conceptual integration,” not only with regard to the one text but also other texts that germinated from the same tradition across time. Cheng’s notion of fusion of horizons is more expansive than Gadamer’s, arguing that later cognate texts, on account of their assertion of common authorial intent, be included in the reading of an earlier one. Small wonder that not infrequently, he brings his reading of the Mengzi or Zhongyong into his interpretation of the Analects. Cheng laments that followers of separate hermeneutic traditions are unnecessarily reductionist and exclusive, as they “establish principles of interpretation on the basis of one dimension and then interpret other dimensions by reducing them to the terms of the chosen dimension.” Cheng calls for a unified approach, especially with respect to the reading of the Ur-classic, the Yijing, in which to him, the basic lineaments of onto-­ hermeneutics can be found (Cheng 2003a: 317–324). Reading is a process of integration, unification, harmonization, and dialectics, a hermeneutic approach that is inspired by Cheng’s understanding of the dialectics of li-qi 理氣 (pattern-material force), ti-yong 體用 (substance-function), wu-you 無有 (non-existence-existence), and wuji 無極 (the great infinite) and taiji 太極 (the great ultimate) as complementary polarities, integrating the historical and the particular on the one hand, and the timeless and universal on the other (Cheng 2002:145–162). Cheng thus appeals to a principal “prejudice” in Chinese thought, which is to think in terms of the inclusive logic of both-and, instead of the Western “prejudice” of the exclusive logic of either­or. This inclusionary hermeneutic is the expression of the ontological notion of benti 本體 (the essential substance of reality/existence), which is apprehended “through the process of unifying and integrating deeply felt internal self-cultivation of the human mind and comprehensive external observation and close experience of things” (Cheng 2002: 145–162). Cheng’s hermeneutics is philosophical in the sense that the very act and process of interpretation and understanding are, in the final analysis, ontological, in that they change both the interpreting subject/reader and interpreted object/text, together with the relationship. On this score, Cheng appeals to Wang Yangming’s injunction that knowledge and practice are one and continuous. A hermeneutic reading of a text or anything at all is, to begin with, laden with the values, and therefore, it is imperative to always reread and to envisage and engender a harmonious relation between the interpreting subject and interpreted object, so that the former will not overwhelm and domesticate the latter. Cheng sees the hermeneutic process as the

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comprehensive and judicious observation of things, which leads them toward high levels of unity and creativity. Hermeneutics is thus a moral project. Our mind actively interprets the world and reality according to some perspective or other, as there is no readily available meaning in the object; nor does it arise out of the blue from the subject. For Cheng, it is always the result of the creative interaction of subject and object, which is a moral enterprise. Now, Gadamer famously proclaims, “Understanding is language-bound.” It is so because we can “only think in a language” (Gadamer 1976: 15, 62). Our inexorable relation with language is the ontological condition for our understanding of the texts that talks to us, and “the prejudices” that Gadamer refers to are always ensconced in and transmitted by the language we employ. What both Gadamer and Cheng identify as “pre-understanding” or, prereflective understanding, are these given (or in Gadamerian parlance, thrown) “prejudices” embedded in the language we use. For Gadamer, prejudice does not mean misguided thought resulting from subjective distortion of reality; rather, it is the stock of our common understanding, the foregrounding of our knowledge: “Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are conditions whereby what we encounter says something to us” (Gadamer 1976: 9). He goes on to argue that one of our legitimate prejudices is to accept authority, not because of authority’s coercive prerogative but because of our reasoned ability to recognize the superiority of another’s judgment. It is revealing that Descartes excludes morality as a subject open to reason, precisely because its tenability depends on the authority of tradition. For Gadamer, however, since prejudice is an integral part of understanding, there is no reason to regard moral authority as irrational. In fact, our moral views and responses are much determined by the tradition that envelops and precedes us. The Enlightenment’s presumption of an antithetical relationship between tradition and reason is wrong, for all reasoning takes place within tradition, which again, is not a given object but rather the ongoing outcome of our historical living. In art, and the human and social sciences, tradition is a concept of supreme importance, a fact that accounts for the centrality of the classics, which are timeless in their capacity to speak to our own historical horizons: “Timelessness is a mode of historical being” (Gadamer 1994: 277–290). This consciousness of tradition, or the manner in which we inhabit tradition, is our “historically effected consciousness” that enables the fusion of horizons, the ontological condition of understanding: “There is no more an isolated horizon of the present in itself than there are historical horizons which have to be acquired. Rather, understanding is always the fusion of these horizons supposedly existing by themselves” (Gadamer 1994: 306). On the other hand, Cheng sees the transition from prejudice to understanding through the Yijing’s concept of tong 通 (“penetrative understanding” or “to see through”), connected with the notion of guan 觀 (“comprehensive observation”). Tong and guan are thorough-going and penetrating reflection that interrupts, subverts, and eventually changes existing habits of thinking, so that we are able to see through their inadequacy, thereby proceeding to genuine, empathetic understanding of that which we observe and interpret, liberating us from old horizons and prejudices and replacing them with new ones. For Cheng, such liberating reflections on

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what Gadamer calls “the infinite unsaid” are the astute awareness that behind the horizon of an act of reading, there is the linguistic context of the entire natural language that embodies and signifies meaning. Cheng uses the example of the interpretation of the concept of the Way/dao. This specific conceptual term is a linguistic signifier of rich and multivalent embedded meanings. Cheng sees its significant meaning not in terms of any specific connotation but of the rupture it infuses into our thinking-via-language. Our hermeneutic effort here must be exerted on the background of silence, “the infinite unsaid,” which enables the articulated meanings of the dao. Through the dao, as Cheng argues, we come to know it as an open hermeneutic space, the meaning of which changes in accordance with contexts and expanding horizons of the interpreter. Dao, as with language, connotes the particular as well as the universal, the parts as well as the whole, the ontological as well as the phenomenological (Cheng 2008: 33). As he engages with and critiques Gadamer, what Cheng endeavors to achieve is to integrate the harmony and dissonance, and commonality and divergence in the different hermeneutic approaches in order to forge a systematic philosophy that accommodates diverse criteria of intelligibility for the act of interpretation and understanding. In a word, he systematically rereads the Chinese classics in light of Western hermeneutic theories in order to rebuild and reconstruct Chinese philosophy as a whole, a task he deems to be an inescapable cultural project in our global world. Fundamentally and essentially, Cheng aims to offer a critical understanding of understanding, as opposed to knowledge. He seeks to show how understanding and interpretation provide the means for giving meaning to our experience of the self and re-envisioning our knowledge of the world. His hermeneutics rejects what he calls “the subject-depressed/object-oriented model of knowing” in favor of the “subject-object integrative and relation-oriented model of understanding in relation to truth and reality.” His “onto-hermeneutical understanding” confronts and overcomes “the dualism, the abstractness and in-closure of traditional Western thinking in order to bring our thinking to a higher level of integration, creativity, openness and interrelatedness” (Cheng 2008: 17). Cheng is fundamentally dissatisfied with Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, which, according to him, “is primarily concerned with temporality-mediated understanding in art, history, language and philosophy.” What we need is “an open set of multiple criteria for judging the validity, worthiness, novelty and utility of our interpretation.” For Cheng, “interpretation is an unending process of understanding from subjectivity to intersubjectivity of a community, which has always the implicit goal of disclosing a larger truth and… search[ing] for the larger truth of ultimate.” His onto-hermeneutics does precisely that: the disclosure of the truth of the ultimate, as it is “concerned with ontology (reference) of an interpretation or an ideology, as well as the interpretation of an ideology (method of skill) or an ontology” (Cheng 2008: 18). In short, it truly integrates truth and method in ontological terms.

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3  C  hinese Philosophy as World Philosophy: the Yijing and Onto-Generative Hermeneutics Cheng’s project, in other words, is the reconstruction of Chinese philosophy as world philosophy, and conversely, the pursuit of world philosophy via Chinese philosophy. In the past few decades, Cheng has been expounding, expanding, and extending the insights and parameters of Western hermeneutics, producing a new understanding of Chinese philosophy, in accordance with which he develops what he calls an onto-hermeneutics, or onto-generative hermeneutics, which unravels not only the epistemological workings of the ineluctable human process of reading, interpreting, and understanding, but also encapsulates the ontological conditions of which the process is an integral and intrinsic expression. Tapping into the cosmological insights afforded by the Ur-classic, the Yijing, Cheng develops his onto-generative hermeneutic theory on the basis of the homo-­ cosmic dynamic unity expounded in the ancient classic. The cosmos and nature, represented by the trigrams and the hexagrams, together with their attendant clusters and configurations of meanings, are fully in consonance and in congress with culture and humanity, to the extent that the uniformity of the cosmic and human Way (dao) is the very dynamic alternation and interaction of the multiformity of yin, yang, trigrams, and hexagrams. Cosmological workings and natural happenings are resonantly felt in the world of culture, such that nature cannot be severed from culture as the thing to be studied, analyzed, controlled, harnessed and manipulated. By the same token, heaven is never conceived as an eternal Being of pure, transcendent possibilities. This very holistic integration and continuum of heaven, earth and humanity generates the vital, dialectic possibilities that animate an essentially non-­ teleological universe. As there is no transcendent eternal static being, the cosmos has no foreclosed ending. The cosmos and humanity dynamically interact and evolve in unity within the hermeneutic circle of mutual understanding and illumination. In a word, as Cheng posits, this vitalistic anthropo-cosmic ontology is the ontology of the dao, which denotes and represents the ultimate substantiality of the creative acts, the dialectical deeds, the enlivening phenomena, and the animating experiences of the experiential world. This generative ontology at once explicates and apprehends the reality of the changes and continuations of the myriad things, and it is embedded in the ancient Chinese classics, of which the Yijing is the Ur text. Cheng contends: In reflecting on the hundred schools of thoughts and learning, delving deeply into history and antique texts, staring face-to-face at the question of the origins of Chinese culture, we cannot not trace the process of the formation of the thoughts of the Zhouyi, and in the process, we come to grips with the very premise that the Zhouyi is the point of departure (shidian 始點) and point of origin (yuandian 原點) of Chinese philosophy. (Cheng 1991c: 24)

The contention is both a positive prescription and a negative critique. While positing the absolute necessity to engage with the Yijing as the foundation of Chinese philosophy, Cheng laments the historical and customary absence of due and apt attention to the early Chinese onto-cosmological precepts and concepts in many of

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the modern and contemporary efforts to refashion and rethink Chinese philosophy, evident even in the works of illustrious scholars such as Hu Shi and Feng Youlan. Their knowledge of Western philosophy notwithstanding, they do not quite achieve the result of fully integrating such knowledge into the Chinese world of thinking. Without properly taking full account of the germination and forging of the holistic onto-cosmology that lends Chinese philosophy its distinctiveness and character, what takes place is often piecemeal and forced emulation, aping, and appropriation of Western ideas, which leads to their unnatural grafting onto the supposed Chinese counterparts (Cheng 1990: 24). For Cheng, any account of the origin and the particular nature of Chinese must begin with new and renewed readings of the Yijing, which not only utilize and capitalize on Western philosophical apparatuses but also expand and extend them. Cheng’s philosophical theory and method of onto-­ generative hermeneutics is the progeny of such extension and expansion, according to which the Yijing may be understood anew and with which Chinese philosophy as a whole may be reconstructed. In short, the Classic proffers at once a method of reading reality and a truth-claim about reality’s nature—its being and becoming (Cheng 1991a: 339–340). What Cheng seeks to reveal is the holistic onto-cosmology that the Yijing both embodies and explicates. He remarks: People who currently study the Yijing tend to overly concentrate on the parts, falling into the trap of representing the whole with the piecemeal. Those who work on the symbols and numerology (xiangshu 像數) often ignore the moral meanings and principles (yili 義理), while those who work on the meanings and principles often reject the symbols and numerology. In fact, the Yijing itself, as a self-conscious activity of thinking without reference to some fixed sense of Being, and as a philosophical cosmological system, is, on the one hand, an epistemological entity that integrates multiplicities into the one, and on the other, a conceptual entity that incorporates analysis and integration. (Cheng 1991b: 308–309)

As Cheng explains, the Yijing is a dynamic, multi-layered text with plural dimensions and significances, inscribing a dramaturgy of cosmological signs and symbols, prescribing a vocabulary of divinatory declarations, and describing a philosophic world view of moral being and well-being. It comprises the four strata or components of images (xiang 像), numbers (shu 數), meanings (yi 義), and principles (li 理), which nonetheless share the same source (yuan 源), and which, in conjunction with and in relation to one another, constitute one entity/body/substance (ti 體) (Cheng 1990: 2–3). What preoccupies and concerns Cheng is the ways in which we may philosophically pry open and shed light on the Yijing’s unique integration of the many and the one, the diverse and the same, the divergent and the synthetic, which is its very dao (Way). Yi-cum-dao is “the very essence of the cosmos’s order and changes, which is also manifested as the creativity of the notion of change and the architectonics of change…. Accordingly, the Way of the Yi[jing] is simultaneously the subject and object of the conceptualization and systematization of the [idea of] yi (changes). Thus, the Way of change is the point of origin and living fountainhead of Chinese philosophical thinking” (Cheng 1995: 10–15). This Way of the Yijing is first and foremost the result of the experience of change and the experiential data that derive from it. From the experience of change (and the experiential data of changes) in the

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world of natural phenomena and human interactions comes the holistic and dynamic philosophical construal of the world and the universe as dialectically integrated and harmonious: plurality may be unified in oneness, polarity synthesized, opposites resolved, parts made whole (Lin 2005: 75–78). One of Cheng’s most insightful and systematic contributions to the rebuilding of Chinese philosophy rests precisely on his profound pondering of Yi-cum-dao, or the Way of the Classic of Changes, in onto-hermeneutic terms. The Yijing is at once an embodiment and exemplification of the cosmos, with the events and phenomena therein, as an onto-hermeneutic system and enterprise. It tells us and represents for us what the world is all about—its truths—and shows how it can be understood through proper observation, reading, and interpretation—its method. It supplies the “underlying paradigm or model of understanding of reality and truth,” as Cheng claims; it is the “onto-hermeneutic tradition” in Chinese culture (Cheng 2003b: 289–312). That the truth of reality, and the method of identifying and apprehending it, are not and cannot be separate speaks to the ontological fact that there is “the ultimate source from which understanding for interpretation is to be given and in view of which understanding or justification of interpretation is to be derived.” This “ultimate source” is the “standard of reality and truth” that “must remain basically unchanged.” It is, in a way, the way of the Yi, construed as change (bianyi 變易), changelessness/constancy (buyi 不易), and simplicity (jianyi 簡易). Cheng illustrates how this serves and functions as a hermeneutic source or standard: This suggests for me three stages and three levels of hermeneutical understanding: on the surface there are received texts that reflect a given understanding of a subject-matter which is open to interpretation, then there is the subject-matter of which interpretations can be made or are required to be made, and finally there is the ultimate source from which understanding for interpretation is to be given and in view of which justification of interpretation is to be derived. (Cheng 2003a: 290)

Such hermeneutics is perforce ontological because it requires ascent “to the level where ontological reference to both the subject and the object in a unified experience of the ultimate reality is required to be made clear” (Cheng 2003b: 290). In other words, both the act of interpreting, and the interpretation produced, speak to ultimate reality as an implicit presumption or an explicit fact. Cheng is precise in distinguishing Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics from his own onto-generative hermeneutics, which he deduces and distills from the Yijing in particular, and Chinese thought/culture, in general. Cheng aptly and duly lauds Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory for pinpointing the most important fact and condition in the act of human understanding: in any construction of reality through interpretation, including scientific ones, the human subject is inexorably relevant, in that its effective historical situatedness renders whatever is studied and interpreted finite and open-ended. This recognition of the inescapable relevance of the human subject for any rational inquiry, humanistic or scientific, is Gadamer’s unmistakable contribution. But it is not thorough-going enough. Cheng seeks to pursue hermeneutics “as a way of understanding the world both phenomenologically and ontologically,” a “hermeneutic enterprise” with a more profound basis or root. Cheng defines the enterprise as follows:

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In this light, the movement from tradition of exegetical interpretation to philosophical interpretation and to onto-hermeneutical interpretation represents a process of emancipation from a given tradition, a text, and a given form of language so that the tradition, the text, and the form of language could be reformulated, renovated, enriched, and even innovatively transformed. In the West such an emancipation has brought out the discipline of “philosophical hermeneutics” beyond exegesis. Now we can do the same for Chinese philosophical hermeneutical understanding in bringing out patterns and principles of understanding beyond exegetical practice. Not only can we do this, but we can also look forward to embrace [sic.] and incorporate [sic.] methodological insights of exegesis, the subject-­ oriented reflective insights of the Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics, as well as the analytical constructive theories of scientific and logical knowledge, into an integrated theory of human understanding relative to our interpretation of human existence and reality. This we may title as the hermeneutic enterprise. (Cheng 2003a: 290; cf. Ng 2003: 373–385; Ng 2007: 383–395)

Specifically in terms of the Yijing, the process of the formation of the very text itself, interpreted and understood onto-hermeneutically, discloses a comprehensive and holistic—that is, onto-cosmological—interpretation of the universe and reality, represented in different stages or levels: Observation guan 觀/cha察 → Symbolization xiang (像 the images)/gua (卦 the trigrams and hexagrams)/yao (爻 the lines of the trigrams and hexagrams)/ci (辭 the definitions and explanations of the lines)→Systematization tong 通/wen 文/yan 言/shu 書→Divination bu 卜/zhen 貞/ shi 筮/zhan 占→Interpretation ming 明/jie 解. Here is a pristine hermeneutic circle, “a circulation of attribution and regulation of meaning in light of experience and understanding of a given situation in the world reality” (Cheng 2003a: 296). In this interpretive circle, according to Cheng, we see the interpenetration of the interpreting human subject and the interpreted cosmic object. There is the collapse of the subject-object/theory-action dichotomous relations, insofar as the observer is integrally and inexorably a part of the cosmos that is described and divined. To see more clearly how this hermeneutic circle is animated and realized, and how the Yijing presupposes and prescribes an onto-hermeneutical way of apprehending and comprehending world-reality and life-world, we may concentrate on the seminal and foundational notion of guan (觀 comprehensive observation), which is also the name of the twentieth hexagram. To put it in the simplest terms, to begin with, comprehensive observation inspires, informs, and initiates the systematic representations of the forms and actions of phenomena, things, and lives in nature. The Xici 繫辭 (The Great Commentary) has this to say about the process: In the ancient time when Fu Xi reigned in the world, he observed heavenly forms upward and observed regularities of earthly things downward. He observed the patterns of shapes and habits among birds and beasts and their fitting environments on earth. He gathered information from nearby things as well as from distant objects. Consequently he started to make the eight trigrams for the purpose of penetrating into the powers of the divine and the clear and in order to sort our things according to natures (true states) of the ten thousand things (Cheng 2003a: 299–300). Thus guan (comprehensive observation) empathetically and sympathetically yields xiang (像 forms and images representing various aspects of the cosmos and its workings, i.e., the trigrams and hexagrams), our encounter and experience with

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which in turn engenders gan (感 feelings) and ying (應 responses) toward them. Guan, gan, and ying thus together forge a causally dialectic, and dialectically causal, chain of emotion, sensation, perception, conation, conception, and cognition. As we confront and communicate with the very things/events/phenomena (as opposed to mental fabrications) in concrete situations and contexts of the world/reality, we observe, we perceive, we conceive, we feel, and we respond, and not always necessarily in that order. We let nature come to us and speak to us; we do not reduce things to mere objects for discursive dissection and analysis; we do not render things into purely phenomenological ideations. We not only observe, apprehend, and embody realities as they appear to and impinge on us in concrete contexts, but we also, in the process, experience them in their fullness.

4  Principles and Lineaments of Onto-Hermeneutics From the Yijing, Cheng develops several onto-epistemological principles, according to which an ethically and morally inclined person embarks on self-cultivation, engages with social relations, and becomes ultimately identified with heaven. These principles overcome the constraint of logical positivism and spurn the narrow quest for cognitive understanding through abstract and abstruse metaphysical speculation, by speaking on behalf of moral reflection and rectification. The first such principle is the “principle of comprehensive observation,” revealed in and exemplified by the Yijing’s notion of guan (lit., to view and see), that is, the careful and wide-ranging investigation of the whole of the universe, symbolically and graphically represented by the hexagrams, such that one appreciates and apprehends the world’s multiple dimensions—the natural, the cosmological, the moral, and the transcendent (Cheng 1995: 156–203). The second principle is the “principle of congruence of reciprocal feelings,” which centers on one’s knowledge of and engagement with humanity, and according to which life is construed and conceived as an entangling field of moral sentiments, wherein one cultivates the ability to feel the sentiments of others and thereby experiences reality as it really is. Through analogical thinking and reasoning that places one in others’ shoes, one comes to know and appreciate the sufferings of others and consequently develops the moral virtue of empathetic care for others. The third principle is the “principle of practice and self-cultivation,” which demands the constant realization of knowledge through action, given the existential fact that knowledge is always in a dynamic flux, whose acquisition and apprehension depends on one’s incessant expansion of the dao through adaptation, adjudication, adjustment and amelioration. In short, the theoria of knowledge must always be completed and fulfilled by the praxis of deed, achieving the simultaneity and oneness of knowing and acting. The fourth principle is the “principle of unity of virtues and reason,” based on the Confucian injunction of “rectification of names” (zhengming 正名). Identifying the names that represent the multifarious parts and aspects of reality is a rational

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process, but it is also invested and infused with moral meaning and character. Reality, in order for it to be real, has to be at once recognized and rectified, such that a description of it can be said to be true. For instance, a father no longer merits the name of a father if he does not in fact act in ways that befit and become a father. While recognition is epistemological in the sense that it is based on rational cognition, it must in the end be complemented by the existentially ethico-moral rectification. Together, recognition and rectification forge an axiological order of values that guide and inform our efforts to arrive at an accurate representation of the aspects and facets of reality, so as to ensure the coherence of names and their actualities (Cheng 2000: 40–43). To wit, a son does not lose sight of (i.e., recognition) what a son should constantly be doing (i.e., rectification). These onto-epistemological principles form the interpretive basis for the onto-­ generative hermeneutic enterprise of understanding reality in relation to humanity, while paying due attention to the cosmological and ontological imperatives. In its essentials, this grand enterprise is premised on the originary insights from the Yijing, but it also finds philosophical support from the Mengzian conception of human nature, from which, according to Cheng, may be distilled two fundamental principles of hermeneutic understanding. The first, in his words, is the “principle of ontological reference by way of unification and harmonization.” This principle is based on the understanding that xing 性 (nature), in the Mengzian sense, is not static but ceaselessly in the process of becoming. It must be so because the cultivation of the self generates not only knowledge of human nature but also that of human morals and culture, through which the self is ultimately transformed in a way that it actually comes to know and be one with heaven (tian 天). Thus, in Mengzian philosophical anthropology, xing is cultural and social experience—one lives out xing’s potentiality by realizing its coevality and identity with heaven as one fully immerses oneself in the englobing cultural, social, and historical worlds. In onto-hermeneutic terms, because the reading and interpretation of anything at all requires reference to some ontological imperative that brings cohesion to varied perspectives and gives voice to diverse manifestations, the interpretation and understanding of xing unfold and unravel as part of the ontology of tian that unifies and harmonizes the hermeneutic processes. The second fundamental hermeneutic principle that Cheng deduces from the Mengzian philosophical anthropology is that of “practical application and constructive participation.” It is an elaboration and extension of the third onto-­ epistemological principle of completing knowledge with action, insofar as it seeks not only to fulfill our good intentions acquired in the process of knowing on an individual basis, but also to create collectively a humane society and moral community by fully realizing our humanity, ren 仁 (Cheng 2000: 44–53; Chen 2000: 110–112).

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5  Onto-Hermeneutics in Action: The Epistemic Virtue of Cheng (Truthfulness) Such is the outline of Cheng Chung-ying’s onto-hermeneutics, informed and inspired by the onto-generative world view that issues forth from the Yijing, buttressed by the Mengzian understanding of the human, the humane, and humanity itself. But my rehearsal so far of Cheng’s systematically developed onto-generative hermeneutics is only useful in identifying its sources and sketching its lineaments. It is a reportage, or description, of Cheng’s richly textured construal of truth and method. More needs to be done. Based on my understanding of his philosophy, how can my passive-objective observation be developed into my active-subjective engagement with its implications? Just how meaningfully can it be cast in other philosophical contexts? What does it offer in practico-philosophical terms? How, in the first place, can this grand architectonic theory be brought down to earth, as it were, such that it is always part of our daily living? Indeed, most recently, Cheng has been pondering the significance of cheng 誠 (truthfulness) as a crucial component of his grand theory of understanding. This is of signal importance as the virtue of cheng may be regarded as the most personal expression of onto-hermeneutic apprehension of the quintessence of human living as well as the ultimate reality of the cosmos. As the individuation of homo-cosmic truth, cheng articulates the most intimate human impulse and desire to interpret and to understand. While cheng has no doubt been extensively studied as a cardinal virtue-cum-goal in the Confucian self-cultivation, Cheng offers a systematic exploration by pursuing a deep reading of the Ur-texts, from the Yijing, through the Zhongyong, to the Mengzi. What emerges from Cheng’s analysis is a complex conception of cheng with the three continuous and interrelated dimensions of knowing, being, and moral goodness, which together form a unity. As such, cheng is both human understanding of reality and realization of human nature. First, to translate cheng as “truthfulness” is first and foremost to see cheng as truthful knowing that must be expressed in our language. Second, such knowing is grounded in our ontological sense of reality, which fundamentally comes from our experience of knowing the world and expressing it in our language. It is the ontological and cosmological insight that enables us to see our very human being as integrally a part and parcel of cosmic reality in the grandest and deepest sense. Third, the ontologically and cosmologically grounded knowledge is revealed and disclosed in our reflection on our self as moral goodness and worthiness. It is then that we may say cheng is a virtue within us. Thus, cheng, with its three dimensions, is a constantly generative onto-cosmology which is the reality that we may know objectively, to the extent that we can recognize it in ourselves as we embark on reflection, which, however, is also reliant on the subjective self that is endowed with the natural ability and disposition of truthful knowing and moral action. In short, cheng-qua-truthfulness, is at once the reading and understanding of reality that is recognized and realized in our very human living as the fundamental virtue of having moral goodness. It is an epistemological, onto-cosmological, and moral-ethical

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unity. According to Cheng, through cheng, we come to see the fundamental difference between Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy—the former presumes the continuity of knowing, being and acting in the deepest metaphysical sense, insofar as they are rooted in the same one source, whereas the latter posits their separation. In epistemologically terms, as knowledge and knowing, cheng, as it is used in the Yijing, is an experienced quality that reflects the unity of the world and the person, because if one is sincere, one is able to represent the true in describing the world. To use words that are truthful, not only as self-knowledge but also as communication with others, is thus a virtue. Cheng uses the Wenyan commentary on the 9-3 of the Qian hexagram to illustrate this intrication, according to his translation: A superior man makes efforts to advance his virtues and cultivate his deeds. To be loyal and truthful, it is the way to advance one’s virtues; to cultivate one’s language so that one would establish one’s truthfulness, it is the way how one carries on his deed. He would then know where knowledge arrives and knows it correctly, and he is capable of participating in the beginnings of things with others. He would also know where to stop (his language) when his knowledge ends. He would be able to preserve the right principles with others. (Cheng 2018: 40)

That is, to be cheng (truthful, sincere) in one’s language is to be truthful to, and thus to know, reality. Cheng also uses this statement from Analects 13.11 to argue his point: “How true [cheng] is the saying [yan] that after a state has been ruled for a hundred years by good men it is possible to get the better of cruelty and to do away with killing.” Cheng here is a truth-making quality, “an epistemic virtue,” as Cheng puts it, expressing the truth that we know, namely that the rulership of good [shan] men brings an end to cruelty and carnage. This cheng is what enables Mengzi to claim that “[a]ll things are already complete within me.” That is, my ability to experience the truthfulness of the world, distinguishing it from the false, makes possible my knowing the truth of everything. In fact, the Yijing’s graphic and symbolic representation of reality stems from this conviction in the intimate relation between language and truth, such that the function of the trigrams and hexagrams is to make truthful reference to the world. And if language loses its truthfulness, reality is distorted. Hence the Xici (the Great Commentary) avers: “The words of a man who plans revolt are confused. The words of a man who entertains doubt in his inmost heart are ramified. The words of a man of good fortune are few. Excited men use many words. Slanderers of good men are roundabout in their words. The words of a man who has lost his standpoint are twisted” (Cheng 2018: 42). Cheng also interprets cheng as in onto-cosmological terms, regarding it as a quality of the world and our nature, to the extent that our nature is in accord and continuous with the way of heaven; to wit, ultimate reality. On this score, he finds his textual evidence from the Zhongyong, based on which he constructs a theory of cheng as onto-cosmology, with five theses and three principles. The five theses are: first, cheng as the onto-cosmological unity of heaven and human nature; second, cheng as the source of goodness embodied in the human person; third, cheng as the way of understanding and embodying the way; fourth, cheng as creative basis for

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self-completion and fulfillment of nature; and fifth, cheng as the realization of the creativity of the way of heaven and earth. The first thesis of the unity of heaven and human nature is best illustrated by the statement that “[w]hat heaven determines is nature” (天命之謂性), in which an onto-cosmological truth is expressed as a proposition of language, as indicated by the words, “zhiwei 之謂,” which, in making a definition, is also making a truth-­ claim: it is heaven that determines nature. The second thesis of the embodiment of the good finds expression in the Zhongyong’s notion of chengshen (誠身): making one’s action truthful, meaning embarking on actions that are based on one’s nature and one’s knowledge of what will fulfill one’s nature. As in the case of caring for one’s parents, action is not merely playing a part or assuming a role; it is driven by a moral end, such that action is the realization of one’s nature. If one is sincere, one is illuminated, and if one is illuminated, one may realize one’s end (誠則明矣, 明則 誠矣). The Zhongyong in fact limns an onto-hermeneutic circle: truthful understanding of one’s nature yields the good through the process of instruction (自誠明, 謂之性, 自明誠, 謂之教). The third thesis of embodying the way presumes the impossibility of knowing the world a priori, such that it must be experienced fully, by way of what the Zhongyong calls broad learning (boxue 博學), investigative inquiry (shenwen 审 問), careful deliberation (shensi 慎思), clear discrimination (mingbian 明辨), and ardent acting (duxing 篤行). The fourth thesis of realizing nature so that one becomes truly oneself is encapsulated by the concept of “truly fulfilling the way” (chengzhi 誠之), made possible by the pursuit of “the Way of unifying the outer with the inner (he neiwai zhi dao 合外内之道) in a timely manner (gu shicuo zhi yi 故時措之宜).” Finally, the last thesis of realizing cosmic creativity is revealed in the Zhongyong’s description of the creative transformation of the way of heaven and earth as “the supreme state of truth” (zhicheng 至誠), which is ceaseless (wuxi 無 息), echoing the Xici’s statement, “The generation of things and life is called the creative change (shengsheng zhi wei yi 生生之謂易).” This cosmic process manifests itself in the human world, so that “it is only the supremely sincere person who is capable of holding and managing the world affairs from great canons of law and thus establish the great principles of governing through knowing the nourishing principles of heaven and earth” (Cheng 2018: 48–49). These five theses of the cheng-based onto-cosmology may be furthered distilled into the three basic principles of self-realization—the unity of heaven and earth (tianren heyi 天人合一), the unity of the inner and the outer (he neiwai 合内外), and the unity of knowledge and action (zhixing heyi 知行 合一)—which constitute the paradigmatic Chinese onto-cosmological patterns of the workings of reality. In short, cheng must be understood as the basic moral quality of humanity that is the source of all the virtues, with epistemic, ethical, and cosmic expressions. Cheng concludes that this reading of cheng enables to see how Confucianism is, in its essentials, a philosophy of truthful living. Cheng cannot be reduced to any descriptive, philosophical account of human existence.

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6  Onto-Hermeneutics as a Philosophy of Interculturality In light of Cheng’s philosophical insights, especially his most recent thinking concerning cheng as the most intimate, human encapsulation of his onto-generative hermeneutics, it seems we may well understand the practical import of Cheng’s thought as a philosophy of intercultural interaction. His two fundamental hermeneutic principles of the “principle of ontological reference by way of unification and harmonization” and “the principle of practical application and constructive participation” explicitly address how human beings may interrelate. Cheng squarely locates the human in the cultural and social domains of reality—that is, by being cheng—while recognizing their cosmological and ontological moorings. Being and becoming, that is, life and lived experiences, are not the repository and process of pure possibilities. They take shape in cultural terms, yielding in time the synchronic and diachronic wholeness and unity of a particular way of life that is transmitted and expanded, such that the lives of the people are embodied in particular norms and values of morality, beauty, art, thought, family, government, science, literature, education, and so on. To the extent that Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics offers us a cogent account of cultural activity, not as a search for universally valid foundations for human action and knowledge, but as the dynamic quest for meaning and intelligibility in interpretive contexts that have ontological grounds, it may function as a philosophy of culture. At the same time that this philosophy rejects the relativity of human existence, on account of the ontological imperative that integrates diverse perspectives and multiple voices, it insists on the context-dependent character of meanings, stemming from particular horizons of intelligibility. Thus, this philosophy of cultural togetherness, premised on individual cheng, consciously discovers the realities of culture, by which we mean the totality of the historical and contemporary experiences of a community that is constituted by language, history, geography, rituals, customs, ideas, and ways of life. To the extent that this philosophy calls for our action, it cannot be something that is reduced to theoretical speculation. It is praxis, a way of making sense and coming to grips with life and the reality in which we live. Since culture defines us and we are a part of it, it is something paramount and antecedent to us in that it offers the grounds and roots of reading and understanding. Yet at the same time, we also are also makers of culture, both individually and collectively. Culture is the domain in which we cultivate ourselves and make the world, such that we become fully human. As Cheng Chung-ying shows, the Yijing brings to light a hermeneutic circle of interpreting the universe and reality, beginning with the empathetic and comprehensive act of discerning observation, or guan/cha, which yields a symbolic and semiotic representation of the cosmos by way of the images, or xiang/gua/yao/ci, which are further systematized with the verbal explications of tong/wen/yan/shu, and the divinatory speculations of bu/zhen/shi/zhan, which culminate in interpretations, or ming/jie, that give meaning to the experience and the understanding of a given situation in world reality. Thus, things in nature and events in culture always are in concert with each other, inexorably commingled and inextricably related, to the

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extent that everything that humanity confronts and encounters, regardless of how natural a thing is said to be, is by dint simultaneously cultural. Things are, in the final analysis, representations of human consciousness, even if they are different from the artificial ones, such as ideas about beauty, morals, or justice. While all these realities, be they natural or cultural, may be considered and regarded as objects, as they are projections of our mind, onto-generative hermeneutics does not see our knowledge of a thing encountered—or the other—in accordance with the scientific (or Cartesian) model of grasping an object. Instead, the thing/text/other is a dialogue partner who can change us as we expand our horizons to understand this partner. This is so because the corollary of guan is gan (feelings) and ying (responses). Guan-gan-ying in action constitutes a model of knowing/understanding that exceeds the unilateral knowing of an object. Unilateral understanding dispenses with the object’s view by controlling the rules of the process and content of knowing. It does not pay due attention to whether the derived understanding does in the end distort the other. By way of unilateral knowing, one makes sense of an object by arriving at some explanatory language that excludes other possibilities, and in such a manner, an object comes under the complete dominion of one’s “understanding” and is counted as “knowledge.” By contrast, the model of knowledge that guan-gan-ying engenders presupposes no such finality. In our global age, this alternative model seems to offer some essential means and ends for empathetic intercultural understanding. As we seek to understand something about another culture, say culture X, in concrete situations or ideational contexts, we observe, conceive, feel, and respond, letting it speak to us, or in Gadamerian terms, we take it as our dialogue partner, and as such, it cannot be reduced to an object of mere discursive interest. Moreover, new understanding emerges when culture X is discussed with another dialogue partner, say, culture Y. What must also be borne in mind is that our understandings of our various dialogue partners themselves are also in dynamic flux, thereby constantly revised, refined and expanded (Cf. Taylor 2002: 126–142). Such a model of understanding offers a remedy to what Richard Bernstein famously calls the “Cartesian anxiety,” the hopeless and despairing quest for unshakeable grounds for ethical and epistemological certitude (Bernstein 1983: 2). Transposed as a theory of culture (or interculture), onto-generative hermeneutics appeals not to universal values, or cultural universals, but instead asserts cultural variants, affirming an interculturality that rejects universal standards and stability by teaching us that meaning is context-­ dependent and context-sensitive. It prescribes a conception of culture that is creative and generative, as opposed to epistemological and discursive, the latter being an expression of the scientific faith in the simple objectivity of the real. In the guangan-­ying hermeneutic continuum, culture cannot be a mere object, as we are constitutively immersed in it as subjects. But if at the anthropological level, onto-generative hermeneutics ultimately undermines any claim to universalism and any conception of humanity as substantial being endowed with definite properties and stable identity, by asserting the cosmo-ontological grounds and roots of our act of reading, interpreting and understanding, it also forestalls relativism. Significantly, in so doing, it addresses the

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central problem that Heidegger’s revision of the Cartesian conception of human beings as autonomous, unified, and self-transparent subject raises. To wit, Heidegger’s Dasein, the “being-there” or “being-in-the-world,” is determined by the world/horizon into which we are always thrown. The radical contingency, the “thrown-ness,” of our being entraps us in an existential treadmill, and consequently, Heidegger’s cultural ideal consists essentially in Being’s self-revelation in each unique event (Ereignis). Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics furnishes a far firmer ontological foundation for the projects of inter-cultural understanding by forcefully and cogently positing that there is an ultimate source from which understanding for interpretation is derived and in light of which interpretation is justified (Cheng 2013: 23–24). But the ontological here is not tyrannical. Capitalizing on the insights of the Yijing, onto-generative hermeneutics reveals how abstractions of the mind seek and come to grasp with the quintessence and quiddity of things and phenomena (the commentaries and interpretations of the hexagrams) while appealing to the graphic and symbolic (the images and forms of the hexagrams), thus acknowledging that there are diverse and varying categories and classes of intelligibility, which constitute the bedrock of interculturality, a culturally pluralistic vision of apprehending and participating in world realities. In short, Cheng Chung-ying’s onto-generative hermeneutics may be construed and applied as a valid and consistent theory of culture that dismisses the ideality and objectivity of meaning by subjecting all cultural realities to constant interpretations and reinterpretations, based on a non-foundationalist conception of culture, while squarely rooted in the ontological source of creativity.

References Bernstein, Richard. 1983. Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics, and praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Chen, Xunwu. 2000. A hermeneutical reading of confucianism. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 27(1):110–112. (A competent reference to the basic features of Cheng Chung-ying’s onto-hermeneutics.) Cheng, Chung-ying. 1971. Tai Chen’s inquiry into goodness: A study with a translation of Yuan Shan. Honolulu: East-West Center. (A good example of Cheng’s early application of western philosophical concepts to Chinese thought.) ———. 成中英. 1990. On the oneness and the same origin of the images, numbers, meanings and principles of the Yijing 易的像數義理一體同源論. Zhouyi yanjiu (周易研究) 1:2–3. (An excellent succinct representation of Cheng’s understanding of the Yijing as a philosophically coherent text.) ———. 1991a. The method of thinking in the Yijing 易經方法思維. Guowen tiandi 國文天地 6(11):24. (A handy reference to Cheng’s reading of the Yijing as a paradigmatic representation of the Chinese way of thinking about reality.) ———. 1991b. Choices at the turn of the century: On mutual understanding and harmonization in Chinese philosophy 世纪之交的抉擇: 論中國哲學的會通與融合. Shanghai: Zhishi chubanshe. (A collection of his early essays on doing comparative philosophical via Chinese philosophy.)

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———. 1991c. On the origin of the Yijing and its future growth 論易之原始及其未來發展. Zhonghua Yixue 中華易學12(12):10–15. (A synthetic essay on the philosophical significance of the Yijing as a Chinese classic and its potential contribution to world philosophy.) ———. 1995. On comprehensive observation (Guan) as onto-hermeneutics in the Zhou Yi. In Guoji Yixue yanjiu (international studies on the classic of changes), ed. Zhu Bokun, vol. 1. Beijing: Huaxia. (A technical discussion on the pivotal importance of the hexagram of guan as an onto-hermeneutic act.) ———. 2000 Confucian onto-hermeneutics: Morality and ontology. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 27: 40–43. (A broad-based essay on the integration of ethics into ontology in onto-hermeneutics.) ———. 2002. On the metaphysical significance of Ti (body-embodiment) in Chinese philosophy: Benti (origin-substance) and Ti-Yong (substance and function). Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29(2): 145–162. (A discussion on the interrelation between epistemology and ontology in Chinese philosophy.) ———. 2003a. Inquiring into the primary model: Yijing and the onto-hermeneutic tradition. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30(3-4): 289–312. (An examination of the Yijing in hermeneutic terms.) ———. 2003b. Philosophy of change. In Encyclopedia of Chinese philosophy, ed. Anthony Cua. New York/London: Routledge. (An overview of the importance of change as a philosophical concept in the Yijing.) ———. 2008. On entering the 21st century: My philosophical vision and my philosophical practice. In The imperative of understanding: Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, and onto-hermeneutics, ed. Ng On-cho. New York: Global Scholarly Publication. (A brief intellectual auto-biography by Cheng.) ———. 2013. Receptivity and creativity in hermeneutics: From gadamer to onto-hermeneutics. Keynote address at the International Hermeneutics Conference. In: Interpreting philosophical classics: Chinese and Western, University of Hawaii, February, 2013. (A rehearsal of the genesis and development of Cheng’s onto-hermeneutics.) ———. 2018. A theory of truthfulness (cheng 誠) in classical confucian philosophy. In Why traditional Chinese philosophy still matters: The relevance of ancient wisdom for the global age, ed. Gu Ming Dong. London/New York: Routledge. (An excellent representation of the practical ethico-moral implications of onto-hermeneutics.) Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1976. Philosophical hermeneutics. Trans. by David Linge. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ———. 1994. Truth and method. Trans. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. Second revised edition. New York: Continuum. How, Alan. 1995. The Habermas-Gadamer debate and the nature of the social: Back to bedrock. Aldershot, UK: Avebury. Kubin, Wolfgang. 2005. Chinese ‘hermeneutics’—A Chimera: Preliminary remarks on differences of understanding. In Chinese hermeneutics in historical perspectives: Interpretation and intellectual change, ed. Ching-I Tu. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers. Lin, Yizheng 林義正. 2005. Investigating Cheng Chung-ying’s discourse on the Yijing 成中英易 說研究. In Philosophy east and west, and onto-hermeneutics 東西哲學與本體詮釋, eds. Pan Derong 潘德榮 and Lai Xianzong 賴賢宗. Taibei: Kangde chubanshe. Ng, On-cho. 2003. Chinese philosophy, hermeneutics, and onto-hermeneutics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30 (3-4): 373–385. ———. 2007. Toward a hermeneutic turn in Chinese philosophy: Western theory, Confucian tradition, and Cheng Chung-ying’s onto-hermeneutics. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 6 (4): 383–395. Pan, Derong, and Katherine R. Xin. 1995. On Chung-ying Cheng’s onto-hermeneutics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 22 (2): 215–217. Pfister, Lauren. 2008. A philosophical-biographical profile of Chung-ying Cheng. In The imperative of understanding: Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, and onto-hermeneutics, ed. Ng On-cho. New York: Global Scholarly Publications.

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Ricouer, Paul, 1981. Hermeneutics and the human sciences: Essays on language, action and interpretation. Edited, translated and introduced by John B.  Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott, Nathan, Jr. 1987. The house of intellect in an age of carnival: some hermeneutic reflections. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1): 8–13. Taylor, Charles. 2002. Gadamer on the human sciences. In The Cambridge companion to gadamer, ed. Robert J. Dostal, 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tran, Van Doan. 2015. Radical hermeneutics and the search for authentic understanding. In Diversity in unity: Harmony in a global age, eds. Hu Xirong and Yu Xuanmeng. Washington D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.

Tu Weiming: The Global Confucian Ralph Weber

In contemporary Confucian philosophy, Tu Weiming 杜維明 (Du Weiming, born 1940) stands out as a main representative of the so-called third generation of New Confucianism. Tu has played a key role in bringing Confucianism back to the Chinese mainland during the late 1970s and across the 1980s. In the United States, he has been referred to as a North-of-the-Charles-River Boston Confucian (Neville 2000: xxv and ch. 5) for his interpretation of Confucianism along the central idea of ren 仁 (often translated by Tu as “humanity”) rather than li 禮 (“ritual propriety”) in a shared Bostonian attempt to make Confucianism speak to the American context. In addition, he has injected his voice unremittingly in intellectual and public dialogues around the globe, often as a representative for the Confucian tradition. Rather than as an academic philosopher, he is more aptly understood as an engaged public global intellectual and promoter of Confucianism who addresses philosophical concerns broadly, including ethical and religious concerns, and whose academic work stretches across a variety of disciplines. Much of his most influential work has addressed the role that Confucianism as a rejuvenated Chinese tradition can play today on the global arena. It is to this end that Ezra F. Vogel once fittingly characterized Tu as “both an intellectual activist and an active thinker” (Tu et al. 1991: 17). Tu highlights four major on-going research concerns that encapsulate his reading of Confucianism: (1) a third epoch of Confucianism, (2) the notion of a “cultural China,” (3) a critique of the Enlightenment mentality and the need for a Confucian humanism, and (4) a global ethics and a dialogue among civilizations.

R. Weber (*) University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_16

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1  The Formation of a Confucian Scholar and Activist1 Tu Weiming was born in Kunming 昆明 on 26 February 1940 as the second of four children to Ouyang Shuli 歐陽淑麗, his mother, whose family traces its roots to the famed Northern Song official, historian, and man of letters Ouyang Xiu 歐陽 修 (1007–1072), and to Wellington Shou-tsin Tu 杜壽俊 (Du Shoujun), his father, who had studied English and Economics at Jinling University and took a deep interest in Chinese poetry and lyrics as much as in Western classical music. The Tu family’s ancestral home is in Xiqiao 西樵, in Guangdong’s Nanhai district. The family moved to Shanghai in 1945 and to Taibei (Taiwan) in 1949. During junior high school in Taibei, Tu encountered the poetic prose of Wang Yangming 王 陽明, and later, during senior high school, began reading the Four Books under the guidance of his teacher Zhou Wenjie 周文傑. Throughout these years in the mid-­1950s, he would come to meet and learn from Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, and Tang Junyi 唐君毅, later referring to this period as his “‘initiation’ into the Confucian tradition” (Tu 1976c: 11). After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Tunghai University (Donghai Daxue 東海大學), a Christian and privately founded institution in Taizhong 台中, where he quickly changed his major from foreign languages to Chinese Studies in order to study with Xu Fuguan and to specialize in Confucianism, for which by then he had developed an “existential interest” (Tu 1984: 18). After receiving his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chinese Studies, he spent an entire year in the Taiwanese army and then got an offer for a Harvard-Yenching Fellowship, with the help of professor Wu Teh Yao (Wu Deyao 吳德耀), then President of Tunghai University. By his own later admission, this proved to be a turning point in his life as settling in the United States led to a “period of self-doubt and self-questioning” initiating a sustained interest “not only in Western philosophy but in comparative religions and other academic disciplines” (Tu 1984: 18). Tu would earn himself a Master’s degree from the Department of Asian Studies at Harvard University in 1963, then study broadly across European, American and Chinese history of thought as well as Western philosophy, and work towards a PhD on Wang Yangming (Tu 1968), profiting from taking courses with Erik H. Erikson. While at Harvard, he interacted with a series of prominent scholars (among others Talcott Parsons, John Kenneth Galbraith, John King Fairbank, Benjamin I.  Schwartz, Robert Bellah, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Richard Niebuhr, and Shmuel N. Eisenstadt), who would give him some of the vocabulary he went on to use in his re-description of Confucianism. Upon passing his oral exams for the PhD, he met the Japanese Confucian scholar Okada Takehiko (Gangtian Wuyan 岡田武彥), saw Tang Junyi again, and embarked on a journey throughout Europe, stopping at Leiden University in

1   The information presented in  this section is, if not noted otherwise, mainly gathered from the chronicles provided in the Wuhan anthology of Tu’s collected works (Guo and Zheng 2002) and in Hu Zhihong’s monograph (Hu 2004), which slightly modifies and expands the Wuhan anthology.

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Holland, visiting Vienna, and paying homage to Søren Kierkegaard at his tomb in Copenhagen. Back in Taiwan, he was appointed Lecturer in Humanities at Tunghai University, teaching “Cultural Encountering and Social Changes.” Meanwhile, he continued writing his doctoral thesis. In 1968, Tu received his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University and was appointed Assistant Professor at Princeton University. During his time in Princeton, he on one occasion audited a seminar by Benjamin Nelson on Max Weber, travelling for that purpose regularly into New York to the New School of Social Research. In 1969, he participated at the Fifth East-West Philosophers’ Conference in Hawai’i, and listened to Tang Junyi lecturing on Song-Ming Confucianism for 5 weeks in a summer class offered by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Furthermore, in the EastWest Center, he met with the Japanese Philosopher Nishitani Keiji. This would set a pattern for what would be an extraordinarily active scholarly life of almost constant travelling and engaging in dialogue around the world, from meeting Tang Junyi at Lake Como in Italy to co-organizing seminars with Lao Siguang 勞思光 in Princeton, participating at the World Philosophy Conference in Madras, travelling to Delphi and attending a seminar in Zurich. At the same time, Tu was to develop his academic career, moving through the stages of assistant (1971), associate (1973) and full professor (1977) at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1976, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. When Deng Xiaoping set the People’s Republic of China on a reform course, Tu was among the first to travel to the Chinese mainland, by joining a delegation of American oceanographers in 1978 (Benjamin Schwartz apparently joined a group of insect specialists), and delivered a speech at Beijing Normal University about “The Historical Significance of Zheng He’s Maritime Expeditions” introducing “the Weberian mode of analysis,” which might well be the first time some of the many students came to hear the name of Max Weber (Tu 2004). Two years later he would join the Department of History at Beijing Normal University for a prolonged stretch of time and use the opportunity to travel the country extensively, including a visit to the Mengzi temple in Zouxian 鄒縣. In 1981, Tu took up a position as Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, which would become his home institution for the next three decades. Invited by the Singaporean government, he participated in the development of a syllabus for a Confucian ethics course, to be offered as an optional subject in the schools’ moral education program. After returning to the mainland once more in 1983, this time amidst the raging anti-spiritual pollution campaign, he partook at the newly initiated semi-annual informal gatherings at Cambridge, presenting for the first time his theory of a third epoch of Confucianism (following, it seems, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan and Mou Zongsan, cf. Tu 1993b: 158, while the idea has its origin with Mou). A Fulbright research scholarship brought him back to China in 1985, where he taught a course on Confucian philosophy at Beijing University, insisting that this was a foreign cultural subject for the students (Tu et al. 1991: 123). Across the next decade, he would temporarily leave Harvard to take up assignments such as the

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director of the East-West Center in Hawai’i, where he launched research projects on “Cultural China” and the “Dialogue among Civilizations” in 1990, or as a as visiting professor at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, teaching Confucian philosophy in 1991. He lectured widely in India, delivering sixteen “National Lectures,” invited by the Philosophy Committee and under the general rubric of “A Confucian Critique of the Enlightenment Mentality,” gave a keynote address at the 7th East-West Philosophers’ Conference in Hawai’i, speaking on the dialogue between Islam and Confucianism in Malaysia, and participating in the United Nations’ Social Summit held in Copenhagen. In 1996, he became Director of the Harvard Yenching Institute. Widening his circles of influence, Tu gave speeches around the globe and delivered a keynote address at the Plenary Session of the World Congress of Philosophy in Boston in 1998. In the coming years, he would attend repeatedly the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In the year 2000, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan appointed him an eminent person for the Dialogue among Civilizations. In August of the same year, Tu delivered a speech at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held at the UN headquarters in New York. In 2010, Tu decided to take up a further position at Beijing University, relocating to the Chinese capital, where he became the Director of the newly founded Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies. In the years that follow, he would bring many global intellectuals to Beijing and engage in public dialogue with them there (e.g. Jürgen Moltmann, Homi Bhabha, Jagdish Chandra Kapur, Fred Dallmayr) and elsewhere (e.g. with Charles Taylor in Vienna), also publishing an extended dialogue with Ikeda Daisaku (Tu and Ikeda 2011). In 2018, the World Philosophy Congress took place in Beijing, featuring a topic (learning to be human) that—as we shall see—leaves no doubt as to who influenced the agenda.

2  From Exegesis to Advocacy? Tu’s scholarly career, according to an early account, can be divided into two phases, one up to the 1980s when he acquired initial fame as a scholar of “Song-Ming neo-­ Confucian thought” (Song Ming xin rujia sixiang 宋明新儒家思想), and one from then onward, when the contemporary relevance of Confucian thought and a third epoch of Confucianism became his main concerns (Yue and Guan 2001: 197). In other words, the two phases capture a shift in Tu’s writings from the appropriation of the Confucian tradition to the subsequent promotion of its contemporary relevance. This rough periodization, conceiving of a further turning point in the 1980s, is roundly confirmed by a comment from Tu himself (Tu 1998a: xxii) and also further supported by Tu’s writings on Wang Yangming (Tu 1973a, Tu 1973b, Tu 1976b, Tu 1976c, Tu 1979: 138–161, 162–178) and “Song Ming neo-Confucian thought” (Tu 1979: 71–82, 83–101). The label “Song-Ming neo-Confucian thought,” however, is chosen too restrictively if it is supposed to convey an emphasis on texts from the Song and Ming. Tu’s

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exegetical work in this early period also covers classical Confucianism (particularly the texts that gained a central position in the Song and Ming), as with his famous essay on the Zhongyong 中庸 (Tu 1976a) and several important articles related to Kongzi’s and Mengzi’s thought (Tu 1973c, Tu 1979: 5–16; 17–34; 35–56; 57–68). Yet, he also worked on the Korean neo-Confucian Yi T’oegye 退溪 (e.g. Tu 1982, 1983) and individual neo-Confucians of the Yuan and early Qing dynasties (e.g. Tu 1979: 186–215; Tu 1993b: 57–92), while an early article in 1976 is on the first generation New Confucian Xiong Shili (Tu 1979: 219–256). All of these interpretational studies epitomize Tu’s appropriation and idiosyncratic reconstruction of the Confucian tradition (cf. Weber 2016), laying particular stress on an existential decision to embark on self-cultivation as a process of learning to be human, on religiousness through ultimate self-transformation as a communal act, on a sense of commonality informing a fiduciary community, and lastly on an anthropocosmic view of a spontaneously changing world. The new orientation in Tu’s scholarly career might have been partly motivated by the reawakened interest in Confucianism on the Chinese mainland (Tu 1989a), and was certainly enforced by the developments of the so-called East Asian economic miracle in Japan and the four “mini-dragons” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). These latter developments brought up the issue whether specifically Confucian values in any way had sponsored the region’s economic uplift and inspired a re-evaluation of the relationship between Confucianism and modernity. Tu has contributed to such a re-evaluation from the year 1988 onward (Tu 1988, 1989b, 1991a). His agenda-setting articles on a third epoch of Confucianism published in the mid-1980s most clearly exemplify the beginning of this second period (e.g. Tu 1993b: 141–159). A third epoch of Confucianism (Ruxue disan qi 儒學第三期) is one of Tu’s self-­declared four major on-going research concerns. The other three display a different, although intimately related focus. The second deals with the notion of a “cultural China” (wenhua zhongguo 文化中國), and has received prominence through Tu’s much-cited contribution, “Cultural China: The Periphery as Centre,” to a Daedalus issue (Tu 1991b) edited by him and reprinted as one of several landmark articles in the journal’s 50 years’ anniversary issue in 2005. The focus of the third concern—first formulated also in 1991—centers on what Tu depicts as an Enlightenment mentality (qimeng xintai 啟蒙心態), which he finds in need of critique due to problems such as environmental degradation and which he argued ought to be complemented by a Confucian humanism (Rujia renwen 儒家人文) (Tu 2002a). His article, “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality” (Tu 1998b), represents this focus best and has repeatedly found its way into edited volumes (e.g. Dallmayr et  al. 2014). Finally, the fourth research concern manifests itself in Tu’s writing since 1997 and applies an even broader focus dealing with the themes of global ethics (qunqiu lunli 全球倫理) (Tu 1997a, 1998c) and a dialogue among civilizations (wenming duihua 文明對話) (Tu 2002b). These self-declared four major on-going research concerns adequately characterize the dominant thrust of Tu’s writings after 1985 and up until the present day.

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The turning point of Tu’s orientation, however, does not suggest any radical reorientation. In fact, Tu has continued to publish articles that reflect his uninterrupted appropriation of the tradition, and some of his best-known writing of such character dates from after 1985 (e.g. Tu 1989c, 1993a, 1998d)—mirroring the fact that the appropriation of a tradition is likely never to be concluded and always occurs with a view to its presumed relevance.

3  The Source of Activism: Philosophy as Religiophilosophy Tu’s academic work stretches across different disciplines and is not limited to academic philosophy as taught and practiced in most universities today. His understanding of philosophy is broad, but also idiosyncratic in many ways (cf. Weber 2018). In an early set of articles, Tu offers explicit reflection about the subject matter of philosophy. “Philosophy as a natural function of the mind,” he writes, “is an independent, irreducible, and self-sufficient realm of human activity. It gives its own laws, develops its own methods, and chooses its own subjects” (Tu 1979: 83). Tu adds: Yet as a fundamental inquiry into the underlying structures of being, philosophy must come into contact with the total reality of human experience. For it is the function of philosophy to increase man’s wisdom by creating new, and deepening old, insights into all dimensions of human consciousness; it is a spiritual quest for truth through meditative thinking as well as logical reasoning. (Tu 1979: 83)

He comes to this conclusion by introducing some premises. Thus, philosophy “as a fundamental inquiry into the underlying structures of being” has to enter into contact with “the total reality of human experience” and thus it is the function of philosophy to accumulate human wisdom. The concept of philosophy that shines through in these passages is clearly framed religiously: a spiritual quest for truth, also through meditative thinking, and not only by way of logical reasoning. There are many more statements that showcase the ultimately religious framing of philosophy: “in the mainstream of Eastern thought, there has been the realization that doing philosophy is in itself a religious act,” “the act of philosophizing is … a form of spiritual self-cultivation,” or “to philosophize is not only to examine the foundations of one’s being, but also to strengthen one’s spirituality” (Tu 1979: 83). According to Tu, such a religiously informed concept of philosophy is, however, not at all exclusive to the East. Tu points to the origins of European philosophy boasting a similar orientation. Yet, unlike others, he does not claim that philosophy in Europe later simply went down another, i.e. secular, road. He rather sets out to suggest an alternative history of philosophy in Europe: Actually, a similar orientation can be found in the mystic elements of Plato, the writings of St. Augustine, the Stoics, the medieval saints, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and the works of modern philosophers such as Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Heidegger. In light of the experience of the East, be it Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, or Confucianism, the ­above-­mentioned thinkers seem to symbolize a global search for philosophical wisdom,

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which, according to Marcel “is to be found wherever man tries not to organize his life around a center; instead he strives to organize it with respect to everything that has to do with the business of keeping oneself in existence; all else he regards as peripheral and subordinate.” (Tu 1979: 83–84)

The kind of philosophizing that presupposes a religious commitment is in Tu’s view also firmly inscribed into Western philosophy. He refers to that kind of philosophizing also as “religiophilosophy,” which is a pleonastic notion not untypical for Tu, considering that philosophy by itself already is intrinsically religiously defined. Tu explains his use of the term with the intention of differentiating it from the philosophical study of religion. He thus sees the religious aspect in the activity of philosophizing itself and not in the object of what the philosophizing is about. His provisional definition of religiophilosophy is: “the inquiry into human insights by disciplined reflection, for the primary purpose of spiritual self-transformation” (Tu 1979: 84). This understanding of philosophy, Tu claims, is not unusual among twentieth century European philosophers, pointing to Gabriel Marcel, a representative of a religious, that is, more precisely, a Christian existentialism. Tu particularly invokes Marcel’s “primacy of inner experience” and his characterizations of philosophy as “experience transformed into thought” and of philosophy as a sort of “digging” (Tu 1979: 102). Besides Marcel, Tu also offers the example of Maurice Blondel’s characterization of philosophy as “thinking itself” (pensée pensante) (Tu 1979: 84). If religiophilosophy is understood broadly, Tu writes in a footnote, then the term also covers thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty or Jean-Paul Sartre as the “the kind of sociopolitical totalization they envision is in the last analysis a spiritual transformation of the greatest magnitude” (Tu 1979: 99 fn. 5). Tu conceives of Confucian philosophy as a prime example of religiophilosophy, while considering the phenomenon itself to be global. Religiophilosophy as a sort of meditative thinking is consciously set apart from or even against logical reasoning. He often means to show the latter’s inadequacy, which is readily illustrated by his choice of vocabulary: juxtaposed to religiophilosophy is “the construction of a disinterestedly argued system of ideas,” “rational analysis and intellectual discourse,” “the search for objective truths,” “pure analysis,” “critical analysis” or “system building” (Tu 1979: 84, 102, 143–144, 183). The dichotomy which guides Tu’s thinking about the concept of philosophy is the one between Chinese-Hindu-­European philosophy/religiophilosophy on the one and analytic philosophy on the other hand. Tu is obviously aware of the fact that analytic philosophy is what the majority of academic centers of the professional study of philosophy in Britain, the United States, and beyond practice. This reveals a provocative potential of Tu’s concept of philosophy. In this, Tu is not alone, as he is well aware. He recalls, for instance, Heidegger’s call for thinking to be liberated from professional philosophy. In a Chinese article from 1994, Tu asks his readers to go with Richard Rorty beyond the specialized circles of philosophy (Tu 1994). While many philosophers, particularly those working in what is conventionally called the continental tradition of philosophy, would likewise object to a reductionist view that equals philosophy with analytic philosophy, few of them would do so from the perspective of an explicitly religiously informed concept of philosophy.

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That it is analytic philosophy from which Tu seeks to dissociate his work may be due to a variety of reasons. The problem is that, strictly speaking, analytic philosophy turns out to be no philosophy at all in light of Tu’s religiously framed concept of philosophy. If philosophy is conceptualized as a spiritual search for truth and if ‘analytic philosophy’ lacks that spiritual dimension, then ‘analytic philosophy’ is simply not philosophy. This is an interesting tweak of the setting since the colonial argument that denied philosophy outside Europe because it was just religion is turned on its head and the quality of philosophy is now denied to analytic philosophy for its lack of religiosity. Tu, it seems, however, is not fully comfortable with drawing this consequence. In a footnote, he appears to propose a radically different view of analytic philosophy, but which—to put it mildly—hardly meets the self-­ understanding of many analytic philosophers (nor of many non-analytic philosophers!). Tu writes: Of course it can be suggested that doing philosophy in the form of analyzing ordinary language may also have a profound religious import. It is quite conceivable that many philosophers are engaged in the task of linguistic analysis as a form of mental discipline, if not of spiritual self-transformation. (Tu 1979: 99 fn. 3)

In an essay originally published in 1976, Tu affirms the view writing that “it may be helpful to note that the mode of philosophizing that can completely detach itself from the ‘religious’ commitment of the philosopher is rare, if not impossible, in any intellectual heritage no matter how narrowly defined” (Tu 1979: 183). With regard to analytic philosophy, this seems to imply that most of its practitioners do not know what they are doing or would readily embrace the religious interpretation of what they are doing were it brought to their attention. Tu has more recently reaffirmed his understanding of philosophy as religiophilosophy, with the difference that he now perceives an end to the dominance of analytic philosophy and expects no less than a “spiritual turn” about to occur in the discipline (Tu 2012). After the earlier epistemological and linguistic turns in “contemporary philosophy, as an academic discipline,” Tu writes, “it is likely that a new turn, which I deliberately choose to characterize as the ‘spiritual,’ is in the offing”; among the “clear signs” for such a turn Tu highlights “the return of philosophy to its original source of inspiration, namely ‘the love of wisdom’” as well as the new interest of professional philosophers in the “Axial civilizations,” for none of which the existence of “a clear distinction between philosophy and religion” can be claimed (Tu 2012: 389–390).

4  Turning Exegesis into a Worldview for Global Dialogue In order to promote the contemporary relevance of Confucianism and join the global dialogue, Tu’s earlier efforts at appropriating the Confucian tradition had to be packaged into a more systematic account than what his exegetical studies of some of its central texts and representatives allowed for. Tu has presented this systematic

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account within the framework of Confucianism as a “world religion” (Tu 1993a), but more frequently as a “tradition” (for the idiosyncratic construction of that tradition, see Weber 2016) and as giving expression to a specifically “Chinese worldview” (a topic that gains prominence in Tu’s writings in the 1980s, lending further credence to the claim of an important turning point during this period). Tu’s most explicit account of some shared assumptions underlying the Chinese worldview is an essay on “The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of Nature” (Tu 1985: 35–50). Drawing on Frederick W. Mote’s description of the Chinese worldview as “uncreated” and “a spontaneously self-generating cosmos” and of Chinese cosmogony as “organismic process” (Mote 1989: 13 and 15), the Chinese worldview in Tu’s words is best described as “the unfolding of continuous creativity” (an emphasis widely shared among earlier New Confucians), for there is the underlying assumption of a continuity of being, that is, of the belief “that all modalities of being are organically connected” (Tu 1985: 35–36). Tu has spelled out this vision of a world suffused with qi (氣, alternatively given following Chan Wing-tsit as “vital force,” “the most basic stuff that makes the cosmos,” “dynamic energy fields,” or following Benjamin Schwartz as “psychophysiological stuff”), of an organismic and spontaneously self-generating life process, by singling out three aspects, or, what he calls “three motifs,” of a world thus perceived: continuity, wholeness, and dynamism. The first aspect, continuity, underlines how everything is interconnected. In Tu’s language, “[all] modalities of being, from a rock to heaven, are integral parts of a continuum” and form a “chain of being” (Tu 1985: 38). If qi is indeed the constituent of all modalities of being, themselves thus mutually continuous and interconnected, then the second aspect listed by Tu, wholeness, is but a logical consequence of continuity. The world is “the unfolding of a single process” with nothing external to it; no higher intelligence, no unmoved mover, no Creator, and no Platonic Idea is juxtaposed to the lived world here and now. Tu’s third aspect, dynamism, asserts that the organismic unity stipulated by the Chinese worldview is not a static and hermetic system. Dynamism points to the unstructured development of “the varieties of cosmic transformation,” which cannot be described by any geometric design, for its morphology is much too complex. The direction in which the world and its constituents are heading, according to Tu, depends on far too many human and nonhuman influences, and hence is indeterminate (Tu 1985: 39–40). The three motifs express some central assumptions about the world, of which Tu claims that they are consciously or unconsciously shared in one way or another by many Chinese people. These motifs are distilled into a worldview on a daily basis by means of the contextually specific circumstances that a person faces and interacts with. Tu’s explication of the “Chinese worldview” suggests that the Chinese cultural narrative indeed developed a particular set of questions, rooted in specific assumptions about the world that provide for differing initial points of departure. Tu’s view of the relation between the human and the world spells out further these assumptions, drawing on Wang Yangming and his insight that “the great person forms one body with heaven, earth, and the myriad things or events” (darenzhe,

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yi tiandi wanwu yiti 大人者, 以天地萬物一體) and Zhang Zai’s famous “Western Inscription” (Ximing西銘), which Tu particularly cherishes and which reads: 乾稱父, 坤稱母; 予茲藐焉, 乃混然中處. 故天地之塞, 吾其體; 天地之帥, 吾其性. 民, 吾 同胞; 物, 吾與也. (Zhengmeng正蒙, ch. 17乾稱) Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions. (Tu uses Chan 1963: 497)

Tu refers to Zhang Zai’s statement as “an article of faith” (Tu 1984: 13). The relation between the human and the world, in Tu’s view, rests on an organismic oneness pertaining to the two. Tu has therefore taken up a term—coined by Mircea Eliade—that gives expression to this distinct sensibility; he refers to this perception of the human and the world as an “anthropocosmic worldview” (Tu 2001a: 244), which translates into an “inclusive humanism” indicating that there is no rupture between human persons and the world, between “humanity” and “nature.” The ethical consequence of this worldview culminates in Tu’s emphasis on Confucian self-cultivation (xiushen 修身, cf. Hale 2016: ch. 3). In line with the three aspects outlined above, Tu does not conceive of “the self as an abstract idea but [of] the self as the person living here and now” (Tu 1985: 57) and emphasizes that the self is “an open system.” This leaves no doubt as to the importance attributed to the “other,” which is echoed by Tu’s notion of the self as “a center of relationships.” An important feature of this self is xin 心 (heart-mind), which involves “both cognitive and affective dimensions of consciousness” (Tu 1985: 174). When writing about Xiong Shili, Tu further asserts xin to be as much the “interpretative agent” that “gives meaning to the universe” as also the “directing agent” that “shapes its very reality” (Tu 1979: 246–247). Tu describes the “power of direction” inherent to xin as “ever developing and changing, yet without losing its inner identity” (Tu 1979: 247). Even more to the point, Tu holds that it is “only through the continuous opening up of the self to others that the self can maintain a wholesome personal identity” (Tu 1985: 114). This self is necessarily embodied: Confucianism takes the body (shen 身) very seriously and affirms the relevance of the body as a primary context in which self-cultivation takes place (Tu 1985: 171–174; cf. Hung 2013). Different from second generation New Confucians who stressed “true” subjectivity and individuality (“true” referring to being rooted in “inner morality”), Tu is said to offer “a semantics of selfhood,” which does not aim at “cultivating subjectivity and individuality” but at a self that is understood as a center of “a social network” (Moeller 2004: 27–29). A conception of the self as a center of relationships, according to Tu, leads to the “desirable and necessary symbiosis of selfhood and otherness.” The reason for the desirability and necessity of such a symbiosis is to be found in yet another conception of the self, which Tu describes as “a dynamic process of spiritual development.” The self in Tu’s conception is oriented toward an aspired end rather than toward a conceivable starting-point. Yet, Tu’s conception is based on there already being a

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self to be cultivated. Obviously, as Tu himself notes, there is “an implicit circularity in this conception of the self” (Tu 1985: 126). In Tu’s words, this circularity rests upon the insight that “human nature is good so that there is an authentic possibility for dynamic spiritual development and vice versa.” However, Tu further asserts that the circularity is “not a vicious one,” for there is a “dialectic relationship” between an “ontological assertion” and an “existential realization” (Tu 1985: 126). Somebody’s “being what he is must be sought in his becoming what he ought to be, and vice versa” (Tu 1979: 143). Tu highlights Mengzi’s idea of “goodness” (shan 善) and the “four germinations [si duan 四端] of the four basic human feelings: commiseration, shame and dislike, deference and compliance, and right and wrong,” which provide “the structural reason for moral and spiritual self-development” (Tu 1985: 24–25). These “common human feelings”—often metaphorized into “buds” or “sprouts”—may lie dormant, but can be reawakened at any time “by an act of willing” (Tu 1985: 71 and 95). They assure the “authentic possibility for dynamic spiritual development” inherent to any human person and amount to what Tu calls a human person’s “given structure.” To have this authentic possibility is what Tu qualifies as “good.” Self-cultivation in Tu Weiming amounts to a “learning to be human” (xue zuo ren 學作人), which implies a “lifelong commitment” (Tu 1985: 113). Tu stresses that “self-cultivation may mean different things to different people at different stages of moral development, and its realization may also assume many different forms” (Tu 1985: 57). The reason for this radically open conception of self-cultivation lies in personal uniqueness. Tu writes: “People are unique. Just as there are no two identical faces, there are also as many paths of self-realization as there are human beings” (Tu 1985: 60). The importance Tu attributes to this pluralist conception of self-cultivation explains why he does not want the self to be reduced to its social roles (which sets him apart from recent attempts at presenting Confucianism as a role ethics, see e.g. Ames 2011; Rosemont Jr. and Ames 2016). Tu refers to the “act of willing” that starts self-cultivation more often as an “existential choice” or “decision,” which he argues Wang Yangming (Tu 1976b: 55–63), Yi T’oegye (Tu 1983: 1) and Xiong Shili 熊十力 (Tu 1979: 232) made. The process of learning is hence triggered, in Tu’s words, by a “conscious” and “fundamental choice” that involves an “ultimate commitment” and requires what the Mengzi terms “steadfastness of purpose” (bu er 不貳). Tu traces the motivation to take up self-cultivation to the deeply entrenched Confucian belief in “human perfectibility” (Tu 1985: 20–23), which itself is sponsored by another, even more fundamental, belief that the “realization of the self, in the ultimate sense, is tantamount to the realization of the complete unity between humanity and Heaven” (Tu 1985: 60). In the end, learning in Tu’s philosophy is “for the sake of the self (wei ji 為己)” (Tu 1985: 51–53 and 69). Somebody who does not pursue self-cultivation may become an aggressor and a destructive force, displaying a “privatized” or a “small” self that is busied with the pursuit of “selfish desires” (si yu 私慾) and immersed in a world characterized by insurmountable cleavages between objects as well as by excessive distinctions between self and others. The final contention is that such a “small” self will not succeed in relating meaningfully to its lived concreteness.

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Emanating from this is a positive effect on one’s surrounding, and Tu indeed holds following the famous passage in the Daxue 大學 that self-cultivation is “a precondition for harmonizing human relations” (Tu 1985: 55), which points towards a social and political philosophy with self-cultivation at its root (Weber 2007). But, this is not the path that Tu has taken. By denoting the self as a process of spiritual development, spirituality and religiousness gain center stage. By bringing up the theme of the “good human nature,” morality overtly finds its way in. Tu consequently equates self-cultivation with “ethico-religious growth” (Tu 1985: 58), and he stands as one of the most articulate Confucian thinkers to argue for a religious dimension pertaining to Confucianism (for a critique, see Roetz 2008).

5  E  stablishing the Sociology for a Global Advocacy of Confucianism A next step necessary for promoting the contemporary relevance of Confucianism is to inquire into the epistemic and political conditions of the current global dialogue. In other words, Tu has to establish the relevant sociology for an effective global advocacy of Confucianism. The key word for Tu is modernity, which has been topical in his work long before his article to the Daedalus issue on multiple modernities (Tu 2000). His first academic contributions to the debate over modernity have been triggered by the East Asian economic miracle; particularly, the then prominent “Confucian hypothesis” (Tu 1991a: 746; cf. Lee 1997: 45–50) caught his interest (for a critique see Dirlik 1995). The transformations that Japan and the four mini-dragons underwent were, in Tu’s view, indicative of “a new type of psycho-cultural dynamics”; he described it as “a process of modernization significantly different from the West and yet historically and structurally linked to the ‘spirit of capitalism,’ as exemplified in Europe and North America” (Tu 1988: 32). In another essay, Tu wrote that “modernity, properly understood, can assume a variety of cultural forms, and … the Western European and North American versions of modernity may not be the wave of the future for China” (Tu 1991a: 771). These statements of the late 1980s and early 1990s capture much of what the notion of multiple modernities later was to give more articulate expression to on a macro-sociological level. For Tu, the phenomenon he was witnessing was the emergence of “industrial East Asia” (gongye dongya 工業東亞) (Tu 1988; Tu 1991a; cf. Ownby 1985, 12). Only from the mid-1990s onward did he begin to speak of an “East Asian modernity” (dongya xiandaixing 東 亞現代性) explicitly (Tu 1996a). Interestingly, Tu first in 1997 employed the notion of “multiple modernities” (duoyuan xiandaixing 多元現代性) in a newspaper article (Tu 1997b). Thus, he apparently used the notion 3 years before the Daedalus issue was published. The specific path along which Tu has come to embrace the theory of multiple modernities (cf. Tu 2014) bears relevance inasmuch as it points to the likelihood that Tu might have worked out a version of the notion different from the one prominent in sociology.

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A comparison of multiple modernities as macro-sociological framework and as a term Tu makes use of yields expected similarities as well as arresting differences in a variety of respects. A first similarity pertains to the role accorded to traditions. Similar to proponents of multiple modernities in sociology, Tu disengages modernity from a strict traditional-modern or premodern-modern dichotomy. In his view, the question is about “tradition in modernity,” and “any attempt to define modernity as diametrically opposed to tradition [is] simple-minded” (Tu 1988: 34 and 39; Tu 1991a: 771). Tu asserts that “traditions continue in modernity” (Tu 2000: 198). This is so because traditions, in Tu’s understanding, are manifestations of “cultural, institutional, structural, and cognitive differences” (Tu 2001b: 131). These differences as well as their manifestations as various traditions cannot simply be wiped out by modernity. With regard to East Asia, Tu has described the New Confucian movement as deliberately attempting “to mobilize traditional symbolic resources to bring them to bear on the critical issues generated by the modernizing process” (Tu 1991a: 772). Traditions, therefore, are of continuous relevance not only because they point to some underlying and irresolvable differences, but also because they might be of use in the face of some “attendant phenomena” of modernity, such as “the vulgarization of culture, the fragmentation of society, the parochialization of the public sphere, and the glorification of wealth and power” (Tu 1991a: 746). A second similarity has to do with the question of what is common to the different modernities. Like proponents of multiple modernities in sociology, Tu also struggles to untie the knot between modernity in the singular and modernities in the plural (cf. Weber 2015a). Modernity is multifariously configured in Tu’s writings. Arguing against the approach of “wholesale westernization,” he sometimes discusses “European modernity” as if epitomized by Western science and democracy (Tu 1988: 33; Tu 1991a: 746; Tu 2001c: 89). At other times, Tu takes up Parsons’s three inseparable dimensions of modernity: market economy, democratic polity, and individualism; these, according to Tu, “loom large in China’s intellectual discussion,” and he feels prompted to investigate each of these dimensions under the condition of multiple modernities (Tu 2000: 202 and 210ff; based on Tu 1996a: 344–349). Ultimately, Tu understands modernity as closely related to a set of “Enlightenment values” and an “Enlightenment mentality,” which has been on the forefront of his work (Tu 1991c, 1993c, 2002a, 2010). Like Shmuel Eisenstadt, the main proponent of multiple modernities in sociology (Eisenstadt 2000, 2001), Tu uses the vocabulary of “reference points” when speaking of the “mutual referencing among societies” (Tu 2000: 217). This theme receives much attention in Tu’s writings on multiple modernities, yet it is also where some important differences from the notion’s usage in sociology become manifest. A first difference is the normativity of Tu’s version of multiple modernities. For Tu, multiple modernities are not only the best way to depict the world, but they also reveal a vision of how the world should be. This is readily visible in his account of how modernity spread around the globe. As argued by proponents of multiple modernities in sociology, modernity took off in some form or another in a broadly European context. These forms, however, did not travel the world being left untouched by the traveling. Rather, various other forms of modernity evolved in

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Europe as well as in every other place where its themes triggered responses. Eisenstadt is clear that in his view modernity had embraced “nearly the entire world” by the end of the twentieth century (Eisenstadt 2000: 14). Tu, in contrast, affirms the modernity of Confucian East Asia, but holds that Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu modernities are probable only, while Latin America, Central Asia, Africa and indigenous traditions have the potential for their own forms of modernity (Tu 2000: 207–208; cf. Tu 1998e: 12; Tu 2001b: 132). It seems as if the measuring rod that first aroused the criticism against modernization theories is, in Tu’s account, brought in again through the backdoor. Whereas the upshot of Eisenstadt’s depiction of multiple modernities precisely is that—once modernity has left its mark on a global scale—either all societies are modern (i.e. modernity understood as a condition) or all are modernizing (i.e. modernity understood as a process), Tu seems to posit some sort of qualifying distinction between modern and modernizing. Tu’s version of multiple modernities clearly exhibits more normativity than those in macro-­ sociology do. Speaking to this is that Tu, in one and the same paragraph, refers to multiple modernities as “explanatory model” and as “vision” (Tu 2001b: 132). A second difference is the emphasis in Tu’s vision on “mutual referencing” between different modernities. On the one hand, Tu acknowledges “that there is a multiplicity of modern societies around the globe”; yet, on the other hand, he interprets this acknowledgement as “a significant step towards mutual referencing among societies” (Tu 2001b: 133; my emphasis). However, the multiplicity of modernities is said to have arisen precisely because such referencing has occurred. I take Tu as stressing the mutuality of the referencing, which he believes happens, yet which he does not see happening enough in the contemporary world and which therefore should happen. Explicitly, he states that the “West … has not felt compelled to learn from the rest of the global community” (Tu 2001b: 134). In particular he seems to have in mind the United States, which, he hopes, will transform from a “teaching civilization” to a “learning culture” (Tu 2001b: 129). He accordingly emphasizes “social development” instead of mere “economic development,” and “mutual learning” instead of an “asymmetrical situation” (Tu 2001b: 130 and 134). For Tu, mutuality is vital for a wholesome vision of multiple modernities. The necessary conclusion to be drawn from the acknowledgement of multiple modernities is that the “need to broaden the horizons of reference cultures is obvious. As mutual referencing progresses, East Asia can benefit from civilizational dialogues with Latin America, South Asia, the Islamic world, and Africa” (Tu 2001b: 133). Tu formulates his normative concept of dialogue against the background of his involvement in United Nations projects. For Tu, the need for global dialogue is evident for reasons that are linked to a particular narrative, which begins with the spatial expansion of Western Europe (“the spatial idea of Westernization”), gives way to the universalism of modernization theories (“the temporal concept of modernization”), and culminates in the advent of globalization (Tu 2001c: 54–57). The term “globalization,” in Tu’s view, is not tantamount to a “process of homogenization,” as convergence theories suggest, but is “characterized by diversity and, recently, by a movement towards assertiveness of one’s identity” (Tu 2001c: 58).

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Tu’s vision of a global dialogue builds up from an “acceptance of diversity,” to “genuine dialogue,” to “mutual respect,” and ends in the “celebratory affirmation of one another” (Tu 2001c: 69). Only through such a dialogue can we “appreciate the value of learning from the other in the spirit of mutual reference” (Tu 2001c: 65). As concerns the recognition of equality, Tu identifies four sets of “common values,” which, he believes, facilitate a dialogue among civilizations based on humanity, trust, and reciprocity: liberty/justice, rationality/sympathy, legality/civility, and rights/responsibility. Especially he wishes to emphasize the second notion of each couplet (Tu 2001c: 78). Roughly stated, justice assures that “all willing participants are allowed in the dialogue without discrimination,” and “encourages wider participation by actively involving those on the periphery” (Tu 2001c: 81). Sympathy is necessary, for engaging in a dialogue by treating the other person humanely can never be the result of rational choice only, but of “sensitivity, conviction, commitment and feeling”; the need for global dialogue is “based on care for the other” (Tu 2001c: 82–83). Civility as the necessary addendum of legality assures a “genuine dialogue” and the “sustainability of interpersonal relationships” (Tu 2001c: 88). Responsibility, “or duty-consciousness,” alludes to a sensibility cherished “early in human civilization” by “all spiritual traditions,” and in the face of much emphasis on rights-consciousness hence assures a “balanced approach to human flourishing and an effective way of cross-cultural dialogue” (Tu 2001c: 89–90). The normative thrust of a dialogue among civilizations along these lines is evident. Besides envisioning a general dialogue among mutually referencing modernities, Tu is especially interested in a particular dialogue between what he calls “Confucian humanism” on the one and “Enlightenment values” or the “Enlightenment mentality” on the other side. For Tu, the order in which to proceed in this particular dialogue is clear: a first step concerns “retrieving the tradition” and “reappropriating it for contemporary circumstances” (Tu 2001d) and a second step offering a critique of the Enlightenment (cf. Tu 1979: 237 and 239). The problem is that, in Tu’s opinion, the modern West has turned “seemingly innocuous” Enlightenment values upside down: “In the context of modern Western hegemonic discourse, progress means inequality, reason means self-interest, and individualism means greed” (Tu 1996b: 68). The initial “desire to conquer nature” turned into a “Faustian drive to explore, know, master and conquer” (Tu 2002a: 124). The Enlightenment mentality exhibited by the modern West of the fading nineteenth century is therefore in Tu’s portrayal markedly different from the Enlightenment itself, which “in its original conception … was meant to be ecumenical” (Tu 2002a: 126); even worse, it is to some extent a perversion of it. The Enlightenment mentality has unleashed tremendously destructive forces, such as an “unbridled aggressiveness toward humanity, nature, and itself,” making “the viability of the human species problematical” in an unprecedented fashion (Tu 1996b: 65). Tu levels his critique at a set of related “structural limitations” of the Enlightenment, that is, its “anthropocentric rationality, aggressiveness toward nature and inattention to spiritual matters”; these limitations cannot be overcome by “any attempt, no matter how comprehensive,” that remains solely within the precincts of the Enlightenment itself (Tu 2002a: 129). It is for this reason that Tu advocates

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going beyond the Enlightenment mentality. The Enlightenment’s “inattention to spiritual matters” points out the direction to follow: in order to “broaden the scope of the Enlightenment project,” Tu advocates the exploration of spiritual resources (Tu 1996b: 68). In a terminology reminiscent of a human person’s self-cultivation, Tu appraises his Confucian inclusive humanism to be “strategically positioned to reconfigure the Enlightenment by broadening its anthropological vision and deepening its ethical foundation” (Tu 2002a: 129). In his critique, which offers an alternative based on Confucian resources, Tu strongly suggests the “introduction of the Confucian theory and practice of self-cultivation into the Enlightenment” (Tu 2002a: 131).

6  Conclusions Tu’s major contribution to Confucian philosophy consists in his refashioning of the Confucian tradition and making it fit for joining a global dialogue. He has shown great awareness for pluralism at the macro-level of civilizations and cultures, has travelled almost every corner of the world, and might well be the most global Confucian philosopher yet to emerge, both in terms of activism and intellectual scope (“truly a globalized Confucian,” as Eske J. Møllgaard writes, see: Møllgaard 2018: 91). He is a good example for the importance of a sociological perspective when assessing Confucian philosophy for its content and merits (cf. Brisson 2014). Confucian philosophy particularly, if not all philosophy, is perhaps best analyzed with a view towards how it is practiced in order to figure out the propositions and arguments it advances. The version of Confucian philosophy presented in Tu’s works is framed as a personal ethic for a religiophilosophical way of life and most tailored towards the level of macro-sociology and the participation in the dialogue among civilizations. Tu’s Confucianism is an attempt at bringing this religiophilosophy to the table of global dialogue. It might be due to this particular focus that in the end Tu has perhaps less to offer at the intermediate level of the basic structure of society, of concrete institutional solutions and situations of social and political conflict. For example, Tu often advocates a remarkably open attitude so as to possibly enrich and make Confucianism compatible with the rule of law, democracy, human rights and feminist concerns, yet about how that enrichment could work or how conflicting principles could be accommodated in practice, he largely remains silent. The question how Confucianism can conceive of and be a part of a pluralist political order has only recently been given more attention. The issue bears relevance on a series of Tu’s points, from how self-cultivation that relies on the existence of a “communal critical self-consciousness” (qunji de pipan de ziwo yishi 群集的批判的自我意識) in a fiduciary community is possible in a pluralist society to the fate of li 禮 under such modern circumstances. In a more general way, Eske J. Møllgaard has recently drawn attention to this lacuna in Tu’s work by characterizing him as someone who “painted a picture of a liberal and multicultural Confucianism,” which stands in

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tension with more recent attempts at arguing a “more political Confucianism” (Møllgaard 2015: 391). These more recent attempts, however, do not seem to be in any better position to deal with the issues that arise at the intermediate level of a pluralist society or a nation-state (Weber 2015b). Some recent work in Confucian political philosophy, especially by Sungmoon Kim (Kim 2014, 2016, 2018), is taking the issue more seriously. Giving Confucianism a prominent voice in global dialogue stands as Tu’s foremost achievement. He has demonstrated an enormous capacity to absorb vocabulary from the teachers he met while pursuing a PhD at Harvard (the influence of his famous second-generation Confucian teachers in Taiwan is in my assessment comparatively less pronounced). Some of the vocabulary and ideas that he has adopted almost verbatim from them (e.g. the idea of “learning to be human” from Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them, see Smith 1998: 136–137) have made a career in many other academic and non-academic fields (more so than in professional philosophy) and have come to be used as a description applied beyond Confucianism, e.g. to Islam as much as Judaism. Tu has laid a foundation for Confucianism to be part of a global ethical and religious dialogue. It is as if Tu has gone the opposite way of John Rawls, who targeted the domestic level and thought that one might work one’s way outward towards the local and global levels of justice on that basis. Tu has labored on the levels of personal ethics and religiophilosophical worldview, on the one side, and on global dialogue, on the other side. Whether it is possible, and at all desirable, to work inwards from both ends towards the domestic level is an open question. It is certainly not the question that Tu has pursued with any much determination. For him, Confucianism as a religiophilosophy is about personal commitment and a worldview that deserves a voice in the global discussion of the most general (and perhaps most fundamental) questions troubling the modern world.

References Ames, Roger T. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Brisson, Thomas. 2014. “Pour une sociologie des critiques postcoloniales. Tu Weiming et le néoconfucianisme nord-américain” [Towards a Sociological Account of Postcolonialism. A Case-­ Study: Tu Weiming’s New Confucianism]. Sociétés Contemporaines 93: 89–109. (This text offers a sociological approach to the philosophy of Tu, placing him within the broader context of postcolonial intellectuals and stressing the experience of exile from which many of these authors write.) Chan, Wing-tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dallmayr, Fred, M. Akif Kayapınar and İsmail Yaylacı, eds. 2014. Civilizations and World Order: Geopolitics and Cultural Difference. Lanham: Lexington Books. Dirlik, Arif. 1995. “Confucius in the Borderlands: Global Capitalism and the Reinvention of Confucianism.” Boundary 2 22.3: 229–273. (This is a forceful critique focusing on the ideological meaning of the revival of Confucianism and Tu’s role in it under the conditions of global capitalism.)

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Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 129.1: 1–29. ———. 2001. “The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization.” International Sociology 16.3: 320–340. Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇 and Zheng, Wenlong 鄭文龍, eds. 2002. The Collected Works of Tu Weiming 杜維明文集. 5 vols. Wuhan: Wuhan Press. Hale, Christine A. 2016. The Chinese Continuum of Self-Cultivation: A Confucian-Deweyan Learning Model. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (This is a doctoral thesis turned into a book that explores a Confucian-Deweyan educational model focusing on notions of learning, self, community, creativity and knowledge. Chapter 3 discusses Tu Weiming’s Confucianism.) Hu, Zhihong 胡治洪. 2004. Confucianism in the Context of Globalization  – On Tu Weiming’s New Confucianism 全球語境中的儒家論說 杜維明新儒學思想研究. Beijing: Sanlian Press. (This is a 2002 doctoral dissertation from Wuhan University including a detailed biographical portray of Tu and a discussion of Tu’s thought along the themes set by Tu himself, devoting chapters to the critique of the Enlightenment mentality, the idea of cultural China, and the topic of civilizational dialogue and multiple modernities). Hung, Andrew T.W. 2013. “Tu Weiming and Charles Taylor on Embodied Moral Reasoning.” Philosophy, Culture, and Traditions 9: 199–216. (A comparison of Tu Weiming’s and Charles Taylor’s criticisms of secular modernity and their notions of the ‘embodied self’ and ‘embodied knowing’). Kim, Sungmoon. 2014. Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2016. Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2016. ———. 2018. Democracy after Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, Eun-Jeung. 1997. Konfuzianismus und Kapitalismus: Markt und Herrschaft in Ostasien [Confucianism and Capitalism: The Market and Governance in East Asia]. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. Moeller, Hans Georg. 2004. “New Confucianism and the Semantics of Individuality. A Luhmannian Analysis.” Asian Philosophy, 14.1: 25–39. (An interesting discussion, introducing theoretical vocabulary from Niklas Luhmann, on how Tu went beyond earlier New Confucians with regard to conceptualizing the self that needs to be cultivated.) Møllgaard, Eske J. 2015. “Political Confucianism and the Politics of Confucian Studies.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 14.3: 391–402. (This essay examines recent accounts of Confucianism that  – contrary to earlier accounts prominent in the 1980s, such as Tu Weiming’s – characterize it as not compatible with liberal democratic values. The author sees in this a return to a more authentic Confucianism). ———. 2018. The Confucian Political Imagination. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. (This book examines Confucianism as an imaginary and ideology that supplements the dream of a powerful China. Chapter 4 on ‘The Revivals’ discusses Tu Weiming and his ‘globalized Confucianism’). Mote, Frederick W. 1989. Intellectual Foundations of China. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Neville, Robert Cummings. 2000. Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World. Albany: State University of New York Press. (Chapter 5 is exclusively devoted to Tu and the volume features a preface by him.) Ownby, David. 1985. “Industrial East Asia: The Role of Culture.” Bulletin of American Academy of Arts and Sciences 38.7: 9–20. Roetz, Heiner. 2008. “Confucianism between Tradition and Modernity, Religion, and Secularization: Questions to Tu Weiming.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 7.4: 367–380. (This article argues for an understanding of Confucianism as secular ethics and criticizes Tu for his conception of religious or spiritual Confucianism.)

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Rosemont, Henry, Jr. and Roger T. Ames. 2016. Confucian Role Ethics: A Moral Vision for the 21st Century? Göttingen: V&R unipress. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1998. Faith and Belief: The Difference between Them. Oxford: Oneworld. Tu, Weiming. 1968. The Quest of Self-Realization: A Study of Wang Yang-ming’s Formative Years. PhD thesis. Harvard University. (Tu Weiming’s PhD thesis under Benjamin I. Schwartz, which he later in 1976 published as Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming’s Youth (1472–1509), see the entry below). ———. 1973a. “日本天理大學藏王陽明講學答問並尺度卷初談” [A preliminary examination of Wang Yangming’s unpublished letters from the Tianli University collection in Japan]. 大陸 雜誌 46.3: 28–35. ———. 1973b. “Wang Yangming’s Five Unpublished Letters to Zhou Daotong 王陽明答周道通 書五封.” 大陸雜誌 47.2: 7–13. ———. 1973c. “On the Spiritual Development of Confucius’ Personality.” Thought and Language 思與言 11.3: 29–37. ———. 1976a. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-yung. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawai’i. (This is one of Tu Weiming’s most popular texts, in which he lays out his reading of the Zhongyong along the interrelated dimensions of the profound person, the fiduciary society and moral metaphysics. Later, in the re-edition of 1989, he would add a chapter on Confucian religiousness.) ———. 1976b. Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming’s Youth (1472–1509). Berkeley: University of California Press. (This book traces the intellectual development of young Wang Yangming as a search for sagehood, which Tu Weiming in this book understands and defines as a dynamic process of self-transformation). ———. 1976c. “Wang Yangming’s Youth: A Personal Reflection on the Method of My Research.” Ming Studies 3: 11–17. ———. 1979. Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. (A collection of essays published between 1968–1978, which deals with classical Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism mainly, but also features an essay on Xiong Shili. Tu Weiming presents Confucianism in these essays as a spiritual tradition.) ———. 1982. “T’oegye’s Creative Interpretation of Chu Hsi’s Philosophy of Principle.” Korea Journal 22.2: 4–15. ———. 1983. “Yi T’oegye’s Intellectual Self-Definition: An Exploration.” In International Conference on the T’oegye School of Neo-Confucianism, vol. 1. Korea Institute: Harvard University, 1–35. ———. 1984. Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge. Singapore: Federal Publications. (This volume includes material pertaining to Tu Weiming’s visit in 1982 to Singapore as part of a delegation of scholars to help the government draw up a syllabus of a Confucian ethics course for secondary students. It includes Tu’s speeches with transcripts of question and answers sessions, discussions with members of parliament and ministers, and a report by Tu on the contents of such a course.) ———. 1985. Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation. Albany: State University of New  York Press. (A second collection of essays on classical Confucianism and Neo-­ Confucianism published between 1978 and 1985 together with an epilogue added in a later edition. The volume also features an introduction by Tu Weiming himself and a preface by Robert C. Neville.) ———. 1988. “A Confucian Perspective on the Rise of Industrial East Asia.” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1687th State Meeting Report) 42.1: 32–50. ———. 1989a. The Problematik Of the Development of the Third Epoch of Confucian Learning 儒學第三期發展的前景問題. Taibei: Lianjing Press. ———. 1989b. “The Rise of Industrial East Asia: The Role of Confucian Values.” Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies 4: 81–97. ———. 1989c. “Embodying the Universe: A Note on Confucian Self-Realization.” World & I, August issue, 114–120.

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———. 1991a. “The Search for Roots in Industrial East Asia: The Case of the Confucian Revival.” In Martin E.  Marty and R.  Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 740–781. ———. 1991b. “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today) 120.2: 1–32. (One of Tu Wei-ming’s most frequently cited texts. He defines cultural China as a field constituted by three interacting symbolic universes, i.e. 1) the societies populated mainly by ethnic Chinese, 2) Chinese communities throughout the world and particularly the diaspora, and 3) non-Chinese individuals who try to understand China intellectually and bring their conceptions of China to their own linguistic communities.) ———. 1991c. “The Enlightenment Mentality and the Chinese Intellectual Dilemma.” In Kenneth Lieberthal et al., eds., Perspectives on Modern China: Four Anniversaries. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 103–118. ———. 1993a. “Confucianism.” In Arvind Sharma, ed., Our Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced. New  York: HarperCollins, 141–227. (This chapter represents one of Tu’s rare attempts at depicting the Confucian tradition comprehensively for the lay reader. The volume presents Confucianism as one of seven world religions.) ———. 1993b. Way, Learning and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual. Albany: State University of New York Press. (A third collection of essays on Confucianism from classical to modern times originally published between 1982 and 1987, featuring a foreword by Frederick W. Mote and including an important essay on the 20th century Chinese intellectual trajectory leading in Tu Weiming’s view to an ideological crossroads with the possibility of a “creative interaction between Confucian humanism and democratic liberalism in a socialist context.”) ———. 1993c. “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality.” Bucknell Review 38.2: 19–29. ———. 1994. “Beyond Specialized Philosophy Circles – Approaching and Discussing Rorty 走出 專業哲學圈 ​​– 既與談羅蒂.” Contemporary Monthly 當代 (Taiwan) 94: 16–21. ———, ed. 1996a. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Exploring Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons. Harvard: Harvard University Press. (A collection of essays edited by Tu Weiming and originating in a conference devoted to the question whether Confucian ethics has contributed to the rise of industrial East Asia. The volume includes sections on Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as well as Hong Kong, Singapore and overseas Chinese communities.) ———, ed. 1996b. “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality: A Confucian Perspective on Ethics, Migration, and Global Stewardship.” International Migration Review 30.1: 58–75. ———, ed. 1997a. “Towards a Global Ethics: Spiritual Implications of the Islam-Confucianism Dialogue.” In Osman Bakar, ed., Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 19–34. ———, ed. 1997b. “Viewing Confucian Creativity from Multiple Modernities 從多元的現代性 看儒學創新.” Mingbao 明報, 17 April. ———, ed. 1998a. “Preface to the Cheng & Tsui Edition.” In Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought. Boston: Cheng & Tsui Company, xii-xiii. ———, ed. 1998b. “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality.” In Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong, eds., Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth, and Humans. Cambridge: Harvard University Centre for the Study of World Religions, 3–21. (This essay has been reprinted several times since its original publication. The topic has become one of Tu’s four major on-going research concerns.) ———, ed. 1998c. “Family, Nation, and the World: The Global Ethic as the Modern Confucian Quest.” Social Semiotics 8.2/3: 283–296. ———, ed. 1998d. “Probing the ‘Three Bonds’ and ‘Five Relationships’ in Confucian Humanism.” In Walter H. Slote and George A. de Vos, eds., Confucianism and the Family. Albany: State University of New York Press, 121–136. ———, ed. 1998e. “Mustering the Conceptual Resources to Grasp a World in Flux.” In Julia A.  Kushigian, ed., International Studies in the Next Millennium: Meeting the Challenge of Globalization. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 3–15.

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———, ed. 2000. “Implications of the Rise of ‘Confucian’ East Asia.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 129.1: 195–218. (This is Tu’s contribution to the groundbreaking issue of Daedalus on multiple modernities, joining Shmuel N.  Eisenstadt, Björn Wittrock, Johann P. Arnason, Nilüfer Göle, Sudipta Kaviraj and others to offer his take on a Confucian modernity.) ———, ed. 2001a. “The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism: Implications for China and the World.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 130.4: 243-264. ———, ed. 2001b. “Mutual Learning as an Agenda for Social Development.” In Jacques Baudot, ed., Building a World Community. Globalisation and the Common Good. Seattle and London: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in association with University of Washington Press, 253–260. ———, ed. 2001c. “The Context of Dialogue: Globalization and Diversity.” In Crossing the Divide: Dialogue among Civilizations. South Orange: School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, 51–96. ———, ed. 2001d. “Tasan Lecture #1: The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism.” Formerly available online: http://tuweiming.net/activities/other/. ———, ed. 2002a. “Confucian Humanism and the Western Enlightenment.” In Barbara Sundberg Baudot, ed., Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World. Manchester: New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, 123–135. ———, ed. 2002b. “Confucianism in the Twenty-first Century: Dialogue among Civilization and the Public Intellectual.” In Kwok Siu Tong and Chan Sin-wai, eds., Culture and Humanity in the New Millennium: The Future of Human Values. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 155–166. ———, ed. 2004. Interviewed by Ralph Weber at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 14 September 2004. ———, ed. 2010. “Confucian Encounter with the Enlightenment Mentality of the Modern West.” Oriens Extremus 49: 249–308. (A comprehensive article on the fate of Confucianism based on Tu’s speech at a conference entitled “Confucianism for the 21st Century?” held at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Sinology in Hamburg.) ———, ed. 2012. “A Spiritual Turn in Philosophy: Rethinking the Global Significance of Confucian Humanism.” Journal of Philosophical Research, Special Supplement 56: Selected Papers from the XXII World Congress of Philosophy, 389–401. ———, ed. 2014. “Multiple Modernities: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Implications of the East Asian Modernity.” In Leonid E.  Grinin, Ilya V.  Ilyin, and Andrey V.  Korotayev, eds., Globalistics and Globalization Studies. Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House, 104–111. Tu, Weiming, Milan Hejtmanek and Alan Wachman, eds. 1991. The Confucian World Observed: A Contemporary Discussion of Confucian Humanism in East Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center. (Presents the summarized statements made at a workshop on Confucian humanism with the participation of a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural group of roughly 30 scholars.) Tu, Weiming and Ikeda, Daisaku. 2011. New Horizons in Eastern Humanism: Buddhism, Confucianism and the Quest for Global Peace. London: I.B. Tauris. (This volume contains the English translation of transcribed dialogues between Tu Weiming and the Buddhist philosopher Ikeda Daisaku, first published in Japan and in China in 2007). Weber, Ralph. 2007. Confucianism in a Pluralistic World: The Political Philosophy of Tu Wei-­ ming. PhD thesis. University of St. Gallen. (A doctoral dissertation studying Tu Weiming’s texts for his social and political thought). ———. 2015a. “What Is ‘Modernities’ a Plural of? – A Rhetorical Analysis of Some Recent Uses.” In: Sven Trakulhun and Ralph Weber, eds., Delimiting Modernities: Conceptual Challenges and Regional Responses. Lanham: Lexington Books, 25–48. ———. 2015b. “Confucian Political Philosophy for Non-Confucians.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China 10.4: 547–567. (This essay discusses recent literature on Confucian political philosophy in light of how they deal with the fact of pluralism).

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———. 2016. “Representing Tradition: An Analysis of Tu Weiming’s Confucianism.” International Communication of Chinese Culture 3.2: 229–260. (This article uses recent discussions in social epistemology for a detailed analysis of how Tu Weiming represents the Confucian tradition and the ways and means he uses to construct that tradition). ———. 2018. “Philosophy, Tu Weiming and Tu Weiming’s ‘The Continuity of Being (1984)’.” In Raji C. Steineck and Ralph Weber, eds., Concepts of Philosophy in Asia and the Islamic World. Vol. 1: China and Japan. Leiden: Brill, 428–456. (This chapter offers a close reading of a seminal text by Tu Weiming in order to understand and describe his conception of philosophy). Yue, Hua 岳華 and Guan, Dong 關東. 2001. “Tu Weiming and the Modern Transformation of the Confucian Tradition 杜維明與儒家傳統的現代轉化.” In Zhu Hanmin 朱漢民 and Xiao Yongming 肖永明, eds., Tu Weiming on the Clash and Dialogue of Civilizations 杜維明文 明的衝突與對話. Changsha: Hunan University Press, 196–211. (This text is a reprint of a preface Yue and Guan had written for a 1993 volume on Tu Weiming’s New Confucianism. It gives some general themes of Tu’s works and proposes a division of his writings into different phases).

New Confucianism and Buddhism Wing-cheuk Chan

It is well-known that the rise of Song-Ming 宋明Neo-Confucianism resulted from a reaction to Buddhism. Similarly, contemporary New Confucianism arose from an interaction with Buddhism. But their situations were entirely different. For New Confucianism, the direct challenge came from Western culture. Unlike the intellectuals in the May Fourth Movement that urged for a wholesale import of Western culture, New Confucians argued for the necessity of reactivating tradition as a pre-­ condition of a meaningful reception of Western culture. In order not to blindly worship Western culture, New Confucians proclaimed that it is  only by returning to tradition that new creations could become possible. In concrete terms, New Confucianism aims to attain two major goals: (1) demonstrate the strength of Chinese culture; (2) delimit the validity of Western culture in terms of a meaningful interactive dialogue. It is in this context that Buddhism serves the development of New Confucianism. Distinct from the Song-Ming Neo-­ Confucian explictly acclaimed categorical rejection of Buddhism, New Confucians are much more open to learning from Buddhism. As a matter of fact, some of the leading figures in New Confucianism, such as Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1883–1968), Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), were noted experts in Buddhism. In articulating their Confucian systems, these three Confucians employed different Buddhist doctrines as conceptual frameworks. First, a critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism served Xiong’s reconstruction of Confucian cosmology. Second, the search for the absolute in Huayan 華嚴  Buddhism influenced Tang’s Confucian phenomenology of mind—although Buddhism was not seen as representing the peak of Chinese philosophy. Finally, Mou not only followed the pattern of “one mind opening two gates” in The Awakening of Faith to develop his moral W. Chan (*) Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_17

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metaphysics, but also adopted the Tiantai 天台Buddhist concept of perfect teaching to articulate a Confucian theory of the highest good. Thus, apart from Buddhism, there would be no New Confucianism in its current form. In order to properly understand New Confucianism, it is necessary for us to clarify the ways it received Buddhism. This chapter has a two-fold task. First, to show how these three New Confucians developed their systems by interacting with Buddhism. Second, to explore a possible synthesis of the three Confucian systems in terms of their different receptions of Buddhism. At this juncture, one can also see the power of the Buddhist syncretist way of thinking and its practical orientations upon a further development of New Confucianism.

1  Xiong’s Transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism It is not accidental that Xiong’s magnum opus was entitled Xin weishi lun 新唯識論 (New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness), for it resulted from a critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism.1 Historically, there was a renaissance of Yogācāra thought at the turn of twentieth century in China (see Makeham 2014a). One of its major promotors was Ouyang Jingwu 歐陽竟無 (1871–1943) (see Aviv 2014). Xiong, as a student of Ouyang Jingwu, was at first a follower of YogācāraBuddhism. However, after being invited to teach at Peking University in 1922, Xiong not only gradually departed from Yogācāra Buddhism, but also from Buddhism as a whole. To begin with, although Xiong agreed with Yogācāra Buddhism in rejecting realism, he did not accept its identification of the ālaya (storehouse) consciousness as the ontological source of the world. At this juncture, Xiong mainly shared an affinity with Paramārtha (499–569)—the founder of the Old School of Yogācāra Buddhism in China. Unlike the New School of Yogācāra Buddhism as represented by Dharmapāla (530–561) in India  and Xuanzang玄奘 (569–664) in China, the Old School of Yogācāra Buddhism rather insisted on the emptiness of the ālaya consciousness. That is, the Old School of Yogācāra Buddhism did not identify the ālaya consciousness as Fundamental Reality.2 More precisely, for Xiong, the New School of Yogācāra Buddhism was fallacious in committing the doctrine of double Fundamental Reality. According to this school, the seeds stored in the ālaya produce the phenomenal world and hence were identified as Fundamental Reality. At the same time, as a Buddhist school, it also identified śūnyatā (emptiness) as Fundamental Reality. As the Mādhyamaka claimed, everything depends upon the other in order to arise and hence has no self-nature (svabhāva). This means that all is śūnya (empty). However, the New

1  This text was published in 1932 in classical Chinese and in 1944 in modern Chinese (see Xiong 2001: Vol. 4; Xiong 2015). 2  Ueda Yoshifumi provides with us an excellent analysis of the differences between the Old School and the New School of Yogācāra Buddhism (see Ueda 1967).

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School of Yogācāra Buddhism failed to establish the unity of these two kinds of Fundamental Reality. In correcting such an erroneous approach, Xiong took a position closer to The Awakening of Faith. Like The Awakening of Faith, he insisted that the ālaya consciousness is not ultimate. Consciousness in the sense of the New School of Yogācāra Buddhism is still imprisoned in the subject-object dichotomy. It thereby not only creates a bifurcation within consciousness, but also introduces a double Fundamental Reality. This signifies that Yogācāra Buddhism committed to dualism. But Xiong also differed from the Mādhyamaka in seeing the True Mind, rather than emptiness, as belonging to Fundamental Reality. Finally, despite his affinity with the monism in The Awakening of Faith, Xiong saw the necessity of departing from Buddhism and shifting to Confucianism. For him, Buddhism in general did not do justice to the creativity of Fundamental Reality and hence failed to see the True Mind as moral mind.3 At this juncture, he returned to Confucianism in reactivating Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 (1472–1529) doctrine of liangzhi良知 (innate moral awareness) and the cosmology of the Yijing 易經. It was against such a background that Xiong started with his critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism. In this context, one should note that his actual target was the New School of Yogācāra Buddhism. One might construe Xiong’s methodology in turning from Yogācāra Buddhism towards Confucianism structurally as consisting of three major steps: reduction, destruction, and construction.4 First, in performing the reduction, Xiong aims to lead from the ālaya consciousness back to the True Mind as (belonging to) Fundamental Reality. Originally, with the thesis that object is constituted by the ālaya consciousness, Yogācāra Buddhism merely urges us  to return to the dimension of the ālaya consciousness from the dimension of object. Along with the reduction in a Husserlian sense, Yogācāra Buddhism maintains that object belongs to the constituted dimension, whereas the ālaya consciousness belongs to the constituting dimension. It is in this sense that Yogācāra Buddhism claims that apart from consciousness, there is no object. Accordingly, in denying the independent reality of object, it identifies seeds in the ālaya consciousness as Fundamental Reality. However, as the Mādhyamika protested, this contradicts with the emptiness of consciousness. Xiong hence denied the possibility of identifying the ālaya consciousness as Fundamental Reality. But although Xiong appreciated the role of the Mādhyamaka doctrine of emptiness in clearing up our attachment, he did not identify emptiness as Fundamental Reality. For Xiong, the True Mind in the sense of The Awakening of Faith is rather closer to Fundamental Reality.

 See also Chap. 5—Ed.  I borrow these terms from the early Heidegger’s phenomenology. But, as shown in their contents, there are changes in their meaning and order from Heidegger’s original ones. In Heidegger, while reduction is the shift from beings to Being, construction is an analysis of the Being of Dasein as the understanding of Being, and destruction is a critique of the traditional concepts (see Heidegger 1982: 19–22). 3 4

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Secondly, in performing the destruction, Xiong tried to bestow new meanings to the major Yogācāra Buddhist concepts. This gives rise to a re-interpretation of the key concepts such as transformation (parināma/zhuanbian 轉變) and productive power (sakti /gongneng 功能). Originally, in Dharmapāla’s Yogācāra Buddhism, transformation is mainly understood as the production of the perceiving and the image parts from the ālaya consciousness. Here the perceiving and the image parts are the products of transformation, whereas the ālaya consciousness is the transformer. As a result, it gives rise to a split between the subjective (or seeing) and the objective (or seen) part inside consciousness, on top of another split between the produced and the producing part of consciousness. However, for Xiong, such an approach of analysis could  not save Yogācāra Buddhism from “succumbing to so-called preconceived, piecemeal characterizations and was bereft of any means by which to elucidate the no-place that is transformation” (Xiong 2015: 122). As an alternative, he declared that “one contraction and one expansion is called transformation” (Xiong 2015: 96). This gives rise to a new concept of transformation as an active, holistic, and non-spatial continuous movement. In this sense, he paved a way of returning to the original dimension of Confucian cosmology.  Correlatively, Xiong introduced a new concept of productive power. In Yogācāra Buddhism, productive power refers to seeds which are causes. Seeds constitute the basis of the phenomenal world. In the case of the sentient being, seeds represent the manifold habituated tendencies. Against Yogācāra Buddhism, Xiong argued that productive power is an indivisible whole, rather than individual seeds. Moreover, productive power is the dynamic movement of Heaven, whereas habituated tendencie human capacity and of fixed forms. While productive power is entirely uncontaminated, habituated tendencies can be contaminated. Distinct from the continuity of productive power, habituated tendencies can be severed (Xiong 2015: 140, 149). As the consequence of its overlooking of the concepts of transformation and productive power in a primordial sense, Yogācāra Buddhism is unable to reach the dimension of Fundamental Reality. It is, accordingly, disqualified as a candidate for cosmology. Finally, in performing the construction, Xiong attempted to account for the genesis of the material world. From the standpoint of scientific realism, the universe consists of the clustering of material particles. Nonetheless, Xiong rejected this viewpoint. In his eyes, “the Reality of material forms is constant transformation” which has both the aspect of expansion and contraction (Xiong 2015: 163). As he explained, Cohering is the incipience of ceaseless generation; the sprouting of transformation. As soon as there is cohering, then there is contraction. Contraction is the illusory construction of countless moving points. Moving points give the illusory semblance of having material [substance] but actually are not material [substance] (Xiong 2015: 162).

That is, the error of scientific realism lies in its overlooking of such fundamental process of constant transformation  consisting of the interplay between expansion and contraction. For, it is only in terms of the function of Fundamental Reality as constant transformation that the phenomenal world is generated.  This clearly

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shows the “dynamic” approach of Xiong’s Confucianism, as also  linguistically reflected in his speech of “expansion” and “contraction,” instead of yang 陽 and yin 陰 in the Yijing. Such a critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism enables Xiong to develop a Confucian theory of Fundamental Reality and function. For him, Buddhism was correct in seeing the phenomenal world as non-substantial, but it missed the genuine topos of Fundamental Reality and hence finally failed to do justice to the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and the phenomenal world. This was due to the Buddhist overlooking of the creativity of Fundamental Reality. Correlatively, in opposition to Buddhism, Xiong claimed that the True Mind must be a moral mind, which was also called by him benxin 本心 (“original mind”) (Chan 1963: 768). Only by returning to this original mind can one witness its non-difference from Fundamental Reality. Here also lies the possibility of “inner realization” (Xiong 2015: 22).5 In sum, with the thesis of the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and function, Xiong aimed to overcome Dharmapāla’s Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy of the primacy of bifurcation. By understanding Fundamental Reality as a holistic process of constant transformation, he created a new version of Confucianism along the lines of the Yijing. In short, he succeded in developing a new cosmology that could subsume Buddhism under Confucianism. Though Xiong also planned to write a volume in epistemology by extending Buddhist theory of knowledge (pramāṇavāda), he never fulfilled such a goal.

2  Tang Junyi’s Topology of Buddhism In developing his own Confucian system, Tang Junyi produced a two-volume work entitled Shangming cunzai yu xinling jingjie 生命存在與心靈境界 (Life-Existence and Horizons of Mind) (Tang 1977). In imitating Hegelian phenomenology of spirit, he tried to unfold the different developmental stages of mind. According to Tang, there is a comprehensive  three-fold distinction of life-dimension: (1) the life-­ dimension of objectivity; (2) the life-dimension of subjectivity; and (3) the life-­ dimension of transcending the subjectivity-objectivity dichotomy. Each of these life-dimensions is further divided into three horizons.6 Starting from the lowest

5  In Makeham (2014b) and Makeham (2015) one can find more detailed expositions of Xiong’s critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism. 6  The life-dimension of objectivity is divided into: (1) the horizon of manifold disparate individual objects; (2) the horizon of transformation according to classes; (3) the horizon of functioning in sequence. The life-dimension of subjectivity is divided into: (1) the horizon of inter-perceptions; (2) the horizon of intuitive understanding of pure meaning; (3) the horizon of moral praxis. The life-dimension of transcending the subjectivity-objectivity dichotomy is divided into: (1) the horizon of returning to monotheism; (2) the horizon of dual-emptiness of the self and the dharma; (3) the horizon of the prevalence of Heavenly Virtue (see Tang 1977; Ng 1996).

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horizon, the mind can be promoted into the next higher horizon. Eventually, the mind reaches the highest horizon which signifies the perfect self-realization of life-­ existence. Buddhism is found in the third life-dimension as the horizon of dual emptiness of the self and the dharma. While it is higher than the horizon of returning to monotheism as represented by Christianity, it is lower than the horizon of the prevalence of Heavenly Virtues as represented by Confucianism.7 Tang justified such division in terms of the mind’s different activities in becoming an infinite life. As is well-known, Buddhism starts with the observation that life is suffering (duḥkha). However, according to Tang, this truth is overlooked in the horizon of returning to monotheism. In seeing the creation of the world as a demonstration of God’s glory, Christianity, for example, neglects human beings’ individual existential sufferings. By contrast, Buddhism traces the cause of suffering in the attachment to the self and dharmas and proclaims that only by witnessing their emptiness can sentient beings become emancipated (see Tang 1977: Vol. 2, 753ff). Despite his praise of Buddhism for its insight in seeing the sufferings of life and offering antidotes in overcoming the attachment to the self and the world, Tang urged us to move beyond the horizon of dual emptiness of the self and the dharma. For Buddhism is blind to the fact that “natural lives, in spite of their different kinds of attachment to the self from birth, must have an intrinsic transcendence, or good, as their essence or nature, in order to be able to exist” (Tang 1977: Vol. 2, 852). That is, Buddhism fails to see that “the essence, or nature, of the natural lives is not shown in the attachment to the self, but rather in their good” (Tang 1977: Vol. 2, 852). In contrast, Confucianism recognizes that “the birth of all human and other life-existence, in reality, is a creative process, and also a prevalence of good” (Tang 1977: Vol. 2, 851). Despite his critique of Buddhism, Tang was influenced by Huayan Buddhism in articulating his Confucian system. In Tang’s syncretism, Huayan Buddhism signifies the peak of the whole development of Buddhism. According to Huayan Buddhism, Buddha-nature is strictly pure and non-defiled. For Buddha-nature refers to what the Buddha attains through self-awareness. As Tang explained, That which is attained through self-awareness is nothing but a Mind of the rise of Nature-­ origination of  dharmadhātu [Absolute Reality] or True Mind in the primary sense. All dharmas can arise only upon such a Mind in the Great Dependent-Origination through mutual inclusion and mutual penetration. Since this Mind is pure, it cannot be characterized as defiled or evil. [In contrast,] sentient beings have defilement and evil, for they still lack the Buddha’s self-awareness. But when they reach such self-awareness, they no longer have any defilement and evil (Tang 1968: 262).

In short, Buddha-nature, as the True Mind, is purged of all defilements or evils. On the other hand, Tiantai Buddhism speaks of Buddha-nature’s intrinsic embrace of defiled and evil dharmas. Accordingly, Huayan Buddhism is criticized by Tiantai Buddhism for “focusing only on the li 理 [the realm of the Buddha] by cutting off the nine realms [the realms of sentient beings]” (Mou 1982: Vol. 2, 692). That is, in  See also Chap. 11—Ed.

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separating the realm of Buddhas from the other realms, Huayan Buddhism fails to justify the necessary existence of the realms of sentient beings. In defending Huayan Buddhism, Tang insisted that the Tiantai Buddhist concept of “Buddha-nature” can only refer to a mind in the secondary sense, for in Tiantai Buddhism, “Buddha-­ nature” is defined in terms of dharma-nature only. That is, it is from the standpoint of dharma-nature, rather than of mind-nature, that Tiantai Buddhism proclaims that no single dharma can be abolished in attaining Buddhahood. More importantly, the weakness in the Huayan Buddhist theory of praxis does not affect its conception of the absolute purity of Buddha-nature. In fact, what differentiates a Buddha from other sentient beings is its absolute purity. So, Tang concluded that even Tiantai Buddhism must agree that Buddha-nature in the primary sense is absolutely pure (Tang: 1968: 272). Such a high appreciation of the Huayan Buddhist concept of Buddha-nature gives Tang the impetus to opt for an “ascending approach” in developing his Confucian phenomenology of mind. In Huayan Buddhism, becoming a Buddha is an upward process for sentient beings to elevate themselves from the lower stage to the higher stage. This process can be described in terms of its doctrine of the ten levels of consciousness-only (see Fazang 1924–1935). On each level, consciousness is related to the world given in a specific way. For example, on the level of “subsuming the known object to the knowing subject” one becomes conscious that the objective world is nothing but what is manifested by consciousness. In short, the Huayan Buddhist doctrine of the ten levels of consciousness-only unfolds a movement from the stage of subjectivity-objectivity to the stage of trans-subjectivity-objectivity. Similarly, in Tang’s phenomenology of mind, there is a movement of the mind from the lower horizon to the higher horizon. In short, what is unfolded is the upward process first moved from the stage of the consciousness of the objectivity to the stage of the self-consciousness of the subjectivity and then to the stage of the supra-­ consciousness of the trans-subjectivity-objectivity. According to Huayan Buddhism, only by transcending the subject-object distinction and returning to the True Mind is one able to recognize that all is one and one is all. Likewise, for Tang, despite the hierarchical relation among the nine horizons, they constitute a single unity (see Tang 1977: Vol. 1, 44). In connecting each of them to the other, he said, “When one horizon becomes manifest, the other is concealed in it. From the manifest one can know the concealed. It is also possible for what is concealed to become manifest again” (Tang 1977: Vol. 1, 48). Thus, reaching a higher level does not imply an entire disconnection from the lower levels. This is rather like in the case of climbing up a ladder. Even when one stands on the top rung, one is still linked to lower parts. In this way, his phenomenology of mind is free from the charge of “focusing only on the highest by cutting-off the lower.” Finally, in appreciating Huayan Buddhism for its doctrine of the True Mind, Tang stressed that “there is an activity of a self-conscious mind ‘which is capable of intending the mind of the tathatā [Suchness of the world = True Reality] or the originally pure tathāgatagarbha [the capacity of becoming a Buddha] so as to make it manifest’” (Tang 1968: 247). It is in such a type of self-conscious mind that one can discover a source of dynamic power in making possible the movement from the

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lower to the higher horizon in his phenomenology of mind. In Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit, self-consciousness is merely identified as one of the stages of spirit, rather than as a source of dynamic power (see Hegel: 1977, 104ff). It is not accidental that in addressing such dynamic power, Tang prefers to speak of transcendence, and not negation. As a result, he was confident in supervening the Hegelian version of phenomenology of mind, despite their similar “dialectical” path that was already shown in Huayan Buddhist methodology long ago. Nevertheless, all this does not prevent Tang’s departure from Buddhism and return to Confucianism. For Tang, even Huayan Buddhism characterizes the Buddha as the absolute-pure Mind and being full of virtues, but  it still fails to reach the dimension of Heavenly Virtues. On the other hand, Confucianism transcends Buddhism by recognizing that life is a creative process and a manifestation of good, and that the Heavenly Virtues are  concretely unfolded in moral praxis (see Tang 1977: Vol. 2, 851).

3  Mou Zongsan’s Application of Buddhism While Tang showed a greater appreciation for Huayan Buddhism over Tiantai Buddhism, Mou took the opposite view. Following the traditional syncretism of Tiantai Buddhism, Mou classified Huayan Buddhism as a distinctive teaching and Tiantai Buddhism as a perfect teaching. Mou pointed out that “according to Tiantai Buddhism, perfect teaching results from grounding in the fundamental principle as shown in the word ‘identity’ (ji 即)” (Mou 1985: 273). This kind of identity is a “paradoxical identity,” and not an “analytical identity” that strictly follows the law of identity, nor is it a “dialectical” unity of opposition in the Hegelian sense. (Mou 1985: 274). To say that there is a “paradoxical identity” between ignorance and dharmatā (Suchness of things) means that despite their opposition, ignorance and dharmatā are as such “identical” with each other - without any mediation. In being “paradoxically identical” with the other, they are of the same Being, and none of them can exist alone by itself. Accordingly, for perfect teaching, no dharmas should be abolished in Buddhahood. On the contrary, for distinctive teaching, such as Huayan Buddhism, ignorance and dharmatā are “ontologically” separated from each other. Here they are understood to be of different Being. This implies that each of them can well exist by itself. There is an “identity” between them only in the sense that by means of self-negation one becomes the other. Given such opposition between dharmatā and ignorance, becoming a Buddha implies one’s  cutting off from all other realms of beings. Moreover, distinctive teaching is formulated as a discourse of discrimination, whereas perfect teaching is formulated as a discourse of non-discrimination. On the one hand, distinctive teaching makes use of conceptual means to positively articulate the truth. On the other hand, perfect teaching only employs negative expression and paradox (see Mou 1982: Vol. 2, 1187ff). As is well-known, The Awakening of Faith constitutes the foundational starting  point for Huayan Buddhism. This popular and important text in Chinese

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Buddhism might be the most systematic articulation of the doctrine of the tathāgatagarbha. In terms of the pattern of “one mind opening two gates,” it provides an account for the origins of all dharmas. The gate of saṃsāra refers to phenomena, whereas the gate of tathatā refers to noumena. In short, the True Mind as One Mind is identified as the ultimate ontological ground of all things. Mou, in his topological syncretism of Buddhist teachings, however,  criticized The Awakening of Faith for failing to see the creation of all dharmas as a necessary and intrinsic feature of the True Mind. This limitation allows the True Mind to exist alone without any dharmas. It is true that Huayan Buddhism later grants a double character of “being constant” and “following occasions” to the True Mind. But it does not change the fact that the True Mind only gives rise to dharmas contingently and by chance. On the level of praxis, as the result of the absolute purity of the True Mind, attaining Buddhahood necessitates becoming cutting off from all the other realms of existence. Consequently,  distinct from Tiantai Buddhism, both The Awakening of Faith and Huayan Buddhism do not grant a paradoxical identity between Buddha and other sentient beings. In developing his moral metaphysics, Mou nonetheless employed the pattern of “one mind opening two gates” from The Awakening of Faith as the conceptual framework. To begin with, Mou’s moral metaphysics basically resulted from a transformation of Kant’s philosophy. But it is further in The Awakening of Faith that Mou was able to find a hint for overcoming Kant’s limitation. In short, Kant’s system is founded upon the transcendental distinction between things-in-themselves and appearances. Whereas things-in-themselves are created by intellectual intuition, appearances are grasped by sensible intuition. According to Mou, although Kant’s introduction of the transcendental distinction signifies a ground-breaking insight that can give rise to a moral metaphysics, Kant himself fails to work out such an important consequence. This is because Kant assigns intellectual intuition to God only. As a result, things-in-themselves remain beyond the reach of human beings. But if human beings really can never be evidently and intuitively accessible to things-in-themselves, then the Kantian transcendental distinction would suffer from lack of any justification. This gives rise to an aporia in Kant’s philosophy. In The Awakening of Faith, Mou saw a way out to overcome Kant’s limitations. Structurally, there is a correspondence between the Kantian transcendental distinction and the division of two gates in The Awakening of Faith. Whereas things-in-­ themselves correspond to the gate of tathatā, appearances correspond to the gate of samsara. But distinct from Kant, The Awakening of Faith grants the possibility for human beings to have intellectual intuition in the form of prajñā (wisdom). That is, the gate of tathatā is intuitively accessible to the True Mind (Buddha). Likewise, the moral mind in the Confucian sense functions as intellectual intuition. Thus, in developing his moral metaphysics with the help of The Awakening of Faith, Mou believed that he is able to transcend Kant in justifying the transcendental distinction between things-in-themselves and appearances.8  See also Chap. 12—Ed.

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Nevertheless, in Mou’s eyes, The Awakening of Faith suffered from another limitation. For, according to this text, that which really produces the phenomenal world is the ālaya consciousness rather than the True Mind. It is only because the ālaya consciousness itself is grounded in the True Mind that the True Mind is said to be the origins of the phenomenal world. As the True Mind in the sense of The Awakening of Faith is not the creative source of the world in genuine sense, Buddhism must give way to Confucianism. The infinite intellectual mind in the Confucian sense is not only a human moral mind, but also onto-cosmologically creative in character. Its creativity is comparable to the Christian God in creating the world. Hence, it fulfills all the requirements for human beings to be capable of having intellectual intuition in Kant’s sense. But there was also another reason for Mou to go beyond the The Awakening of Faith in reconstructing Confucianism. For Mou tried to show that Confucianism is a perfect teaching, rather than a distinctive teaching. In Mou’s eyes, when Hu Wufeng 胡五峰 (1100–1155) declared, “The Heavenly pattern and human desires are of the same Being but different in function, parallel in performance but distinct in feelings,” he aimed to say that there is a “paradoxical identity” between the world of the Heavenly pattern and the world of human desires (Mou 1985: 275). It is because “the Confucian sage is not separated from the ordinary human relations, and hence is not separated from all things in the world” (Mou 1985: 305). But, as the creative source of the universe, the infinite intellectual mind is not a personal God beyond the reach of humans. Rather, every human being as such is identical with the infinite intellectual mind. In praxis, it is in terms of moral creativity that the sage manifests the creativity of the infinite intellectual mind and hence of the ulitmate Reality of our universe. Moral praxis accordingly must involve either the improvement of existence or the creation of a new existence. This signifies that apart from moral actions in changing the world, there is no sage. It is in this world that the sage finds his stage. What is unique to the sage is that he goes beyond the boundaries of human selfish desires and acts according to the Heavenly pattern. In the face of all things in this world, in being bounded by human selfish desires, one sees them as appearances only; but in following the Heavenly pattern one sees them as things-in-themselves without attachment. The removal of the boundaries of human selfish  desires, however, does not imply the removal of the phenomenal world. But Mou further claimed that only in WANG Longxi’s 王龍溪 (1498–1583) Maxim of Four Nothingnesses can one discover the Confucian perfect teaching in a genuine sense. For he thought that it points to formulating Confucianism as a discourse of non-discrimination, and is accordingly more philosophically viable (see Mou 1985: 325). For Mou, there is still a difference between Tiantai Buddhism and Confucianism. Whereas Tiantai Buddhism is a perfect teaching in the horizontal sense, Confucianism is a perfect teaching in the vertical sense. On the one hand, Confucianism starts with the concept of moral creation and is able declare that “the creative becoming of cosmos is identical with moral creativity” (Mou 1968: Vol. 1, 473). On the other hand, Tiantai Buddhism lacks these concepts of moral creativity and of cosmic creativity. Even in Huayan Buddhism “the True Mind of the tathāgatagarbha is not

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Fundamental Reality capable of producing the dependent-originated dharmas” (Mou 1968: Vol. 1, 642–643). Moreover, the True Mind of the tathāgatagarbha is primarily non-moral. Armed with the Confucian perfect teaching, Mou developed a Confucian theory of perfect good in attempting to solve the Kantian problem of the highest good (see Mou 1985). At this juncture, Mou maintained that these are the indicators for the superiority of Confucianism over Buddhism.9

4  Towards a Possible Synthesis We have seen the manners in which the three New Confucian systems resulted from different interactions with Buddhism. Given Tang’s and Mou’s conflicting receptions of Huayan Buddhism and Tiantai Buddhism, one might wonder if there is a possible way to harmonize them. On the one hand, in Tang’s phenomenology of mind, the elevation of one horizon to another horizon was characterized as a “departure from the inauthentic to the authentic” (Tang 1977: 10). For Tang, in order to achieve the authentic, it is necessary to transcend the inauthentic. Although he also stressed that the authentic is the ground of the possibility of the inauthentic, he did not identify them to be of the same Being. In this regard, Tang is a follower of Huayan Buddhism. On the other hand, despite his employment of the pattern of “one mind opening two gates” from The Awakening of Faith, Mou reached the conclusion that Confucianism is a perfect teaching in the Tiantai Buddhist sense. Admittedly, even at this juncture he spoke of the infinite intellectual mind in the Confucian sense as the ontological source of all dharmas. But he declared that such a mind must also intrinsically embrace the evil dharmas. To this extent, he sided with Tiantai Buddhism. Returning to Xiong’s thesis of the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and function, one can nonetheless discover a possibility to harmonize Tang’s and Mou’s Confucian systems. Originally, for Xiong, no Fundamental Reality is without function, and no function is without Fundamental Reality. When Tang agreed with the Huayan Buddhist concept of Buddha-nature as being strictly pure, he did not hence deny the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and function. In his eyes, the point of Huayan Buddhism was to characterize the unique essence of Buddha-nature, rather than to ontologically disconnect the realm of Buddha from the other realms of existence. For, there are relations of “mutual penetration” and of “mutual identity” between them (see Tang 1968: 263). That is, there is a “dialectical identity” between them. So, in terms of such dialectical identity, one can see that even for Huayan Buddhism, the True Mind cannot exist alone without any dharmas. In the same vein, Tang stressed that in the horizon of the prevalence of Heavenly Virtues as the highest horizon, it is necessary for us to achieve ourselves and to let things live up to their destiny (see Tang 1977, Vol. 2, 929). As seen in the ladder analogy,

 For more on Mou’s critique of Buddhism, please see Clower (2010: 222ff).

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Tang’s point is to urge us to ascend to the higher levels, rather than to destroy the lower levels. To this extent, Tang’s phenomenology of mind does not depart from Xiong’s thesis of the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and function. When Mou at first articulated his moral metaphysics with help of the pattern of “one mind opening two gates” in The Awakening of Faith, he might not have recognized the limitation of distinctive teaching either. But even in this context he spoke of the “real function” of the True Mind. Besides, he emphasized the objective necessity of appearances by characterizing it as the “expedient function” of the infinite intellectual mind (Mou 1985: 128–129). Later, in taking the Tiantai critique of Huayan Buddhism seriously, he shifted to reconstruct Confucianism as a perfect teaching. In avoiding the limitations of the Huayan doctrine of xingqi 性起 (Nature-­ origination) that sees the origination of all things from Buddha-nature, he followed the Tiantai Buddhist idea of xingju 性具 (Nature-embrace) that all things are intrinsically embraced in Buddha-nature. For, in his eyes, whereas the doctrine of Nature-­ origination maintains the separation between the realm of Buddha and the other realms of sentient beings, the doctrine of Nature-embrace stresses the inseparability between them. Furthermore, he argued that a Confucian counterpart of the Tiantai Buddhist idea of Nature-embrace is shown that in Hu Wufeng’s thesis that “the Heavenly pattern and human desires are of the same Being but different in function, parallel in performance but distinct in feelings,” though he identified Wang Longxi’s position as its completion. To be sure, one might challenge Mou’s understanding of Wang Longxi’s doctrine as a perfect teaching. At first, even Mou himself recognized that seen from the standpoint of Tiantai Buddhism, Wang Yangming’s Maxim of Four Beings belongs to distinctive teaching, while Wang Longxi’s Maxim of Four Nothingnesses is only a perfect teaching of the ekayāna (One Vehicle) under the banner of distinctive teaching (see Mou 1985: 324). This is because like his master, Wang Longxi was still understood as being bound to the discourse of discrimination. But Mou then argued that, in reality, the goal of Wang Longxi’s Maxim of Four Nothingnesses aims to say that “Fundamental Reality and function, the invisible and the manifest are merely of a single occasion; mind, will, knowing, and things are only of a single affair,” and this goal can be substantiated in terms of Hu’s thesis that “the Heavenly pattern and human desires are of the same Being but different in function, parallel in performance but distinct in feelings” (Mou 1985: 324). This helps to discern that Wang Longxi’s Maxim of Four Nothingnesses rather primarily belongs to the discourse of non-discrimination and hence should be understood as a perfect teaching in a genuine sense (Mou 1985: 324). To this extent, Mou’s Confucian perfect teaching might be understood as an ontological completion of Xiong’s thesis of the inseparability of Fundamental Reality and function. On the other hand, seen from Xiong’s perspective, although the Buddhist perfect teaching explicitly proclaims the necessity of embracing all things, it overlooks Fundamental Reality as a creative process of constant transformation. Thus, its goal can only be truly fulfilled in a Confucian philosophy of Fundamental Reality and function. Likewise, Mou’s Confucian perfect teaching is in need  of Xiong’s  idea of the cosmological transformation as Fundamental Reality. 

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Indeed, in Xiong’s original position, the difference between distinctive and perfect teaching remains unclear. Now this can be clarified by turning to Mou’s work. On the other hand, even armed with his Confucian perfect teaching, Mou might still need to add Xiong’s thesis that Fundamental Reality is inseparable from function, for no single dharma can be subsistent and not be abolished, if the Heavenly pattern of the cosmologically creative transformation is not realized. Besides, if Tang sticks to his thesis of the necessity of letting things live up to their destiny in the highest horizon, then he would also agree with Mou’s Confucian perfect teaching. It is because Tang’s concern is primarily phenomenological, rather than ontological.  But for a more precise specification  of the highest horizon, Tang also needs Xiong’s idea of cosmology. Furthermore, in affirming the possibility of “inner realization,” Xiong did not describe how the ordinary mind is elevated to the original mind. Likewise, under the influence of Wang Longxi, Mou only understood “inner realization” as sudden enlightenment. But this can hardly avoid the negative effects as shown in the later development of Wang Yangming’s school. As is well-known, many later followers of this school were indulgent in publicly claiming that they were already sages, despite their wild behaviour. Now it is possible to overcome these limitations by following Tang’s phenomenology of mind. For in Tang, becoming a sage is a developmental process, rather than a result of sudden enlightenment. All this indicates that for Xiong’s theory of Fundamental Reality and function, Mou’s reconstruction of Confucianism as a perfect teaching can strengthen its position, while Tang’s phenomenology of mind can provide it with a descriptive justification. One might ask: Is New Confucianism an idealism? In answering this question, it is interesting to note that for Xiong, the mind only belongs to the expansion in the movement of constant transformation that is Fundamental reality. As John Makeham underscored, Xiong’s thesis that “the mind is Fundamental Reality” does not mean that “the mind is identical to Fundamental Reality,” but rather that “the mind is not different from Fundamental Reality” (Makeham 2014b: 265; Xiong 2015: 178; 183–185). Xiong explicitly stated: It is certainly impossible to say that Fundamental Reality is matter. But it is also wrong to say that Fundamental Reality is mind. Mind and matter are named for they are relative to each other. To speak of them in these terms is to do so provisionally – mainly due to the flowing of Fundamental Reality. Nonetheless, one can see Fundamental Reality in mind, for mind does not lose the virtue of its Fundamental reality. New Treatise includes weishi 唯識 [consciousness-only] in the title, but here wei 唯means uniqueness and not aloneness. It is hence different from idealism in the normal sense. It rather belongs to the lineage of the Three Yi 易 (Xiong 2001: Vol. 6, 21).10

This indicates that mind enjoys a unique status because of its capacity of manifesting Fundamental Reality and hence  of mastering human behaviour and of

 Three Yi refers to Lianshan 連山 (the Yi of Xia 夏), Guizang 歸藏 (the Yi of Shang 商), and Zhouyi 周易 (the Yi of Zhou). Only the last one is identical with the current form of the Yijing.

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transforming things. But this does not mean that mind is the only reality. Undeniably, Xiong also wrote: Humanity (jen [ren]) is the original mind. It is the original Fundamental Reality common to man, Heaven, Earth, and all things … The Fundamental Reality of humanity is the source of all transformations and the foundation of all things (Chan 1963: 768–769).

Here he seems to straight-forwardly identify the original mind as Fundamental Reality. However, for him, the mind is, in reality, only the expansion in the movement of constant transformation. It is in the sense that the original mind as the manifestation of the creative process of constant transformation that it is Fundamental Reality. As Makeham remarked, there is a dependence of mind upon Fundamental Reality, but not vice versa (see Makeham 2014b: 265). In this way, Xiong’s position can hardly be characterized as “idealism.” At this juncture, one should rather agree with Makeham’s declaration that “Xiong was neither an epistemological idealist nor a transcendental idealist” (Makeham 2014b: 245–246). After all, Xiong’s position might further help Mou to be free from committing idealism. This can be explained as follows. Following the School of Mind in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, Mou indeed identified the True Mind as the ontological source of all things. In employing the pattern of “one mind opening two gates” in The Awakening of Faith, Mou construed this “opening” in terms of self-negation of the True Mind. That is, it is by means of self-negation that the True Mind gives rise to the phenomenal world. To this extent, Mou was an idealist in the Hegelian sense. But Xiong’s position might give rise to a re-interpretation of the True Mind in Mou’s sense as a participating moment of the creative process of constant transformation. In this way, Mou’s Confucianism can be separated from idealism. As is well-known, while Huayan Buddhism holds that the three worlds are mind-only, Hegel commits to an absolute idealism. However, despite his appreciation of Huayan Buddhism and the affinity of his and Hegelian phenomenology of spirit, Tang did not explicitly identify the mind as the ontological source of all things. He was rather satisfied with describing the movement between different horizons of mind. His approach is primarily existential-­ developmental, rather than metaphysical. In particular, he “conceived of object as what is affectively connected by the mind, rather than as what is constituted by the mind” (Tang 1977: Vol. 1, 5). To this extent, one can hardly characterize such a Confucian phenomenology of mind as “idealistic.” Only in affirming the possibility of the attainment of an infinite life as the telos, can his approach be characterized as “idealistic.” But this signifies that he was primarily a moral idealist, rather than an ontological idealist. Historically, it is due to the influences coming from the School of Mind in Song-­ Ming Neo-Confucianism and The Awakening of Faith in Buddhism that Mou and Tang committed or tended to commit to an “idealistic” approach. But along with Xiong’s reactivation of the Yijing, Mou and Tang’s concept of the True Mind should be re-interpreted in the non-idealistic direction. As seen before, in characterizing Fundamental Reality as the interplay of expansion and contraction, Xiong returns to the basic position of the Yijing: “The heavenly way transforms” (Xiong 2015: 164).

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This signifies that the original mind is rather primarily a moment of the creative process of constant transformation of Heaven. That is, apart from Fundamental Reality as the creative process of constant transformation of Heaven, there is no original mind. In this sense, Xiong’s contribution remains a necessary fundament to Tang and Mou’s approach. One might then conclude that New Confucianism is at best an “idealism” in its optimistic belief of the great power of mind exercised in changing the world. It is also well known that Mou characterized Confucian metaphysics as “onto-­ cosmology.” This indicates that in understanding Fundamental Reality as a creative living process, Confucianism is primarily a metaphysics that aims to account for the origins and the formation-process of all things, rather than a philosophy of life only (see Mou 1968: Vol. 1, 9). As a result of a  critical transformation of Yogācāra Buddhism, Xiong’s approach is more cosmological, while following the Tiantai concept of perfect teaching, Mou’s approach is more ontological, and being influenced by Huayan Buddhism, and Tang’s approach is more phenomenological—not only in disclosing the “developmental porcess of” the self-transcendence of mind, but also in showing the “descriptive-existential” evidence for the possibility of Confucian metaphysics.11 As shown in Tiantai Buddhism, according to the perfect teaching, no single dharma should be abolished. Does this position imply that “What is actual, is rational”? Does Mou’s formulation of Confucianism as a perfect teaching thereby signify that Confucianism is conservatism? If so, then how can Mou justify the speech of “improving existence?” In meeting this challenge, Mou might reply that if the world is full of human selfish desires only, what is actual is not rational, but when the Heavenly patterns are realized, what is actual is rational. As the infinite intellectual mind, the sage is capable of changing the world, in terms of their wisdom, courage, and benevolence. In this sense one can speak of the possibility of “improving existence” by the Confucian. Regardless of the plausibility of Mou’s claim that moral actions can give rise to a world which is full of happiness, his insistence of the necessity of improving existence indicates that Confucianism is not conservatism. All in all, seen from Confucian theory of Fundamental Reality and function, Xiong succeeds in reactivating its cosmological dimension, Tang is able to disclose its phenomenological dimension, and Mou explores its ontological dimension. Insofar as their thoughts belong to the different dimensions of Confucian theory of Fundamental Reality and function, their difference does not exclude a unity of them. Among them, Xiong focuses on the heavenly aspect, while Mou stresses the active role of human subjects, and Tang shows the steps in promoting the level of spiritual existence.  Therefore, despite their different receptions of Buddhism in developing their own systems, their thoughts complement each other. This shows that the theory of Fundamental Reality and function constitute a cornerstone of New

 Tang’s approach is “phenomenological” in a double sense. As “developmental,” it is “phenomenological” in the Hegelian sense. As “experiential,” it is “phenomenological” in the Husserlian sense.

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Confucianism. In this context, one can also discover the fruitfulness of the critical reception of Buddhism for the development of New Confucianism.

References Aviv, Eyal. 2014. Ouyang Jingwu: From Yogācāra Scholarticism to Soteriology, in Transforming Consciousness, ed. John Makeham, 285–316. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A nice exposition of Ouyang Jingwu’s reception of Yogācāra thought.) Chan, Wing-tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (The chapter on Xiong Shili’s thought includes a selected translation of his major works.) Clower, Jason. 2010. The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiantai Buddhism in Mou Zongsan’s New Confucianism. Leiden and Boston: Brill. (An analytical exposition of Mou Zongsan’s understanding of Tiantai Buddhism in developing his own Confucian system.) Fazang 法藏. 1924–1935. Commentary on the Profoundity of the Flower Garland Sūtra 華嚴經 探玄記. T 35 (1733): 107a–492b. (An important work in the founding of Huayan Buddhism.) Hakeda, Yoshito. 1967. The Awakening of Faith. New  York: Columbia University Press. (An English translation of Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論.) Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Arnold Vincent Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1982. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Makeham, John, ed. 2014a. Transforming Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (An anthology of advanced studies on the renaissance of Yogācāra thought and its influences in modern China.) ———. 2014b. Xiong Shili’s Critique of Yogācāra Thought in the Context of His Constructive Philosophy, in Transforming Consciousness, ed. John Makeham, 242–282. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A comprehensive analysis of Xiong Shili’s critical reception of Yogācāra thought in developing his own Confucian thought.) ———. 2015. Xiong Shili’s Understanding of the Relationship Between the Ontological and the Phenomenal, in Chinese Metaphysics and its Problems, eds. Li Chenyang and Franklin Perkins, 207–223. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (An illuminating clarification of Xiong Shili’s thesis of the inseparability between Fundamental Reality and function.) Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1968. Mind as Fundamental Reality and Nature as Fundamental Reality 心體與性體. 3 Vols. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju. (A revolutionary interpretation of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism.) ——— 牟宗三. 1982. Buddha-Nature and Prajñā 佛性與般若. Revised third edition. 2 Vols. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (A ground-breaking work in the hermeneutics of Buddhism.) ——— 牟宗三. 1985. Theory of Perfect Good 圓善論. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (A Confucian Solution to the Kantian Problem of the Highest Good.) Ng, Yau-nang William. 1996. T’ang Chun-i’s Idea of Transcendence: With Special Reference to His Life, Existence, and the Horizon of Mind-Heart. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Toronto. (A critical exposition of Tang Junyi’s mature thought.) Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1968. The Primordial Doctrine of Chinese Philosophy: The Primordial Meaning of Nature 中國哲學原論: 原性篇. Hong Kong: New Asia Research Institute. (A classic in the hermeneutics of traditional Chinese philosophy.) ——— 唐君毅. 1977. Life-Existence and Horizons of Mind 生命存在與心靈境界. 2 Vols. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (Tang Junyi’s mature work in articulating his own Confucian doctrine.) Ueda, Yoshifumi 上田義文.1967. Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogācāra Philosophy. Philosophy East and West 17.1: 155–165. (A deep analysis of the essential differences between the Old School and New School of Yogācāra Buddhism.)

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Xiong, Shili 熊十力. 2001. Collected Works of Xiong Shili 熊十力全集. 10 Vols. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. (As a critical edition of Xiong Shili’s complete works, it also includes some important secondary literature.) ——— 熊十力. 2015. New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness, trans. John Makeham. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. (This is an excellent English translation of the 1932 classical Chinese version of Collected Works of Xiong Shili’s Xin weishi lun 新唯識論.)

The Influence of the German Idealists on the Contemporary New Confucians Wen-berng Pong

1  Introduction I use here the concept of German Idealism in a broader sense, including Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel (Kant is excluded from German Idealism by some historians), but will restrict my examination of contemporary New Confucians only to Mou Zongsan (牟宗三 1909–1995) and Tang Junyi (唐君毅1909–1978). The introduction of German Idealism, especially Kant and Hegel, into Chinese culture can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th Century. Two pioneering articles, one about Kant and the other about Hegel, appeared in the same issue of New Citizen 27 (《新民叢報》:1903) established by Liang Qichao (梁超1873–1929). As editor, Liang wrote the article about Kant entitled “The Doctrines of the Greatest Philosopher in Modern Times—Kant.” According to Max K.  W. Huang’s (克武) research, Liang’s article was in fact based on a book which was originally written in French by Alfred Fouillée (Histoire de la philosophie) and translated into Japanese by Nakae Chomin (中江兆民) (Huang 1998: 101–148). Liang’s article was both positively and negatively evaluated. According to most Chinese Kant scholars, because Liang’s interpretation of Kant was based on “thirdhand” materials which went through four different languages (German-French-Japanese-Chinese), there are a lot of misunderstandings of Kant’s thought in it. In spite of such unavoidable misunderstandings, Lee Ming-huei (Li Minghui 李明輝) considers Liang’s own comments on Kant’s theory of conscience in comparison with Wang Yangming’s to This paper is partial result of a three-year research project granted by Minister of Science and Technology R.O.C (Taiwan): Humanity and Individual Self-A Comparative Study of the Theories of German Idealism and Contemporary Neo-Confucianism, NSC 99-2410-H-002-035-MY3. I am grateful for this grant. W. Pong (*) National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_18

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be very insightful, so that Liang can be reckoned as a forerunner of Mou Zongsan (Lee 2016: 7). And in the same issue of New Citizen of 1903 Ma Junwu (馬君武1881–1939) wrote the article about Hegel entitled “The Doctrines of the Greatest Idealist— Hegel.” Although both Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophy were introduced to Chinese intellectuals at the same year, Kant’s philosophy won far more acceptance than Hegel’s in the first three decades of the twentieth century. There are several historical reasons. One is that the scientific background of Kant’s doctrines fit with the eagerness to introduce the new waves of Western science and democracy among the Chinese intellectuals after the May 4th Movement of 1919, and another is the similarity between Kant’s and Chinese moral philosophy.1 In contrast with these, Hegel’s philosophy did not have such advantages. This situation did not change until 1931, the 100th anniversary of Hegel’s death. A memorial publication collected by Zhai Junong (翟菊農) appeared in Philosophical Review 5 (《哲學評論》: 1933), the very first academic journal in China established in 1927. This publication triggered a debate about the understanding of Hegel, and eventually about 100 papers on Hegel were published during 1928 and 1937, three times more than on research on Kant in the same period (Yang and Deng 2003: 87). Such a change also connected with the increasing interest in Marxism. The debate in this period had a significant influence on Tang Junyi’s important paper in 1936, “A Comparison of Metaphysics of Becoming between Hegel and Zhuangzi,” reprinted in Comparative Studies of Eastern and Western Philosophical Thought (中西哲學思想之比較研究集1978). According to Serina Chan, Mou Zongsan’s engagement with Kant was encouraged partly by his teacher Xiong Shili (1885–1968). In a letter to Mou during the first half of the 1940s Xiong wrote, You wish to elucidate Kant and make a return to this path. This is a worthwhile effort. Yet the three concepts that Kant called God, the soul and the free will are too fragmented. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you did away with God and the soul and became good at elucidating the free will….Kant’s free will, if skillfully developed, could be blended with the incessant subtlest signs of creation [heaven] described in the Yi (this is in respect of cosmology). It could be regarded as an inner ruler (and called the original mind) so that heaven and human being could be united. Wouldn’t that be fantastic!” (Chan 2011: 36)2

The generation of Contemporary New Confucians after World War II (including Tang and Mou) was influenced mainly by German philosophers around 1800 (especially Kant and Hegel). Most researchers agree that both Kant and Hegel had great influence on Mou and Tang (Jiang 1991; Schmidt 2011: 279; Van den Stock 2016: 69–70; Peng 2016: 345–354). Van den Stock found that the main reason Mou and Tang engaged with German idealism was that “they saw [it] as close to Song-Ming Confucianism” (Van den Stock 2016: 69). Thomas Fröhlich doubts if this line of interpretation can also be applied to Tang: 1  One can obviously see this similarity from the above-mentioned Liang Qichao’s paper and the following letter from Xiong Shili to Mou Zongsan. 2  The Chinese text comes from Xiong 1947: 327–328.

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Yet, it is obvious that Tang was neither a Hegelian nor a follower of Fichte—although comparisons with ideas found in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the Philosophy of Right and in Fichte’s Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge are clearly helpful for interpreting certain sections of Tang’s philosophy…. It is quite likely that the highly selective assimilation of German idealist philosophy was, to some degree, the result of Tang’s interest in Anglo-American Neo-Hegelian philosophy as represented by Thomas Hill Green, Francis Herbert Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, and Josiah Royce, all of whom were cited in Tang’s writings (Fröhlich 2017: 38–39)

This is quite an innovative observation, but I would not agree with this reading. According to my observation, reading Anglo-American Neo-Hegelian philosophers may have given Tang an impulse to engage directly with Hegel’s writings, but only after that engagement Tang found the similarities between German Idealism and Song-Ming Confucianism. The assimilation of German Idealism cannot be simply the result of the study of Neo-Hegelianism. In this paper I will focus on the acceptance of German Idealism in Mou Zongsan’s and Tang Junyi’s interpretation of Confucianism. They are the central and most influential figures of the generation of Contemporary New Confucians after WWII.3 They share some similarities in the development of their thought: (1) their philosophical engagement began with intensive study of English philosophical trends at the time, Tang with New Realism and Mou with Russell; (2) they both tried to criticize their first philosophical training under the influence of German Idealists, Tang with Kant, Fichte, and Hegel; Mou mainly with Kant and also Hegel;4 (3) they went beyond criticizing German Idealism, also trying to show that traditional Chinese Confucianism is not only not inferior, but superior to it; (4) at the end of their careers they both developed their own theoretical models of universal philosophy, Tang with the theory of nine horizons of mind (心靈九境理論) and Mou with his two-tiered ontology (兩層存有論).5 A remarkable fact is that while accepting and criticizing German Idealism, they were somehow (consciously or unconsciously) influenced by the German Idealists in their interpretation of traditional Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism.

3  Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai 張君勱 1887–1969), another representative figure of Contemporary New Confucianism, was also deeply influenced by Kant’s practical philosophy. Chang emphasized the similarity between Kant and Wang Yangming without trying to dispute with Kant as Mou Zongsan did (Carsun Chang 1955: 12; Chang 1962: 13f. Cf. Lee 2016: 14–19). I consider therefore Carsun Chang as a transitional figure between Liang Qichao and Mou Zongsan. (See also chapter “Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian”—Ed.) 4  Mou Zongsan mentioned in his Autobiography at Fifty (五十自述) that he met Tang Junyi several times from 1937–1942 and was very impressed by Tang’s understanding of Hegel, but he himself tended to understand more of Kant. In spite of this, Mou tried to access the system of Hegel through Lectures on the Philosophy of History and Elements of the Philosophy of Right (MCW 32: 99–103). Stephan Schmidt emphasizes the influence of Hegel in Mou’s later theory of self-negation of innate moral awareness (良知自我坎陷) (Schmidt 2011: 279–286). On the influence of Hegel on Mou, see also Jiang (1991), Lai (1997), and Tseng (2015). 5  See chapters “Beyond the Horizon: Late Work of TANG Junyi” and “MOU Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”—Ed.

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The influence of the German Idealists can be divided into the following two aspects: (1) the perspective of the history of Song-Ming Confucianism as a three-­ lineage teaching (san xi shuo 三系) or three phases of one lineage teaching (yi xi san jieduan shuo 一系三階段);6 (2) the perspective of construction of universal philosophy or I will call it “philosophy of all philosophies.” The question I am concerned with here is the first perspective: How far did the thought of German Idealists influence their interpretation of traditional Confucianism? This chapter attempts to retrace exactly the sources of the German Idealists and make clear how these sources affected their interpretation of Chinese philosophy.

2  Tang Junyi 2.1  T  ang Junyi’s Acceptance of Western Philosophy and Return to Traditional Chinese Philosophy According to his own description Tang began his philosophical adventure with the acceptance of New Realism in the beginning of the twentieth century. He read most of the representatives of New Realism, including G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, R. B. Perry, W. P. Montague, E.G. Spaulding (TCW 5: 570–571). As the story went further, Tang continued to read the idealism of New Hegelians (such as F. H. Bradley), which the New Realists originally wanted to criticize. Eventually Tang turned his philosophical beliefs to Hegel’s idealism instead of New Realism. “After reading  On Mou’s three-lineage teaching, see MCW 5: 52–53. Whether Tang holds to the three-lineage teaching is controversial. Yang Zebo (楊澤波) mentioned in Critique of Mou Zongsan’s Threelineage Theory (牟宗三三系論論衡) that Liu Shuxian once asked Tang Junyi about the question of three-lineage teaching, and Liu remembered, “Tang would not make a value judgment on certain figures; he only said their master Xiong Shili (熊十力) did not want to talk about the problem of three lineages, and he did not recognize Hu Wufeng’s (胡五峰) thought as an independent system” (Yang 2006: 2–3). In Tang’s works we do not find any textual support for the three-lineage teaching. On the basis of the headings of three sections of chapter 19 of An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy: Inquiry into Teaching, Lai Shen-chon argues that Tang approves of the three-lineage teaching (Lai 1997: 66). But according to my reading, these three headings should rather be interpreted as three phases of one line. In fact Tang argues that the development of Song-Ming MindNature theory (xinxing lun心性論) is a kind of stepped theory in three phases corresponding to three headings: (1) the first phase including Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai (周張), the Cheng brothers (二程), and Zhu Xi (朱熹), in which the second group is more progressive than the first, and Zhu Xi more progressive than the second group (TCW 17: 496–497); (2) the second phase including Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming (陸王), in which, according to the same logic, Wang is more progressive than Lu and Zhu Xi (TCW 17: 500–501); (3) the third phase including successors of Wang Yangming and Liu Jishan (劉蕺山), in which Liu is more progressive than the successors of Wang and noteworthy is that for Tang, Liu Jishan is more progressive than Wang Yangming (TCW 17: 504). The last philosophers of every phase are the main figures constructing a triad (Zhu Xi—Wang Yangming—Liu Jishan). Accordingly Tang’s version of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism should be understood as a teaching of three phases of one lineage, rather than a three-lineage teaching.

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Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit one knows first beside the philosophical horizon of narrative on the same level as New Realism, there are still philosophical horizons going from one stair upwards after another” (TCW 5: 571). The result of this idealistic turn is the writing of Comparative Research on Eastern and Western Philosophical Thought (中西哲學思想之比較研究). Tang tells us that before the publication of this book he had a second philosophical turn due to a personal experience and found this writing is nothing but word games (TCW 4: 5). He tried to prevent its publication, but in vain. The details of this second turn are still unclear. All this happened at the age of thirty. In a letter to his wife in 1940 Tang wrote: “On July 17th last year as I was thirty I thought that the foundation of my philosophical system was already established… Now I can found a philosophical system from mathematical to religious philosophy…In 15 years I wish to write three great works: one about cosmos, another about human existence, and another about religion” (TCW 25: 144). The understanding of Tang’s own philosophical position lies in the correct interpretation of Tang’s reaction to Hegel’s idealism. Here we should take Hegel’s Logic and Phenomenology of Spirit into consideration. In general Tang prefers the Phenomenology to the Logic. How did Tang evaluate Hegel’s Logic? At that time I read Plato’s dialogue Parmenides and Hegel’s Logic, and see their deduction of all categories of thought from categories of being and nothingness. The concept of becoming can be explained by the reciprocity of being and nothing. Therefore I thought I could use the “logic of being and nothingness” to construct the first principle of metaphysics to explain the cosmos and try to explain the metaphysics of Laozi, Zhuangzi. Yi zhuan, and Zhongyong, and wrote more than a hundred thousand words. In fact all these are nothing but word games. (TCW 4: 5. My emphasis)

The decisive reason to reject Hegel’s Logic is the choice of two incompatible principles between “being is no other than becoming” (Heraclitus, Hegel) and “being is, non-being is not” (Parmenides). But why is the unity of being and nothingness wrong (a word game)? Is the reason a philosophical or a personal choice? According to Tang’s own self-description, it was personal agony that led him to search for a certain foundation of real life. If we compare this course with Kierkegaard’s, the reason for Tang’s decision can be called both personal and philosophical. Purely out of personal philosophical meditations excluding altogether the terminologies of both Eastern and Western philosophical literature, Tang established his own model of philosophical discourse in The Formation of the Moral Self (道德自我的建立 1944), a book he highly appreciated. This is the philosophical foundation he had been looking for for a long time. In order to make clear Tang’s own position, we have to connect it with his opinions about Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. The main question here is: what is the highest stage of all human forms of consciousness (Hegel) or cultural consciousness (Tang)? Morality, religion, art or philosophy? Fichte in his Science of Knowledge (1794) claims that the consciousness nearest to absolute ego is consciousness of morality, and Schelling in his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) holds that the highest stage of forms of human consciousness should be the activity of art. In Hegel’s Encyclopedia there are three

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main stages of Spirit: subjective, objective, and absolute, in which the successive one is higher than the previous. According to Hegel’s description, the stage of morality (Fichte) belongs to subjective Spirit, but the stage of art to absolute Spirit. Even at the stage of absolute Spirit, art (Schelling) is for Hegel just the beginning. It should be overcome by the stage of religion, and finally turn to philosophy as highest stage. As above mentioned Tang’s own existential experience convinced him that philosophy is not the highest stage or culture as Hegel suggests, but rather morality lies at the center of every culture (TCW 20: 13). That means for him morality is an essential component of all cultures. Here arises the prototype of Tang’s philosophical foundation, which he expands in the succeeding years to cover all different areas of Spirit as an integrated system, but never goes beyond morality as the foundation. Accordingly, one can divide Tang’s works into four different categories: 1. Foundation: the prototype of his theory I call “the triad of the moral self” contained in The Formation of the Moral Self (道德自我的建立 1944) and The Experience of Life (人生之體驗 1944). 2. Philosophy of culture: The Spiritual Value of Chinese Culture (中國文化的精神 價 1953), The Reconstruction of the Humanistic Spirit (人文精神之重建 1955), The Development of the Chinese Humanistic Spirit (中國人文精神之發展 1958), Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason (文化意識與道德理性 1958), and Chinese Humanism and the Contemporary World (中華人文與當今 世界 1975). 3. History of Chinese philosophy: Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy—Introduction ( 中國哲學原論:導論篇 1966), An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy—Inquiry into Nature (中國哲學原論:原性篇 1968), An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy— Inquiry into the Way (中國哲學原論:原道篇 1973), An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy—Inquiry into Teaching (中國哲學原論:原教篇 1975). 4. Philosophy of philosophies: The Existence of Life and Horizons of Mind (生命 存在與心靈境界 1977).7

2.2  T  he Influence of German Idealists on the Formation of Moral Self In the preface of the first edition of The Formation of Moral Self Tang Junyi wrote: “Of the Western sources the author takes mostly from the idealists, for example, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, but his fundamental Spirit comes from the teachings of Asian philosophers. Of his own insight he will not make any remarks. The competent readers can know this in distinction to both Asian and Western philosophers himself” (TCW1-2: 22. my emphasis). The book is composed from three different

7

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sources: one from three specific Western philosophers, another from unnamed Eastern philosophers, and Tang’s own philosophical insight. Apart from all hermeneutical and philological problems, my concern here is to find out the corresponding texts to explain the influence of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Although Jiang Nianfeng retraces very comprehensively the influences of Hegel on Tang and Mou in his paper (Jiang 1991), he leaves aside that of the other German Idealists, for example Kant and Fichte. Lai Shen-chon proposes a more refined interpretation, in which the three chapters of The Formation of Moral Self correspond to three phases of German Idealists, namely Kant (chapter “Confucianism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth centuries”), Fichte (chapter “Ma Yifu’s Theory of the Virtue of (Human) Nature and the Six Arts”) and Hegel (chapter “Liang Shuming and his Syncretic Confucianism”): “three moments of the development of the Kant’s ethics of ‘Autonomie,’ Fichte’s philosophy of transcendental ‘Tathandlung’ and Hegel’s philosophy of ‘Geist’” (Lai 1997: 54). According to Lai, Tang uses this triad model further to interpret also “three moments of the development of Zhu Xi’s (朱子) teaching of the Reason (理), WANG Yangming’s (王陽明) ‘realization of liangzhi (innate moral awareness)’ (致良知) and Liu Zongzhou’s (劉 宗周) doctrine of moral mind and practice” (Lai 1997: 54).8 If one reads further Tang’s later works, he seems to use the same structure of this triad as a universal model to interpret all developments of human cultures in general, Eastern and Western; for example, Socrates (reason), Plato (mind), Aristotle (moral mind and practice); Kongzi (reason), Mengzi (mind), Xunzi (moral mind and practice); and so on (TCW 19: 666–667). At first glance Tang’s model is very naïve and implausible, but if one looks more closely, one can find its originality and interpretive potential.9 By a closer reading of Tang’s text, one doubts if the three phases of moral self correspond one-to-one with those of German Idealists (Kant-Fichte-Hegel) or further correspond with the three moments of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Liu Zongzhou) as Lai Shen-chon proposes. According to Tang’s own indication in the introduction of The Formation of Moral Self, the content of its first phase with the title “the end of life” is mainly “taken over from the spirit of Kant who distinguishes ‘ought’ from ‘will’” (TCW 1-2: 28). Here one has the spirit of autonomy as the central content (TCW 1-2: 50–51) and this part confirms Lai’s thesis. In the second  Romanizations changed to pinyin to conform to the rest of the volume—Ed.  The three phases of The Formation of Moral Self appear to be similar to the three phases of individual existence in Kierkegaard’s famous book Either/Or; at least they are all based on personal experience as their foundation. But Tang and Kierkegaard are at least different in the following points: (1) Tang tries to interpret his own formation of self as a universal model common to all human minds, but Kiekergaard’s remains individual; (2) Kierkegaard’s three phases exclude each other (either/or), while Tang’s phases could penetrate (or imply) each other. In this respect is Tang closer to Hegel. But if one considers the meaning of aufheben in Hegel’s sense, that is, the succeeding phase is higher and preserved the preceeding phase, Tang would hold that these phases are rather three different perspectives of one and the same mind-substance (心體), although the third phase is more complete than the first two, and the former two are reflected somehow in a vague way in the latter. 8 9

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phase one has Tang’s own remark: “With regard to the section about relation of finitude and infinity it is mainly influenced by the dialectics of Fichte and Hegel, but still somehow different from them” (TCW 1-2: 32. my emphasis). This part refers to the third chapter entitled “‘birth and death’ is ‘neither birth nor death”’ (生滅即不 生滅). The influence of Fichte and Hegel can be summarized in one long paragraph (TCW 1-2: 118–119) with four steps. Firstly, Tang tries to explain that we cannot conceive the infinity of mind-substance as it is in itself: Of the first thing I think: That the mind-substance (心體) is connected with my finite body is a fact. Its connection with my body makes me unsatisfied with the restriction of body and requires the elimination of this restriction in order to have knowledge of it and in its knowing activity manifests itself. Therefore I cannot consider the mind-substance as something objectively existing and imagine its infinity. Nevertheless, insofar as I consider it in itself, I cannot but consider it as infinity as I thought before. Since it is in itself infinite, why it does not manifest itself as infinite in order for me to know it as infinite is the real problem here. (TCW 1-2: 118)

In the second step Tang tries to argue further that this infinite mind-substance should be inherent in me as individual finite being, but this invokes a contradiction: But why I must think it as it is in itself, and consider itself as infinite? I get it: Only because I am not satisfied with all the objects of real world being confined in the limited-now. The reason why I am not satisfied with the limit of the real world lies in its infinity inside of me. There is a contradiction between its infinity and the finitude of the objects of real world known to me. (TCW 1-2: 118)

In the third step, in order to resolve this contradiction Tang suggest that I as a finite being has to eliminate my finite state now and enter into another finite state in every future moment: Due to this contradiction and my dissatisfaction with the finitude of the real world known to me, I turn to see it as it is in itself. Thus the reason I can consider it as infinite is that it is inside of me and it penetrates inside of my finite self. I have thought this point already before, and now I rethink it in another point: Its infinitude and my finitude eventually belong to an undivided knot, that is, its infinitude lies in the knot to eliminate my finitude. Its transcendence lies in the knot of the requirement to transcend all reality. Consequently, I understand that I cannot consider its infinitude as it is in itself, on the contrary one should consider its infinitude in its elimination of my finitude. Its infinitude is just in making me unlimited, my unlimitedness is its infinitude. If it cannot make me unlimited, I cannot think of it as infinity. Its infinitude is just in eliminating my finitude. If it had not the “capability” of such elimination, it would not be infinity. (TCW 1-2: 118–119)

In the final step Tang comes to the conclusion that in fact I myself is the united knot of finitude and infinity (birth and death’ is ‘neither birth nor death”’ (生滅即不生 滅) in the activity of such elimination of finite states: It must have something finite for its eliminating, and it must have the ability to eliminate this finitude. Only through the combination of both can it become it as it is in itself. Therefore, its infinitude must oppose something finite, and it is not itself this finite thing, because it wants to eliminate the latter. Its activity of elimination must be manifested in something finite; therefore, it is in itself on the one hand transcending all finitude, and also on the other hand manifests in all finitude.” (TCW 1-2: 119)

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This long paragraph reminds us of some text in Fichte’s Science of Knowledge, especially the theory of imagination: This interplay of the self, in and with itself, whereby it posits at once as finite and infinite— an interplay that consists, as it were, in self-conflict and is self-reproducing, in that the self endeavors to unite the irreconcilable, now attempting to receive the infinite in the form of the finite, now, baffled, positing it again outside the latter, and in that very moment seeking once more to entertain it under the form of finitude—this is the power of imagination. (Fichte 1982: 193, my emphasis)

Without referring to more texts of Fichte and Hegel I would like to ask: What is the difference between Tang and the German Idealists on this issue? Tang indicates his difference from both as follows: “The difference (from Fichte and Hegel) lies in that I emphasize more the inseparable relation (相即關係) between finitude and the infinite” (TCW 1-2: 32). The use of the expression “inseparable relation” of infinitude and finitude is quite an unclear criterion to distinguish Tang from Fichte and Hegel, because all these three philosophers deny that the concept of infinity transcends finite things, and that means they all agree on the inseparable relation between the infinite and finitude. Hegel affirms this kind of relation: “The infinite does not stand as something finished and complete above or superior to the finite, as if the finite had an enduring being apart from or subordinate to the infinite” (Hegel 1999: 138; Hegel 1986: 150). Hegel criticizes Kant’s and Fichte’s infinity as “spurious infinity” due to their concept of “endless striving.” In this perspective Tang’s concept of infinity seems closer to Hegel. One may ask where the activity of elimination or annihilation comes from under the premise of an inseparable relation between the infinite and finitude. This answer marks the real distinction between Tang and Hegel. For Tang, the power of activity comes from infinite mind-substance inside of the finite individual, but for Hegel from the finite individual itself in its self-relating (negating) activity.10 The above description seems to confirm that each of the first two phases of the moral self corresponds to Kant and Fichte as LAI Shen-chon suggests. Regarding the third correspondence, one finds little textual support in The Formation of Moral Self. Here Tang mentions Fichte again and Schiller, also Mengzi and Wang Yangming (TCW 1-2: 32–34). It seems that they all belong to the phase of mind (this would be the second phase rather than the third). The only indication of Hegel would be the title of the third part of The Formation of Moral Self, “The Manifestation of Spirit,” which relates directly to Hegel’s concept of Geist. The next question is: do the three phases of The Formation of Moral Self correspond with the phases in the history of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism? In chapter 25 of An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy–Inquiry into Teaching Tang seems to adopt this interpretation: There are three main concepts in Western philosophy, namely Reason, Consciousness, and Existence. Existence includes natural existence such as material and living, and spiritual

 This point I owe to the recent study of Andrew Davis (2012).

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existence. There are also three main concepts in Chinese philosophy, namely Pattern (理li), mind (心xin), and material force (氣qi). Qi implies the existence of matter and lives in nature and existence of spirit in human beings. The object of the cognition of mind is Pattern, while the thing mind clings to is qi. These three are inseparable, but nevertheless Pattern must be present before mind and qi must succeed after mind….. The process of philosophical activity of an individual person runs like that, the development of the phases of great philosophical traditions in their time runs generally in the same way…. From Kant to Hegel, Kant emphatically esteems Reason, Fichte talks more about the consciousness-­ transcending Mind, and Hegel emphasize above all the representation of Reason manifesting in the objective Spirit and historical culture by means of consciousness….With regard to the development of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, the teaching of Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty was accomplished by Zhu Xi (朱子), who reconstructed the norms of Confucianism via the dominance of Pattern from which arises qi. He is the one who emphasized Pattern. The teachings of innate moral awareness of Wang Yangming is the one that emphasizes mind……That Wang Fuzhi talked about qi through Pattern and mind indicates that he is the one who emphasized qi and he can explicate and extend the multiple meanings of the concept of qi in order to clarify the formation of history and culture.” (TCW19: 666–668 my emphasis)11

There are three different triads involved here, namely the triad of German Idealists, of Tang’s formation of moral self as individual philosophical process, and of Song-­ Ming Neo-Confucianism. We have shown how German Idealists influence on Tang’s formation of moral self and if we can show further that Tang’s formation of moral self also corresponds to Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and Wang Fuzhi (王夫 之), then we can ground Tang’s conviction that “the process of philosophical activity of an individual person runs like that, the development of the phases of great philosophical traditions in their time runs generally in the same way” (TCW19: 668 my emphasis). But what does this “individual person” mean? Anybody or Tang himself? If this “individual person” means anybody, then the conclusion would become that every individual’s philosophical process reflects every great philosophical tradition, in other words, Tang’s philosophy would be one kind of monism or “henology” (太一論),12 whose principle is “one is all (hen kai pan)” (一即一切). In fact Tang’s philosophy could be interpreted as a kind of monism. But “one is all” faces at least two logical problems. Firstly, one cannot conclude from the  Whether the representative of third phase is Wang Fuzhi or Liu Jishan is the question here. In chapter “Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory” Tang mentions Liu, but here Wang. I leave this question unanswered here. 12  I draw the term “henology” from Henrich’s Between Kant and Hegel. “One could say Platonism is “henology” (to hen= The One) as opposed to “ontology” (Henrich 2003: 85–86). Lao Siguang (勞思光) claims that Tang’s philosophical method is the idea of “All is One, One is All” from Huayan Buddhism (Lao 2001: 81–89). I owe this to Chiu Kingpong (Chiu 2016: 2, 178). Fröhlich disagrees with Lao’s interpretation: “If Huayan thought was really the hidden foundation of Tang’s philosophy, as Lao Sze-kwang suspects, it would be odd, to say the least, that Tang downgraded Buddhism, including Huayan, to a lower stage within the historical development of Chinese humanism and also never explained (as he did with respect to Confucianism) how the Huayan tradition would have to be reconstructed under modern conditions” (Fröhlich 2017: 38). I think Lao is right, because he sees Tang and Huayan under henology as a common theoretical model shared by both Eastern and Western philosophers. They all maintain some “Metaphysical One,” but each has different conceptions of the One. 11

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property of every individual member in a group that this group as a whole must have the same property, for example from “every man is mortal” one cannot conclude that human beings as a species will go extinct someday. Secondly, if “one is all” is right, when two contradictory properties belong to two different individuals, then the totality of both should be one and the same but contradictory. For example, someone may claim that autonomy is right and heteronomy is wrong (Kant), the other claims that heteronomy is right and autonomy is wrong (Levinas), under the premise of “one is all,” the same totality in them would claim that both autonomy and heteronomy are right and wrong. If we don’t accept the interpretation of “individual person” in the above text as “anybody” and reject monism, could this “individual person” mean Tang Junyi himself? As we have shown before, Tang discovers the triad of moral self in himself as an individual by the influence of the similar triad of German Idealism in the Western tradition and in turn discovers the same triad in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism in the Asian tradition. Since both traditions developed separately without the influence with each other and also completely independent of Tang, one can conclude that this triad is not Tang’s own invention, nor belong to any traditions or cultures;13 and further there should be at least some other individuals both in Eastern and Western traditions who have such triad. Therefore, one can conclude only the thesis “Some are All,” not the thesis “All is One, One is All.”

3  Mou Zongsan The development of Mou Zongsan’s thought can be divided into several stages. According to his Autobiography at Fifty, Mou began his philosophical learning with the serious study of Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica, but he tried immediately to distance himself from Russell and comes closer to the Kantian principle of transcendental apperception in his Logical Paradigm (邏輯典範 1941). As a second stage, Mou finds that the epistemological principle of transcendental apperception cannot be self-sufficient and needs a further moral principle as its metaphysical ground. This brings him to study Kant’s moral philosophy in comparison with traditional Confucianism. After intensive study of Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason, Mou concludes in the introduction of his three-volume magnum opus Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality (心體與性體) that Kant’s moral philosophy is a metaphysics of

 In the context of above long quotation in addition to the triads of German Idealism and SongMing Neo-Confucianism, Tang also mentioned three other triads in the Eastern and Western history: (1) in Greek: Socrates (Reason), Plato (Consciousness), Aristotle (Existence); (2) in Pre-Qin Confucianism: Confucius (Pattern), Mengzi (Mind), Xunzi (Qi); (3) in Buddhism of Wei-Jin-SuiTang: Seng Zhao僧肇 (Pattern); Jizang 吉藏, Zhiyi 智顗, Xuanzang 玄奘, Fazang 法藏, Huineng 慧能 (Mind); Vinaya school 律宗, Esoteric Buddhism 密宗, Pure Land Buddhism 淨土宗 (Qi, Existence) (TCW 17: 667).

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morals (道德底形上學), which is a metaphysical reflection on moral phenomena, but traditional Confucianism is a moral metaphysics (道德的形上學), which regards moral consciousness as the only access to metaphysical reality (MCW 5:10–13, 144). This conclusion comes on the one hand from criticism of Kant’s concept of autonomy and on the other hand from his own interpretation of Confucianism as an ethics of autonomy. With such a different interpretation of autonomy, Mou proclaims his famous thesis of a three-lineage teaching (三系) of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism.14 In the third stage, Mou engages in the study of Heidegger’s book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Inspired by Heidegger, Mou appropriates a theoretical term (intellectual intuition) from Kant’s first Critique, and the concept of intellectual intuition plays a central role in Mou’s later philosophical development. In this stage, he expands his philosophical scope from Confucianism to Buddhism and Daoism in Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy under different conceptions of intellectual intuition. As the final stage, in Appearance and Thing-in-itself Mou accumulates his philosophical developments into a theoretical model named two-tiered ontology which, as he claims, is a structure common to all great philosophical systems of East and West. This is his mature and the most representative work. I will here thematize only two of his four stages, namely the second and third. The central concerns here are: (1) how Kant influences Mou’s interpretation of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism; (2) how Heidegger influences the construction of his own system.

3.1  M  ou’s Response to Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals in Contrast to so-Called Traditional Chinese Moral Metaphysics A serious study of Kant’s Groundwork led Mou Zongsan on the one hand to consider Kant as the most important Western moral philosopher and on the other hand to criticize Kant’s concept of autonomy on the basis of traditional Confucianism. The latter part brings forth Mou’s own conception of autonomy in contrast with Kant’s, which for Mou is not fully elaborated. According to this fully elaborated concept of autonomy, Mou divides Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism into following three lines: (1) the first line including Hu Wufeng (胡五峰) and Liu Jishan (劉蕺 山); (2) the second line including Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming (陸王); (3) and the third line including Cheng Yi (程頤) and Zhu Xi (朱熹). (For Mou the beginning group of philosophers, including Zhou Dunyi (周敦頤), Zhang Zai (張 載), and Cheng Hao (程顥) is still undivided (MCW 5: 48).) Mou emphasizes that the first two lines belong to orthodox Confucianism, because their teaching contains the fully elaborated concept of autonomy, and the third line is considered to be a  See also chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”—Ed.

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branch line of Confucianism (別子為宗), not because their teachings contain a less elaborated theory of autonomy, but because theirs in fact belong to heteronomy. Based on this judgment Mou maintains retrospectively that Kant’s theory is an immature theory which lies between Mengzi’s autonomy and Zhu Xi’s heteronomy (MCW 15: 318). Mou’s critique of Kant’s concept of autonomy has recently invited some meta-­ critique in Western research. Stephan Schmidt argues that Mou’s understanding of autonomy is different from Kant’s own, because of a misunderstanding of the concept of “a priori.” While Kant understands this “a priori” as “independent of experience,” Mou misunderstands it as “prior to experience.” He uses Wood’s interpretation to support his criticism: It is important that on Kant’s theory, what is a priori is produced by our faculties, not given to them, whether through sensation or otherwise. This means that for Kant a priori cognition is utterly different from innate cognition, whose existence Kant emphatically denies…. What is innate is implanted in us at birth (by God, for example, or through our genetic constitution), independently of both sense experience and the exercise of our faculties. What is a priori, by contrast, we ourselves produce through the exercise of our faculties. This point is especially important in the case of practical principles. A moral law can be truly autonomous only if it is a priori; but an innate moral principle would be an instance of heteronomy. This is because an a priori principle is one we give ourselves, in contrast to one that we are given from outside (whether environmentally, by authority, custom, or tradition, or innately, by supernatural divine infusion or some nonrational genetic predisposition). (Wood 1999: 59–60; Schmidt 2011: 266–267. Schmidt’s own emphasis)

Due to misunderstanding the concept of “a priori” Schmidt concludes that (1) Mou’s and Kant’s concept of autonomy are not the same; (2) Mou’s would be an instance of heteronomy in Kant’s perspective (Schmidt 2011: 267). Regarding the first point, Mou is fully aware of it and emphasizes that the restriction of the concept of autonomy to the faculty of reason makes Kant’s ethics formal and empty. Mou distinguishes the autonomy of orthodox Confucianism from Kant’s in the following passage: As for orthodox Confucians, as soon as they see that Kant evokes that kind of will, they can immediately and tacitly agree and, moreover, [add] that it needs to be understood as a capacity of our constitutive nature and heart/mind. Therefore, they affirm that this kind of constitutive mind and constitutive nature is real, in a categorical way, and that it corresponds to a nature with which all men are intrinsically endowed. Their subtle insight (miyi密意) lies in the ability of the will to become real and manifested (this is the subtle insight of orthodox Confucians about nature). But Kant did not pay attention to this dimension….The idea of human nature discussed by Kant merely corresponds to the various natural human functions, such as sensibility, understanding, reason and so forth. This is what he means when he is using a number of expressions evoking nature, such as “peculiar character of human nature,” “specific constitution of human nature,” “the natural and particular characteristics of men,” “the natural propensities, inclination and dispositions.” However, Kant never associates human nature with [the idea of] autonomy and free will developed in a forced way in the course of his discussion on morals. Therefore, he only understands [free will] as postulate that turns into something empty and becomes this isolated realm to which human reason cannot gain access and of which no knowledge is possible. (MCW 5: 142. My emphasis, translation from Billioud 2012: 60–61)

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Billioud’s recent study shows a more sympathetic reading of Mou’s work.15 He concentrates on Mou’s analysis of “postulate of practical reason,” which, according to Billioud, should contain both epistemological and quasi-ontological dimensions. Billoud finds that Mou does not miss the quasi-ontological dimension of the concept of the postulate, despite Kant’s theory of freedom still being obscure (Billioud 2012: 59). Billioud faithfully reconstructs Mou’s arguments of the critique of Kant’s concept of autonomy in Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality (Billioud 2012: 45–67). I will not repeat the same process here. I try instead to summarize Mou’s argument on the same subject in Appearance and Thing-in-itself. Here Mou’s arguments consist of the following three steps: 1. Mou argues firstly that from the famous statement “freedom is indeed ratio essendi of moral law, and the moral law ratio cognoscendi of freedom” (MCW 21: 75; Cf. Kant 1996: 140; AA5: 4n), it follows that freedom and moral law imply each other, or in other words, they are logically biconditional. This is exactly what Allison calls the “reciprocity thesis” (Allison 1990: 210–213). Mou charges that Kant’s explanation of reciprocity thesis incurs a new difficulty. Because on the one hand, “Objectively considered, if the moral law implies freedom and conversely freedom implies the moral law, then they have the same logical value” (MCW 21: 76). 2. But Kant insists, on the other hand, that in the subjective cognitive order one can only begin with the fact of the moral law, not with freedom, because the latter case presupposes the presence of intellectual intuition, which is according to Kant untenable for human beings. 3. Mou Zongsan argues further that the objective consideration of (1) and subjective cognitive order of (2) is not compatible. He maintains that if Kant intends to keep the first, then he must revise the second. For Kant freedom has both a negative and positive sense. “Insofar as the will can determine itself independent of the nature, it has freedom in the negative sense; insofar it gives its own law, it has freedom in the positive sense” (MCW 21: 77; cf. Kant 1997: 52). From the positive sense of freedom follows the above-mentioned first objective relation, namely “a free will and a will under moral law are one and the same” (Kant 1997: 53). Mou contends that in the positive sense of freedom lies the incompatibility of the subjective and objective relation between the moral law and freedom. According to Mou’s reading, Kant recognizes on the one hand objectively that the moral law given by the will is universal for all rational beings, in which case the maxim always conforms to the moral law, so that moral law and freedom imply each other; on the other hand he insists subjectively that the will of  One has to notice that Mou’s concept of autonomy is not an innate idea as Schmidt suggests, because according to Mou human nature is both existent and active (既存在又活動) rather than static in its character. Furthermore, human nature consists of the faculty of constitutive mind in a broader sense of reason rather than of nonrational genetic predisposition.

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human being is always conditioned by inclination, in which case the maxim can be in contradiction with the moral law, so that freedom and moral law do not necessary imply each other. Mou argues that one cannot maintain the second subjective relation without giving up the first objective relation, because the will in the second case is pure, but in the second case unpure (real): It seems that Kant had confused ideal will with real will. According to Kant the ideal will is just a possible state of one and the same will, consequently although it is considered to be pure, it is not always actually pure so that it is not a holy will in spite of its possession of freedom and autonomy. We take this statement to be incompatible with the concept of free autonomy. If will is really free and autonomous, then its maxim could not contradict the moral law. If it is possible for them to contradict each other, then it is certainly not the real free and autonomous will. Even if this free autonomy is only a postulate, it should be understood in such a way that the statement “its maxim could not contradict the moral law” could be inferred by means of conceptual analysis in this postulate, otherwise the reciprocal implication of freedom and moral law would be impossible. Therefore, the postulated ideal and pure will, namely the free autonomous will, should be a holy will. The will “whose maxim could contradict with moral law” is not the real free and autonomous will. (MCW 21: 79)

Accordingly, the difference between Kant’s and Mou Zongsan’s explication of free and autonomous will would be as follows: For Kant the law-giving of the free and autonomous will comes from a command of a intelligible being upon a finite sense-­ conditioned being so that its maxim could contradict the moral law. For Mou this kind of will would not be free and autonomous, because firstly, if it is permissible that its maxim could contradict the moral law, the moral agent would always have an excuse to ignore the command of its intelligible being; for example, one could tell lies all the time, although one knows not to lie is a moral command. Secondly, “it (the pure will) is something that is elevated above duty and determines duty. But if it stands itself under duty, and is constrained and obliged to do it, then it would be only arbitrary volition (Willkür). It is not only contradictory, but also in need of supposing further a free and autonomous will, and so on ad infinitum” (MCW 21: 85). Consequently, Mou argues that one cannot define the free and autonomous will in such an insufficient way and put it, as Kant did, in the middle between the real and ideal will. One can argue by conceding that the mixture of real and ideal will is not the truly free and autonomous will, and such will does not belong to human beings, but only to God. Human beings may have the concept of such a will without the capability to act fully according to it. Either human beings possess the free and autonomous will or they do not. Mou suggests that the decisive point here is to ascribe additionally intellectual intuition to human beings in order to make the inautonomous will become autonomous. The ascription of intellectual intuition makes it possible for human beings to become infinite in spite of their finitude.

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3.2  R  evisiting the Concept of Intellectual Intuition After Reading Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Intellectual intuition is one of most controversial concepts in post-Kantian philosophy, for example, in the thought of Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling, the writings of whom were largely unfamiliar to Mou Zongsan (Billioud 2012: 73). His conception of intellectual intuition comes mainly from Kant’s own works. But intellectual intuition is ambiguous even there. It means some intuition, whose object is non-­sensible either in the real sense (first Critique) or in the sense of free activity (second Critique).16 Kant denies that human beings have intuition in both senses, but Mou suggests to abandon the first and keep the second sense. Mou contends further that human beings possess intellectual intuition not actually, but potentially.17 Those who potentially possess intellectual intuition have the possibility to become infinite beings.18 The central issue here lies in the analysis of human moral behavior. The main characteristics of moral behavior for Kant are unconditionality and autonomy. From these two undeniable characteristics of moral behavior Mou tries to derive the infinite nature of humanity. His argument can be summarized as follows: 1. If one recognizes that the moral law is unconditional, then one must recognize at the same time that the law-giver, namely the moral agent, is unconditional too, because the latter is the cause of the former. It is impossible for a conditioned agent to give an unconditional law. But unconditioned can also mean unlimited, that is, it cannot be limited by any condition.

 For intellectual intuition in the real sense cf. Critique of Pure Reason B307, in the sense of free activity cf. Critique of Practical Reason, §7 (AA5: 31). 17  In Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy Mou emphasizes that intellectual intuition manifests at any time in the heart-mind (本心隨時呈現, MCW 20: 249). It seems to be actual rather than potential. But according to Appearance and Thing-in-Itself “Human beings are not definitely infinite, but can be infinite in spite of their finitude” (人雖有限而可無限MCW 21: 25–30). This “can” (可) in the above citation suggests on the contrary that intellectual intuition is potential rather than actual. According to my interpretation, to say that intellectual intuition manifests at any time in a human mind does not mean the same as this human mind possesses intellectual intuition and becomes an infinite being. Only Confucian sage or Buddha possesses intellectual intuition actually (MCW20: 28) and ordinary people possess it potentially. This does not exclude intellectual intuition actually manifesting in ordinary people. 18  According to Mou the infinity of intellectual intuition in Chinese tradition is different from the infinity of God in Christianity (MCW 21: 28–29). He didn’t explicate much about their distinction. According to my reading, there are at least three different aspects between them: (1) whereas in Chinese tradition the finite and infinite are inseparable, in Western thought the infinite being transcends finite beings (MCW 21: 28); (2) the logical relation between virtue and happiness analytic in the former, but synthetic in the latter (MCW 21: 29); (3) God as infinite being is a person in the teaching of Christianity, but in Chinese the infinite being is “daoti” (道體) (MCW 15: 374). 16

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2. If moral behavior is autonomous, then the law-giver could not be anyone but the moral agent himself; otherwise the moral agent would not be autonomous, which contradicts with the premise of autonomy of moral behavior. 3. Therefore, the possibility of unconditionality and autonomy of moral behavior presupposes that human beings as moral agents must have the possibility to be unlimited, namely infinite. The infinite character of intellectual intuition that Mou tries to justify upon the presuppositions of moral behavior is not limited in the field of “ought,” that is, in the moral world, but it extends also to the field of “is,” that is, to the world of nature. Humans as finite beings could become infinite by means of realization of moral imperative: Why can one ascribe to [intellectual intuition] so broad a meaning? Because the fundamental mind [benxin 本心] or innate moral awareness [liangzhi良知] that Confucians speak of arises without exception from Kongzi’s benevolence [ren 仁]. Benevolence is a principle of sensus communis [gantong 感通] that ought not to be limited and therefore must be united with the world. The mind of benevolence has feeling for all things; accordingly it holds everything upright as their substance [體], without exception. We call it therefore renti [仁 體, substance of benevolence], because ren is identical with ti [體, substance]. The mind of benevolence manifests not only in moral behavior, but also with its absolute infinite universality extending to all things, and it is therefore the source of all beings. For this reason Confucians always said that benevolence is the principle of creation. (MCW 20: 246. my emphasis)

Confucian philosophers do not claim that human beings are equal to God, but claim that human beings could become God. Or put in another way, there is no creator as the doctrine of Christianity suggests, and human beings play the role of creator in their moral behavior and participate in the activity of creating reality (Cf. MCW 5: 43). Objectively there really exists such a creating substance, but subjectively for every individual human he could become identical with this creating substance only insofar as he realizes his moral imperative. After Tang’s and Mou’s reception of German idealism the new generation of New Confucians has tried to introduce phenomenology as a new basis for comparison with Confucianism. In Taiwan Lee Ming-huei compares Confucianism with Max Scheler and in mainland China Zhang Xianglong (張祥龍) with Heidegger. Following Mou Zongsan’s interpretation of the school of heart-mind (xinxue 心學) as orthodox Confucianism, Lee Ming-huei tries to criticize Kant’s dichotomy of moral feeling and moral principle by introducing the phenomenology of Max Scheler, especially his teaching of a priorism of emotions (Apriorismus des Emotionalen), in Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values (Lee 2012: 60). In a series of papers since 1990, Lee defends Mengzi’s theory of moral feelings by comparing it with Scheler’s phenomenological ethics. Lee argues on the one hand that Mengzi’s four sprouts of virtue are similar to the a priori feelings of value in Scheler’s ethics in opposition to moral feelings of empiricism. On the other hand, he argues that Scheler’s ethics deviates from ethics of Kantian autonomy because Scheler’s view of the world of value is independent of any autonomous agents (Lee 2012: 75).

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In contrast with Lee Ming-huei, Zhang Xianglong has a totally different approach. Mou and Lee consider Mengzi and the tradition of the doctrine of heart-­ mind (xinxue 心學) as orthodox Confucianism, whereas Zhu Xi 朱熹 and the tradition of the doctrine of pattern (lixue 理學) are a branch line of Confucianism (別子 為宗). But Zhang maintains that neither contemporary New Confucians nor Confucians in the Song-Ming Dynasty are authentic interpretations of the teaching of Kongzi (Zhang 2001: 193). In connection with Heidegger’s concept of philosophy of origin, Zhang rejects any tendency toward conceptual metaphysics in both Eastern and Western traditions and consequently proposes that the phenomenology of Heidegger is the most appropriate basis for comparison between Eastern and Western philosophy: Now the question is: what kind of thought in Western philosophy is the most or more relevant to the renewal of ancient Chinese thought? Apparently, it is by no means conceptual metaphysics, because in this model and vision ancient Chinese thought is philosophically but a dwarf; in the words of Hegel, “It is unconceptualized, or the most superficial (pure) thought,” which still remains indeterminate. In fact, any philosophy based on the existing conceptual models—whether rationalism or empiricism, idealism or realism, all can hardly have effective dialogue with Asian thought, especially with ancient Chinese thought. But this situation is not different until the period of phenomenology; its way of thought is constitutional instead of abstractly conceptual…. Of course, one has to understand, due to his incomplete teaching of constitution, Husserl’s thought is still dominated by the great framework rooted in the “idea” of Platonism, therefore with Husserl the dialogue between East and West faces still great hindrance. If one holds that the most important characteristic of phenomenology is the reductive intuition of the analysis of consciousness, then the mainstream of ancient Chinese thought has few properties of phenomenology, to which only Yogācāra from India can be somehow related. In contrast with this, if we, as mentioned above, consider thought of constitution as the quintessence of phenomenology, especially the constitutional insight of thorough existential meanings, then ancient Chinese thought has “a full belly of words” to communicate with phenomenology. Heidegger himself had a strong feeling of the necessity for such communication. (Zhang 2001: 191)

Zhang elaborates this position comprehensively in two books Heidegger’s Thought and Chinese “Way of Heaven” (海德格爾思想與中國天道1996) and From Phenomenology to Kongfuzi (從現象學到孔夫子2001).

4  Concluding Remarks Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi represent two modern versions of traditional Confucianism. These versions are one the hand, as I argued above, influenced by German Idealists, yet on the other hand, as they claim, Confucianism is not only not inferior, but superior to them, even to all Western philosophers. This is of course an appropriate attitude for the defenders of an almost ruined tradition, but the problem is still how can this claim be justified? Their main doctrine comes from the common

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root of Confucianism, namely morality is not something to be reflected on metaphysically as Kant did in the Groundwork (Mou calls it metaphysics of morals), but itself should be considered as giving access to metaphysical reality (Mou calls it moral metaphysics). For them no Western philosopher achieves the insight of this ultimate truth of Confucianism. Tang’s version intentionally avoids using Western terminology and his arguments are mostly constructed in a Chinese way. To use completely new terminology to elucidate a new form thought is of course not foreign to Western tradition, as for example Heidegger’s Being and Time. But the price of avoiding contamination by Western terminology and using Chinese arguments is that Tang’s philosophical discourse is not easily accessible to and attracts less attention from Western readers. In contrast with Tang, Mou uses much terminology from Western philosophy and constructs arguments mainly in a Western way. This is why Mou’s version is receives more attention than Tang’s in the Western world. One would have to write another paper to clarify whether their claim of the superiority of Chinese philosophy is justified. As a last remark, I would like to point out that Tang’s and Mou’s versions of Confucianism have a discrepancy in a certain perspective. According to Mou’s version, Zhu Xi’s thought is not orthodox Confucianism because it is an ethics of heteronomy and Wang Yangming’s is orthodox Confucianism because it is an ethics of autonomy, and Kant’s theory which lies somehow between these two is an immature model of autonomy (MCW 15: 318). According to Tang’s version, both Zhu Xi and Kant belong to ethics of autonomy and Wang’s is a theory superior to the former two (TCW 19: 323, 667). There are at least two discrepancies: Zhu Xi’s theory is heteronomy for Mou Zongsan, but is autonomy for Tang Junyi, and Wang Yangming’s theory is autonomy for Mou, but for Tang more than autonomy. What does “autonomy” exactly mean? I think as a technical term of philosophy the concept of autonomy can be understood in three different ways: in Korsgaard’s first-person constructivism, which means that the moral law (nomos) is totally constructed by agents (Korsgaard 1996: 100-104); or in Mou’s first-person realism, which means that the moral law is from the very beginning substantially immanent in moral agents; or in Tang’s third-person realism, which means that moral law exists independent of any moral agents.19 What the appropriate understanding of autonomy is needs further investigation.

 According to Lee Ming-huei, Scheler’s own conception of autonomy is not the same as Kant’s. Scheler proposes his as “autonomy of personality” in opposition to Kant’s “autonomy of will.” Lee calls Scheler’s ethics “value realism” (Lee 2012: 74–75). I would suggest that Scheler’s conception of autonomy is very close to Tang Junyi’s.

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References Primary Sources of Tang Junyi Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1991. The Complete Works of TANG Junyi 30 vols唐君毅全集. Taipei: Taiwan xueshengshuju (台灣學生書局) (=TCW) ———. 1944a. The Formation of Moral self 道德自我之建立. Hong Kong: Rensheng chubanshe (人生出版社) (TCW v.1-2) (A theoretical construction of three phases of the formation of the moral self based on Tang’s personal reflection on German Idealists and Asian philosophers.) ———. 1944b. The Experience of Life 人生之體驗. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台灣學生書 局) (TCW v.1-1). (Three meditations on the meaning of life written in an old temple.) ———. 1953. The Spiritual Value of Chinese Culture 中國文化的精神價值. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju (正中書局). (TCW v.4) (A philosophical reflection on the value of traditional Chinese culture in comparison with Western as background.) ———. 1955. The Reconstruction of the Humanistic Spirit 人文精神之重建. Hong Kong: Xinya yanjiusuo (新亞硏究所). (TCW v.5) (A theoretical reconstruction of humanism in general based on some reflections of the cultural conflict between East and West.) ———. 1958. Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason文化意識與道德理性. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v.20) (A systematic reflection of all different areas of culture in their relations to moral reason as their foundation.) ———. 1975a. Chinese Humanism and the Contemporary World 中華人文與當今世界. 2 vols. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v.7-8) (Various studies on the possibility of a renaissance of traditional Chinese values in the modern world.) ———. 1986. The Existence of Life and Horizons of Mind 生命存在與心靈境界2 vols. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v. 23-24) (A system of universal philosophy founded on nine horizons of mind.) ———. 1966. An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy – Introduction 中國哲學原論.導論篇. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v.12) ———. 1968. An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy – Inquiry into the Way 中國哲學原論.原道篇. Taipei: Taiwan xueshengshuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v.14-16) ———. 1973. An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy – Inquiry into Nature 中國哲學原論.原性篇. Taipei: Taiwan xueshengshuju (台灣學生書局). (TCW v.13) ———. 1975b. An Inquiry into Chinese Philosophy – Inquiry into Teaching中國哲學原論.原教 篇. Taipei: Taiwan xueshengshuju (台灣學生書局).(TCWv.19) (A far-ranging and insightful survey of Chinese thought throughout the tradition.)

Primary Sources of Mou Zongsan Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 2003. The Complete Works of MOU Zongsan 32 vols. 牟宗三全集. Taipei: Lianjing (聯經出版社). (=MCW) ———. 1941. Logical Paradigm 邏輯典範. Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshu guan. (商務印書館). (MCW v.11) ———. 1956. Critique of the Cognitive Mind 認識心之批判. Taipei: Taiwan xueshengshuju (台 灣學生書局). (MCW v.18-19) (An extensive research on the transcendental cognitive subject as the foundation of logic and on the moral subject as foundation of transcendental subject.) ———. 1970. Heart-Mind as Reality and Human Nature as Reality 心體與性體. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju. (正中書局). (MCW v.5-7) (A historical interpretation of the three-lineage theory of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism according to Kantian concept of autonomy.) ———. 1971. Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy 智的直覺與中國哲學. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan (台灣商務印書館). (MCW v.20) (An interpretation of Chinese philosophy with the positive meaning of intellectual intuition denied by Kant.)

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———. 1975. Appearance and Thing-in-itself 現象與物自身. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju (台 灣學生書局). (MCW v.21) (A theoretical construction of two-tiered ontology based on Kant’s transcendental distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself.) ———. 1989. Autobiography at Fifty 五十自述. Taipei: Ehu chubanshe (鵝湖出版社). (MCW v.32)

Secondary Literature Allison, Henry. 1990. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Billioud, Sebastien. 2012. Thinking through Confucian Modernity: A Study of Mou Zongsan’s Moral Metaphysics. Boston: Brill. (A thorough reconstruction of moral metaphysics based largely on a dialogue between Mou Zongsan and Kant.) Chan, N. Serina. 2011. The Thought of Mou Zongsan. Boston: Brill. (A thorough study of Mou’s multi-faceted, complex system and the historical background of its formation.) Chang, Carsun (張君勱). 1955. "Wang Yang-ming’s Philosophy". Philosophy East & West 5:1. ———. 1962. Wang Yang-ming: Idealist Philosopher of Sixteenth-Century China. New York: St. John University Press. Chiu, Kingpong. 2016. Thomé H.  Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in Twentieth-Century China. Boston and Leiden: Brill. (A study which critically surveys the appropriation of Huayan Buddhism in Thomé H. Fang’s and Tang Junyi’s thought.) Davis, Andrew. 2012. "Hegel’s Idealism: The Infinite as Self-Relation". History of Philosophy Quarterly 29 (2): 177–194. Fichte, J.G. 1982. Science of Knowledge. edited and translated by Peter Heath, John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fröhlich, Thomas. 2017. Tang Junyi: Confucian Philosophy and the Challenge of Modernity. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Hegel, G.W.F. 1986. Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. ———. 1999. Science of Logic. trans. by A.V. Miller. Amherst: Humanity Books. Henrich, Dieter. 2003. Between Kant and Hegel, ed. David S. Pacini. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Huang, Max K. W. 黃克武 1998. "Liang Qichao and Immanuel Kant" 梁梁啟超與康德. Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History近代史研究所集刊. 30: 101-148. Jiang, Nianfeng 蔣年豐. 1991. "The Experience of Taiwan after WW II and Hegel in the Thoughts of Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan" 戰後台灣經驗與唐君毅、牟宗三思想中的黑 格爾. Lai Zehan & Huang Junjie eds. (賴澤涵, 黃俊傑): The Developing Experience after Retrocession of Taiwan光復後台灣地區發展經驗. Taipei: Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences. Academia Sinica. 37–100. (A critical reconsideration of Mou Zongsan’s and Tang Junyi’s reception of Hegel’s philosophy from the perspective of Taiwan indigenous consciousness.) Kant, Immanuel. 1997.  Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals, ed. M.  Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1996. Critique of Practical Reason. trans. M. Gregor. In: The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant, Practical philosophy, pp.  133–273. German text Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, in: AA. Bd. V, 1–164. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996. The Sources of Normativity, ed. Onora O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lai, Shen-chon 賴賢宗. 1997. "Tang Chun-i’s Early Philosophy and German Idealism" 唐君毅早 期哲學與德意志觀念論. Legein Society鵝湖學誌18: 53–82. (An interpretation of the earlier development of Tang Junyi’s philosophical insight under the influence of German idealism.) Lao, Siguang 勞思光. 2001. Siguang’s Papers on Figures 思光人物論集. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.

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Lee, Ming-huei [Li Minghui] 李明輝. 2012. The Four Sprouts of Virtue and the Seven Feelings: An Investigation on Moral Feelings in Comparative Philosophy 四端與七情-­關於道德情感 的比較研究. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press. (A far-ranging comparative study of theory of moral feelings between Eastern and Western, including German philosophers (Kant, Schiller, Scheler), Chinese Confucians (Zhu Xi, Liu Jishan), and Korean Confucians (Yi T’oegye, Yi Yulgok).) ———. 2016. Kantian Philosophy in East Asia  康德哲學在東亞. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press. (A companion to the history of reception of Kant’s philosophy in different areas of East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan) since the second half of 19th century.) Peng, Guoxiang (彭國翔). 2016. The Sage’s Care of the World: The Political and Social Thought of Mou Zongsan 智者的現世關懷:牟宗三的政治與社會思想. Taipei: Lianjing (聯經出版社). Schmidt, Stephan. 2011. "Mou Zongsan, Hegel, and Kant: The Quest for Confucian Modernity". Philosophy East & West 61(2): 279–286. (A critical discussion focused on Mou’s appropriation of Kant’s philosophy, and its root in Hegel’s philosophy of history.) Tseng, Roy 曾國祥. 2015. "Revisiting Mou Tsong-san’s Idea of Moral Religion: A Dialogue with Hegel and T.H.  Green 牟宗三道德宗教的理念之重探: 與黑格爾和格林間的對話. Intellectual History 思想史4: 167–224. Van den Stock, Ady. 2016. The Horizon of Modernity: Subjectivity and Social Structure in New Confucian Philosophy. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Wood, Allen. 1999. Kant’s Ehical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Xiong, Shili. 1947. Essential Sayings of Shili 十力語要. Taipei: Hongshi Publishing Co. Yang, He 楊河 and Deng, Anqing 鄧安慶. 2003. The Philosophy of Kant and Hegel in China, 康 德黑格爾哲學在中國. Beijing: Capital Normal University Press. (A chronological history of the reception of Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophy in China since the beginning of 20th century.) Yang, Zebo 楊澤波. 2006. Critique of Mou Zongsan’s Three-lineage Theory 牟宗三三系論論衡. Shanghai: Fudan University Press. (A detailed explication and criticism of Mou’s three-lineage theory with a Chinese model of three levels of humanity.) Zhang, Xianlong 張祥龍. 2001. From Phenomenology to Confucius 從現象學到孔夫子. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

Part II

Topics

Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory Stephen C. Angle

1  Introduction Both contemporary Confucian philosophers and contemporary scholars of Confucian philosophy have paid considerable attention to the relations between Confucianism and ethical theory. Following the lead of Eric Hutton, I suggest that we distinguish between two ways that Confucianism and ethical theory can be brought into contact (Hutton 2015). On the one hand, many people have been interested in the interpretive project of classifying Confucianism: which type of ethical theory is it? On the other hand, some thinkers have sought to put Confucian ethical theory to work, using it to argue for a particular kind of moral education or solution to a moral quandary. This latter approach always entails an interpretation of Confucianism, but only sometimes involves explicitly viewing Confucian ethical theory as falling into one or another type of theory. Indeed, many proponents of Confucian ethics feel that fitting Confucianism into pre-existing, Western-derived

The present chapter draws in significant ways on a related chapter that I wrote a few years ago for the Dao Companion to the Analects, titled “The Analects and Moral Theory” (Angle 2013). To assist those who might already be familiar with the earlier essay, here are the main differences between the two. Sections 1 and 6 are entirely new; in particular, the attention that I pay here to applied ethics is absent in the earlier essay. Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 have been thoroughly revised in order both to broaden their scopes beyond the Analects, and for various substantive reasons, though they still resemble the earlier versions in many ways. S. C. Angle (*) Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_19

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categories inevitably distorts it, and so we should either avoid reference to such theoretical terminology or else invent new categories.1 There is much to say for these worries about the distorting hegemony of Western concepts, and I will return to them before long. First, though, it will be helpful to clarify what sorts of Western-derived theories have been discussed. Over the past several decades, Anglo-American moral philosophers have tended to divide their terrain into three levels: meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-­ ethics asks what moral theories are theories of: are there moral facts that we can know, or social conventions by which we are bound? How should we understand moral language, which at least seems to contain straight-forward statements of fact? Normative ethics, in turn, asks what the candidate moral theories are and which one of them should command our assent. Was Kant right, and the core of ethics is a set of duties incumbent on all rational creatures? Or were the British utilitarians closer to the truth, and we are obligated to aim at the best overall outcomes? Applied ethics, finally, asks what moral theories tell us to do about specific moral problems. Generally focusing on controversial issues, applied ethicists seek to resolve questions related to medical treatment, environmental challenges, professional behavior, and so on. In principle these three levels of theory all inform one another, though the degree to which such interdependencies impact on actual theorizing varies a great deal. We can now bring together the distinction between classifying Confucianism and using Confucianism, from the first paragraph, and the distinction between meta-, normative, and applied ethics from the second paragraph, in order to get a clearer picture of what sort of theoretical activity this chapter will be investigating. Table 1 looks at each of the options: As Table 1 shows, the areas of greatest scholarly interest have been in debating how to classify Confucianism as a form (or forms) of normative ethics, and in using Confucianism to respond to specific ethical problems. In part because applying an ethical theory brings with it some level of interpretation of the normative theory that is being applied, we also see a secondary interest in the classification of applied theories. There has also been a moderate interest in putting Confucian normative theories to use—for example, as sources of inspiration or challenge in dialogue with other (typically Western) theories. Finally, meta-ethical issues are sometimes important in classificatory arguments at the level of normative ethics. Using Confucianism to engage with meta-ethical issues—perhaps by arguing that sagely insight into the Way, rather than truth or convention, best explains our ethical practices—has been quite rare. Table 1  Levels of theoretical activity Classifying Confucianism Using Confucianism

Meta-ethics Medium Low

Normative ethics High Medium

Applied ethics Low High

 See also chapter “Confucian Thought and Contemporary Western Philosophy”—Ed.

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The organization of this chapter follows from the distinctions and areas of emphasis that I have just identified, with the exception that Sect. 2 attends first to some remaining methodological issues: what is “ethics” (or “morality”), after all, do Confucian texts actually deploy such a concept, and if they do so, is it (exclusively) as “theory”? In Sects. 3, 4, and 5, I then look at three different theories of normative ethics—deontology, virtue ethics, and role ethics—and explore both the relevant debates around the classification of Confucian ethics and, to a lesser degree, efforts to use Confucian ethics, as interpreted via each of the normative theories. Comparisons with other normative ethical theories might be possible, but the fact that they have not yet been significantly developed in the scholarly literature suggests that there are real obstacles to such interpretations of Confucianism, so I will set these options aside.2 Section 6 focuses on the work of philosophers who use Confucianism in more applied ways, while also making note of their classificatory arguments or assumptions. Section 7, finally, sums up the findings of the chapter and points toward fruitful future research.

2  The Terrain of the Ethical I have two, linked tasks remaining before I can turn to the main body of the chapter: first, to consider whether Confucianism is in fact concerned with ethical theory at all, and second, to examine the various ways in which competing theories carve up the domain of ethics (or morality). Insofar as the theories disagree about the scope of the moral, of course, this must also be taken into account. In two well-known papers, Henry Rosemont, Jr. argues that the concept-cluster corresponding to “morality,” as that term is understood in modern Western moral philosophy, has no match within early Confucianism; given the nature of his claims, I am confident that he would extend roughly the same argument to later versions of Confucianism as well. There are no terms, Rosemont says, for a host of ideas key to morality—freedom, liberty, autonomy, individual, utility, principles, rationality, and so on—and so we should conclude that Chinese thinkers were not concerned with morality, but with something else. He suggests that we adopt a broad definition of “ethics,” as the study of “the basic terms employed in the description, analysis, and evaluation of human conduct,” and see that while both Confucians and modern Westerners have varieties of ethics, only the latter have morality (Rosemont Jr. 1988: 173).3 Rather than morality, the Confucians’ way of evaluating human conduct was based in an understanding of persons as constituted by their roles. In a 2  Two interpretive options that have been explored with respect to Mengzi are consequentialism (see Im (1999, 2011) and the argument against a consequentialist reading in (Wang 2005)) and moral sense theory (see (Huang 1994) and the rebuttal in (Lee 1990: 37–38 and passim) and (Lee 2013), as well as (Liu 2003)). Another important approach that has received some attention is care ethics; see (Li 1994) and Tao (2000). 3  See also Rosemont Jr. (1991).

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variety of contexts, Rosemont has gone on to argue that the Confucians’ approach was in many ways preferable to “morality,” and that we today should seriously consider adopting the Confucian approach to ethics. In the last few years, Rosemont and Roger Ames have explicitly formulated this Confucian alternative to moral theory as “Confucian role ethics.” Before any assessment of Rosemont’s claims, it will be helpful to sketch some of the arguments within modern Western moral theory that overlap, both chronologically and conceptually, with Rosemont’s ideas. In the mid-twentieth century, moral theory (like the era’s psychology) was dominated by questions related to behavior and “right action.” The key question was “what should one do?”; the key notions were individual duty, liberty, and so on. In 1958, Elizabeth Anscombe’s scathing essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” questioned the foundations of this enterprise, arguing that is was based on an abandoned conception of divine moral law and on an inadequate approach to psychology (Anscombe 1958: 1). These general lines of critique were reemphasized by Iris Murdoch a decade later when she argued that matters of inner agency—such as motivation and perceptiveness—were at least as important to morality as were our actions (Murdoch 1970). A good example of mainstream moral philosophy’s reaction to these challenges is John Rawls’s 1972 A Theory of Justice. On the one hand, Rawls gives considerable attention in the later sections of his opus to motivation, moral education, and psychology. On the other hand, such issues only penetrate to a limited degree into his conception of morality. His influential taxonomy of morality is still based on the idea of right action, and is divided into “teleology” (i.e., those theories that determine the moral action through the maximization of some “end”) and “deontology” (i.e., those theories for which moral rightness is defined independently from the goodness of our ends). This closely matches the slightly earlier dualism proposed by John Silber, according to whom teleological moral theories were “homogeneous” because they derived the moral good from the non-moral good, and deontological moral theories were “heterogeneous” since they viewed moral and non-moral goodness as fundamentally distinct.4 Through the 1970s and into the 1980s, the centrality of right action and the exhaustive dichotomy between teleological and deontological theories continued to characterize moral philosophy. The volume of critics’ voices was rising, however. Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential 1981 book After Virtue argued that the biggest difference among moral theories was actually between those, like Aristotle’s, that were committed to a substantive end (such as nobility or virtue), and those that were not. On this account, utilitarianism had more in common with deontology than either did with Aristotle, despite the fact that on Rawls’s account, both Aristotelianism and utilitarianism had been versions of teleology.5 As more and more attention started to 4  Silber develops this idea in a variety of articles; see, for example (Silber 1959–1960). Lee Minghuei 李明輝 notes that a similar distinction is made in German moral discourse between “Gesinnungsethik” and “Erfolgsethik” (Lee 2013: 49). 5  Both on this specific point, and more generally concerning the topic of this section, I have found (Wang 2005) to be very helpful.

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be paid to virtuous character as an end, Gary Watson offered another critique of Rawls, arguing in considerable detail for a threefold typology of “teleological/maximizing” or “ethics of outcome”; “teleological/non-consequentialist” or “ethics of virtue”; and “deontological” or “ethics of requirement” (Watson 1990). Over the last two decades, MacIntyre’s and Watson’s efforts to define the territory of virtue ethics have been complemented by those working to articulate more clearly what “virtue” or “character” is, as well as some attempts to spell out full-fledged systems of virtue ethics.6 Two of the key developments have been a rapid expansion of the sources on which virtue ethicists are drawing, together with a related expansion of the subtypes of virtue-ethical theories. The recent expansion of the scope of virtue ethics has by no means led to an end to the controversy over the category of “virtue ethics,” though; a number of theorists have emphasized the degree to which Kantianism and some forms of consequentialism can accommodate a significant role for virtue and inner psychology, and some have argued on this basis that the category of “virtue ethics” is in the end unnecessary or even incoherent. In response, it has become common to distinguish between “virtue theory,” which is the portion of a moral theory dealing with issues like virtue (no matter how peripheral it might be to the overall theory), and “virtue ethics,” which is (at least purportedly) a distinctive category of normative moral theory itself.7 For our purposes, one of the more interesting kinds of resistance to the category of virtue ethics comes from Martha Nussbaum, herself often identified as a virtue ethicist. To the contrary, she argues that virtue ethics is a “misleading category” because the ideas really shared by all so-called virtue ethicists are too few to support an independent category, and are in fact also shared by some non-virtue-­ ethical theories. She argues that it is more perspicuous to divide the purported virtue ethicists into two clusters, those who are pro-reason and anti-utilitarian, and those who are pro-sentiment and anti-Kantian; she places herself in the former group (Nussbaum 1999: 181). The problem with such a taxonomy is that while it might be true to the genealogy of current views, it defines its categories around existing approaches in Western philosophy, and is thus necessarily Eurocentric. It does not even make sense to ask whether Kongzi is an anti-Kantian, while the question of whether virtue lies at the theoretical center of one or another variety of Confucian moral theory at least seems well-formed. Putting the point this way brings us back to Rosemont’s argument that there is no “morality” in early Confucianism. Recalling that Rosemont understands “ethics” as the study of “the basic terms employed in the description, analysis, and evaluation of human conduct,” an initial point to make here is that his definition is, from the perspective of the virtue ethics movement, still too concerned with conduct, and thus is not a definition of “ethics” that they are likely to accept. Bernard Williams’s  I mention some of the philosophers involved in these debates in Sect. 4.  See (Driver 1996). Various other terms are used to mark roughly the same distinction. Van Norden prefers to speak of a spectrum from moderate to “radical” virtue ethics (Van Norden 2007: 34); Adams refers to “the ethics of character as an important department of ethical theory” (Adams 2006: 4). 6 7

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earlier distinction between morality and ethics might be preferable: his understanding of “morality,” centered on “obligation,” is close enough to Rosemont, but he offers a broader (and vaguer) sense of the “ethical” as comprising answers to the question of “How should one live?” (Williams 1985). Williams is explicit that issues of virtue, disposition, and inner psychology all fall within the scope of how we live. A related issue is that according to some of the theorists we will shortly examine, the lack in Confucian texts of explicit terms corresponding to ideas like “freedom” or “autonomy” cannot be taken to show conclusively that theories centered around such notions are not implied by the text. Methodologically, I believe this is correct, though it must be true that if a whole cluster of concepts appears absent, the burden of proof is considerable on those who believe that these concepts and the inferential relations among them are nonetheless implicitly present. In the end, the wisest course for an inclusive survey like this one seems to be to adopt a broad notion of ethics or morality—I use the two interchangeably here, unless indicated otherwise—and let evidence in the texts and arguments for stimulating dialogical insights speak for themselves. No matter whether we speak of ethics or of morality, a further question is whether we should be concerned with constructing “theories” of this subject matter. Bernard Williams has famously argued that critical reflection in ethics need not—and indeed should not—focus on the construction and justification of “theories,” which he defines as accounts concerned with “general test[s] for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principle” (Williams 1985: 72). In other words, for Williams an “ethical theory” attempts to provide a justification for our various first-order intuitions in terms of a deeper, unified reason or set of reasons; this theory can then tell us which intuition to accept and which to reject in cases of conflict. As Williams points out, this kind of theorizing is not the only way to critically reflect on our moral feelings and practices. In fact, critical reflection can lead us to ask how one value or practice fits with another without requiring us to further ask how all values and practices fit together in terms of a single, underlying reason. There is ample evidence that Confucians engaged in this looser kind of theorizing, whether or not we are convinced that Williams’s narrower conception of “ethical theory” applies to Confucian reflective practices.8 Finally, I do not want to forget about the broader concern articulated at the outset of this chapter that employing Western categories—not just “morality,” but also “ethics” and even “philosophy”—may distort the Chinese ideas and practices that I am collectively calling “Confucian.” I believe that there are good reasons to reject the crudest of these claims, which seek to convince us that any effort to speak of Chinese “philosophy” is automatically a mistake.9 Still, we will also see below some reasons to think that sometimes Confucian moral thinking may indeed be too readily assimilated to the categories of Aristotle or Kant. We will see below that the

8  For one argument against viewing Confucianism through the lens of ethical theory, see (Nichols 2015). 9  For some discussion of this topic, see (Angle 2013: 226–229).

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stakes are higher when scholars are operating in the classificatory or interpretive mode. Categories not derived from the Confucian texts themselves are relevant to the philosophical interpretation of the text only insofar as a case can be made that they contribute to a better understanding of the text than is available without them (or via alternative categories). Putting Confucian ethics to use in philosophical dialogue, on the other hand, may have primary aims that are different from the best understanding of a given source text. One might argue that a reading of the Analects in terms of deontological ethical theory suggests issues for modern deontology that had not previously been noticed, or that stressing the virtue-ethical elements in the Mengzi can stimulate the contemporary growth of Confucian moral theory in constructive ways. Even here, we will see that the possibility of problematic distortion remains, but in general I will conclude that with sufficient openness and care, these concerns can be avoided.

3  Kant and Deontology There is a striking dichotomy within scholarship on Confucianism over the last three decades. Chinese-language discussions of Confucianism and moral theory have tended to stress resonances between Confucianism and Kant, while Kant and deontology have been only minor strands in the English-language literature on Confucianism. I will look at the reasons behind the dominant Anglophone approach in the next section. Here, it makes sense to open with some historical background on Kant and Confucianism, before turning to current arguments that deontological readings of Confucianism inspired by Kant are to be preferred.10 The story begins in the early twentieth century, with Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873–1929) and his 1903–1904 essay introducing Kant to Chinese intellectuals.11 Liang is very appreciative of Kant’s philosophy. He emphasizes some of the similarities between Kantian epistemology and metaphysics and Buddhist ideas, especially concerning the free, time-and-space-transcending “true self” (Liang 1989: 194). Liang finds Kant’s distinction between heteronomous (you suo wei zhe 有所為者) and ­autonomous (wu suo wei zhe 無所為者) laws to be of the first importance, and agrees with Kant that any laws that are concerned with goals (especially profit or interest, liyi 利益) are heteronomous and thus “correctly speaking, have no relationship with morality” (Liang 1989: 197). Liang explains that according to Kant, moral

 David Elstein has reminded me that key Chinese developers of the deontological reading believe that Confucianism in fact surpasses Kant in key ways, and so it is somewhat misleading to label their views as “Kantian.” This is an excellent point that I have taken to heart. As Elstein emphasized, since we see virtue ethics as broader than Aristotle (see below), shouldn’t we see deontology as broader than Kant? 11  The essay was published serially over several months. For some fascinating background to Liang’s essay, including the degree to which he both drew on but also deviated from prior Japanese interpretation and translation of Kant, see (Huang 2014). 10

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responsibility is born from the “freedom of the conscience (liangxin zhi ziyou 良心 之自由).” Liang then equates this with the famous idea of “innate good knowing (liang zhi 良知)” of Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) (Liang 1989: 198). This last connection is of course extremely important for my purposes. The idea that some versions of Confucianism, at least, endorsed an “autonomous” morality proved to be attractive to a number of subsequent thinkers. Many Chinese intellectuals in the teens and twenties criticized Confucianism for imposing a rigid set of ritualized rules upon the Chinese; in Kant’s terms, such rules were clearly heteronomous. Kant seemed to suggest a way for Confucianism to shed its restrictive mantle, though. As the important thinker Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968) said, “Kant conceives of ultimate reality (benti 本體) as something that is beyond the reach of [theoretical] reason and can be responded to only through moral practice. His main idea can be reconciled with the spirit of our classical learning.”12 Finally, Xiong’s student Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), probably the most important Confucian philosopher of the twentieth century, developed a deep and sophisticated engagement with Kant over his long career. The details go well beyond my scope; rather than looking at Mou’s specific articulation of a Confucian-cum-­ deontological moral theory, I will soon turn to the contemporary development of related ideas in the work of Mou’s student Lee Ming-huei 李明輝 and others. For now, it suffices to say that the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy continues to be central to Mou, as does the idea—hints of which we can already see in Liang and Xiong—that the Confucian’s “moral heartmind (xin 心)” bears an important resemblance to Kant’s noumenal self and free will.13 The best example of a philosopher arguing for a deontological reading of Confucianism in contemporary Sinophone discourse is Lee Ming-huei.14 To begin with, Lee argues that the Analects itself leans in the direction of an autonomous ethics. He cites the following two passages: The Master said, “Is ren 仁 really far away? If I want ren, then ren is already there” (7.30).15 Yan Yuan asked about ren. The Master said, “To overcome the self and turn to propriety is ren. If one day he overcomes himself and turns to ren, the world will turn to ren along with him. To be ren comes from the self; does it then come from others?” (12.1).

Lee says that these two passages imply the idea of moral autonomy, because only if morality is autonomous can it be achievable independently of any external conditions, as these passages seem to suggest. On such an account, morality is based on the “free exercise of one’s will” (Lee 1990: 36). Lee also connects this idea to a  Quoted in (Chan 2011: 36–37), slightly modified.  The best source on Mou’s approach to the idea of autonomy is (Billioud 2011). It is worth noting that it is controversial how Kantian Mou really is; see, for example (Zheng 2000). 14  Elstein (2015) has a very helpful chapter on Lee, though his focus is more on Lee’s political philosophy than his ethics. See also Fong (2016) for a detailed discussion of Lee’s most influential writings on Confucianism and Kant. 15  Translations from the Analects in this chapter are ultimately my responsibility, but I have based my renderings closely on those in (Brooks and Taeko Brooks 1998). 12 13

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famous passage in Mengzi, part of which reads: “‘Seek and you will get it. Abandon it and you will lose it.’ In this case, seeking helps in getting, because the seeking is in oneself.”16 From the context, it appears that what is being sought in oneself is one’s moral nature; as in the Analects passages we just looked at, moral achievement does not seem to depend on external circumstances (or “the decree [ming 命]”). Lee therefore argues that one’s moral nature is universal and a priori, always accessible to one.17 Let me call all of this Lee’s autonomy argument for a deontological reading of Confucian moral theory. The autonomy argument can be challenged on a number of scores. One potential rebuttal relies on the premises that, first, at least Mengzi’s version of Confucianism seems to root authoritative ethical judgments in the virtuous reactions of fully-­ developed moral exemplars; and second, these virtuous reactions are developed over time and particularistic, rather than being the discovery of a priori truths.18 One of the main focal point of this debate concerns how to interpret passage 2A:6 from Mengzi, which tells us that our four, characteristic moral feelings are the “duan 端” of their corresponding values or virtues: for example, “alarm and commiseration (ceyin 惻隱)” is said to be the duan of “benevolence (ren 仁).” The question is, what does “duan” mean? According to a line of interpretation favored by virtue-ethical readers of the text, duan means “sprout.” Together with the rest of the agricultural imagery in the text, this key use of “sprout” is meant to show readers that the standards for virtue are things we need to grow within us.19 On the other hand, Mou Zongsan has argued for reading duan in this context as the “appearance (xiang 相)” of one’s already fully-formed moral mind.20 This is a complex philosophical and textual debate. Rather than pursuing it here, let me step back and reflect on the more general way that Lee’s autonomy argument must face up to evidence that early Confucians recognize the phenomenon of moral luck. If there are, after all, factors outside of one’s control that influence one’s moral development, then can morality be fully autonomous? Relatedly, does moral luck actually vitiate genuine moral agency, as Lee claims? These are of course large issues, but we can sketch some of the relevant arguments briefly.21 On the one hand, we could supplement Lee’s evidence with further passages that look to deny moral luck a role. Consider Kongzi’s well-known words in Analects 6.11 concerning his favorite student, Yan Hui 顏回: The Master said, “Worthy indeed is this Yan Hui! One dish of food, a dipper of drink, living in a narrow alley: Others could not have borne their sorrow, yet for Hui it has no effect on his joy.  Mengzi 7A:3; translation from (Mengzi 2008: 172).  For more discussion, see (Elstein 2015: 104–105). 18  One important source for this reading of Mengzi is (Ivanhoe 2002), the first edition of which was published in 1990. 19  One of the best arguments for this reading is in (Van Norden 2007: 217–218). 20  Mou (1983: 24). For a helpful discussion of these issues that is sympathetic to Mou’s reading, see Ng (2014). 21  The balance of this paragraph draws on material in (Angle 2012: ch. 7). 16 17

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Kongzi says much the same about himself in Analects 7.15: “Eating coarse food, drinking water, crooking one’s arm and pillowing upon it—joy may be found also in these circumstances.” A natural way to read these passages is as claiming that wretched circumstances do not matter to proper, even joyous, moral functioning. However, Sean Walsh has pointed out that even if Yan Hui’s means are modest, he still has access to food, drink, and shelter. Walsh further argues that there are many ways in which we can see recognition in the Analects of luck playing a role: it is important to be fortunate enough to live in a state with a good ruler, to find a good teacher, and to be surrounded by a community that observes the rituals, among other things, even if no one of these things is absolutely necessary. With respect to Analects 7.30’s suggestion that one only has to want to be ren, Walsh maintains that attaining the right state of one heartmind such that one genuinely wants to the ren requires a long and difficult process, according to Analects 2.4 (Walsh 2013: 118). If Lee were to reply that we must avoid reading moral luck into the text, because to do so would be to deny genuine moral agency to Confucian agents, a possible rejoinder can be found in the work of Joel Kupperman. He contends that our actions are often the involuntary (i.e., not consciously chosen) results of an interaction between our character and our situation, and that our characters themselves are largely involuntary. By this latter point he means that we cannot change our characters at will, and indeed sometimes even great efforts over extended periods of time will fail. Nonetheless, he holds that often enough, we do have control over circumstances that will gradually reshape our characters, and as a result it is possible for one’s character to change dramatically. Kupperman’s conclusion is that we have enough control, that is, that “it makes sense to hold people responsible both for their characters and for actions that flow from their characters” (Kupperman 1991: 63). In short, genuine moral agency is still possible. Finally, I have so far confined my attention to early Confucianism. Some might find one of the previous rebuttals to the autonomy argument convincing as far as the Analects and Mengzi are concerned, but still think that Neo-Confucian philosophers—who seem to clearly hold that moral nature is fully-formed—offer unambiguous instances of an autonomous ethics. Certainly Mou and Lee hold this about some Neo-Confucians, such as Wang Yangming, though they controversially argue that Zhu Xi’s ethics is heteronomous.22 For an argument that even Neo-Confucians should be read as advocating a virtue ethics—independent of whether or not they can be said to favor “autonomy”—see the next section. With the shape of the argument surrounding autonomy clear—though certainly not settled—let us examine a second argument, which I will refer to as Lee’s heterogeneity argument. This argument has three premises. First, deontological moral theories distinguish between moral good—for Kant, moral goodness comes from good motives or will—and natural or non-moral goodness, like happiness or pleasure. Goodness, in other words, is heterogeneous. The second premise is that teleological moral theories take goodness to be homogeneous: ultimately, all goodness

22

 Mou (1969).

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reduces to one type, as when certain utilitarians argue that moral rightness ultimately rests on the production of the most (non-moral) goodness, namely pleasure. Such teleological theories cannot, therefore, make the distinction—central to deontology—between an act "done ‘out of duty’ (aus Pflicht), rather than merely ‘conforming to duty’ (pflichtmäßig)” (Lee 2013: 49). Finally, the third premise is that in both the Analects and the Mengzi we find evidence for a heterogeneous conception of the good, which leads Lee to conclude that early Confucianism is deontological.23 Consider Analects 4.16, for example: The Master said, “The superior person concentrates on right (yi 義); the petty person concentrates on advantage (li 利).”

Much hinges on the exact interpretation of the key terms yi and li here; is the latter, in particular, a broad category of non-moral value, or does it indicate a kind of selfish concern for one’s own advantages or profit? Lee reads it in the former way—he would translate the latter clause of Analects 4:16 as “petty people understand wherein their own utility lies”—though it is controversial whether the evidence requires such a reading (Lee 2013: 50). Analects 4.12, which also invokes li in a negative light, is subject to the same ambiguity. The last line of 4.2, “zhizhe li ren 知 者利仁,” has been interpreted in many different ways; I note that Ames and Rosemont’s reading, “wise persons flourish in [ren],” offers support for Lee’s approach, since it connects li to a general notion of flourishing (Ames and Rosemont Jr 1998: 89). Perhaps the best support in Book 4 of the Analects for the idea of heterogeneous values comes from 4.5, which recognizes that “wealth and honor” have value, but says that if a superior person cannot gain them while following the Way, he will not abide them.24 Lee finds more support for his heterogeneity argument in Analects 17.21. The passage concerns the three-year mourning period. Kongzi’s student Zai Wo 宰我 feels that three years is too long, and offers two reasons: first, that a three-year hiatus from doing all the rituals will lead to the rituals being lost; second, that things in nature cycle back within a year, and so a year-long period should suffice. Kongzi, however, simply asks Zai Wo if he would “feel comfortable (an 安)” wearing his finery and eating well prior to the end of 3 years. Although Zai Wo says that he would indeed feel comfortable, Kongzi makes it clear that a superior person would not—“if he ate dainties, he would not find them sweet,” for example—and bemoans Zai Wo’s lack of ren. As Lee reads this passage, Zai Wo’s reasons are ultimately teleological in nature, while “Kongzi establishes the meaning of three-year mourning period on the basis of the agent’s motivation. This…implies a deontological

 In Sect. 2, I noted that Alasdair MacIntyre and Gary Watson have both argued that while virtue ethics is a form of teleological ethics, it is not a maximizing teleology in which moral nobility is reducible to some other form of goodness. They would thus resist Lee’s move from “heterogeneous” to “deontological.” 24  There is also considerable, albeit ambiguous, evidence in Mengzi, which famously begins with a criticism of those who speak about “profit (li 利)” in 1A:1. Lee gives his interpretation of these passages in (Lee 1990). 23

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viewpoint” (Lee 2013: 50). Strikingly, this very passage is taken up by supporters of a virtue-ethical reading of the text to argue for the implausibility of a deontological interpretation, as I will explain below, in Sect. 4. Thanks in part to the influence of Mou Zongsan—as well as to Lee’s arguments themselves—deontological readings of Confucianism are widespread in Chinese-­ language discussions. Such interpretations are rarer in English-language secondary literature. One example is Heiner Roetz’s 1993 book Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, based on his German-language book of a year earlier. Roetz’s perspective is not explicitly Kantian, but it does share quite a bit with ideas we have already seen. His central thesis is that early Confucianism offers an example of an “axial age” breakthrough from convention-based ethics to universal, “post-conventional,” principled morality. He draws extensively on Laurence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, which itself is based on a deontological understanding of morality. According to Kohlberg's model, moral thinking can advance through increasingly sophisticated stages, the highest of which is Stage 6, “the universal ethical principle orientation.” At this stage, “the right is what is in accordance with abstract, consistent, and universally valid principle. It is based on the autonomous desire of conscience” (Roetz 1993: 27). Roetz argues that the values of family and state provide the “conventional level” grounding for Confucian ethics, but the key contribution of classical Confucianism is to move beyond these conventions to higher principles. He surveys several candidate principles like the “way,” friendship, and the “mean,” each of which helps to “compensate for the insufficiencies of mere role morality” (Roetz 1993: 118). Each of these falls short, though; ultimately, the concept on which he settles as providing the basis for a universal, unifying principle is ren (which Roetz translates as “humaneness”). Roetz summarizes various reasons for thinking that ren is the central value of the Analects, and then emphasizes the (indirect) explication of ren in the Analects via the Golden Rule, as when shu 恕or reciprocity is said to consist in “What he himself does not want, let him not do to others.”25 Roetz recognizes various potential problems with the Golden Rule, but concludes that: …of all the ethical conceptions China has developed, the Golden Rule is the most promising if we search for potentials for further moral evolution. It roots morality for the first time in the formal procedures of role taking, not in traditional virtues, allowing [one] to transcend the horizon of one’s own cultural heritage (Roetz 1993: 148).

Roetz is concerned to deny Henry Rosemont’s thesis (mentioned above in Sect. 2) that Chinese thinking contains only ethics (or, in Roetz’s terms, Sittlichkeit); Roetz believes that abstract principles such as the Golden Rule show that Moralität—with its emphasis on autonomy, decision, and duty—is present as well (Roetz 1993: 47). As far as I can tell, Roetz’s motivation to view morality in the terms that he does, and thus to search for such a conception within the Analects, come from his own philosophical background and not as a result of the Sinophone discourse discussed above, though he does note that contemporary New Confucian Liu Shuxian 劉述先 25

 Analects 15.21.

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“assents to Kohlberg’s universalism as well as to the idea of a development toward an autonomous morality” (Roetz 1993: 29).26 The approaches that I have considered so far in this section are primarily aimed at classifying Confucianism as a form of deontological ethics. Mou and his followers also use Confucianism, as they interpret it, to engage in a dialogical critique of Western—and in particular, Kantian—philosophy. In terms of the categories I introduced in the introductory section above, this dialogue is almost entirely at the level of meta-ethics, rather than normative or applied ethics: it concerns the nature of moral reality and of our access to that reality. As is well-known, Kant’s approach to morality is to offer a “metaphysics of morals,” that is, to provide an account of the non-empirical principles that make morality possible. Kant argues that we have no direct access to moral reality, but our reason can work out the principles by which we are obligated via a purely rational understanding of what it is to have a free will. This, then, provides us with an (indirect) understanding of morality. With such an understanding hand, Kant goes on to argue that instead of traditional “theological ethics,” which start from an understanding of God and derive morality, we should instead approach an understanding of God via “moral theology.” Moral theology starts from an understanding of morality and tells us what God must be like, if happy moral lives are to in fact be possible. Mou believes that Kant’s shift from theological ethics to the combination of a metaphysics of morals and a moral theology was a great turning point in the history of Western philosophy,27 but he also argues that Confucian philosophy has an even better framework. In a sense, we can say that Mou combines the two Kantian ideas into one, namely “moral metaphysics.” Like moral theology, Mou’s moral metaphysics takes morality as its starting point. However, this starting point is our direct experience of and participation in morality, rather than an abstract morality that has been worked out rationally. Our experience of morality is “non-empirical”—it is of a different kind from our regular sensory experience—and plays a role in constituting metaphysical reality. In short, our metaphysical theory will have morality built in from the beginning. Drawing on various strands of classical and Neo-Confucian thinking, Mou asserts that at its base, reality is an on-going process of life-giving creativity. This process of creativity is something that we both participate in and value. At the same time, Mou insists that reality is no less “objective” for our constitutive role in it: we may experience and even partly constitute ultimate reality, but this does not mean that we can choose arbitrarily what is valuable. Morality is something we discover in ourselves and in the world, rather than invent.28 Further exploration of Mou’s development of these ideas and the many debates they have occasioned would take me too far afield. Over the last several years Anglophone scholars have begun to look seriously at the meta-ethical arguments of

 For a rebuttal of Roetz’s position from someone in the virtue ethics camp, see P. J. Ivanhoe’s argument in Footnote 39. 27  Mou (1983: 74). 28  Mou (1983: 116–117). 26

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Mou and other New Confucians, though very few Western-trained meta-ethical philosophers have yet engaged with Mou’s ideas.29

4  Virtue Ethics Virtue ethics takes virtues, character, and more generally the goodness of a moral agent to rest at the center of moral theorizing. I have already mentioned some of the controversies that attend the distinguishing of virtue ethics from other forms of moral theory; but in the present section I will set these matters aside. My goals here are fourfold: to sketch the history of virtue-ethical interpretations of Confucianism; to illustrate the diversity of such readings; to highlight some of the most important arguments in favor of a virtue-ethical interpretation; and finally to look at examples of the ways that philosophers have endeavored to put Confucianism-as-virtue-ethics to use. It will be helpful to remember that the modern articulation of virtue ethics— whose initial stages include both a critique of mainstream modern moral philosophy and a call to look again at what we can learn from ancient Western ethics—is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Most analysts use Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” to mark the beginning of the revival of virtue ethics; other early contributors include Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martha Nussbaum.30 Rosalind Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics (Hursthouse 1999) then marked a new level of confidence on the part of virtue ethicists; in the 2000s, we can say that virtue ethics was increasingly firmly ensconced in the now-enlarged field of Anglophone moral philosophy.31 In addition, one of the critical developments in virtue ethics from the 2000s to the present has been its pluralization. Aristotle had been the touchstone for almost all prior writers in the field (Murdoch being a significant exception), but now it is widely accepted that many philosophers in the Western canon can be read as virtue ethicists, including not just Stoics and medievals, but also moderns such as Hume and Nietzsche. As we will see below, differing conceptions of the breadth of virtue ethics have important impacts on the plausibility of viewing Confucianism as expressing a version of virtue ethics. Given the history I have just outlined, it is no surprise that virtue-ethical interpretations of Confucianism are also a fairly recent phenomenon. The main lesson of the early essay “Aristotle and Confucius” (Hamburger 1956) is that a comparison of the  On Mou, see Bunnin (2008), Chan (2011), Billioud (2011), and Van den Stock (2016). For some initial comparisons between Mou and Kant, see the special journal issue devoted to relations between Kant and Confucianism (Schönfeld 2006), as well as (Palmquist 2010). 30  See Anscombe (1958), Murdoch (1970), Foot (1978), McDowell (1979), MacIntyre (1981), and Nussbaum (1990). This list is by no means exhaustive; other important early contributions include Wallace (1978) and Pincoffs (1986). It is worth noting that, as discussed in Sect. 2, Nussbaum explicitly rejects the label “virtue ethics” (Nussbaum 1999). 31  Representative works include Slote (2001), Swanton (2003), and Tessman (2005). 29

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two figures would make sense, even though it had not featured in previous readings of the Analects; Hamburger does not engage in any detailed interpretation of one thinker in the other’s terms. In the early 1970s, George Mahood published some sophisticated studies of the moral philosophy in the Analects that take the idea of virtue, and the early writings of Alasdair MacIntyre, quite seriously, but one detects little immediate uptake either among Western philosophers or among Anglophone sinologists.32 The idea of virtue in the Analects and, especially, the Mengzi loomed large in a series of important lectures given by David Nivison at Stanford in the early 1980s, though the lectures were not published until 1996.33 Another important step was the publication in 1990 of Mencius and Aquinas by Nivison’s colleague at Stanford, Lee Yearley. Yearley’s book shows the fruits that can come from a detailed, sophisticated reflection on the idea of virtue in an early Confucian work.34 With the nurturance of Nivison and Yearley, Stanford proved fertile ground for virtue-ethical readings of Confucianism. The writings of Philip J.  Ivanhoe, Stephen Wilson, Edward Slingerland, Bryan Van Norden, and Eric Hutton—all with Ph.D.s from Stanford—over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s increasingly come to make explicit arguments that the Analects should be interpreted through the lens of virtue ethics.35 The year 2007 is a watershed year for Anglophone virtue-ethical readings of Confucianism, with three books published that defend such a thesis.36 In the last few years, finally, scholars of Confucianism have begun explicitly engaging with contemporary developments in virtue ethics, as I will discuss further below. Within the essays and books I have just mentioned one can find a range of arguments in favor of classifying Confucianism as a form of virtue ethics.37 For example, both Wilson (2002) and Slingerland (2001) argue that a virtue-based  See Mahood (1971, 1974).  See Nivison (1996a, b). 34  As can be seen from his glowing back-cover endorsement, Alasdair MacIntyre was also clearly aware of the book. This is perhaps an apt moment to mention MacIntyre’s fairly extensive engagement with Confucian ethics—as seen in MacIntyre (1991, 2004a, b)—although some claims that he makes in his systematic treatments of virtue ethics such as (MacIntyre 1999), in which Confucianism makes no appearance, show that the influence of Confucianism has not gone as deep as one might have hoped. 35  This is more implicit than explicit in Ivanhoe’s dissertation (published as Ivanhoe (1990)), though it is explicit in that work’s revised second edition (Ivanhoe 2002: ix, 2n5, 9). The theme of virtue is also central to Ivanhoe (2000) (the first edition of which was published in 1993). See also Wilson (2002) and Slingerland (2001), both of which will be discussed further below. The most mature statement of Van Norden’s position is Van Norden (2007), on which see below. 36  In addition to Van Norden (2007), two important comparative studies of Aristotle and Confucius were published Sim (2007) and Yu (2007). 37  In addition to those discussed in the main text, (Van Norden 2007) also contributes further arguments; Van Norden maintains that a virtue-ethics interpretation of the Analects and Mengzi “illuminates many interesting aspects of [Confucianism] that might otherwise go unnoticed” (Van Norden 2007: 2). Van Norden’s approach to “virtue ethics” itself is loose and pluralistic, including both what we have called above “virtue theory” as well as virtue ethics more strictly. Particularly with respect to the Analects, which he considers more “evocative” than “systematic” (Van Norden 2007: 137), his goal is to see what can be learned about the views in the text by asking questions 32 33

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interpretation better explains the full range of positions taken within the text than do alternative interpretive theories. Wilson considers Herbert Fingarette’s influential 1972 book Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (Fingarette 1972), and argues that it disregards the individual component of human flourishing. Wilson then turns to David Hall’s and Roger Ames’s important work Thinking Through Confucius (Hall and Ames 1987), which Wilson says treats the Analects one-sidedly in the other direction, over-emphasizing individuality and creativity. In contrast, an understanding of the text that is based around the socially-sanctioned cultivation of virtues, which then come to be valued and developed for their own sake, offers a more balanced understanding of the whole (Wilson 2002: 95, 104). Edward Slingerland pursues a similar strategy, but includes among his targets a deontological reading of Confucianism.38 He explicitly argues that the tie between inner, felt state (the virtue of ren) and outer behavior that we see lauded in the Analects is the opposite of the Kantian demand that one act from duty rather than inclination. In other words, he sees the Analects as explicitly contradicting a central tenet of Kantian theory (Slingerland 2001: 100–101). Recall here Lee Ming-huei’s discussion of Analects 17.21, in which the nature of Zai Wo’s motivation is discussed. Lee suggests that when Kongzi says that to “feel comfortable (an)” is to have the proper kind of motivation, this manifests a deontological-style heteronomy of the good. Following Slingerland’s lead, though, one might reply that by emphasizing the aptness of feeling as key to moral motivation, Kongzi is stressing something like inclination rather than duty, and thus is more at home with those virtue ethicists who emphasize the importance of emotions to the development of virtuous dispositions. Not that this need be the end of the argument. Lee would reply that the Confucians have identified a special kind of a priori moral feeling that is distinct from inclination (Lee 1990), and recent Kantian theory has also revived the attention that was already present in some of Kant’s own writing on the role of virtue in the moral life. The picture of a stark opposition between duty and inclination that one gets from Kant’s Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals is more nuanced in some of his other work.39 Still, it may be that Analects 17.21 is not as firm evidence in favor of a deontological reading as Lee has argued. So far I have been focusing on discussions of Confucianism and virtue ethics within Anglophone secondary scholarship. We would do well to also take note of a significant debate on the subject that has taken place in Chinese. Starting in the early 1990s, influenced by their Catholic/Aristotelian training and stimulated by Alasdair

of it phrased in virtue-related terminology, rather than seeking to elucidate a specific, virtue-ethical moral theory. 38  Another version of this strategy can be seen in Ivanhoe’s argument that Roetz’s deontological interpretation fails because (1) his insistence that the Analects contains universal ethical claims can be accounted for in other ways, and (2) there is no evidence of a relationship between reason and morality in the Analects like that insisted on by Kant: “We look in vain for an analysis of moral maxims, autonomy, or freedom” (Ivanhoe 2002: 9). 39  By now a large literature on this subject has developed; one important source of the discussion is (Sherman 1997).

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MacIntyre’s After Virtue, some Taiwanese scholars began arguing against the prevailing deontological reading of early Confucianism. We can take Vincent Shen (Shen Qingsong 沈清松) as a representative of this movement. Rejecting what in Sect. 2 I called Lee Ming-huei’s heterogeneity argument, Shen argues that yi and li are not dualistically opposed to one another, but arranged hierarchically. That is, yi and li are distinct members of the same family of values, rather than being fundamentally heterogeneous. He acknowledges that there are passages (some of which I have cited above, when discussing Lee) that appear to make a stark dichotomy, but Shen argues that other passages are clearly inclusive. In Mengzi 7A:13 and 7B:10, for example, a ruler’s being concerned with the li 利 (benefit) of his people is seen as part-and-parcel with his caring for them (Shen 1992: 184). More generally, Shen says that we should understand yi primarily as a virtue, and thus of a piece with the virtue of ren, which is the source of concern for the people’s li. Citing MacIntyre, Shen argues that both in the ancient West and in Confucianism, duties are distinctly secondary and emerge from the framework of cultivating virtue (Shen 1992: 187). In both his 1992 essay and more explicitly in later work, Shen maintains that a virtue-­ethical framework both fits better with the Confucian texts than does deontology or utilitarianism. He also goes beyond this classificatory argument to maintain that virtue ethics is the most promising approach to revitalize Confucianism in the present day, because a bare focus on duties and laws will lead to a fundamentally impoverished society (Shen 2004). A very similar idea—that Confucian moral theory, as a form of virtue ethics, is fundamentally not “modern” and so might be of use in the critique of modern society—can also be seen in an essay by political philosopher Shi Yuankang 石元康 from the same decade (Shi 1998: 123).40 Taiwanese philosophers like Shen and Shi were pioneers in arguing not just for classifying Confucian ethical theory as virtue ethics, but also for pointing toward ways that Confucian virtue ethical theory might have important contemporary uses as ethical theory. I now turn to some instances of Anglophone scholars making similar arguments.41 First, let us consider two books, both published in 2007, that argue both for significant similarities between Aristotle and Kongzi, and that modern Aristotelians and modern Confucians have things to learn from one another—or in other words, that Confucian virtue ethics has things to contribute to current ethical philosophizing. According to both authors—Yu Jiyuan and May Sim—we should interpret early Confucian ethics as forms of virtue ethics.42 Both books are complex

 Lee Ming-huei argues rather convincingly that Shen’s critique of the contemporary implications of deontological moral theories is based on a mere caricature of Kantianism (Lee 2005: 107). 41  In addition to the books highlighted in the next three paragraphs, several contributions to Angle and Slote (2013) also endeavor to use Confucian ethical theory. Eric Hutton’s Stanford Ph.D. thesis is an early instance of this trend (Hutton 2001). See also the final chapter of Van Norden (2007), Ivanhoe (2011), and Slingerland (2011), among others. 42  For example, Sim says, “ethics for both [Confucius and Aristotle] centers on character” (Sim 2007: 134); for his part, Yu begins his first chapter by saying, “For both ethics of Confucius and Aristotle, the central question is about what the good life is or what kind of person one should be. More strikingly, both ethics answer this central question by focusing on virtue…” (Yu 2007: 24). 40

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and have occasioned considerable debate; in the context of the present chapter, it is only possible to touch on certain key themes.43 In both books, the conclusion that early Confucianism offers a virtue ethics is more the outcome of the larger comparison than a specific theme: they do not argue against alternative (Kantian or other) interpretations, but rather present considerable evidence that key Aristotelian ideas have correlates in Confucianism, and vice versa. Both Sim and Yu hold that while Confucians and Aristotle share a great deal, each also has some insights from which the other can learn, and the juxtaposition reveals certain lacunae in the thought of each. One difference between the two interpretations that will have relevance to subsequent argument in this chapter concerns individualism. For Sim, there is a striking difference between the role of the individual, metaphysical soul in Aristotle’s account, and the pure, role-based relationality she finds in Kongzi. She suggests that both approaches leave something to be desired: Aristotle lacks the capacity to handle the thick relationality that his ethics in fact requires, while Kongzi needs some independent substrate to anchor moral norms that would allow criticism of existing role relationships (Sim 2007: 135). For his part, Yu sees less difference on this score. He argues that Aristotelian eudaimonia and Confucian dao 道 are quite analogous to one another, and that Aristotle’s understanding of humans as “political animals” is tantamount to Kongzi’s emphasis on the relational nature of the self (Yu 2007: 108). I will return to his issue below, because the question of relationality turns out to be crucial to Roger Ames’s and Henry Rosemont Jr.’s argument that Confucianism presents a role ethics rather than a virtue ethics. As should be clear from this section so far, much work on Confucianism and virtue ethics has focused on classical Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism has not entirely escaped scholarly attention, however. For example, in my 2009 book Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy, I argue explicitly that the thought of Neo-Confucians like Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming should be understood as forms of virtue ethics. I rely both on the ways in which Neo-Confucian theories of metaphysics, psychology, ethics, and education all support a distinctive version of virtue ethics, and on specific textual arguments concerning key terms, such as de or “virtue” (Angle 2009, 55–59). In addition to these interpretive arguments, I also open a dialogue between Neo-Confucian virtue-ethical theory and certain modern virtue ethicists. I do my best to make the dialogue a two-way process, according to which both sides are challenged to learn, adapt, and grow; I consider issues related to the scope of ethics, the nature of conflicts, and the roles in moral learning of imagination, dialogue, and faith, among other topics. In two more recent essays, finally, I have sought to use Neo-Confucian virtue ethical theory to suggest new ways that contemporary ethics might engage with contemporary psychology (Angle 2011, 2014).

43  For some of the debate, see the book symposia printed in Dao 8:3 (2007, on Sim’s book) and Dao 10:3 (2010, on Yu’s book).

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In a series of articles and especially in his recent book, Huang Yong has also put Neo-Confucianism to use as an ethical theory. In Why Be Moral? Learning from the Neo-Confucian Cheng Brothers, Huang explains that his “interest is not in exploring the similarities and differences between Confucianism and virtue ethics,…but in seeking the possibility of any possible contributions Confucianism can make to contemporary virtue ethics” (Huang 2014: 68). Although Huang does spend some time explaining various features of the Cheng brothers’ views, he does not argue that it is better to classify their version of Neo-Confucianism as virtue ethics instead of deontology; instead, he chooses topics on which he feels that the Chengs can help contemporary Western moral philosophers make progress, and simply wades into the fray. As the quotation suggests, he is certainly interested in engaging with virtue ethics and indeed sees many resonances between Western virtue ethics and Confucianism, but his interlocutors in the book sometimes include Kantians and even consequentialists as well. In framing his project around Western philosophical concepts and problems—chapters range over issues like explaining why any given person should be moral, replying to the “self-centeredness” objection to virtue ethics, and denying the weakness of the will is possible when one has genuine moral knowledge—Huang risks criticism that he must distort the Chengs’ views in order to make them into answers to questions that they did not ask. One way to avoid this problem would be for Huang to say that he takes the Chengs’ philosophy as a point of departure, but then develops their views as needed to enter into conversation with Western moral theory. He does not take this route, though, explicitly maintaining that he is presenting the Cheng brothers’ own views, rather than engaging in “philosophical construction” (Huang 2014: 13). Huang helps to make this more plausible by adding that he has consciously chosen problems within contemporary Western ethics where the Cheng brothers can contribute, setting aside issues on which their views are too orthogonal to Western formulations to be of sufficient relevance. My own view is that Huang has largely succeeded in remaining true to the Cheng brothers; as for whether this will be seen as helpful by Western-trained moral theorists, we can only wait and find out.

5  Role Ethics The notion of “role ethics,” understood as the question of how one’s particular roles inflect one’s moral responsibilities, has been present in Western philosophy for quite some time. The focus has tended to be on professional roles such as doctor, lawyer, or business manager, and two main types of questions have been raised: What are the distinctive norms of the professional role, and how do these norms relate to broader moral norms? In particular, what has been called the “role problem” arises because “the purpose of many institutions such as business, it may be thought, seems not to contain an ethical dimension, and indeed may appear amoral or contra-moral. Yet individuals occupying roles supposedly serving that purpose are expected to behave ethically” (Swanton 2003: 210). Exactly how role ethics

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should be developed, and the role problem resolved, depends on the broader moral theory on which one draws; consequentialist, Kantian, and virtue-ethical approaches are all possible. It is relevant to some of my subsequent discussion, in fact, to note that both Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian version of virtue-ethical role ethics are possible; according to the former, the goodness of any role is determined by its place in a comprehensive understanding of the life of a good human being, whereas according to the latter, there is no set hierarchy of ends and so role virtues are not necessarily subordinated to more abstract goods (Swanton 2003: 208). Thus understood, it should be clear that the questions concerning role ethics that I raise in this section are primarily in the realm of normative ethics. It is also possible to ask more concrete questions—for example, what does Confucianism tell us about how colleagues in a business firm should relate to one another—and I will address those in the following section, on applied ethics. In one sense, beginning my discussion with Western role ethics is beside the point, because the role ethics with which we are primarily concerned—“Confucian role ethics,” a term coined by Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr.—is presented as sui generis, bearing no genealogical or conceptual connection to discussions of role ethics in Western philosophy. It is nonetheless useful to start with the Western discourse for two reasons. First, noting the existence of this alternative, Western discussion of “role ethics” simply enhances clarity by allowing us to distinguish between the two. Second, we will see that for several intriguing reasons, Rosemont and Ames prefer to emphasize differences with Western moral theories, rather than similarities. Acknowledging the existence of Western discussions of role ethics allows us to understand—and perhaps challenge—this stance more thoroughly.44 For Ames and Rosemont, “Confucian role ethics” is simply a name meant to refer to the moral and religious vision that they find in early Confucianism. At the heart of Confucian role ethics is “a specific vision of human beings as relational persons constituted by the roles they live rather than as individual selves” (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011: 17). The roles that Ames and Rosemont have in mind are, in the first instance, family-based: son, daughter, mother, older sibling, grandfather, and so on. Traditional Confucian roles of ruler, subject, husband, wife, minister, and friend fill out the picture. Their point is not that these roles themselves are

 In the Preface to his 2011 book on Confucian role ethics, Ames notes that Rosemont began developing the idea of Confucian role ethics as early as a 1991 essay that drew a contrast between the “rights-bearing individuals” of Western moral theories and the “role-bearing persons” on Confucian ethics (Ames 2011: xv). As far as I know, though, Ames and Rosemont only began using the term “role ethics” in print in (Rosemont Jr. and Ames 2009). Another parallel approach to using the category of “role ethics” to understand Confucianism emerges in the work of A. T. Nuyen, whose “Confucian Ethics as Role-Based Ethics” was published in 2007. He draws in part on earlier work of Ames and David Hall on the Confucian self (Nuyen 2007: 317), but develops his role-ethical structure quite independently. (Ames also seems unaware of Nuyen’s work on role ethics; it is not cited in (Ames 2011).) I will comment in a moment on one or two differences between Nuyen and Ames and Rosemont, but reserve discussion of the biggest difference—namely, that Nuyen sees considerable similarity between the structure of Confucian role ethics and certain Western ethical theories that he labels “social ethics”—for the essay’s concluding section.

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distinctively Confucian, but rather that the idea of being human as fundamentally constituted by our on-going living in roles ramifies throughout Confucian thinking in a way that renders it dramatically different from Greek or contemporary Western alternatives. Their argument in favor of a role-ethical interpretation of Confucianism thus depends on two important premises. The first is a wide-ranging interpretation of early Confucian thinking that emphasizes its anti-foundational, anti-essentialist, and processual character.45 Part of the argument for this reading can be found in their individual and collective writings on Confucian role ethics, but much of the background has been laid in earlier scholarship, going back to Ames’s seminal work on the Analects with David Hall, Thinking Through Confucius (Hall and Ames 1987). Insofar as this general interpretation of early Confucianism is questioned— and indeed we have seen some challenges mentioned already, in the work of Wilson and Slingerland—then the argument for Confucian role ethics correspondingly comes into question as well. The second premise is that even though Confucian role ethics comes closer to virtue ethics than to Kantianism or consequentialism, relying on virtue-ethical vocabulary to understand the Analects “forces the Master and his followers more into the mold of Western philosophical discourse than they ought to be placed…and hence makes it difficult to see the Confucian vision as a genuine alternative to those with which we are most familiar” (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011). Therefore the best interpretation of Confucian ethics is as role ethics.46 I will elaborate on some key aspects of the first premise in a moment, but will focus now on the second premise. This second premise is important because Ames and Rosemont are not claiming that Confucian role ethics is incommensurable with Western moral theories: it is both similar and different, and they are choosing to emphasize the differences. This is a strategic choice, reflecting not just the degree of difference but also our contemporary situation in which differences with dominant Western frameworks tend to be downplayed. Their concern is not only with the distortion that may come from emphasizing similarities, but also with what Shun Kwong-loi has called the “asymmetry” characterizing comparative philosophy. Shun says: [T]here is a trend in comparative studies to approach Chinese thought from a Western philosophical perspective, by reference to frameworks, concepts, or issues found in Western philosophical discussions…. Conversely, in the contemporary literature, we rarely find attempts to approach Western philosophical thought by reference to frameworks, concepts, or issues found in Chinese philosophical discussions (Shun 2009: 470).

I agree with Professor Shun that there has been such an asymmetry, and furthermore that asymmetry of this kind may well be a problem. If local, idiosyncratic experiences from moments in Greek, Roman, or European history are taken as normative

45  Although Ames and Rosemont do not emphasize it, we can read this interpretation as a kind of meta-ethical argument, insofar as it grounds a distinctive form of ethics. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. 46  See also chapter “Confucian Thought and Contemporary Western Philosophy”—Ed.

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expectations for all of humanity, this should trouble us; if categories that Greeks (and so on) used to understand their experiences are taken as the only categories to be used in understanding all human experiences, this sounds equally troubling, especially if it is differences in global power that lead us to only consider some putatively universal categories—for example, those derived from European experience which happen to mesh particularly well with contemporary capitalism—and to ignore others that also make universal claims. Ames and Rosemont note several instances in which, in the course of their comparisons of Aristotle and Kongzi, Sim and Yu stress what seems to be lacking, missing, absent, or ignored in Confucian ethics, when seen in the light of Aristotle (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011: 18). To be fair, both Sim and Yu announce that their projects are to see what each of their subjects can learn from the other, and both Sim and Yu note problems for Aristotle, including that his “insistent individualism…fails to account for the thick relations his own theory requires” (Sim 2007: 164), and his overly strong distinction between virtue and activity “inappropriately reduces the value of having virtue” (Yu 2007: 194).47 I will not try to settle here whether Sim or Yu in fact give us asymmetrical comparisons, but the fact surely remains that comparative philosophy overall has been characterized by an asymmetry, and it is with this in mind that Ames and Rosemont “want to resist tailoring what we take to be a distinctively Confucian role ethics into a familiar category of Western ethical theory” (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011: 18). This concern about asymmetry explains why Ames and Rosemont want to resist conflating Confucian role ethics with virtue ethics. But what is it that makes Confucian ethics so distinct in the first place? Here we return to what I called Ames and Rosemont’s first premise. The most basic difference they see between role ethics and all the standard Western ethical theories is that the latter rely on the idea of an independent principle or cause, while Confucianism does not. According to the Confucian project, Ames writes, “without appeal to some independent principle, meaning arises pari passu from a network of meaningful relationships” (Ames 2011: 91). It is easy enough to see how Kantian and utilitarian ethics rely on an independent principle; Ames argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics, too, depends on an independent, essentialist, reified notion of human nature, as compared to corresponding Confucian notions which are “collateral, transactional, and reflexive” (Ames 2011: 90). A related contrast is that between abstraction and universalism in the Western theories, and concreteness and particularity in Confucianism. As Ames says, “the personal model of Confucius that is remembered in the Analects does not purport to lay out some generic formula by which everyone should live their lives” (Ames 2011: 95). While one might be tempted to reply that particularism and a lack of “codifiability” are generally taken to be features of Aristotelian virtue ethics, Ames would respond that Aristotle still sees virtues as reified, individual capacities, as versus the relational and transactional idea of “virtuosity” that he finds in  It also bears noting that in a fascinating series of blog posts, William Haines has argued that “in most respects, Aristotle accepted Confucian role ethics as Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont describe [it]” (Haines 2012).

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Confucianism (Ames 2011: 159, 180). Finally, Ames suggests that the very idea of a moral “theory” matches poorly with the ethical-religious “vision” of Confucianism. Theory-construction, with its emphasis on reason, analysis, definitions, and so on, is at least a somewhat different enterprise from the Confucian project of offering historical models and exhortations to fire one’s moral imagination and inspire one’s relational moral growth (Ames 2011: 121–122, 163). Explicating and evaluating the evidence on which Ames and Rosemont rely to back up these claims would take me too far afield. Instead, I suggest that we consider a potentially damaging objection to role ethics, and see whether Confucian role ethics has the resources to respond. The Analects clearly sees the need for critical evaluation of the ways that roles are inhabited by particular people. Does “Confucian role ethics” provide adequate critical purchase for such assessment? Suppose for a moment that all there is to role ethics is that with respect to any role one occupies, one should be like others in that role. Let us call this “simple role ethics.” As a parent, one should model on other parents; as a child, one should be like other children. An obvious problem with this is that in a society in which most parents are bad, one will tend to model on bad parents, and become worse oneself. A defender of simple role ethics might say that a society with bad parents will not flourish, so that in the long run only comparatively good societies, and parents, will be encouraged. This response fails to convince, though, both because our moral practice manifestly seems to make distinctions between good and bad parents (indeed, the coherence of the objection and response require this), and because the long-term existence of patriarchal practices, to choose one example, undermines the idea that good role-occupiers will ultimately be favored through some process of social evolution. If we need to be able to talk about good parents and bad, though, the question then becomes in what terms we judge or articulate such goodness. Certainly Ames and Rosemont cannot call on widely applicable principles (“good parents are those who respect their children’s autonomy,” perhaps) or general, role-independent virtues (like “anyone with a well-rounded character will be a good parent”). However, it is also clear that they do not promote simple role ethics. Their writings are replete with references to normative categories that seem aimed at evaluating specific role performance. For example, Ames writes: “Each person stands as a unique perspective on family, community, polity, and cosmos, and through a dedication to deliberate growth and articulation, everyone has the possibility of bringing the resolution of the relationships that locate and constitute them within the family and community into clearer and more meaningful focus” (Ames 2011: 93). In addition to “focus,” “growth,” and “meaningful,” other terms play similar roles in Ames’s discourse of Confucian role ethics, including “harmony” (Ames 2011: 96, 112), “coherence” (Ames 2011: 103), “productive” (Ames 2011: 161, 181), “efficacious” (Ames 2011: 166), “vibrant” (Ames 2011: 181), and so on. Two things about this list are striking. First, most of these evaluative terms explicitly depend on the relations among multiple entities. Second, none of them are readily capturable as single, general-purpose principles. Take “efficacious,” for example. As Ames explains this, it is clear that he has something quite different from an economist’s “efficiency” in mind: he envisions an imaginative response to a morally

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challenging situation that manages to simultaneously make positive differences for each of the multiple values at stake, achieving something like harmony. But because harmony does not mean arriving at a precise arithmetic balance or any other readily operationizable decision procedure, “Be efficacious!” is a largely empty principle, unlike (for example) the utilitarian’s “Maximize pleasure!”48 This is not to say that “Be efficacious!” does us no good; it bids us to attend to the variety of values that we see (and feel) are relevant to a given case, and to strive to keep them all in focus. That is, it calls attention to aspects of our situation that we already find valuable, and seeks to further articulate or inflect the ways in which we enhance these values. To return to our original question, it seems that Confucian role ethics does indeed have some critical purchase, vis-à-vis existing role behaviors, but only so long as we are normatively committed to a general vision of interdependence and relationality. It is this web of relations—and not just a single dyadic relationship—that makes it possible for one to improve one’s parenting by striving for greater overall “focus” or “harmony.”49 It is an open question, I believe, whether Ames and Rosemont offer an adequate way of understanding the needed normative commitment to interdependence— something that goes beyond any seemingly factual observations about relationality. I find Ian Sullivan’s recent work in this area to be very promising: drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas, Sullivan argues that the “role-relational person” is constituted via a “fundamental ambiguity between social roles and concrete relations” (Sullivan 2016: 625). This ambiguity both explains how it is that people can be oppressed—when the poor quality of their actual relations is hidden beneath proper, socially sanctioned roles in a “veil of traditionalism”—and how to diagnose and resist such oppression (Sullivan 2016: 631). I will return to this issue in my concluding section, where we will also consider whether the strategic choice that Ames and Rosemont have made to emphasize difference rather than similarity is ultimately the most fruitful approach.  Of course there are argument about how measurable pleasure is, and thus how operationizable “Maximize pleasure!” might be, but I set those concerns aside here. Elsewhere I have noted an important difference between virtuous perceptions of Coherence in Neo-Confucian virtue ethics and virtuous reactions within Francis Hutcheson’s sentimentalist virtue ethics. Since Hutcheson believed that virtue leads one to judge “that action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers” (Hutcheson 2006: 74), subsequent thinkers were able to set aside the perceptual aspect of his theory and attempt directly to calculate the greatest happiness. “Be efficacious” is like “Follow Coherence” in not being amenable to such re-casting as an independent principle. See Angle (2009: 58–59). 49  In A. T. Nuyen’s version of role ethics (see footnote 44), the distinction between a good and bad occupier of a role is determined by how well a given individual fulfills the obligations associated with the given role. He writes that “to be in a role is to be under a set of obligations” (Nuyen 2007: 317). These obligations are determined by social expectations, which for key roles are “encoded in the rites, li.” As Nuyen recognizes, this approach raises serious concerns about relativism, but he seeks to deflate these by endorsing a “soft relativism” according to which both societal morality (in this case, the Confucian combination of virtues and “strict moral rules”) and the social context on which it is based (primarily, the li or rituals) are able to “evolve together in a kind of Rawlsian ‘reflective equilibrium’” (Nuyen 2007: 328). 48

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6  Applied Ethics From the beginning, philosophers in China and Greece have taken their ideas to have practical consequences for what people should do and how they should live. In one sense, then, “Confucian applied ethics” is as old as Confucianism. As this and other chapters have emphasized, though, the ways that Confucian ethical theorizing are undertaken today cannot help but be impacted by developments within modern Western philosophy. This is not to say that Confucian ethical theory must mirror its Western counterparts in either form or content, but even when the impact is through a denial of similarities and of opportunities for dialogue, as may be the case with “Confucian role ethics,” we are still a long way from the world of pre-modern Confucianism. I will therefore begin this section with a brief look at the category of applied ethics within Western discourse, before turning to the ways that applied ethics has been developed in a contemporary Confucian context. I have already had occasion to mention the narrowness of philosophical ethics in the first several decades of the twentieth century, when I introduced the subsequent resurgence of interest in virtue ethics. A similar dynamic is relevant to applied ethics. Although certain kinds of professional ethics—especially medical ethics— received attention, for the most part ethical theorists up through the 1960s did not see grappling with practical problems to be part of their purview. Brenda Almond cites a number of reasons for a shift toward engagement with practical issues in the 1970s: increasingly complex and powerful medical technology, debates around war and peace occasioned by the Vietnam War, and emerging attention to environmental issues and to our relations with non-human animals (Almond 1995). The journal Philosophy & Public Affairs was founded in 1972, becoming a major forum for work in this area. By the 1980s, applied ethics was a flourishing field for research and teaching. One controversy is worth our attention before moving on, however: does applied ethics simply mean that one takes a ready-made ethical theory—the deliverance, presumably, of normative ethical theory—and then apply it to a set of facts? Certainly that is sometimes how applied ethics is carried out, but many critics have argued that our practical experiences should inform our theory, at least as much as the abstract theory should guide our practical decision-making. Some philosophers reject the name “applied ethics” for this reason, preferring “practical ethics” as better expressing a dialectical engagement between theory and practice. As noted above, Confucianism from its beginnings has been engaged with practical affairs, and even if modern Confucianism differs in many ways from its traditional sources, Confucian thinkers in the twentieth century continued to emphasize the relevance of their philosophy to concrete issues. For the most part, though, their practical attention was focused on political questions rather than ethical ones.50 It is only in the 1990s that Confucian philosophers begin significant work on issues in applied ethics, and the most important location for this work has been—and

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continues to be—Hong Kong.51 Hong Kong has been a favorable site for work in Confucian applied ethics for at least three reasons. First, Hong Kong is a society in which Chinese cultural traditions, informed to varying degrees by Confucianism, have continued to play important roles for many citizens. When scholars there wonder about the ethical significance of medical technologies or policies—or other concrete ethical issues—it is natural to take into account the Confucian vantage point. Second, to a far greater degree than found in North America, higher education in Hong Kong has applied to the social sciences and humanities the emphasis on grant-­ funded projects first found in the sciences. Academics in Hong Kong both can and must avail themselves of grant opportunities, and applied ethics is tailor-made to produce inter-disciplinary projects with concrete outcomes that granting agencies like to see. Finally, a number of key individuals interested in applied ethics and in Confucianism have taken up teaching positions in Hong Kong over the last two decades. Lo Ping-cheung, now the Director of Hong Kong Baptist University’s Centre for Applied Ethics (founded in 1992), began teaching there in 1990; Fan Ruiping, editor of the first English-language book on Confucian bioethics, has taught at the City University of Hong Kong since 2000; and Phillip Ivanhoe, author of several influential articles applying Confucianism to concrete ethical issues, taught at the City University of Hong Kong from 2007 to 2018. Together with other colleagues and with their students, Lo, Fan, and Ivanhoe have begun to produce a significant literature on topics in Confucian applied ethics. Let me turn now to the contents of contemporary Confucian applied ethics, and revisit the distinction between classifying and using theory. As I said in the introductory section, the bulk of scholarly effort in the field of Confucian applied ethics has been to directly employ Confucian theory to engage with practical problems, but there has also been some attention to classification, which I will deal with first.52 One notable viewpoint is that Confucian approaches to applied ethics must be understood as deriving from integrated, distinctive, rationally defensible perspectives, rather than as piecemeal resources on which global thinkers can draw in constructing a cosmopolitan theory. For example, in his introduction to a 1999 volume on Confucian bioethics, Fan Ruiping writes: “If one is not sympathetic to basic Confucian metaphysical assumptions and/or moral convictions, one cannot find these views compelling” (Fan 1999: 1). On the other hand, other scholars emphasize the resonances between Confucian approaches to applied ethics and those that derive from Western virtue ethics, and consequently put more weight on the  Philosopher Lee Shui Chuen (Li Ruiquan 李瑞全) is a partial exception to these generalizations. Lee is among the earliest Confucian-influenced scholars to address topics in applied ethics, for example publishing an essay on informed consent in 1987 (Lee 1987), and he published a Chineselanguage book titled Confucian Bioethics in 1999 (Lee 1999). Lee received his graduate education at the Chinese University Of Hong Kong but has taught primarily in Taiwan. 52  Scholars rarely explicitly invoke the classificatory categories I introduced in Sect. 1 (that is, deontology, virtue ethics, and role ethics), so I will not be discussing these categories here. I do note, though, that some theorists of Confucian applied ethics do root their theories in specific interpretations of Confucian ethics—as Lee Shui Chuen relies on a largely deontological reading, for example. I thank an anonymous reviewer for calling my attention to this. 51

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substantive overlaps and opportunities for mutual learning between Confucian and Western approaches. For example, despite some significant differences in matters of substance over how Confucians should respond to the ethics of abortion, both Phillip Ivanhoe and Amy Olberding agree that Confucians should approach it from a virtue-ethical framework. Here is Olberding: As is frequently noted, Confucianism largely eschews framing moral judgments in terms of abstract moral principle, fixed rules, or formulaic decision procedures. Instead, like Western virtue ethics, it acknowledges the importance of sensitivity to circumstance and situation. Because of this, as Ivanhoe argues, a Confucian view regarding abortion will recommend “all-things-considered judgments” that incorporate the myriad lived circumstances and relationships in the lives affected.53

Though they are not advocating for a one-size-fits-all cosmopolitanism (which would, after all, accord poorly with the “sensitivity to circumstance” of which Olberding speaks), both Ivanhoe and Olberding go on to draw lessons that Western thinkers should heed. I do not want to overdraw the distinction between Fan’s anti-cosmopolitanism and the mutual-learning approach of Ivanhoe and Olberding. After all, in the most explicit discussion of classification as it applies to Confucian applied ethics, Tristam Engelhardt makes some claims that both sides would likely accept. Englehardt—a philosopher trained in Western bioethics—applauds Confucian applied ethics for reversing the approach that he says is most common in the West: namely, identify a universal moral rule, then apply it to particular cases. As he understands Confucianism, in contrast, it relies on a “silent epistemological premise”: Moral knowledge is gained by living morally. A cardinal feature of [the essays in the special journal issue he is introducing] is their reflective return to the issue of living a life of family-­ centered and ritually sustained virtue. One enters into the moral lifeworld to learn what this requires.54

These sentiments fit rather well with Fan’s assertion that he writes about “real Confucian bioethics”: “real bioethics because these views are lived by the people committed to the Confucian tradition” (Fan 1999: 3).55 I should note before moving on that some scholars might take exception to Olberding’s strong resistance to the role of abstract moral principles. In his stimulating essay on the ethics of experimenting with human subjects, for example, Chen Xunwu makes explicit reference

 Olberding (2015: 236), citing Ivanhoe (2010: 40).  Engelhardt (2010: 6). 55  An anonymous reviewer raises an important question: can we identify what counts as a Confucian way of life (or “real” Confucians) independent from our philosophical views about what Confucianism is? Even if someone announces that he or she is “committed to the Confucian tradition,” someone else may dispute whether the first individual’s commitments are genuinely “Confucian.” Still, I believe that we can grant that what counts as Confucianism in the modern world is contested, and still acknowledge that there is knowledge to be gained through living a putatively Confucian life—knowledge, that is, which is not available simply through reading the texts of ancient Confucians. 53 54

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to principles that he finds in Confucianism, although he does also note the importance of the concept of “discretion (quan 權).”56 The previous two paragraphs have already begun to sketch the ways in which contemporary scholars of Confucianism—some of whom also identify as Confucians themselves—have sought to use Confucian applied ethics, and not just to classify it. Roughly speaking we can identify two audiences for this kind of work. First of all, there are theorists, practitioners, and citizens in communities with some degree of commitment to Confucian ways of life—such as Hong Kong—who are interested in guidance on how to grapple with pressing ethical issues in their societies. After all, the issues of medical technology, environment, and so on that I mentioned earlier as spurring the growth of applied ethics in the West are also pressing issues in East Asia and in sub-communities elsewhere in the world that are still drawn to Confucian values. The second audience might be described as open-minded non-Confucians who are interested in considering other approaches to solving ethical problems in their lives that seem intractable. A given essay in Confucian applied ethics is often able to appeal simultaneously to both audiences, but sometimes the subject matter indicates that one or the other of the audiences is primary. For example, abortion tends not to be a high-profile, vexed issue in East Asian societies, so articles on Confucian perspectives on abortion are likely aimed at the second kind of audience. To conclude this section, I would like to emphasize the pluralism of Confucian applied ethics, by which I mean it is unlikely that there will be a single, properly Confucian response to any given category of ethical quandary. Olberding speaks to this when she says, “The diversity of Confucianism, both in its intellectual resources and historical practices, will, I expect, preclude any singular or definitive ‘Confucian approach,’ particularly where thorny issues of public policy are concerned” (Olberding 2015: 236n1). It is certainly true that there are broadly shared themes and values, but they significantly under-determine responses to specific questions, especially when the questions are novel ones.57 Not only that, but on key issues there are interpretive controversies over what past Confucians meant, as well as philosophical controversies about what modern Confucians should say, given the new knowledge and experiences we have today. This is not to criticize the project of Confucian applied ethics, which strikes me as one of the most constructive areas of Confucian ethical theory, but simply to suggest that scholars be sure to frame their projects with appropriate modesty. I will return to this topic in my conclusion.

 Chen (1999: 216, 228–230).  It is quite possible that, as has been suggested to me by an anonymous reviewer, sufficient novelty will lead to the collapse of the “classifying” project discussed elsewhere in this chapter. As he or she says, the classifying project “always presupposes a given framework which we can put Confucianism into, but these existing frameworks might be facing novel challenges themselves,” and thus also be disrupted.

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7  Conclusion I have been considering the relations between Confucianism and several kinds of ethical theory. I will end by taking a more sustained look at the worries about asymmetry between the treatment of Chinese and Western philosophy that I initially raised in Sect. 5. Let us take first the case of deontology: most of what we have seen here have been interpretive arguments about the value of reading Confucianism as deontology, but is deontology also challenged or enhanced when viewed through the lens of Confucianism? The deontological reading of Confucianism that was developed by Mou Zongsan (and is continued by Lee) certainly does offer significant challenges to Kant's views on key subjects, most famously on whether humans can engage in “intellectual intuition,” so it offers at least the possibility of two-way dialogical engagement.58 Turn next to virtue ethics: does it give us evidence of a symmetrical engagement in both directions? As mentioned above, in their comparisons with Aristotle, both Sim and Yu endeavor to show ways that Aristotle, and by implication contemporary neo-Aristotelians, need to learn from Kongzi, even if their efforts still strike some (such as Ames and Rosemont) as biased in Aristotle’s favor. Huang Yong very explicitly allows Western ethics to set the terms of discussion, but endeavors to balance this out by focusing on issues where he believes the Cheng brothers have better answers than do their Western counterparts. Other scholars—including myself—have at times overtly aimed at two-way learning. In all of these cases, there are complicated issues of language and audience. For example: will Western-trained ethicists read Huang’s work, and will they find it persuasive? Will Chinese-trained Confucian philosophers read English-language works purporting to engage in dialogue with Confucianism? And so on. It will take work— outreach, translation, and so on—to make any of this dialogue happen.59 Applied ethics may be an area in which dialogue is easier. At the very least, Confucian perspectives are appearing in Western specialty journals (such as the Journal of Business Ethics and the Journal of Moral Education). Since work in an area like Confucian bioethics is responding to many of the same new challenges as work in Western bioethics, here too there is easier opportunity for communication and mutual learning. Even if Confucian theorists present their results as relevant only for Confucians,60 it is implausible to maintain today that there are any purely Confucian communities in the world. East Asia has undergone rapid economic, political, social, and cultural shifts; normative theorizing for East Asian contexts must now take seriously the pluralism in all such communities (Kim 2014, 2016).  See footnote 30 for some references.  To-date, it has to be said that there has been more attention on the part of Chinese-trained Confucian philosophers to English-language works (most commonly, those that have been translated into Chinese) than attention by Western-trained ethicists to works like Huang’s. 60  Not all Confucian theorists limit themselves in this way; Lee Shui Chuen, writing in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, explicitly argues that “family-based consent,” which he derives from Confucianism, “is the only morally acceptable method of medical decision-making” (Lee 2015: 419). 58 59

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Moving forward, then, we should expect Confucian applied ethics to take more seriously these pluralistic contexts. Given that one of the explicit motivations of Confucian role ethics is to resist asymmetry, it is no surprise that it offers dialogic challenges to contemporary moral theories. In fact, there are two ways that it can do so. Ames’s and Rosemont’s intended approach is to challenge modern Western theories of normative ethics en bloc: all of them, according to Ames and Rosemont, suffer from individualism, essentialism, over-abstraction, and so on. As a result, Ames and Rosemont charge that modern moral theories are actually non-starters: they write that so long as it is further developed, Confucian role ethics can be a “viable candidate as a vision of a global and yet culturally specific moral life appropriate to the twenty-first century…in a way that the ethics of Aristotle, Kant, or Bentham and Mill cannot” (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011: 35). This means that Confucian role ethics is not envisioned as entering into productive, mutually-edifying dialogue with deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics: rather, it is being proposed as a full-scale replacement.61 One possible response to this might be to accept that the gulf between Confucian role ethics and the three theory-types just mentioned is indeed as vast as Ames and Rosemont believe, but to suggest that there is still room for dialogue with other types of Western moral theory: feminist care ethics, perhaps, or Deweyan moral theory, or “social ethics.”62 Still, even with this caveat, there are non-­negligible costs to Ames’s and Rosemont’s approach. Practically speaking, if successful they would cut Confucianism off both from the dominant contemporary ways of construing its moral thinking in Sinophone and Anglophone discourse, respectively, and from the vast majority of non-Confucian moral philosophers today (no matter what their language). They thereby would seem to minimize any chance that contemporary Confucianism can learn from the insights, whatever they might be, to be found in these other bodies of theory. An alternative approach is to recast the ideas and values driving Confucian role ethics as a version of virtue ethics. (I believe that a rapprochement between  In general, Ames and Rosemont do not write about ways that they have learned from, much less hope to contribute to, Aristotelian theory. The following sentence is a partial exception: “In fact, it is Aristotle’s sustained and often unsuccessful struggle to balance and coordinate the conflicting demands of partiality and impartiality, of first philosophy and particular context, that serves as an object lesson and shows a way forward for us” (Ames and Rosemont Jr 2011: 34, emphasis added). The primary idea here seems to be that Aristotle is a negative example, showing why his approach is to be avoided. 62  For some initial suggestions about how care ethics and Confucian ethics might be able to learn from one another, see the references cited in footnote 3. In (Tan 2004), Sor-hoon Tan masterfully shows ways in which Confucian and Deweyan political theories can inform and enhance one another; with this as a point of departure, it is plausible to think that similar results might emerge from a dialogue in the area of morality. A. T. Nuyen argues that his version of role ethics (see footnotes 44 and 49) bears considerable similarity to a trend in Western ethical thinking that he labels “social ethics,” including such figures as Charles Taylor, Dorothy Emmet, P. F. Strawson, Marion Smiley, and Larry May. I agree that there are various overlaps between Nuyen’s theory and those of these Western figures, although his discussion is too brief to be more than suggestive. For references, see Nuyen (2007: 322–325). 61

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deontology and Confucian role ethics is unlikely.) The idea would not be to conflate Aristotelian ethics and Confucian ethics, but to ask whether there is a way of construing virtue ethics that is broad enough to include an ethic with the relational, transactional grounding on which Ames and Rosemont put so much emphasis. One possible source of insight is discussion of the relation between virtue ethics and care ethics; some have claimed that the latter is distinct from virtue ethics because it takes the relation of caring as primary, while others have sought to combine the two. More generally, it is significant that the modern revival of virtue ethics over the last half-century has been spurred by a reaction against many of the same features of deontology and consequentialism that Ames and Rosemont also critique, and also that virtue ethics has been quite dynamic in stretching beyond its initial source of inspiration in Aristotle. Ames and Rosemont say that contemporary version of virtue ethics maintain “the foundational role of the individual and of rationality,” but it is not clear to me that this is so, or at least problematically so.63 Furthermore, it is striking that when Ames comes to discuss de (which is often translated as “virtue”; he renders it “excelling morally”), he says: Each of these [terms that make up the vocabulary of Confucian role ethics] is a perspective on the same event, and functions to highlight a particular phase or dimension in achieving the consummate life. There is a sense in which de is used as the more general term for expressing the cumulative outcome of coordinating the shared experience effectively—both the achieved quality of the conduct of the particular person and the achieved ethos of the collective culture. Hence, the other terms we have explored above are all implicated in excelling morally (de 德). (Ames 2011: 207).

Ames makes it clear elsewhere that his concern with the term “virtue” is with its implication that virtues are reified, metaphysically independent things, rather than as aspects of our complex, socially articulated experience. Instead, he insists that “whatever we call virtue…is nothing more or less than a vibrant, situated, practical, and productive virtuosity” (Ames 2011: 181). Seen in this light—and also in the light of my argument from the end of Sect. 5 concerning the need, within Ames’s and Rosemont’s theory, for a normative commitment to interdependence—I wonder whether their ideas are really, at bottom, about roles. When we foreground virtuosity and interdependent flourishing instead, it starts to sound like such a “virtuosity ethics” has things to teach to, and things to learn from, virtue ethics—and indeed, that they may ultimately be two species of the same genus. This chapter has been composed at any exciting moment in the developing conversations about Confucianism and ethical theory. Sinophone and Anglophone philosophers are starting to engage one another, which is helping to spur the related (though not identical) process of dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophical traditions. Concerns about asymmetry are by no means a thing of the past, but we are beginning to see glimpses of a future that is pluralistic, open, and global.  On the role of emotion for many of the philosophers sympathetic to virtue ethics, see (Nussbaum 1999). Rosemont and Ames note in passing that Lawrence Blum has argued for a stronger role for communities and relations in the production and practice of moral virtues (Rosemont Jr. and Ames 2009: 37n24).

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There is good reason to hope that future discussions of the interpretive and dialogical relations between Confucianism and various forms of ethical theory will be even more productive than those reviewed in this chapter have been. Lest my optimism get the better of me, though, allow me to end on a cautionary note. There are many hazards on the way to meaningful comparisons between ancient texts and modern theories.64 The one I would like to highlight lies in moving too quickly from the fact that a given passage in the text appears to be consistent with a particular, well-­ worked-­out contemporary view, to the conclusion that the text must therefore share all the features of the modern theory. That would be to forget that the text has a complex social, conceptual, and historical context of its own, as well as to privilege modern theory as offering the only theoretical options. A more humble attitude is needed. Such humility does not rule out the possibility that the Chinese masters were mistaken or misguided; indeed, it seems likely that all moral theory, ancient or modern, can stand to be improved. Humility does suggest, though, that an open and piecemeal approach to comparative encounters is more likely to lead to constructive results.65

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 For a related caution, see Hutton (2015).  My thanks to David Elstein, Sean Walsh, and an anonymous reviewer for providing very helpful feedback on an earlier draft of the chapter.

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Nivison, David S. 1996a. “Virtue” in bone and bronze. In The ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese philosophy, ed. Bryan Van Norden, 17–30. La Salle: Open Court. ———. 1996b. The paradox of “virtue. In The ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese philosophy, ed. Bryan Van Norden, 31–43. La Salle: Open Court. Nussbaum, Martha. 1990. The discernment of perception: An Aristotelian conception of private and public rationality. In Love’s knowledge: Essays on philosophy and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 54-105. ———. 1999. Virtue ethics: A misleading category? The Journal of Ethics 3 (3): 163–201. Nuyen, A. T. 2007. Confucian ethics and role-based ethics. International Philosophical Quarterly 47(3): 315–328. (Argues that early Confucian ethics should be understood as role-based, and thus similar to various contemporary “social ethics.”) Olberding, Amy. 2011. Moral exemplars in the analects: The good person is that. New  York: Routledge. (An extended argument for the central significance of concrete moral exemplars, both in the Analects and in moral thinking and practice more generally.) ———. 2015. A sensible confucian perspective on abortion. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 14: 235–253. Palmquist, Stephen, ed. 2010. Cultivating personhood: Kant and Asian philosophy. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Pincoffs, Edmund L. 1986. Quandaries and virtues: Against reductivism in ethics. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian ethics of the axial age: A reconstruction under the aspect of the breakthrough toward postconventional thinking. Albany: SUNY Press. (Offers an interpretation of early Confucianism that stresses its deontological aspect and similarities with Kohlberg’s ideas about moral development.) Rosemont Jr., Henry. 1988. Why take rights seriously? A Confucian critique. In Human rights and the world’s religions, ed. Leroy S.  Rouner, 167–182. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. (Argues for a fundamental difference between early Confucian ethics and modern, rights-based morality.) Rosemont, Henry, Jr. 1991. Rights-bearing individuals and role-bearing persons. In Rules, rituals, responsibilities: essays dedicated to herbert fingarette, ed. Mary I. Bockover, 71–101. LaSalle: Open Court. Rosemont, Henry, Jr., and Roger T. Ames. 2009. The Chinese classic of family reverence: A philosophical translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Schönfeld, Martin. 2006. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33:1. (Special issue devoted to Kant and Chinese philosophy.) Shen, Vincent Qingsong 沈清松. 1992. Again distinguishing righteousness and profit—A modern interpretation of the Confucian theory of value 義利再辨——儒家價值層級論的現代詮釋. In The rebirth of tradition 傳統的再生, 174–206. Taipei: Yeqiang chubanshe. (Argues that righteousness or yi should be understood as a virtue, rather than a deontological principle, in early Confucianism.) ———. 2004. Virtue ethics and the modern significance of confucian ethical thought 德行伦 理学与儒家伦理思想的现代意义. In Vincent Shen’s self-selected works 沈清松自选集, 315–345. Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe. (Argues for a virtue ethical interpretation of early Confucianism.) Sherman, Nancy. 1997. Making a necessity of virtue: Aristotle and Kant on virtue. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press. Shi, Yuankang 石元康. 1998. Two types of moral view—A preliminary discussion of the shape of Confucian ethics 二種道德觀——試論儒家倫理的形態. In A paradigm shift from Chinese culture to modernity? 從中國文化到現代性典範轉移? 105–123 Taipei: Dongda Tushu gongsi. (Argues that Confucian ethics is importantly different from modern moral theories, which may be an advantage.)

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Shun, Kwong-loi. 2009. Studying Confucian and comparative ethics: Methodological reflections. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 36(3): 455–478. (Critiques the asymmetrical tendency of comparative ethics.) Sim, May. 2007. Remastering morals with Aristotle and Confucius. New  York: Cambridge University Press. (Explores both similarities and differences between Kongzi and Aristotle, arguing that each can learn from the other.) Slingerland, Edward. 2001. Virtue ethics, the Analects, and the problem of commensurability. Journal of Religious Ethics 29(1): 97–125. (Argues that a virtue ethics based on MacIntyre’s ideas offers a more successful theoretical interpretation of early Confucianism than do various competitors.) ———. 2011. The situationist critique and early confucian virtue ethics. Ethics 121(2): 390–419. (Argues that early Confucian ethics is well-designed to withstand situationist critiques of virtue ethics.) Slote, Michael. 2001. Morals from motives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2009. Comments on Bryan Van Norden’s virtue ethics and consequentialism in early Chinese philosophy. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 8(3): 289–295. (Argues that Mengzi may be better understood by comparison to the sentimentalist virtue ethics of Hume, rather than the rationalist approach of Aristotle.) Sullivan, Ian M. 2016. Simone De Beauvoir and Confucian role ethics: Role-relational ambiguity and Confucian mystification. Hypatia: A Feminist Journal of Philosophy 33(3): 620–35. (Argues for a productive ambiguity at the heart of “role-relational personhood.”) Swanton, Christine. 2003. Virtue ethics: A pluralistic view. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tao, Julia. 2000. Two perspectives of care: Confucian Ren and Feminist care. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 27(2): 215–240. (Argues for significant differences between Confucianism and feminism.) Tan, Soor-hoon. 2004. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany: SUNY Press. Tessman, Lisa. 2005. Burdened virtues: Virtue ethics for liberatory struggles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van den Stock, Ady. 2016. The horizon of modernity: Subjectivity and social structure in new Confucian philosophy. Leiden: Brill. (Explores social and theoretical, including meta-ethical, significance of modern Confucianism.) Van Norden, Bryan W. 2007. Virtue ethics and consequentialism in early Chinese philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Detailed interpretation of the Analects, Mengzi, and Mozi, using a general virtue-ethical framework to understand the first two of these texts.) ———. 2009. Response to Angle and Slote. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 8:305–309. (Shows ways in which Mengzi and Hume are importantly disanalogous.) Wallace, James D. 1978. Virtues and vices. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Walsh, Sean Patrick. 2013. Varieties of moral luck in ethical and political philosophy for Confucius and Aristotle. In Virtue ethics and confucianism, eds. Stephen C. Angle, and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge. (Argues that moral luck is a significant factor in Kongzi’s thinking.) Wang, Yunping. 2005. Are early Confucians consequentialists? Asian Philosophy 15(1): 19–34. (Denies that early Confucians are usefully understood as consequentialists.) Watson, Gary. 1990. On the primacy of character. In Identity, character, and morality, ed. Owen Flanagan and Amelie Rorty, 449–470. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Williams, Bernard. 1985. Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, Stephen A. 2002. Conformity, individuality, and the nature of virtue: A classical Confucian contribution to contemporary ethical reflection. In Confucius and the analects: New essays, ed. Bryan W. Van Norden, 94–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Argues that the Analects is explained better by virtue ethics than by alternative theories.) Wong, Wai-ying. 2001. Confucian ethics and virtue ethics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 28(3): 285–300. (Articulates the distinctive features of Confucian ethics.)

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———. 2013. Confucian ethics and virtue ethics revisited. In Virtue ethics and confucianism, eds. Stephen C. Angle, and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge. (Argues that forcing Confucian ethics into the mold of Western virtue ethics can be misleading.) Yearley, Lee H. 1990. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of virtue and conceptions of courage. Albany: SUNY Press. (Pioneering work in comparative philosophy.) Yu, Jiyuan. 2007. The ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of virtue. New York: Routledge. (A sustained argument for similarities between early Confucianism and Aristotle.) Yu, Kam-por. 2010. The handling of multiple ethical values in confucianism. In Taking confucian ethics seriously: Contemporary theories and applications, eds. Kam-por Yu, P. J. Ivanhoe, and Julia Tao, 27–51. (Innovative approach to Confucian ethical thinking.) Zheng, Jiadong 鄭家棟. 2000. Mou Zongsan 牟宗三. Taibei: Dongda Tushu gongsi.

Modern Confucian Epistemology: From Reason to Intuition—And Back Jana S. Rošker

1  Introduction: Historical Background The present chapter deals with the epistemological theories proposed by the central representatives of Modern Confucianism,1 which arose in China at the threshold of the twentieth century, and presents a current of thought defined by a search for a synthesis between the Chinese philosophical tradition and Western theoretical systems. Following the presumption that Chinese modernization must not be equated with Westernization, the Modern Confucians strove for a reinvigoration of this tradition and its adaptation to the conditions of the new era. In this context, their epistemological discourses were no exception, for they were equally rooted in the specific features of traditional Chinese epistemological thought and defined by a search for fruitful amalgamation with contemporary Western theories of knowledge. In this field, they were most interested in the relation between reason and intuition, for the latter concept belongs to principle traditional epistemological notions, and the former to the concepts that are crucial for the establishment of modernization theories.

1  This line of thought has been translated into English with numerous different names, ranging from Neo-Confucianism or Contemporary or Modern Neo-Confucianism, to New Confucianism and Modern or Contemporary Confucianism. The first series, which includes the term NeoConfucianism, is impractical because it is often confused with Neo-Confucianism, a term which in Western sinology denotes the reformed Confucian philosophies of the Song and Ming periods. I therefore prefer the term Modern Confucianism, given that we are dealing with discourses that belong to Chinese modernity and deal in their work with problems of Chinese modernization.

J. S. Rošker (*) University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_20

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Actually, “epistemology” is a concept that came to China from Europe; its connotations are closely linked to the modes of thought that prevailed in European intellectual history. According to such modes, knowledge is mainly gained through reasoning, which means that it is generally based on a scientific worldview. However, in traditional Chinese thought epistemological questions were generally seen in a much broader sense, namely as something which stems from moral content and thus cannot be separated from (social or political) practice. In contemporary research, discussion about the epistemological aspects of Chinese texts and their function in the context of general Chinese thought has been developed with increasing success under the aegis of rediscovering and applying specific traditional Chinese approaches, concepts and categories. The Chinese theory of knowledge deals with problems such as –– the possibility of attaining correct knowledge of a given object—and hence the possibility of attaining a complete understanding of the Way (dao 道); –– the relationship between knowledge (zhi 知) and action (xing 行) –– the relationship between knowledge and wisdom on one hand and morality on the other –– the possibility of language functioning as a conveyer of knowledge An important special feature of the classical Chinese epistemologies was also that they were based on a structurally ordered holistic worldview and deeply rooted in axiological premises. Traditional Chinese epistemology was primarily based on the method of introspection and the intuitive perception of reality. However, we must not forget that in Chinese intellectual history we also find a number of schools and individual philosophers who tried to elaborate realistic methods of recognition that were based upon rational and analytical approaches, and were very critical of the introspective method and its representatives, e.g. the Mohists in ancient China, later Wang Fuzhi or the scholars of the Donglin Academy 東林書院.2 In the Neo-Confucianism of the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) Dynasties (upon which the majority of Modern Confucian discourses are based), there were two major schools: the first was known as the School of the Pattern (Li xue 理學) or the School of Reason (Xingli xue 性理學). Greatly influenced by the teachings of the most important medieval Chinese philosopher, Zhu Xi, its epistemology emphasized specific modes for the perception of reality: although it was centered upon moral knowledge, it introduced a new methodology of recognition called “exploring objects” (ge wu 格物). The second school, which instead advocated more intuitive methods for recognizing reality, was known as the School of Consciousness or the School of Heart-­ Mind (Xin xue 心學), and was led by the most important idealistic philosopher of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Yangming. Most Modern Confucian scholars were influenced rather by this second school than by the philosophy of Zhu Xi. Hence, they  Numerous Chinese scholars, however, still believe that intuition represents the main method applied in the traditional Chinese theories of perception. See for instance Hu (2011: 189). 2

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derived their concept of reason from German classical philosophy, which occupies an important position in most of their discourses. On the other hand, however, we must not forget that they also elaborated upon certain traditional Chinese concepts that resembled the Western notion of reason.3 The structural principle li 理, for instance, has often functioned in a very rational way, especially within Zhu Xi’s realism, but because it functions in accordance with a different onto-­epistemological paradigm, it still cannot be entirely equated to the modern European rationality. Even the School of Heart-Mind also often mentioned this Neo-Confucian concept of structural rationality, which manifested itself in the omnipresent (thus also mental) structure (li 理). However, in this framework, the adherents of this school always stressed their belief that reason was merely a (secondary) part of the heart-mind that perceived and recognized the external world or reality in a more comprehensive way, i.e. through introspection and intuition. According to Wang Yangming, reason or the mental structure within the heart-mind was the same as the structures of external reality and the objects embedded in it: “There are no structures (structural principles) outside the heart-mind, and there are no objects outside it (無心外之理, 無 心外之物)” (Wang 1929: I/8b). In the works of the chief representatives of Modern Confucianism, the intuitive recognition of reality was closely linked to the concept of innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知), understood as the very core of the individual moral nature. In general, they accepted and developed the traditional Chinese presumption that the moral cultivation of the self (xiushen 修身) is a precondition for an all-inclusive moral knowledge. The culmination of this presumption is the view that human perception can include different forms of rationality, and that it can also be determined by intentions, emotions and desires. While the prevailing Western epistemology tends to concentrate on the strictly isolated rational aspect, Chinese philosophy thus often lays stress on the factors that pertain to other, specifically Chinese forms of rationality in cognitive activities: In particular, the “stillness” in the expression “vacancy, singleness and thus stillness”4 describes a kind of human mindset, a requirement for the emotional cultivation of a cognitive subject. Oneness and deep speculation are a prerequisite for bridging the gap from perceptual to rational cognition, and for developing intuition (immediate enlightenment), a point which was elaborated fully by the Neo-Confucians of the Song and Ming dynasties. (Xu and Huang 2008: 399)

Regarding the subject and the object of comprehension, the classical Chinese tradition mainly viewed human perception and recognition of reality as a product of a coherent, structurally ordered and complementary interaction between the 3  Here, we should also mention Zhang Junmai, who depicted Spinoza as a thinker concerned with how to unify heart-mind and things (he xinwu 合心物). In this context, Zhang was elaborating on the question, how are intuition and concepts (or conceptual reasoning) one in intellectual contemplation (jingguan 靜觀)? (Nelson 2020: 194). 4  This phrase originates in Xunzi (“Jie bi”: 8): “How do human beings know? They know with their minds. Then how does a mind know? It knows by means of vacancy, singleness and thus stillness” (人何以知道?曰: 心。心何以知?曰: 虛壹而靜).

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heart-­mind and objects, which means that it did not establish a clear demarcation between them. Thus, with the exception of the Mohist school, which elaborated some divisions regarding the problem of things as they are (shi 是) and things as they appear (ran 然) (Mozi 2015: Xiao qu: 8), the heart-mind as the inherent organ of perception was seen as continuously integrated with the phenomena of the external world that manifested themselves in the notion of objects (or things-events, wu 物). This continuity of internal and external worlds prevailed in classical Chinese epistemology until the eleventh century, i.e. till the earliest beginnings of NeoConfucian philosophy. Primarily due to the impact of Buddhist thought, the ancient holistic approach to perception and understanding reality through substance (ti 體) and functions (yong 用) was later often replaced by the subject (neng 能) and object (suo 所) of comprehension. This kind of categorical demarcation that derived from the Indian tradition of thought would subsequently, in the nineteenth and especially the twentieth century, help Chinese philosophers gain a better understanding of Western theories of knowledge, which were based on the ontology of dividing cognizer from phenomena. The majority of twentieth century Chinese epistemologists advocated a conceptual division between the subject and object of comprehension. While analytical and Marxist theoreticians (such as Jin Yuelin) prescribed absolute priority to the rational method, most Modern Confucians (especially, as we shall see later, Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan) applied the intuitive one. Liang Shuming and Zhang Junmai, on the other hand, drew attention to the traditional binary comprehension of reason and intuition. Here, the two methods of inquiry are not only linked to each other, but are also connected to the method of reasoning as such, because reasoning is always based on distinguishing. In such a view, philosophers who apply the method of intuition at the same time necessarily also apply methods of formal logic and dual differentiations; and those who apply the rational method also use the intuitive method, as well as dual distinctions. For them, all three methods, the methods of dual distinctions and intuition, as well as the methods of formal analysis and inferences, are necessary factors of any philosophical activity. Throughout the twentieth century, the question of the elementary structure and basic nature of comprehension remained one of the central questions agitating the spirits of all the Chinese scholars dealing with epistemology. The relation between the subject and object of comprehension, and between materialism and idealism or realism and solipsism (nominalism),5 as reflected within the specific context of the Chinese tradition in the complementary relation between knowledge and action, appeared in modern debates in form of the question on which should be given priority: ontology or epistemology. In this respect, contemporary Chinese philosophers advocate two different positions. The first argues that ontology depends on epistemology, a position which can be called “the position of the primary role of epistemology.” The second instead presupposes that epistemology depends on ontology, 5  This kind of division cannot be compared to the strict distinction between materialism and idealism as was formed in the Berkeleyan form of idealism, for even the “idealistic” Chinese philosophers were not denying the existence of physical matter.

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and can be called “the position of the primary role of ontology” (Zhang 2003: 63). While the majority of the first generation6 of Modern Confucian philosophers followed the supposition that external reality is a given objective that more or less defines the nature and kind of our comprehension7, the epistemological thought in the works of the second generation clearly points in the direction of seeing ontology and epistemology as more intricately interconnected; this tendency might be related to their greater awareness of the paradigm of immanent transcendence (neizai chaoyue 內在超越).8 Although both levels exist in a mutually conditioned and complementary association, many modern Chinese philosophers consider epistemology to be more realistic in the treatment of reality than ontology (Zhang 2003: 70), for the latter is based on abstract constructs of existence. Thus, the priority of epistemology can be seen as an important epistemological shift which resulted in the link between the most recent results of empirical sciences and the philosophy of human comprehension. The “position of the primary role of epistemology” is more compatible with the spirit of contemporary philosophy and is an important contribution to the completion of the “epistemological shift” in Chinese philosophy. These tendencies can facilitate the return of Chinese thought patterns to their former channels of a more realistic treatment of reality, which is especially important, as these forgotten approaches constituted the very essence of classical Chinese discourses. These discourses, on the other hand, can offer us the possibility of moving beyond the crisis of Western philosophy resulting from the Cartesian dualistic demarcation between substance and phenomena. Such channels could enable us, for instance, to resolve the dilemma of Chinese theorists regarding the relation between “sensory and morally determined knowledge,” as well as the dilemma of Western theorists regarding “factual and logical truth”, etc.

2  Science and Philosophy: Xiong and Feng Xiong Shili (1885–1968) and Feng Youlan (1895–1990) are two of the most prominent pioneers of the Modern Confucian intellectual movement. Although modernizing Confucianism was thus in the forefront of their theoretical endeavors, their 6  The categorization into “generations” follows a long tradition in Confucian scholarship, which is ultimately rooted in classical Confucianism. Although slightly different categorizations exist in present-day China, most scholars agree that the central representatives of the first generation were Xiong Shili (1885–1968), Liang Shuming (1893–1988), Feng Youlan (1895–1990), Zhang Junmai (1886–1969), and He Lin (1902–1992) and the most influential scholars of the second Xu Fuguan (1903–1982), Fang Dongmei (1899–1977), Tang Junyi (1909–1978) and Mou Zongsan (1909–1995). 7  For Xiong, however, “external reality” is exactly the opposite of a given. Rather, it is a false construct and a product of the mind itself. 8  For a detailed explanation of the notion and for the introduction of the polemical debates that were induced by its establishment, see Rošker (2015: chapter 6.1).

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philosophies were also strongly influenced by Western thought; in this respect, their epistemological thought was no exception. Feng Youlan was younger than Xiong Shili, and he outlived the latter by more than 20 years. However, we shall begin this introduction with Feng, for Xiong’s epistemology is more complex, though resting upon similar foundations. Feng Youlan’s treatment of the epistemological comprehension of reality was based upon a differentiation between philosophical and scientific knowledge, which is quite comparable to the contemporary debates about the role and the function of natural and interpretative sciences.9 Despite his coherent application of Neo-­ Confucian terminology, Feng redefined the central terms of classical Chinese epistemological thought in light of a modern, formal analytical system based upon a logical metaphysical understanding of the nature of being.10 He stressed the qualitative differences among three levels of existence, which for him were completely separate from one another and thus demanded a different method of recognition: on the first level were concrete existing things (shiwu 事物), on the second, reality or actuality (shiji 實際), and on the third, the dimension of truth and verity (zhenji 真 際), together with structural principles or patterns (li 理) (Pfister 2002: 170). In his view, the main task of philosophy was investigating these structures (Feng 1999a: 549). The exploration of actuality as such thus belonged to the domain of the sciences, rather than to that of philosophy (Feng 1999a: 550). According to Feng, every existing thing (shiwu 事物) is composed of a certain substance (and also of a certain potential of energy), as well as of structural principles or patterns, which cause this thing to be as it is. A principle, however, not only makes possible the concrete manifestation (substantiation and manifestation/incorporation) of a given thing, but also provides us with conditions for the rational evaluation of things, occurrences and interactions according to their specific categories (lei 類) (Feng 1999a: 569). Thus, a principle is not a thing, but is only latent (qiancun 潛存) within things as an ontological postulate, which is structurally connected to the dimension of the whole actuality, as well as to every concrete thing within it. It therefore exceeds the dimension of actuality, which can be called “Nature” (Feng 1999a: 570). According to Feng, who consistently applied Neo-Confucian terminology, the entirety of all principles was the “ultimate extreme” (taiji 太極), while the entirety of all transformation of things into and out of the sphere of existence he called “the substance of the Way” (daoti 道體) (Feng 1999a: 599). Feng calls the entirety of consciousness, i.e. the comprehension of the totality of the philosophical cosmos, which includes dimensions of verity, actuality and concrete reality, the “great perfection” (da quan 大全) (Feng 1999a: 591). He emphasizes that his philosophy offers new insight into Nature and the status of conceptual categories (lei 類). Thanks to this new logical distinction, which provides the basis for the proper evaluation of all structural principles (li 理), Feng’s

 Or sciences and humanities.  See the chapter “Three Dialectical Phases in Feng Youlan’s Philosophical Journey”.

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system differs fundamentally from both empirical approaches and scientific evaluation. After the structural principles have been “properly” understood, they can be regarded as existing, not only in the sense of concrete “things,” but also in the sense of logical entities that can be recognized by the mind (xin 心). Structural principles (li 理) can thus transcend time and space as logical, recognizable entities that are not (necessarily) linked to the dimension of actuality. Hence, particular smaller structures are connected to more complex entities that form the wholeness of the ultimate extreme (taiji 太極) (Feng 1999a: 574). At the same time, principles are also the metaphysical precondition for the existence of concrete things. While the latter flow in and out of concrete actuality, determined by time and space, principles are latently present within them as metaphysical patterns or ontological bases which condition in a primary way the existence of all concrete, factual things (Feng 1999b: 598). As we have seen, Feng assigned the highest ontological status to structures (principles) and gave an equally high epistemological value to knowing them (Pfister 2002: 170, 171). Although Feng’s contribution to the modernization of crucial traditional Chinese epistemological concepts (especially the concept li 理11) is of utmost importance, Xiong Shili’s theory of knowledge is additionally much more closely related to ethics. The bridge that connects both discourses is the view that that the mind of the entire universe is also the mind of human beings, although this bridge manifests itself in a completely different way in the work of both philosophers. Xiong, who was originally a Buddhist, used many insights derived from this teaching in reconstructing and modernizing Confucianism. However, in his New Treatise on Consciousness-only (新唯識論), he completely refuted the Buddhist Yogācāra epistemology of seeds that are, according to this theory, accumulated in the eight consciousness and represent the latent, but vital elements that bring into life everything that exists. In his own epistemology, Xiong returned to the Confucian conceptual framework; he assumed that the essence of being (ti 體) was identical to human heart-­ mind (xin 心). Thus, the only way that leads to the recognition of essence (i.e. objective reality and the absolute meaning of being) is to realize one’s own spirit. In this process of comprehension, the individual cultivates their personality and simultaneously refines their virtues. Xiong’s basic ontological thesis on the unity of essence and function is therefore also logically reflected in his theory of mind. Humans possess two kinds of mind or consciousness: the first, which corresponds to the cosmic essence, Xiong calls the original heart-mind (benxin 本心), (Xiong 1992: 251), and the other type of mind, which, according to Xiong’s ontological paradigms, corresponds to function, he calls the habituated heart-mind (xixin 習心) (Xiong 1992: 253). 11  Traditional Chinese epistemological models were premised upon a structurally (li 理) ordered external reality. In this worldview, the human mind is also structured in accordance with this allembracing but open organic system and the compatibility or correspondence of both the cosmic and mental structures is the basic precondition that enables human beings to perceive and recognize external reality (Rošker 2012: 79–82).

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The habituated heart-mind is essentially illusory, just like the substantiality and phenomenality to which it corresponds. However, because in our everyday life human representational ability is limited and linked to each individual self, we tend to experience it as if it were real, as real as the concrete things we perceive through it (Xiong 1992: 278). According to Xiong, an individual’s original heart-mind corresponds to their original, true “nature” (xing 性). The habituated heart-mind has been defined by the specific conditions of life that human beings encounter through their cognition, will, and emotions. While the original heart-mind implies meaning and is directly linked to the actuality of the wholeness of being, the habituated heart-mind functions under the assumption that consciousness is not only divided from the external world, but is also burdened by egocentric prejudices and false desires. While the habituated heart-mind serves as a tool that helps us survive in the world of concrete phenomena, the recognition or experience of the original heart-mind as well as of its identity with the essence of being helps us to endow this survival with meaning and sense. The supposition that there is a human need to gain meaning in life is of extreme importance in all Confucian discourses. The path which leads to this meaning or the method of inquiry which enables us to experience our unity with the essence of being is to be found in the method of introspective self-reflection. For Xiong, the human mind and original reality are not separate. Hence, original reality must be grasped through reflection on what is in the human mind. As he points out, these are both basic Confucian doctrines (Yu 2002: 139). Together with bipolar concepts of essence and function, and original and habituated heart-mind, Xiong also posited a differentiation between two different concepts of cognition in his theory of knowledge. The first one manifests itself through the category of qualitative understanding (xingzhi 性智), which constitutes an epistemological analogy with essence and the original heart-mind (Xiong 1992: 548). The second type of understanding, which corresponds to the function of qualitative understanding and to habituated mind, Xiong named quantitative understanding (liangzhi 量智): Quantitative understanding is to think, conclude or analyze the principles of things. It refers to the pragmatic valuation of everything that is done or happens. Thus, although it is named quantitative understanding, it could also be named reason. This kind of understanding is originally a function of qualitative understanding; it provides the latter with particular distinctions. Since quantitative understanding is the function of qualitative understanding, it depends on the senses, while they likewise need it to function (Xiong 1992: 548).12

In the next stage of his epistemological system and in an effort to redefine the relation between Confucianism and modern science, Xiong Shili has—similar to Feng Youlan—linked quantitative understanding with scientific comprehension, and qualitative understanding with philosophical or metaphysical paradigms. Quantitative understanding is based upon the logic of differentiation; it is rational  量智, 是思量和推度, 或明辨事物的理則. 及於所行所歷簡 擇得失等等的作用,故說名量智, 亦名理智. 此智, 原是性智的發用, 而卒別於性智者, 因為性智作用, 依官能而發現, 即 官能得假之以自用

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and linked to experience. Qualitative understanding, however, is constituted in the inner process of intuitive experience, which tends to unite itself with the original heart-mind and to discover reality, which is a part of it.13 Quantitative understanding is an appropriate and effective tool, which can be used to investigate the concrete actuality that defines our everyday life. However, we have to be aware of its limits and take care not to use it as a cognitive instrument for comprehending ontological and metaphysical paradigms, which would significantly reduce the essence of being to a function of an external object of cognition. Thus, Xiong, like Feng Youlan, points out the need for a separation between science and metaphysics. Xiong suggests that ontology is controversial primarily because both its adepts and its critics deal with it in terms of quantitative understanding. This limitation that Xiong places on science recalls Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and also has parallels with Heidegger’s treatment of technology (Yu 2002: 140). However, Xiong Shili’s epistemology differs in an essential way from Kant’s, for Xiong stresses throughout that essence (ti 體), in the sense of absolute reality, can be recognized. He argues that this ultimate truth is not an entity to be situated outside of (and independent from) our consciousness.14 The essential core of Xiong’s ontology can be revealed through the comprehension of one’s self: in other words, the original essence is concealed in each of us and is not suspended somewhere over the external sphere of some objectivity. Xiong’s truth is thus not an independent external object, waiting to be revealed and controlled by cognitive techniques of our reason. The way, which leads to its recognition, is the path of self-­ reflective recognition (fanji tiren 反己體認) or reflective introspection (fanqiu zishi 反求自識). According to Xiong, the introspective method of comprehension is nothing other than the experience of the original mind through inner intuition, i.e. through the application of qualitative understanding. His theory of quantitative understanding is much influenced by the Buddhist method of “sitting in meditation” and by Wang Yangming’s method of extending one’s innate knowledge. However, in contrast to the premises of these methods, he insisted that the manifestation of the original mind is not an act that occurs once and for all. For Xiong, it is rather a process of constant dynamic transformation (Yu 2002: 141–142). While describing his method of comprehension, Xiong also dealt with the problem of transmission. In the context of his traditional bipolar conceptual scheme, he applied the Buddhist terms of latent (zhequan 遮詮) and manifest (biaoquan 表 詮) interpretation (Xiong 1992: 299). Of the philosophical schools that developed various methods of comprehension and interpretation, the method of latent interpretation was most often applied by the Mahāyāna Schools. They developed this method as a counterpart to rational patterns of explanation, which deform the transmission of all-embracing truth, because the specific structure of these patterns tends to treat  See the chapter “Xiong Shili’s Ontology”.  Later, his student Mou Zongsan, who belonged to the most important Modern Confucians of the 2nd generation, tried to solve the problem of recognizing the ultimate reality (substance, noumenon or the things as such) by endowing human beings with intellectual intuition. [See the chapter “Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978)”.]

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it as an external object (Xiong 1992: 300–301). According to Xiong, the method of manifest interpretation is appropriate for explaining and transmitting partial cognition or partial truths, which one can seize during the process of interrogating external actualities. Since the essence of being as such is not transmittable and because language can never fully express meaning (yan bu jin yi 言不盡意), the transmission of real truth can only be accomplished by the method of latent interpretation (Xiong 1992: 299–300). All these could give an impression that Xiong rejected the scientific approach as such, which is not true at all. On the contrary, he considered science an important instrument and source of progress and prosperity for humanity and believed that it offered new possibilities for improving conditions for the individual cultivation of personality, which could have a positive impact on society as a whole. However, since progress and prosperity were equally capable of producing egoism and false desires, Xiong viewed science as a strong and influential tool that had to be used very carefully and with full ethical responsibility. The second risk inherent in science was the fragmentary nature of its epistemological approaches in its investigations of reality. Scientific research should therefore be referred solely to the habituated heart-mind and apply exclusively the method of quantitative understanding. Similar to Feng, he also exposed the danger of trying to conduct scientific research related to the wholeness of reality, because in his view, such proceedings would necessarily result in the dispersion of our original mind and thus the loss of the ethical directions that precondition the meaning of our life (Xiong 1996: 143–144). Xiong also stressed that scientific discourse was not defined solely by analysis, but also by synthesis, and that even intuition played an important part in the scientific method (Yu 2002: 141), while the prevention of its “negative side effects” could be entrusted to ethically refined metaphysics. Nevertheless, he also stressed that scientific thought and its approach to reality was confined to certain limits. Although the relation between science and philosophy was reciprocal, the philosophical discourse was still more important and more basic (Xiong 1992: 357). In Xiong’s relation between essence and function the primary pole is the former, while in the relation between habituated and original heart-mind it is the latter. And just as qualitative understanding defines and directs quantitative understanding, philosophy should define and direct science.15

3  Reason and Intuition: Liang and Zhang Because the concept of reason represents one of the ideal bases of modernization, most Modern Confucians emphasized the significance of science and technology for the further development of Chinese society, although they opposed scientism. Hence, the question of the Sinification of this term became a fundamental question

15

 See also the chapter “Xiong Shili’s Ontology.”

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for these philosophers. Essentially, this meant trying to find a synthesis between the traditional Confucian concept of intuitive recognition and the mental foundations of that part of the human cognitive apparatus that is instead grounded in rationality and logical inferences. Hence, any such inquiry had to begin with a detailed exploration of the notions of reason and intuition, as well as their mutual relations. One of the leading members of the first generation of Modern Confucianism,16 Liang Shuming, had already dealt extensively with the notion of intuition, which he denoted with the term zhijue 直覺. The term zhijue as applied by Liang Shuming came to China only as a modern translation of the Western term “intuition,” which was closely connected with connotations arising from Henri Bergson’s vitalism.17 Etymological studies have shown that this term does not appear in the classical works of Confucianism (An 1997: 337). The term lixing 理性,18 which denotes “reason,” also entered Chinese discourses as the translation of the Western notion at about the same time. However, in Neo-Confucian philosophy we encounter very similar notions (e.g. Zhu Xi’s term xingli 性理). The relation between rational and intuitive methods of cognition was studied even earlier by numerous traditional philosophers, though these concepts were denoted differently. As we have seen in the previous section, they also appeared in Feng Youlan’s and Xiong Shili’s epistemologies. However, as one of the first modern Chinese scholars, Liang Shuming published an essay19 in 1921, in which he compared Bergson’s philosophy with the Buddhist theory of pure consciousness (Weishi lun 唯識論) and attempted to clarify the relation between reason and intuition on such an explicitly comparative basis (Liang 2010: 97–102).20 His epistemological thought was based upon the Buddhist Yogācāra (weishi 唯 識) tradition. Following this epistemology, Liang distinguished eight different forms of consciousness (ba shi 八識), the first six of which deal with the external world and thus constitute life. While the sixth category takes the world as a whole  John J. Hanafin draws attention to the fact that, although Liang has mostly been (especially by scholars from mainland China, and by Guy Allito in his book entitled The Last Confucian – Liang Shuming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity) perceived as a Confucian, he also—in contrast to Xiong Shili—remained Buddhist until the end of his life (Hanafin 2003: 187–219). He points out that, in fact, Liang merely assumed the Confucian ways of life, while his thinking was mostly Buddhist (Hanafin 2003: 191). Li Zehou added that his conversion from Buddhism to Confucianism had much to do with his endeavors to save Chinese culture from the influence of “superficial” thoughts implied in an unpremeditated Westernization (Li 1987: 335). 17  Bergson’s most important works were translated into Chinese at the turn of the twentieth century (An 1997: 337). See Ciaudo (2016: 35–36). 18  Another closely related modern term is lizhi 理智, which has also been translated as ‘reason’. 19  The Theoreticians of Pure Consciousness and Bergson 唯識家與柏格森. 20  Apparently, he was asked by Li Shicen, the editor of the journal People’s Bell (Min duo民鐸, which planned to publish a special issue on Bergson, to write the essay, claiming that Bergson himself admitted that his vitalism was very much inspired by Buddhist philosophy. Liang was not very satisfied with the task, exposing that Bergson could not have known about the Mahāyāna tradition and pointing to the great methodological gap dividing the two philosophies (Liang 2005: 650). Some Chinese scholars, (e.g. Liu 2015: 8) are still trying to prove that this critique is unjustified and that it resulted from Liang’s insufficient understanding of Bergson’s philosophy. 16

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as its object and is responsible for the formation of concepts (yishi 意識), the first five represent the five senses; each of them corresponds with its own sphere of objects (jing 境). He also distinguishes three modes of cognition (liang 量); while the first one (xianliang 現量) corresponds to direct and immediate perception, the other two, (biliang 比量and feilang 非量) correspond to reason and intuition, respectively (Liang 2010: 84–87).21 In the aforementioned comparative essay, Liang Shuming explained why Bergson’s notion of intuition could not be (as generally presupposed) compared with the Yogācāra concept of xianliang.22 He also exposed that they are based upon a methodological contradiction, since Bergson excludes reason, whereas the Consciousness-only philosophy excludes intuition.23 In his chief philosophical work The Cultures of East and West and Their Philosophies (Dong xi wenhua ji qi zhexue 東西文化及其哲學), he systematically explained his concept of intuition (zhijue), distinguishing it clearly from reason.24 Liang not only argued that these two concepts are in mutual contradiction, but also claimed that to a great extent they defined the difference between Western and Chinese culture (Liang 2010: 177), with Western theories generally applying reason (Liang 2010: 90), while the latter were based on intuition (Liang 2010: 133).25 Here, it is important to note that in his early work, which was strongly influenced by Buddhist conceptualizations and which thus contained a rigorous, almost mutually contradictory separation of these two concepts, he differed from the majority of Modern Confucians, who, by means of exhaustive exploring the Confucian philosophical tradition, tried to demonstrate the complementary nature of these two cognitive methods.26 Later in his career, however, he distanced himself from the concept zhijue, which does not appear in any of his works published after 1934 (An 1997: 338); in his later works, he replaced it with the term lixing 理性,27 which was still placed in ­contradiction with the notion of reason (lizhi 理智). But now, ratio and intuition

 In his book An Introduction to Indian Philosophy 印度哲學概論, however, he describes the Yogācāra tradition as distinguishing between six modes of cognition, whereby the first two modes remain the same, but Liang’s third is divided into additional four modes (Liang 2015: 165). 22  有人以為 »直覺« 與 »現量« 就是一物… 其實甚不然 (Liang 2005: 645). 23  兩家方法不同之點究竟在甚麼地方? 就是柏格森排理智而用直覺, 而唯識家排直覺而用理 智 (Liang 2005: 645). 24  See the chapter “Liang Shuming and His Syncretic Confucianism.” 25  In the lives of Westerners, reason is even applied in intuition, and in the life of the Chinese, it is vice-versa (while in the lives of Indians, reason is applied in the sphere of immediate perception): “(一). 西洋生活是直覺運用理智的; (二). 中國生活是理智運用直覺 (三). 印度生活是理智運 用現量的” (Liang 2010: 177). 26  Such a strict understanding of their mutual relation is alien even to most Western thinkers, although for them, the concept of reason or rationality has often been seen as the antipode of intuition (Fricker 1995: 181). However, as Thomas Kuhn has demonstrated in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), the concept of intuition is actually at the heart of rational exploration, as the crucial catalyst of theoretical shifts in science. 27  This replacement was carried out due to Liang’s “re-conversion” to Confucianism. An Yanming writes: “Along with the completion of his transition to Confucianism, Liang retains only the content of zhijue as an equivalent of liangzhi, and gives it a new name, lixing” (An 1997: 356–357). 21

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were both included in the human heart-mind (xin 心), the former representing scientific knowledge and being merely a tool or (translated into Chinese concepts) function (yong 用) of cognition (Hanafin 2003: 203). Its real essence (ti 體) is lixing, an intuition based upon feelings (qing 情) and meaning (yi 意). Differences between Liang’s early and later views on the theory of knowledge can also be seen in his understanding of the very nature of classical Confucian cognitive methods. In the first edition of his book, The Cultures of East and West and Their Philosophies, Liang still claimed that the basic method of comprehension in the Confucian classics was the method of intuition based upon the Mengzian concepts of innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知) or the innate ability (liangneng 良 能) 28 to discriminate between good and evil and to follow the former (Liang 2010: 142).29 However, in the preface to its third edition, Liang exposed that this view was incomplete, for Confucian epistemology was also based on rational methods, applying and laying stress on the notion of reason (Liang 2010: 19).30 In this respect, most Modern Confucians have followed Liang Shuming’s assumptions. Already Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai), another important theorist of the 1st generation, in his Reason and Intuition in Chinese Philosophy published in 1954, argued that the rational method of recognizing the external world and obtaining knowledge was at the forefront of Confucian thought.31 Citing Kongzi’s famous dictum: “Learning without reasoning is useless, but reasoning without learning is perilous” (Lunyu 2015: 2.15). 32 He interpreted this as encouragement to think with the aid of reason: If one has no data to work with, and merely plays with the phantasms of one’s imagination, thought will be unreliable or adventurous. If one collects a great deal of data in a scattered, piecemeal or unrelated fashion, no principle will run like a thread through the congeries to organize them into a system. One may know much but be unable to reach a goal or establish an ideal pattern of life. (Chang 1954: 99)

He also drew attention to the fact that Mengzi, (whose philosophy provided a basic template for new interpretations of original Confucianism for neo- and Modern Confucian philosophers alike), argued that both the structural principle li 理33 and righteousness yi 義 (as fundamental symbols of morality) are inner attributes of all human beings.  人之所不學而能者, 其良能也; 所不慮而知者, 其良知也。(Mengzi 2015: 7A15).  這個知和能, 也就是孟子所說的不慮而知的良知, 不學而能的良能在今日我們謂之直覺. 30  孔家走一任直覺雖感而應的路還未是, 而實與此路外更有一理智揀擇的路. 31  See the chapter “Zhang Junmai: The Political and Cultural Thought of a New Confucian.” 32  學而不思則罔, 思而不學則殆. 33  Li 理originally means structure or structural pattern (Dictionaries 2015). In the ancient Chinese worldview, it represented an all-embracing order that, among other forms, also manifests itself in the human heart-mind and is compatible with the structure of the external world. Although this understanding of the concept of li 理differs in many ways from the connotations reason has acquired in the history of European philosophy (Rošker 2012: 113–123), in the nineteenth century it was applied as the first (and most important) part of the compound by which the “Western” type of reason was translated into Chinese. 28 29

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Therefore I say: men’s mouths are similar in having the same tastes; their ears are similar in enjoying the same sounds; their eyes are similar in recognizing the same beauty – why shall their minds alone be without such similarity? What, then, is the similarity of their minds? I say, it is to be found in the principles of our nature, and in the determinations of justice… Hence, the principles of our nature and the determinations of justice please my mind, just as the flesh of grass- and grain-fed animals please my mouth.34 (Mengzi 2015: 6A7)

This understanding is grounded in the fusion of rational and moral elements within the human heart-mind. As opposed to Liang Shuming,35 Zhang claimed that this view of the unity of reason and morality reflects a fundamental and general equality between the prevailing currents of Western and Chinese philosophies: This is also what Mencius meant by “determinations of righteousness,” or reason. In the eyes of the Oriental, theoretical principles and principles of moral evaluation provide the foundations for the whole structure of civilization. The fundamental nature of Eastern and Western philosophy thus agree. (Chang 1954: 100)

Based on this conviction, in the same essay36 he describes the development and specific connotations of reason and intuition within traditional Chinese philosophy, stressing that Chinese scholars have always devoted considerable attention to moral values and have thus focused upon the transcendent level that manifests itself in the concept xing 性 (innate qualities, “human nature”). They joined the terms xing and li because they believed that the latter necessarily formed part of human nature (Chang 1954: 101). For Zhang, the question of the relation between these two concepts in Chinese philosophy is similar to the problem of the relation between universality and particularity in Western thought. He also stated that all the most influential philosophical schools in the Chinese tradition were based upon rational grounds (Chang 1954: 102), and that they all shared the following postulates: (1) Truth on a purely intuitive basis, not embedded in knowledge and logical thinking, cannot be truth. There must be an intellectual foundation without which intuition is blind. This is the intellectualistic aspect. (2) Behind intuition there is also conviction and will which directs human effort. This is the voluntaristic aspect. (3) Intuitive truth arises from the depths of the heart and from an intense love of the cause in which one believes. This is the affective aspect (Chang 1954: 111). Hence, recognition obtained from intuitive perception is deeply rooted in cognition, human will and feelings. It thus represents a synthesis at a high epistemological level. Chang stressed that this synthesis cannot be created by study alone, where reason and intuition appear in a mutually contradictory relation, but only on the basis of much broader platforms (Chang 1954: 111). 34  故曰: 口之於味也, 有同耆焉; 耳之於聲也, 有同聽焉; 目之於色也, 有同美焉。至於心, 獨無 所同然乎?心之所同然者何也?謂理也, 義也。… 故理義之悅我心, 猶芻豢之悅我口。」. 35  Especially to his later works. 36  This essay was followed by another text in 1960, in which Zhang, proceeding from the same premises, examined the application of intuitive methods within traditional Chinese philosophy (Chang 1960: 35–49).

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However, in spite of their mutual differences they both lay stress upon the epistemological priority of ethics and morality. While for Zhang, morality is grounded in rationality, the “later” Liang does not fail to stress the dominant position of intuition (An 1997: 357) in their mutual relationship.

4  Elaborations by the 2nd Generation: Tang and Mou The belief into the priority of moral knowledge found substantial consensus among many of the 2nd generation Confucians. However, Fang Dongmei and Xu Fuguan devoted much less attention to elaborating and modernizing traditional concepts of rationality and intuition, as their primary interest was on other aspects of philosophy and intellectual history. We will thus focus here upon introductions of Tang Junyi’s and Mou Zongsan’s epistemologies. In general, the link between reason and intuition was the element that the thinkers of the second generation of Modern Confucianism, based on very similar hypotheses already elaborated by the first generation, used as a key criterion for defining differences between philosophy and science, and between Western and Chinese philosophy. This approach gradually became an indispensable aspect of their theoretical endeavors, not only in the controversies surrounding science and democracy (see Rošker 2015: ch 5), but also in their epistemological discourses. Like all Modern Confucians, Tang Junyi also proceeded from the notion of immanent transcendence and defined it based on his interpretations of the Neo-­ Confucian school of mind (Xin xue 心學). His epistemology is therefore closely related to his ontology, for he saw the world as a metaphysical reality that is immanent to all that exists in the universe, while also possessing moral qualities (Chan 2002: 306). In this context, the central Confucian virtue of humanity or mutuality (ren 仁) is already part of the cosmic structure, while its recognition, or its simultaneous incorporation and internalization, manifests itself in the moral performance of individuals. The heart-mind (xin 心) as a necessary and constitutional part of the moral self is the key component in the recognition process. This process is constituted through its function of “connective resonance” (gantong 感通), which relies on feelings, reason, and human will.37 The fusion of these three factors is conditioned by “proper perception,” which must proceed in accordance with the all-embracing, rational structural principle (li 理). When recognizing other human beings, this sensual compatibility must also be based on empathy. Tang explores and explains the activity of human spirit and tries to place it in dynamic mutual inter-relation with various realms or spheres (jingjie 境界) of existence (Tang 1977, 1: 393, 2: 256). According to him, these inter-relations represent  See also the chapters “Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978)” and “Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on Human Nature.”

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everything that makes up the object and the contents of human knowledge. He certainly acknowledges that the activities of human spirit are of utmost complexity and extremely multifarious. Nevertheless, he succeeds in categorizing the whole of it within nine spheres (jing 境).38 Hence, recognition on the basis of sensual compatibility is also a precondition for the transition between various spheres (jing 境), or for the development from a lower to a higher sphere. The concept of sphere as such is thus not only ontological and axiological, but also epistemological, for jing is originally a Buddhist concept that denotes an object towards which the mind is directed and implies a unification of subjective understanding and the objective situation. According to Chan Sin yee, it can therefore be compared to the Kantian view of perception, by which perception is also a product of the mind’s unification of sensory data by means of categories supplied by the mind itself (Chan 2002: 308). Tang Junyi’s treatment of reason is inseparable from the concept of the moral Self, as developed by the School of Mind. I believe reason (lixing) is the innate nature (xing) that can manifest and follow the structural principles (li), and is thus a unity of both. Chinese Confucianism denoted it with the term xingli. It is human essence or substance that causes the emergence of the human moral, spiritual and transcendent Self.39 (Tang 1986: 254)

For Tang, reason thus also underpins the moral self, which he denotes as a “transcendent rational self” (chaoyuede lixing ziwo 超越的理性自我, Tang 1986: 254). Tang understands human moral life as something that requires conscious control over oneself and that is common to all human beings. At the level of epistemology, this Mengzian universality of human morality manifests itself not only in the cognitive capacity of reason, but also in the empirical recognition of the world through the senses (Tang 1985: 110). 40 However, it is important to note that Tang is not speaking of inter-subjectivity, i.e. he did not postulate the existence of some common spirit or consciousness in the sense of all people having the same goals or intentions, but instead is positing a transcendent spirit of the individual that unites itself with others through this process of transcendence (Chan 2002: 313). Such transcendence is possible because the human heart-mind forms a unity with the universe. Tang’s epistemology implies both a theory of knowledge and a theory of wisdom. In both cases, reason and intuition are interconnected. Based on this interconnection and influence amongst the different segments and mechanisms of the heart-mind, and with the application of analytical philosophy, Tang formulated an  See the “nine horizons” in the chapter “Beyond the Horizon: Philosophy and Religion in the Late Work of Tang Junyi (1909–1978).” 39  吾人所為理性, 即能顯理順理之性, 亦可說理即性. 理性即中國儒家所謂性理. 即吾人之道 德自我, 精神自我, 或超越自我之所以為道德自我, 精神自我, 或超越自我之本質或自體. 40  從現實上看, 我之心理活動, 都待我之身而表現, 而我之認識活動, 通過我身之感官, 即評等 的認識萬物. 從我的感覺來看我之身, 他人的身, 各是平等的萬物之一, 我的感覺認識活動, 邊於現實的他人與我之身. 我從現實的我身中, 了解有一超越的心的本體在表現, 便可推知, 現實的他人身中, 亦有一超越的心之本體表現. 而我之如此推知, 乃本於將我對於現實世界 中之人身, 我身之認識, 及對於超越的心之本體的信仰, 二者合起來的結果. 38

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interesting and innovative hypothesis regarding the creativity of wisdom (zhihui de chuangzaoxing 智慧的創造性). What he calls knowledge (zhishi 知識) includes concepts or ideas, inferences, logical cognitive laws, and empirical intuition. “Wisdom” is instead a “miraculous creativity” (shenmiao de chuangzaoxing 神妙 的創造性), i.e. a kind of intuitive thought that is neither completely empirical nor wholly rational. It is the kind of reasoning that can apply previously acquired knowledge, but only based on a prior independent decision for such an application. Hence, knowledge is both surpassed and integrated. Morality plays a central role in both theories, for it represents the foundation of the self and thus of the heart-mind. In his search for an interpretation of the semantic scopes of rationality, intuition, perception, recognition, reasoning, and morality that could serve as the basis for a new Chinese concept of reason to meet the requirements of the modern era, Tang ultimately proved incapable of formulating a consistent and coherent theory of traditional Chinese reason. His discourses on these issues contain a number of logical inconsistencies, which have been identified by contemporary students and interpreters of his philosophy. Qiang and Zhao (1994: 57), for example, point out his failure to establish a clear succession between empirical intuition, judgments or inferences, and rational intuition. In speaking of the creativity of wisdom that both applies and surpasses knowledge, Tang argues that rational intuition is able to “penetrate” directly patterns established on the basis of synthesizing premises, and thus arrive at valid conclusions. This, of course, would mean that rational intuition is above logical reason. But at the same time, Tang claims that pure rational intuition can only lead to knowledge and not wisdom, for this kind of intuition is capable only of non-­ inferential reasoning. His concept of “miraculous creative wisdom” has likewise never been fully analyzed or elaborated. All that can be said of this concept is that it is based on the moral heart-mind, understood as a necessary part of the human Self, and that it functions instantly and unconsciously. Tang’s model of the unity of individual heart-minds is also problematic, for this underpins his concept of the infinite heart-mind as being equated with the universe. However, Chan Sin yee argues that the fusion of an arbitrary number of heart-­ minds would not automatically produce an infinite heart-mind (Chan 2002: 315). Mou Zongsan tried to define the position of reason within traditional Chinese thought by comparing Western and Chinese culture, arguing namely that they were based on different representational forms of human reason. He called the Chinese form “functional or intensional” (lixingzhi yunyong biaoxian 理性之運用表現) and the Western “constructive or extensional” (lixingzhi jiagou biaoxian 理性之架構表 現) (Mou 1995: 544–553).41 This distinction could be compared with the Kantian differentiation between practical and theoretical reason, as it is not abstract but ­concrete and connected to actual life. This reason can thus be equated with morality within the personality (Mou 1995: 544–545). However, Mou endows functional reason with intellectual intuition (zhide zhijue 智的直覺), a potential that is not recognized by Western philosophies.

41

 See also the chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism.”

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Mou argued that Kant’s refusal to consider intellectual intuition had far-reaching implications, for without the integration of this concept into his epistemology Kant’s entire construct of the autonomous subject would collapse, while the metaphysical construct of the world and of human existence also rests on very fragile foundations. The same was true for Eastern thought, for without this concept traditional Chinese philosophy would likewise be deprived of its ideal foundation. The concept of human intellectual intuition thus occupies the center of Mou’s philosophy. For Mou, “constructive representation” is an ideal model based on the opposition of subject and object, which manifests itself in mathematics, logic, science and in political democracy. “Functional representation” is instead based on the absence of this opposition and manifests itself primarily in moral and religious acting. For Mou, the former prevailed in Western, and the latter in Chinese culture (Mou 1995: 549). This was also the main reason why the Chinese tradition was unable to develop any potential for modern forms of democracy and science, and instead developed an extraordinarily accomplished system of morality and ethics. For Mou, this implied two main conclusions: first, if Chinese society wished to proceed on the path of modernization within the framework of its own tradition, and if it thus wanted to integrate elements necessary for the development of democracy and science, it had to transform itself by appropriating the specific models of thought required for such development. Secondly, if China did not want to become a spiritual colony, it had to elaborate those concepts within its own intellectual tradition that had a potential for developing such models, e.g. the Neo-Confucian concept of innate moral awareness (liangzhi 良知). Mou’s concept of intellectual intuition is also significant as an axiological elaboration of the Western concept of rationality. His second line of reasoning in favor of human intellectual intuition is based on Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Mou argues that in order to make this distinction, Kant had to admit human intellectual intuition (Mou 1975: 37). For him, intellectual intuition is a direct form of reason or intellect: “Intellectual intuition is rational and not only related to feelings or sensations. Such reason, however, is direct and not distinctive, or logical” (Mou 1975: 170).42 Hence, as opposed to perception based on sensation, empirical recognition or logical rationality, intellectual intuition is a “higher” or more complex form of cognition. It thus implies a basic method of acquiring knowledge regarding the sphere of meanings and values (Mou 1971: 19). Besides, it cannot be equated with sensation, because the latter refers to objects of the external world. Thus, it is merely a passive receptor. Intellectual intuition, however, refers to no particular object and thus does not imply any distinctions between the subject and object of recognition. In itself, it is the activity of the substance of heart-mind. It is a reflection of itself (Mou 1971: 19). According to Mou, these methods of perception were developed in all three of the main philosophical schools of the Chinese intellectual tradition. In Confucianism,

42

 智的直覺是理智的, 不是 ‘感覺’ 的; 其理知是直覺的, 不是辨覺的, 既不是邏輯的.

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it was called “foundation of moral heart-mind” or the “moral self” (daode benxin 道 德本心), the Daoists instead called it the “heart-mind of the Way” (dao xin 道心) and the Buddhists the “true eternal heart-mind” (zhenchang xin 真常心). In Appearance and Things in Themselves (Xianxiang yu wu zishen 現象與物自 身) he tried, through a reinterpretation of Confucian tradition, to explain the concept of things in themselves not only as an epistemological, but also as an axiological notion (Mou 1975: 435–436). He argued that a purely epistemological understanding of this notion was insufficient to prove Kant’s transcendental differentiation between appearance and things in themselves. Mou advanced the thesis that, while humans are finite, they nevertheless have access to infinity, which is made possible by intellectual intuition (Mou 1975: 79). In this way, the “thing in itself” no longer belongs to some eternally unattainable “world beyond,” but to an axiological sphere which can appear to us directly through our awareness of freedom. Mou insisted that Kant’s notion of noumena had to be an “axiological concept in a very strong sense” (Mou 1975: 8), for the transcendental distinction between this concept and the concept of phenomena could be understood only on this basis (Tang 2002: 334). In other words, noumena definitely do not belong to “original phenomena,” but neither are they an objective fact that can be approached indefinitely without ever being reached. Noumena are something that cannot be approached at the level of sensation, nor at the level of rational understanding. Hence, they necessarily constitute a transcendental concept (Tang 2002: 334).

5  Conclusion An important notion in Modern Confucian epistemologies is the advanced concept of the traditional moral self, which in the new global philosophies was intended to assume the function of a “truly” autonomous cognitive subject. While this subject acts and perceives the world as an individual, necessarily forming a part of the social community, it is also ennobled by an infinite heart-mind, which enables it to be aware of its unity with the universe. This new, moral and infinite, limitless subject represents an elaboration of the “traditional” Confucian concept of the moral self, and thus may also be the active personality that can sustain the idea of modernization. In the Confucian framework, this self is autonomous precisely due to its rational and structural (li 理) connection with all aspects of its natural and social environment. Further, because this connection is also dynamic and organic, it is capable of infinite forms of communication and cooperation. For a Chinese model of modernity, i.e. for a modernity permeated with humanism or mutuality (ren 仁), these forms of communication and cooperation are much more important than formal laws of economy and official politics. Modern Confucian epistemological notions, e.g. Mou’s intellectual intuition, Tang’s concept of sensual compatibility, Xiong’s and Liang’s sinifications of reason

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and intuition, all represent the various Modern Confucian responses to the global questions of the contemporary epistemology. These questions are linked to the dilemmas of the modern subject, who is trapped within the complex technologies of the profit-seeking world and has thus forgotten the ethical dimensions that define its humanity.

References An, Yanming. 1997. “Liang Shuming and Henri Bergson on Intuition: Cultural Context and the Evolution of Terms.” Philosophy East and West 47.3: 337–362. (A detailed and very informative analysis and interpretation of some central epistemological notions in Liang’s epistemology.) Chan, Sin yee. 2002. “Tang Junyi: Moral Idealism and Chinese Culture.” In Chung-Ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 235–346. (An informative survey of Tang Junyi’s philosophy and its influence in the Chinese academic world.) Chang, Carsun. 1954. “Reason and Intuition in Chinese Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West 4.2: 99–112. (A very important primary source of Zhang Junmai’s thought. It is crucial and indispensable for the analysis of Zhang’s epistemology.) ———. 1960. “Chinese Intuitionism: A Reply to Feigl on Intuition.” Philosophy East and West 1.2: 35–49. (The author introduces the specific features of Chinese epistemology and theory of perception and compares it with some central Western theories of knowledge.) Ciaudo, Joseph. 2016. “Bergson’s ‘Intuition’ in China and its Confucian Fate (1915–1923): Some Remarks on zhijue in Modern Chinese Philosophy.” Problemos 2016. Supplement: 35–50. (A very good overview and a coherent analysis of the Chinese interpretations and the influence of Henri Bergson’s philosophical writings in relation to the development of the concept of “intuition” (zhijue 直覺) in modern and contemporary Chinese philosophy.) Dictionaries: Li 理. 2015. Website: Chinese Text Project. Pre-Qin and Han. Accessed July 7, 2015. http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&char=%E7%90%86. Feng, Youlan 馮友蘭. 1999a. “The New School of Structural Principles 新理學”. In Yu Wujin and Wu Shaoming, eds., Ershi shiji zhexue jingdian wenben. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chuban she. (1st Edition: 1939). 544–575. (A classic work on the concept of li, containing its philosophical analysis. The author provided an innovative interpretation, which was very influential at the time when it was first published and in later years and decades. In many aspects, it is still unsurpassed.) ——— 馮友蘭. 1999b. “The New Origin of the Way 新原道.” In Yu Wujin and Wu Shaoming, eds., Ershi shiji zhexue jingdian wenben. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chuban she. (1st Edition: 1944). 589–601. (A later work, first published in 1961. It provides a new explanation of dao and its crucial role in the development of the Chinese intellectual history.) Fricker, Amanda. 1995. “Intuition and Reason”. The Philosophical Quarterly 45.179: 181–189. Han Qiang 韓強in Guanghui Zhao 趙光輝. 1994. “Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason: The Cultural Philosophy of the Hong Kong-Taiwan Modern Confucians Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan文化意識與道德理性  – 港台新儒家唐君毅與牟宗三的文化哲學.” Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chuban she. (A comprehensive introduction of the Modern Confucian intellectual movement and its significance for the modernization of Chinese culture, focusing on its crucial representatives Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan.) Hanafin, John J. 2003. “The ‘Last Buddhist’: The Philosophy of Liang Shuming.” In John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. New  York: Palgrave. 187–218. (An informative analysis and an interesting interpretation of Liang Shuming’s thought.) Hu, Jun 胡軍. 2011. “Modern Chinese Intuitionism and the Philosophy of Life 中國現代直覺論與 生命哲學”. Beida Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu 北大中國文化研究 2011.1: 189–207. (A critical survey of Chinese studies on intuition. It follows the presumption that in Chinese philosophy, intuition is not merely a method, but also belongs to aesthetic realms – jingjie 境界).

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Li, Zehou 李澤厚. 1987. On Contemporary Chinese Intellectual History 中國現代思想史論. Taibei: Fengyun shidai chuban she. (One of the classical works introducing the development of modern Chinese intellectual history.) Liang, Shuming 梁漱溟. 2005. “The Theoreticians of Consciousness-only and Bergson 唯識家 與柏格森”. In Zhongguo wenhua shuyuan weiyuan hui, ed., Liang Shuming quan ji. Jinan: Shandong renmin chuban she. 644–650. (A comparative analysis of Buddhist and Western concepts of intuition.) ——— 梁漱溟. 2010. The Cultures of East and West and Their Philosophies 東西文化及其哲學. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan (1st edition 1921). (This is one of Liang’s most well-known books, which has had an immense influence during the entire 20th century and is still important. It provides critical and methodologically interesting comparisons of Western and Asian, particularly Chinese, philosophy.) ——— 梁漱溟. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy 印度哲學概論. Shanghai: Kexue jishu wenxian chuban she. (A comprehensive survey of Indian thought, containing numerous valuable Chinese translations of some crucial Buddhist philosophical terms.) Liu, Longfu 劉龍伏. 2015. “On the Influence of Bergson’s Vitalism upon Liang Shuming’s Modern Confucian Thought 論柏格森生命哲學對梁漱溟新儒學思想的影響”. Website: The Gentle Blowing of Ancient Breeze – Traditional Political and Spiritual Civilization 古風悠悠—傳統政治與精神文明. Accessed July 7, 2015. http://www.rocidea.com/ roc-14898.aspx. (A critical analysis of Liang Shuming’s epistemology and Bergson’s influence on the formation of his concept of intuition.) Lunyu 論語. 2015. The Analects. Website: Chinese Text Project. Pre-Qin and Han. Accessed July 7, 2015. http://ctext.org/analects. Mengzi 孟子. 2015. Website: Chinese Text Project. Pre-Qin and Han. Accessed July 7, 2015. http://ctext.org/mengzi. Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1971. Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy 智的直覺與中國哲 學. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshu guan. (One of Mou Zongsan’s most important works, dealing with the Sinification and the improvement of Kant’s epistemology.) ——— 牟宗三. 1975. Appearances and Things in Themselves 現象與物自身. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (This work also belongs to Mou’s crucial epistemological works. It contains a critical analysis of Kant’s distinction between noumena and phenomena and aims to analyze it in the framework of the Chinese philosophy.) ——— 牟宗三. 1995. “The Way of Politics and the Way of Governance 政道與治道, 第三章”. In Fang Keli and Li Jinquan, eds., 現代新儒家學案. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chuban she. (This work contains the most important elements of Mou Zongsan’s analysis of Chinese political thought.) Mozi 墨子. 2015. Website: Chinese Text Project. Pre-Qin and Han. Accessed July 7, 2015. http:// ctext.org/mozi. Nelson, Eric. 2020. “Zhang Junmai’s Early Political Philosophy and the Paradoxes of Chinese Modernity.” Asian Studies 8.1: 183–208. (While this article mainly examines the significance of reflexive self-critical modernity in the development of early Modern Confucianism by reconsidering the example of Zhang Junmai in the context of the May Fourth and New Culture Movements, it also includes important aspects of his theory of knowledge and perception). Pfister, Lauren. 2002. “Feng Youlan’s New principle Learning and his Histories of Chinese Philosophy”. In Nicholas Bunnin, Cheng Zhongying, and Chung-ying, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 165–187. (A critical introduction of Feng Youlan’s life and work, focusing upon his innovative interpretation of the concept li, especially his new theory of the function and the role of this concept, as described and illuminated in his work Xin lixue (see above).) Rošker, Jana S. 2012. Traditional Chinese Philosophy and the Paradigm of Structure (Li). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (A philological analysis and philosophical interpretation of the semantic development of the concept Li in the course of the Chinese intellectual history from the pre-Qin era until the twentieth century.)

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———. 2015. The Rebirth of the Moral Self: The Second Generation of Modern Confucians and their Modernization Discourses. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. (A comprehensive survey and a critical introduction of the Modern Confucian stream of thought, focusing upon its second generation – Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan and Fang Dongmei - and their modernization theories.) Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1977. The Existence of Life and the Spheres of the Soul 生命存在與心靈境 界. 2 Vol. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (One of the most important works written by the famous Modern Confucian Tang Junyi. In this work, he explains his view on the inseparability of ontology, ethics, and aesthetics.) ——— 唐君毅. 1985. The Establishment of the Moral Self 道德自我之建立. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (Tang Junyi’s important work on the specific features of Chinese ethics and its historico-­ philosophical background.) ——— 唐君毅. 1986. Cultural Awareness and Moral Reason 文化意識與道德理性. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Tang Junyi’s book on the inherent linkage between culture and axiology; among other issues, it deals with questions about the cultural conditioning of different axiological systems.) Tang, Refeng. 2002: “Mou Zongsan on Intellectual Intuition.” In Chung-Ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 235–346. (A comprehensive and critical description of Mou Zongsan and his theory of intuition, in which he aims to upgrade and develop Kant’s epistemology.) Wang, Shouren [Yangming 陽明] 王守仁. 1929. A Collection of the Most Important Parts of Sir Wang’s Thought 陽明先生集要. Vol. 12. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan. (The collection includes most of Wang’s works, and in the present chapter, I have concentrated on the ones in which Wang explains his notion of innate moral awareness and the concept of structure (li).) Xiong, Shili 熊十力. 1992. “New Treatise on Consciousness-only 新唯識論”. In Collected Works of Xiong Shili, Part 1 熊十力論著集之一. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. (Xiong Shili’s central book and probably the most important work of Chinese philosophy produced in the 20th century. In this work, the author draws from Buddhist and Confucian philosophy to develop a critical inquiry into the relation between the ontological and the phenomenal.) ——— 熊十力. 1996. “Important Statements by Xiong Shili 十力語要”. In Collected Works of Xiong Shili, Part 3 熊十力論著集之三. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. (A collection of different theoretical accounts of Xiong Shili’s philosophy. In the present chapter, we have mainly considered the ones that are dealing with the relation between science and philosophy.) Xu, Quanxing in Deyuan Huang. 2008. “Theory on the Cultivation of Cognitive Subjects in Chinese Philosophy”. Frontiers of Philosophy in China III.1: 39–54. (A comprehensive survey of the development of the specifically Chinese connection between morality and knowledge, focusing upon the introduction of some crucial ethical and epistemological concepts.) Yu, Jiyuan 2002. “Xiong Shili’s Metaphysics of Virtue.” In Nicholas Bunnin and Cheng Chung-­ ying, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 127–146. (A critical introduction of Xiong’s life and work and an evaluation of his contribution to modern Chinese philosophy.) Zhang, Yaonan 張耀南. 2003. “The Priority of Epistemology or the Priority of Ontology - Two Different Approaches of Modern Chinese Philosophers to the Relation of Epistemology and Ontology 知識論居先與本體論居先  - 中國現 代哲學家對本體論與知識論之關係的兩種 見解.” Xin Shiye 2003.2: 63–75.

Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi on Human Nature Wai-ying Wong

1  Introduction The thesis “human nature (性xing) is good” has been the ground of Confucian ethics since it was upheld by Mengzi (372–289 BCE).1 However, it has been controversial from Gaozi (告子) of the same time to Dai Zhen (戴震) (1724–1777) of the Qing dynasty. Many contemporary Chinese philosophers have also joined the debates. Unsurprisingly, the core figures of Contemporary New Confucianism, Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi, were devoted to the task of the articulation and argumentation for defense of this thesis, based on their profound philosophical knowledge from both the Chinese and Western traditions. In this chapter, I am going to study the exposition of Mou and Tang supporting the thesis that human nature is good.

2  M  ou’s Explication on Mengzi’s Thesis of “Human Nature Is Good” The thesis of “human nature is good” in Mengzi’s thought serves as the utmost important theoretical ground for an autonomous ethical system like Confucian ethics, according to Mou. Therefore, it can be considered as one of the fundamental doctrines of Confucianism. In his last monograph On Perfect Good ­(圓善 1  Xunzi held a different view on human nature, i.e., human nature is evil, but since human nature for him referred to some empirical qualities in humans, it could not serve as the ground of ethics.

W. Wong (*) Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_21

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論Yuanshan lun) (Mou 1985), Mou used a whole chapter to elaborate this fundamental doctrine and placed it at the beginning of the book so as to establish a solid base for the later discussion of perfect good and perfect (literally, “round”) teaching (圓教yuanjiao). First of all, Mou analyzed the views and arguments made in Mengzi 6A, where the theme of human nature was mainly discussed. The theses include: 1. Human nature is necessarily good. In 6A1 and 6A2, Mengzi took the metaphor of the willow and the metaphor of whirling water to illustrate that human nature is necessarily good. Also, the passage in 6A6: “As far as what is genuinely in him is concerned, a man is capable of being good, that is what I mean by good”2 signified the meaning of good human nature.3 2. Ren and yi (仁義)4 are internal. Mengzi argued against Gaozi’s view that “ren is internal whereas yi is external” (Mengzi 6A4). Also, by commenting on the dialogues between Meng Jizi ( 孟季子) and Gongdu Zi (公都子), Mengzi explained his stance of “ren-yi are internal” (Mengzi 6A5). 3. The heart-mind (xin心) and the Principle (li理) are universal. Mengzi in 6A7 claimed that the commonality of heart-mind for every human being is the Principle and yi. 4. The heart-mind of ren-yi is universally possessed by human beings. By the metaphor of Ox Mountain, Mengzi indicated that every human being possesses the heart-mind of ren-yi (Mengzi 6A8). He also took the metaphor of fish and bear’s palm to explain that humans possess values which can override the satisfaction of desires; in such cases humans can activate their heart-mind and choose yi even though it requires sacrificing their own lives. The heart-mind and the human nature are universally possessed by human beings (Mengzi 6A10). 5. Sensory organs and the heart-mind are distinct in that the former is conditioned whereas the latter is unconditioned (Mengzi 6A15). Mengzi asserted the autonomy of heart-mind by claiming that the heart-mind would get the answer once it reflects (si思). 6. The heart-mind is inborn. It is decreed by Heaven (Mengzi 6A15). 7. It is important to cultivate the heart-mind: “The sole concern of learning is to go after the strayed heart-mind” (Mengzi 6A11). Apart from Book 6A, Mengzi also explicated the thesis in Book 2 and Book 4. In 2A6, he used the famous hypothetical episode “all of a sudden, seeing a young child on the verge of falling into a well” to demonstrate the unconditional activation of the original heart-mind. He also revealed that ren, yi, li (禮propriety), and zhi ­(智

2   The translation of Mengzi is by D.C.  Lau, with some amendments if deemed necessary. Mengzi (1979). 3  The meaning will be elaborated in Sect. 3 4  Usually translated as benevolence and rightness. But these translations are misleading and miss the rich meanings in the original terms. See Wong (2017a, 2017b: 25–28, 71–74).

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wisdom) are the content of original (human) nature which are universally possessed by human beings. In 4B19 Mengzi remarkably differentiated autonomous from heteronomous morality by two contrary paths: “to act from (the heart-mind of) ren-yi” and “to act conforming to ren-yi.” In 7A1, he unfolded the relationship between the heart-mind, human nature, and Heaven (Tian天). All of these doctrines amount to a comprehensive ethical system which has become the origin of a tradition of autonomous morality based on the heart-mind in Confucianism. Mou Zongsan explained and elaborated Mengzi’s thesis of human nature is good by borrowing the strict sense of freedom of will and autonomy of morality in Kant’s philosophy. He further argued that Mengzi’s system is superior to Kant’s in the sense that the freedom of will in the former is not merely a postulate as it is in the latter. A system of moral metaphysics, according to Mou, is the ultimate resolution for justifying the thesis of human nature is good. It can also solve the problem of perfect good and render Confucianism a perfect teaching. In this chapter, I will confine myself to the problem of human nature is good, with the following foci: 1 . How to justify that human nature is good? 2. How to justify that the heart-mind of ren-yi is universally possessed by human beings?

3  Mou’s Justification of “Human Nature Is Good” As mentioned, Mengzi has expressed his clear and strong position on human nature in Book 6 and other passages. The metaphor of the willow and the metaphor of whirling water were brought out by Gaozi, and hence Mengzi’s explanation of his own view was restricted to the given metaphors. On the other side, Gaozi’s view of what human nature is was very clear. Gaozi further made it clearer by claiming that “inborn is what is meant by the nature” (sheng zhi wei xing生之謂性) (Mengzi 6A4), which can be considered as a guiding principle for understanding human nature: human nature is neutral in a sense that it is neither good nor bad, and it can be good or bad; furthermore, in reality it happens to be good and happens to be bad. Mengzi’s response to this principle was based on the meaning of “inborn is what is meant by the nature” that he perceived, then he argued against it by reductio ad absurdum. Mou made a detailed analysis of the debate between Mengzi and Gaozi over “inborn is what is meant by the nature.” In a chapter on the philosophy of Cheng Hao (程顥 1032–1085) in The Metaphysical Reality of Heart-Mind and Nature (Xinti yu Xingti心體與性體) (Mou 1968: v. 2), Mou discussed Cheng’s special interpretation of “inborn is what is meant by the nature” by differentiating it from Gaozi’s meaning in a whole separate section. He examined the reasoning of Mengzi and uncovered the hidden fallacy. Mou emphasized that it is important to be aware of the validity of logical reasoning and admitted that it is not easy to analyze as well as to articulate the fallacy. He said that the reasoning is apparently erroneous, which was not then recognized by Gaozi.

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People of later periods might have felt something wrong in the argument but could not identify the problem and some were unable to detect the problem due to the obedient attitude towards an authoritative figure like Mengzi. Mou concluded that it is a question of wisdom to grasp the truth but a question of being well-trained in thinking to articulate it correctly (Mou 1968: v. 1, 152–153). From Mou’s perspective, “inborn is what is meant by the nature” is a description of the empirical human nature understood as natural features of human beings’ natural life. This empirical sense of human nature is completely different from the transcendental sense advocated by Mengzi, who, although he had not made his own view clear in the passages where the metaphor of the willow, the metaphor of whirling water, and “inborn is what is meant by the nature” were discussed, presented his stand sharply and accurately in 6A6, 2A6, 6A10 and 6A7. The “good” in “human nature is good” means “capable of being good,” as stated in 6A6, and “capable of being good” is read by Mou as “capable of observing the categorical imperative generated from the heart-mind.” To be more precise, the heart-mind itself refers to the capability to generate categorical imperatives which human beings are willing to observe, provided that there are no obstacles from the desires or environment. It should be noted that the relationship between the original heart-mind and the original nature is as follows: the original heart-mind is the actualization of the original nature, and the original nature is the transcendental ground of the original heart-­ mind. If the meaning of good human nature stated above is adopted, then “human nature is good” is analytically true. Therefore, for Mou, human nature is necessarily good (Mou 1985: 26). Mou further argued that the necessarily good human nature refers to the rationality which is necessarily possessed by human beings as rational beings: it is “the reality of all rational beings as rational beings” (Mou 1985: 26). It seems that the explanations made by Mengzi can only be viewed as a kind of conceptual analysis, but not a proof.5 Now the problem is, how to justify that human beings are rational beings who are capable of being good? In other words, do we have reason for claiming that in reality human beings are capable of being good? In 2A6, Mengzi used the episode of “seeing a young child on the verge of falling into a well” to demonstrate that for all human beings, the heart-mind of compassion (ceyin惻隱) would emerge without aiming at the satisfaction of personal desires. Mengzi listed out some probable desires like “wanting to get in the good graces of parents,” or “wishing to win the praise of the fellow villagers or friends,” or “avoiding the cry of the child.” Even though these possibilities are not exhaustive, they are instances of hypothetical imperatives, which do not constitute autonomous morality. The heart-mind of compassion does not emerge from any conditional factors; therefore it can provide moral meaning to the action it generates. In short, it is the heart-mind makes morality possible. In this sense the heart-mind as well as human nature is the transcendental ground for morality. No action not sprung from the

5  For example, Roetz thought that Mengzi’s argument for “human nature is good” failed to undermine Gaozi’s assertion. Roetz (1993).

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heart-mind is a moral action. This is what “to act from ren-yi yet not [merely for the sake of] conforming to ren-yi” means. A moral act is an act sprung from the heart-mind of ren-yi but not one merely observing the norms concerning ren-yi. Mengzi said, “The heart-mind of compassion is the germ of ren,” and again said more directly, “The heart-mind of compassion is ren” (Mengzi 2A6). Since the heart-mind of compassion is the germ of ren or the emergence of ren, and the heart-mind of ren is the capability that makes an action a moral one, therefore compassion should not be understood as a kind of emotion or emotional response. It is neither a sympathetic feeling in a psychological sense. As a psychological feeling, it will be governed by psychological law and in this sense it is conditioned by the environmental situation or personal desires and is in no way free (unconditional). When Mengzi described the emergence of heart-­ mind of compassion, he had already excluded that it is caused by the mental/psychological state of disliking the cry of the child. For this reason, compassion is not an ordinary feeling or an emotion as such. Mou coined a name for this special feeling, if it must be considered as a feeling at all, an “original feeling” (ben qing本情) to signify that it comes from the “original heart-mind” (ben xin本心).6 The mind of love (ai愛), reverence (jing敬) and shame (xiuwu羞惡) is the concrete manifestation of the original heart-mind. Even though it can be thought as feeling, it is an original feeling under the thesis of ‘the original heart-mind is human nature as well as the Principle (li理)’. All of them belong to the realm of “above-form” (xing er shang形而上), not the feeling in the form of vital energy as in the realm of “below-form” (xing er xia形而 下). (Mou 1968: v.2, 305)

The heart-mind of ren-yi emerges from the internal nature of ren-yi. When an action performed is from the former, then we can doubtlessly confirm that the latter exists. But, how to justify that the feeling that one experiences is an original feeling, not a psychological feeling or emotional response? One step backward, how to justify that one possesses the original heart-mind that can make categorical imperatives? One more step backward, how to justify that one possesses the capability of distinguishing the good from the bad (the good human nature)? I. From Discursive Understanding (jiewu解悟) to Experiential Confirmation (tizheng體證)7 The heart-mind and human nature advocated by Mengzi are not merely internal moral principles, they also refer to the inner capability: because of this human nature, one can make moral judgments as categorical imperatives. This capability would be actualized through the original heart-mind. The original heart-mind would manifest itself at the right time. If human nature is not an abstract and static principle but contains a motivating force to actualize the principles, and moreover, if the

 See also chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”—Ed.  The term “experiential” is used here to translate “ti” which does not convey any sense related to “empirical.” Rather, the meaning of “ti” refers to one’s own inner experience. 6 7

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original heart-mind is not an empirical mind which is merely contingently observing the principles, then necessarily the heart-mind will manifest and human nature will actualize. Mou said, All rational beings possess this heart-mind. Since the heart-mind and the human nature are the same, how is it possible for the human nature not to have the capability to actualize? How is it possible for the heart-mind not to have motivating force? How is it possible for the original capability not to manifest, and can we possibly not act as motivated by the awareness of liangzhi (良知 innate moral awareness)?8 (Mou 1985: 36)

It may seem that Mou is implying that something’s existence is stipulated by defining concepts like the heart-mind, human nature, etc. Nevertheless, if one is aware of the original heart-mind at the very moment it emerges, then one will affirm that the original heart-mind and the original human nature substantially exist in the real world. It should be noticed that although the heart-mind has to emerge in the empirical realm, yet it itself is transcendental.9 When one confirms that the heart-mind exists in reality, one only needs to cultivate it by continuing practice. Here there are two senses of cultivation: one refers to the time before the confirmation, where “to cultivate” means to build up good conditions for the emergence of heart-mind, e.g. by reducing one’s desires; another refers to the very moment when the heart-mind emerges, then “to cultivate” means to experience it mindfully and repeatedly, and let the heart-mind stay in this pure unconditional state. Mou indicated that the reality of heart-mind is able to be recognized by pointing it out in the immediate moment (dangxia 當下). Moreover, since it can emerge in the immediate moment and can be retained and cultivated, then there is a platform for (moral) practice (Mou 1985: 36). The discursive understanding of the Principle, human nature, and the heart-mind is the intellectual base for the experiential confirmation of the heart-mind.10 On the other hand, the experiential confirmation of the heart-mind is the validation of the above-mentioned understanding in reality. The problem of the heart-mind and human nature can neither be resolved by conceptual analysis, nor does it constitute a system of objective knowledge. One needs to justify the heart-mind and the human nature through practice: firstly, to establish the discursive understanding of the substantial existence of them, then validate it as the situation arises; lastly, to transform the discursive understanding into experiential confirmation. This is a real justification of “human nature is good.” Mou said, The words in Mengzi are nothing but to inspire people to discover their true life and point out to them the same heart-mind possessed by all humans. From reading through Mengzi’s words to directing them to one’s own mind, one has to be conscientiously aware of one’s own original heart-mind and to render it emergent and activated. At the same time one also

8  The term liangzhi appears in Mengzi 7A15 indicating the capability of distinguishing the bad from the good without learning. Therefore liangzhi is another name for the original heart-mind. The idea of “liangzhi” was followed and developed by Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) who was one of the most influential philosophers of Neo-Confucianism in the Ming dynasty. 9  A more detailed explanation will be provided in a later section. 10  Mou said it is helpful for one to have proper understanding by explaining the truth analytically. Moreover, it can help one to direct the understanding to the mind Mou (1968: v.2, 194).

Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi… 475 needs to experientially examine oneself [to see] if the flow is really from the original heart-­ mind, and if it is functioning smoothly without even a tiny obstacle caused by personal desires. (Mou 1968: v. 2, 188. original emphasis)

Moving from the proper reading of Mengzi to directing the understanding to one’s own mind is an approach going from discursive understanding to experiential realization (tiwu體悟). It is remarkable that by “being conscientiously aware of one’s own original heart-mind and rendering it emergent and activated,” Mou revealed that the emergence of the heart-mind does not passively depend on waiting for its timely activation in response to some specific occasion. One can actively use one’s mind to validate the truth obtained by discursive understanding so as to render the heart-mind emergent, and finally reach the state of “apprehension by the heart-mind through contemplation” (moshi xintong默識心 通). Nevertheless, contemplation sometimes can be merely directed towards knowledge and have nothing to do with morality. Mou emphasized that the contemplation has to be combined with apprehension by the mind; that is, the approach should be from discursive understanding of the textual meaning to moral practice by which the doctrines in Mengzi are validated. Then through awareness and experiential self-examination, the heart-mind will really present its ceaselessly pure functioning. Apparently, Mou’s way of justifying the reality of the heart-mind is by moral practice and awareness in order to render it emergent. Therefore, an act of creating (moral actions) is equal to an act of justifying.11 II. Confirmation by Transcending Reflection (nijue tizheng逆覺體證Going against the Flow)12 “Apprehension by the heart-mind through contemplation” is close to Mou’s special terminology: “confirmation by going against the flow.” “Going against the flow” (hereafter signified by “transcending reflection”) is an approach to enlightenment which is in contrast with “going with the flow” (shunqu順取) (hereafter signified by “empirical apprehension” (to obtain moral knowledge). Mou elaborated these two approaches: “The practice of ‘going with the flow’ ([“empirical apprehension”]) follows the things that [incidentally] fall before our eyes to exhaustively understand their principles, and then uses these principles to determine what moral practice to adopt; that is, it uses knowledge to determine morality” (Mou 2015: 414). As opposed to the approach of empirical apprehension which conflates knowledge with morality, the approach of “transcending reflection,” in Mou’s words, treats morality as morality (Mou 2015: 415). It is not approaching morality with an epistemic attitude; rather, the moral practice adopted by this approach is to reflect so as to confirm the reality of the heart-mind, the reality of human nature, and the reality of Principle by transcending the empirical world. In explaining the meaning of “cultivating” in Wang Yangming’s (王陽明 1472–1529) “cultivating innate moral awareness” (zhi liangzhi致良知), Mou said,

 See below for details.  For the translation of “nijue tizheng”, see Mou (2015: 414), footnote 9.

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“The meaning of this ‘cultivating’ contains the sense of awareness. Cultivating starts with awareness. Awareness is also called ‘transcending reflection.’ That means to transcend from its emergence and consciously be aware of it, not letting it slide away” (Mou 1979: 229–230). He thought that innate moral awareness can always emerge at any time unexpectedly, and therefore one should be vigilant all the time so that one can be consciously aware of it when it emerges. He asserted, “Therefore the sense of ‘affirmation’ and ‘confirmation’ is already embedded in ‘transcending reflection,’ so that it is called ‘confirmation by transcending reflection’” (Mou 1979: 230). If one can affirm the innate moral awareness through “confirmation by transcending reflection,” then one can consciously render it emergent. Therefore if “confirmation by transcending reflection” is used as a way of justifying the emergence of innate moral awareness, then this justification itself promotes its emergence. “If innate moral awareness and the enlightened awareness (mingjue明覺) 13 are truly affirmed through the confirmation by transcending reflection, then they themselves are the conqueror of the personal desires and material nature (qizhi氣 質), and possess an irresistible strength to emerge” (Mou 1979: 230). Hence, the confirmation by transcending reflection as a way for justifying innate moral awareness expands it in that one transforms from being unaware to being aware, and the emergence of innate moral awareness changes from being contingent to necessary. Mou further elaborated, And, the awareness (jiao覺) of the transcending reflection is also not a way of placing the innate moral awareness and the enlightened awareness just there, then using another rootless awareness from outside to bring the awareness of it. This awareness of the transcending reflection is merely the vibration from the emergence of liangzhi and the enlightened awareness, and through this vibration it reflects14 itself. Therefore the awareness of the transcending reflection is the self-reflection of innate moral awareness and the enlightened awareness. It is innate moral awareness itself bringing awareness to itself. The ground of this are innate moral awareness and the enlightened awareness themselves. Saying that to be aware by innate moral awareness seems presupposing that there are subject (of awareness) and object (of being aware), but in reality it is merely achieving self-recognition of itself through its own vibration. Hence ultimately the duality of subject and object will dissolve into one: it is only a genuinely full presentation of itself (not sliding away). (Mou 1979: 231)

Innate moral awareness itself is aware of itself and recognizes itself through its own vibration, and Mou said that by so doing the duality of subject and object dissolves into one. In this dissolution the sequence of time is also eliminated. It is not the case that it vibrates first then reflects itself, because being aware of innate moral awareness means it presents in our mind, hence to emerge is to present. Since the mind where innate moral awareness presents is not a cognitive mind and presenting is not forming a subject-object relationship, therefore presenting is the same as emerging in that it is a self-awareness without the duality of subject and object. To be aware of it is to justify it. It is notably that the justification in question is necessarily a way  I adopt the translation by Su. See Mou (2015: 28), footnote 9.  The word “reflect” here was used in a metaphorical way: when innate moral awareness presents in the mind, then the mind is like a mirror and reflect itself as innate moral awareness.

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of excluding the duality of subject and object. Justification in general is to justify a claim by a certain reason, but for inner experience (e.g. the feeling of unease) it should ultimately be self-justified. The essence of innate moral awareness is self-awareness. Through transcending reflection one would be awakened from one’s obscure material desires. Then the freedom of will is activated and the state of self-determination is achieved. Yet sometimes innate moral awareness only emerges in germs, so one should consciously cultivate and expand them and not slide away from innate moral awareness. At those times one is to recognize innate moral awareness itself by awareness, and “this awareness is not a heterogeneous thing external to the original heart-mind, but it is the original heart-mind holding itself upright and being aware of itself” (Mou 1979: 166). This is the above-mentioned self-recognition without the duality of subject and object. Since it recognizes the original heart-mind, therefore it constitutes the justification. We can summarize the above discussion as follows: Speaking from the passive side, one should affirm innate moral awareness without sliding away when it emerges. Since the emergence and the affirmation do not take the dualistic form of subject and object, therefore both of them arise simultaneously. We may say that the emergence itself is the justification. We do not need a meta-sense of justification. Speaking from the active side, one can achieve “apprehension by the mind through contemplation” in moral creation, and maintain this apprehension in virtuous action, then render innate moral awareness emergent. Therefore innate moral awareness is justified through moral creation. It is impossible for someone who has not been aware of innate moral awareness to justify it.

4  M  ou’s Justification of “All Humans Possess Good Human Nature” Mengzi said, “The heart-mind of compassion is possessed by all human beings.” Also, “Those who do not possess the heart-mind of compassion are not human beings” (Mengzi 2A6). Granted that we do not treat this claim (all human beings possess the original heart-mind, of which the heart-mind of compassion is one) as a truism about human beings but a truth about reality, then we face a problem of how to justify it. The justification required here is different from the justification of possessing the original heart-mind by oneself, because the confirmation by transcending reflection needed for the latter cannot lead to the affirmation that the original heart-mind is also possessed by other people. Regarding the justification in question, Mou used the concept of the Way (Dao, Tiandao 天道) in the discussion of Cheng Hao’s view on “inborn is what is meant by the nature.”15

 Although both Gaozi and Cheng Hao agree on the view that every being possesses the inborn qualities of life to come to exist, for Gaozi these qualities are composed of natural dispositions,

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Cheng Hao said, “It is production which Heaven regards as its Way” (Cheng and Cheng 1981: 29). Mou explained that the production mentioned refers to the capability of creation (Mou 1968: v. 2, 137). Humans and things are endowed by the Way of creation to form their nature, this is also what is meant by “what is endowed from Heaven is nature” (The Doctrine of the Mean中庸, ch. 1) and “the functioning changes of the Way of Qian (乾道) fulfill each one’s nature and life” (Yizhuan, “Tuan Zhuan” 彖傳, 1:1). Humans are endowed by the Way of creation so as to possess ren as their nature, which represents the innate capability of moral creation. Along this line of thinking, it allows another interpretation of “the inborn is what is meant by the nature,” which is understood through the idea of “cosmo-ontological mode of vertical formation [of nature]” (Mou’s terminology) (Mou 1968: v. 2, 148).16 Since the original nature of humans and the Way are all the same as the Principle of creation, it makes the claim that “He who has fully activated his heart-­ mind apprehends his human nature. Apprehending his human nature, he apprehends Heaven” (Mengzi 7A1) intelligible. “Full activation” in the phrase “fully activates the heart-mind” means “full manifestation.” The heart-mind fully activated is the original heart-mind of ren, yi, li, and zhi. Mengzi’s advocacy that human nature is good was made by the approach of “apprehending human nature through the heart-mind of ren, yi, li and zhi.” This is the real nature of humanity which differs in value from the nature of dogs and horses; it is also the nature of moral creativity. If you can fully manifest your original heart-mind of ren, yi, li and zhi, you can apprehend your real nature of moral creativity. In this sentence more emphasis was put on the word “full activation” than the word “apprehension,” since “apprehension” should be achieved through “full activation.” The apprehension can also be regarded as “practical apprehension,” which has the same meaning of “confirmation.” If you have confirmed your real nature in this way, then you get to apprehend Heaven as Heaven. This sense of apprehension is also understood as confirmation, which means confirming through practice.” (Mou 1985: 132, original emphasis)

“What is endowed from Heaven is nature” does not only apply to humans; things are also endowed from Heaven as their nature when they come into their individual existence. Cheng Hao said, “‘Change means production and reproduction.’ Once things are produced, all possess this Principle completely. Human can extend [the Principle] whereas things cannot, because the qi (氣vital force) of things is obscure; we should not say that other things do not have [this Principle]” (Cheng and Cheng 1981: 33). According to Mou, the Principle of Creation manifests in things only as the principle of formation. It can only potentially exist as their nature, but without the function of realization and emergence (Mou 1968: v. 2, 158). However, being a human, he has the Principle of Creation as his human nature. From this perspective, “all humans possess good human nature” is guaranteed by the Way.

desires and abilities that make one species different from another, whereas for Cheng Hao the inborn quality refers to the productive power which is commonly shared by all kinds of things. 16  “Vertical formation” means a top down creation of things by Heaven. Also see Wong (2017a) for the detailed exposition of the relationship between the Way and human nature.

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Having said that the Way guarantees the universality of good human nature, yet the latter is not stipulated by the former. Otherwise, the morality based on it would become heteronomous. If it is stipulated by some outer force, then morality has no independently substantial meaning, i.e. it is only heteronomous but not autonomous morality. But it is a negation of morality and self-contradictory if it is not autonomous. Therefore morality cannot be heteronomous and is necessarily autonomous. Hence “morality is autonomous” is an analytical proposition. (Mou 1985: 133)

On the contrary, Mou maintained that the content of the Heavenly Way is verified by the moral creativity of humans. Since “what is endowed from Heaven is nature,” thus the Heaven that endows humans with the capability of moral creation to form their nature must itself be the origin of moral creativity. Mou called it creativity itself, the same as the Way of Creation. Contrarily, we can infer from the innumerable things to assert a transcendental substance (God or Heavenly Way) that produces or creates them, and this is completely determined by human’s moral heart-mind and the true nature of human’s moral creativity. In other words, that Heaven has such a meaning, i.e. the meaning of creating innumerable things, is completely verified by our real nature of moral creativity. Apart from this, we definitely cannot have another way to verify that it has such meaning. Therefore we can apprehend our nature if we fully activate our heart-mind, and we can apprehend Heaven as Heaven if we can fully activate our heart-mind and apprehend our nature. (Mou 1985: 133, original emphasis)

Therefore, the only way of justification of the Heavenly Way depends on one’s confirmation of one’s own heart-mind and nature. But this confirmation is by no means a cognitive kind of confirmation, rather, it is “an affirmation of practical reason” (Mou 1985: 134). Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 (1139–1193) said, Mengzi said one who has fully activated his heart-mind apprehends one’s human nature, and apprehending one’s human nature, one apprehends Heaven. The heart-mind is the one and only one heart-mind. The heart-mind of somebody, that of my friends, that of the sages or virtuous persons of the thousand years in the past, and that of a sage or virtuous person of the thousand years ahead, are the same as such.

If one can confirm one’s own heart-mind which is equipped with the capability of moral creation, then one can derive from this that other people also possess this heart-mind. It is because that the heart-mind is the Principle and the Way of Creation and this Principle and Way does not only bestow the capability to me as my nature, rather, it should also bestow it to other people as their nature. Cheng Hao said, “Mere heart-mind itself is Heaven. By fully activating his heart-mind one can apprehend his own nature. By fully apprehending his own nature one will apprehend Heaven. (One version is ’nature is Heaven’). We should adopt this [relationship] and should not search from outside” (Cheng and Cheng 1981: 15). “Mere heart-mind itself is Heaven” reveals that there are no restrictions to the heart-mind: he who has fully activated his heart-mind will necessarily apprehend his human nature, and he who has fully actualized his nature will fully actualize other people’s. He who has fully actualized other people’s nature will fully actualize the nature of things. He who has fully actualized the nature of things can

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assist Heaven and Earth in the task of cultivation. He who has assisted Heaven and Earth in the task of cultivation can join Heaven and Earth. From the full activation of heart-mind to the apprehension of Heaven to the joining of Heaven and Earth, one has gone through the full actualization of human nature and things without boundary. In the horizon (jingjie境界) of unity of human and Heaven, oneself, other people, things, and Heaven all become one. Other people’s good nature is fully actualized simultaneously with the full actualization of one’s own. There is no more distinction between the self and the other. The problem of justification turns from a cognitive requirement to a self-actualization goal: to achieve the horizon through practice. The (theoretical) significance of the problem is also eliminated by dissolving the duality of subject and object.

5  The Justification of Other Minds by Tang Junyi How can one know there are other people besides oneself? Also, how can one know there are other minds besides one’s own? Moreover, how can one know that another mind is as same as one’s own, which is an infinite mind? In the two big volumes of his last monograph Life-Existences and Horizons of the Mind (Shengming cunzai yu xinling jingjie 生命存在與心靈境界) (Tang 1977), Tang Junyi placed these questions at different horizons and examined them respectively. The answers differ in accord with the feature and mode of existence of other minds shown in the particular expansion and transcendence of the horizon. Therefore, there is no single answer to the question concerning other minds; the answer only reflects the horizon that the replier posits. For example, in the horizon of “unconnected independent individual units,” I and other persons are merely facing and looking at one another and each thinks that he is a unique individual (Tang 1977: v. 1, 101). One more example: in the horizon of subjective perception, we recognize the existence of other minds through our perception of the bodily activities of these minds (Tang 1977: v. 1, 339). Tang said, I can substantially perceive my consciously self-reflective mind and the existence of its feelings towards other people. Can I also substantially perceive the same mind and existence of the feelings of others? Philosophers always think that this is impossible. From what I mentioned in section 2 of the horizon of subjective perception: humans by perception can definitely substantially perceive the existence of other people and things, and humans have a self-reflective mind; also, they necessarily have rational thinking to infer from the same bodily movement by me and others to other people are perceivers as well. They can intuit that the origin of the same kind of bodily behavior performed by other people and I is that both belong to the “same kind.” I have further indicated in the horizon of abstract entity that this self-reflective mind can transform to a purely reflective mind. This capable self-­ reflective mind itself is merely a pure spirit (lingming靈明) initially without any forms and images. However, we can substantially perceive its existence and know its existence. Can we also substantially perceive the existence of this mind of other people and know its existence? This is a true problem that is always neglected by people and has not been tackled in the previous sections. (Tang 1977: v. 1, 633)

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If one confines oneself to a particular horizon and does not make transference (gantong感通)17 in any direction of forward or backward, left or right, upward or downward, then the existence of other minds can never be sufficiently justified.18 Tang maintained that it is of utmost importance to affirm the existence of other minds in the horizon of moral practice. It is because that if this is not affirmed, then the objective real world also cannot be affirmed and this would undermine the moral world. If we could not substantially perceive and know that other people have a mind, then we could not substantially perceive and know that the feeling in other people’s minds is not generated from perceptive activity but is generated from this ideal sense of reflection. The moral feeling of other people is such a kind of feeling. Now it is asked, can we have substantial perception of other people’s moral feeling? If there were no substantial perception, then our feelings responding to other people’s moral feelings such as gratitude, admiration, etc. would have no substantial perception as the ground. These feelings then also could not serve as real moral feelings. One also could not truly have those virtues like gratitude and admiration and this would undermine the moral world. Therefore this substantial perception has to be a real possibility. (Tang 1977: v. 1, 633–634)

Tang admitted that how this can be a real possibility and how this real possibility should be understood are extremely difficult questions (Tang 1977: v. 1, 634). Tang held that the affirmation of the existence of other minds is not obtained from imagination or reasoning; rather, it is through my perception caused by other people’s behavior and finding that this behavior is as same as mine. Then I can infer by reason and intuit by analogy that other people are also sensory beings. Moreover, my transference towards other people’s behavior helps me to perform moral behavior. On the other hand, other people also have transference towards my behavior and this helps them enact their moral behavior. In mutual transference and mutually assisting behavior, we can better affirm the reality of other people’s minds and will feel that the objective world is more real (Tang 1977: v. 1, 638). However, Tang pointed out that this feeling of reality is not the same with everyone. If I and other people lack transference and mutually assisting moral behavior, then I am not merely lacking affirmation of the reality of other people’s minds, but will also lack affirmation of the reality of the world formed of objective things mutually known by me and others. We may say, the more we are in the interpersonal or collective community where people mutually rely on their moral minds, meaning that they mutually behave morally towards other people, the more we can affirm the reality of mind and personality corresponding to other people’s behavior, and the more we can affirm the objective real world shared by people. Here, the stronger one feels the objective reality of this world, then the more this world appears to the person as a solid and real and not an illusory world. (Tang 1977: v. 1, 638–639)

 For detailed discussion of the meaning of “transference,” see Wong (2005: 201–204) &Wong (2017b: 71–78). 18  See also chapter “Beyond the Horizon: Late Work of Tang Junyi”, where “transference” is translated as “affective resonance”—Ed. 17

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The feeling of the reality of the objective world is not the same with everyone. It is because the affirmation of other people’s minds is not the same. As mentioned, the affirmation of other people’s minds is based on transference. If one keeps on increasingly assisting people, then one can keep on expanding the feeling of assisting. Furthermore, the horizon concerning assisting people will keep on elevating. This increasing, expanding, and elevating are without limit. When oneself and other people are in the unlimited living horizon of mind, one can detect that other people are subjects of unlimited meaning. Tang said, The events of assisting other people and the people being assisted can increase without limit. The feeling of assisting others can also expand without limit. The living horizon to which the events of assisting others belong can also elevate without limit from lower to upper. People can mutually perceive the virtues presented in their feelings of assisting others and respond to each other with virtue, and connect to each other with gratitude…they can see that their own moral minds are automatically growing subjects and are also subjects with unlimited meanings. When people encounter each other in a situation in which each of them is a subject with unlimited meanings, then each of them is simultaneously a subject who possesses an independent personality. They will have unlimited goals in various living horizons and each of them has formed by his own a goal of moral personality. (Tang 1977: v. 1, 640)

When one encounters with others with moral personality, he will see the others’ moral mind and moral personality, and form the value world of truth, goodness, and beauty where moral minds and moral personality are interrelated.

6  Tang’s Discussion of “Human Nature Is Good” Since his early writings (Tang 1991: v. 4), Tang advocated that the capacity of transference is possessed by humans, which constitutes their nature. Although such capacity is also possessed by things, only humans can consciously seek for more and better transference to an extent that they are able to abandon the mechanical control of their own past habits or external forces. We can see that this distinctive feature of human nature provides humans the possibility of being free from the control of other things. The emphasis on the possibility of expansion of transference conforms to the classical Confucian view that although humans possess good human nature, they need to strive for the growth and development of it. Tang also adopted the Confucian view that the ultimate goal for the cultivation of human nature is “the unity of Heaven and humanity.” Tang said that the reality of human beings does not necessarily exhaust the possibilities of humanity. This implies that the inborn nature of human beings is not determined and fixed upon their birth; rather, it can develop and transform and open up as many possibilities as possible. Contemporary scholars like Roger Ames particularly emphasized the aspects of freedom and creativity of human being as described by Tang. Human being thus characterized was marked by the notion of “human becoming” (Ames 2011: 87–157). So human “being” as well as human nature, is not something to be

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objectively understood; rather, it is humans who define themselves by their activities in familial, communal, and cosmic contexts. Nevertheless, it is misleading to represent human nature as completely indeterminate. It is the possibility of growth, cultivation, and refinement that constitutes the salient feature of the human nature and this possibility lies in the capacity of transference and the self-consciousness of expanding this capacity. Therefore, human nature for Tang is the capacity of transference. Ames concluded that Tang’s understanding of human nature in terms of growing and living in the process of person-making was not “so new” since this idea could be found in Confucian classics19 (Ames 2011: 133). However, in Life-Existences and Horizons of the Mind Tang presented a novel interpretation towards the thesis of human nature is good. He thought that humans are born in this world, “initially as a mere naked life sprung from the void, representing the inborn emptiness and purity, which is the flow of goodness” (Tang 1977: v. 2, 867). Since human lives are the manifestation of the flow of goodness, therefore human nature is also good. The original nature of this life existence is only “a life with spiritual awareness,” or “the spiritual awareness of life.” This spiritual awareness of life does not make any distinctions between I and non-I, and moreover, I also can make transference with non-I through this awareness. It seems that for Tang, the claim that human nature is good can only be justified if the fact that humans possess the capacity of transference is affirmed. Hence, the capacity of transference is crucial for the thesis. However, how to confirm that in reality humans’ mind possess this capacity? If this question is treated as a query concerning the truth of life existence or mind itself, then Tang would respond that the answer is depending on the horizon on which the life existence or mind are situated. We cannot single out the world and ask the truth or the reality of it. Nor can we single out the life existence or the mind itself and ask the truth or the reality of our own selves. Again, we cannot single out this activity or function and ask after all how many activities or functions really exist in the world or in the self. We can only ask: corresponding to what kind of life existence and mind, what kind of real manifestation of the world exists? And what kind of activities will be presented through the transference [with the world] by the mind and life existence? These activities affect the world and this life existence and the mind itself or my own self…. From the perspectives that the life existence and the mind have transference with each other, and that the world always responds to the transference, every world or horizon is not outside the life existence and the mind. Since the horizon and the world rely on the life existence and the mind, the life existence and the mind are called the real life existence and the mind. Moreover, its existence also exists in this horizon or world. The transference also only exists in this life existence and the mind, and in this horizon or world. (Tang 1977: v. 2, 931–932)

The transference can exist as the activities of the real human mind because humans can consciously act as the subject of the transference. Also because of this, the world that they view and the activities that they accomplish are unfolding in accord  Ames listed the Great Learning as an example. Apparently, there are many sources in classical Confucianism such as Mengzi as well as Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism which present this idea.

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with the aspects and depth of the transference of the subject. Therefore, the subject who can transfer exists in the horizon that he reflects and this horizon has to include the world where the subject is located. For instance, for matter which is unable to transfer, this world is a pure material world which is unable to transfer (or making no transference).20 On the horizon of moral practice, humans make transference with the existence of a moral subject and moral mind. Therefore the claim that “human nature is good” is real for the subjects who realize moral practice. But if one only singles out a world and wants to justify “human nature is good,” then the good human nature is treated as something outside the life existence and the mind. Such kind of treating good human nature is criticized by Tang as “not an ultimate view.” Here if someone insists to single out every life existence and mind, and views these from the horizon which has no transference, then this horizon with no transference is outside the immediate transference. It can also be said that it is beyond this life existence and mind. If someone singles out a world or horizon and says that there is no life existence and mind with whom he can transfer, then it can be said that this life existence and mind are beyond this world or horizon. (Tang 1977: v. 2, 932)

Therefore, the problem of whether human nature is good cannot be regarded as a problem about the objective world which can be justified by external evidence. From the perspective of Tang, one has to transcend one’s own mind from the horizon of moral practice to that of “interconnectedness of everything in existence” and view it from the inner mind, and then one can see the reality of the answer. Viewing from the horizon of “interconnectedness of everything in existence,” from the very beginning that the life existence comes to exist, it does not cling to anything, including the arbitrary distinctions which it later on makes. Humans begin to cling to different distinctions, such as distinctions between the I and non-I, objective things and the self, etc. The state of no clinging is good. Therefore, the meanings of goodness are manifold and closely related: 1. The original state of life existence where there no distinctions and no fixed clinging; 2. Humans can be aware that the present existence of their lives and other existence in the world are embedded by a Principle of “no clinging and self-transcending.” This Principle or Way is the goodness of original nature that makes living (sheng生) possible. Through this Principle, or Way, or goodness, or nature, one can transcend from within the self already shaped in this world, and also transcend from the world already shaped, then one can affirm the inner value of one’s own life existence as well as others’. Furthermore, one will aim at realizing the full meaning of this Principle, Way, and goodness. 3. There is a metaphysical origin of the spiritual awareness of life which enables the ceaseless growth, development, and flow of spiritual awareness. This metaphysical origin can be named Heaven, God, or Buddha nature (Tathagatagarbha如 來藏). Humans are endowed with the nature of creativity from this metaphysical 20

 Matter is even unable to make such a perception.

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origin. This origin can be understood as the flow of goodness and humans come to exist in this world with the original goodness (capacity of creativity) as their nature. So human nature is good in this sense. 4. Even though humans are endowed with the capacity of creativity from the metaphysical origin, one needs to issue the decree and prescribe to oneself things one is obligated to do. The content of the metaphysical origin depends on the specific content of the self-decree and self-prescription. In this sense the goodness of human nature is not just given but should be accomplished by self-awareness. 5. The ultimate goal of cultivating the human nature is to unite with Heaven, or the Way, which is the metaphysical origin of human nature. At his highest stage of cultivation, the contents of human nature and that of the Way are the same. There is no Way existing beyond human nature and vice versa. Human nature is just as good as the Way in its capacity of ceaseless creation.

7  Conclusion From the above discussion and clarification, we can see that both MOU Zongsan and TANG Junyi did not view the justification of human nature is good and the universality of good nature as an epistemic question; rather, they thought that it is a matter concerning real life existence and the heart-mind. One has to transcend oneself to the horizon where the duality of subject and object is resolved and where no distinctions are clung to through practice (not only limited to a narrow sense of moral practice), and the justification can then be confirmed. Therefore, if the question is misplaced and one wants to verify the answer by empirical facts or logical reasoning, then the criteria in that field (e.g. field of empirical knowledge) will never be satisfied and one will feel frustrated.21 But if one can transcend from this field then one can immediately see the infinite horizon beyond knowledge. Even though it is self-defeating to prove the existence of such a horizon by an empirical approach, the horizon can be reached by practice. All the arguments for its existence are bound to fail (by the criteria of science); nevertheless, the essential meaning for Mou and Tang’s teaching is to point out a non-empirical realm, in which the problem of existence and that of values can be accounted for. The former problem belongs to the field of metaphysics whereas the latter belongs to morality. It is only through practice that the problems of both these fields can be resolved. This insight is inspired by Mengzi’s claim that “one who fully activates his heart-­ mind apprehends one’s human nature, and one who apprehends one’s human nature, one apprehends Heaven” (Mengzi 7A1) and inherited by Mou and Tang. Mou said, “The goodness of human nature certainly addresses morality, but the human nature discussed in Confucian teachings is not confined to addressing only morality; neither is ren confined to addressing only morality. In other words, Confucianism

21

 See also chapter “Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory”—Ed.

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concerns itself not only with questions of ought, but also with questions of existence.”22 The contribution of Mou and Tang to the old debate on “human nature is good” is bridging the two fields in an articulated way for contemporary readers. Certainly the only way for real bridging lies in practice by the agent himself.

References Ames, Roger T. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Cheng, Hao and Cheng, Yi (程顥、程頤). 1981. The Works of the Cheng Brothers 二程集. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. (This is a collection that contains most of the Cheng brothers’ writings and conversations. It is an amended edition of The Complete Works of the Two Chengs二程全書 published in the Qing dynasty.) Mengzi. 1979. Mencius. D.C. Lau (tr.). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Mou, Zongsan. 1968. The Metaphysical Reality of Heart-Mind and Nature 心體與性體. Taipei: Zhengzhong Bookstore. (This work stands out for its extraordinary depth and clarity in the study of Neo-Confucian philosophy of Song and Ming dynasties. It provides a historical as well as philosophical framework to understand various systems of Neo-Confucian philosophy in that period.) ———. 1979. From Lu Xiangshan to Liu Jishan 從陸象山到劉戢山. Taipei: Student Bookstore. (This book is an exposition of the thoughts of Lu Xiangshan, Wang Yangming and the post-­ Wang school. It elaborates the opposition between the school of Zhu Xi and that of Lu Xiangshan.) ———. 1985. On Perfect Good 圓善論. Taipei: Student Bookstore. (This book discusses the problem of “perfect good” and “perfect teaching” from the perspectives of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism.) ———. 2015. Esther C. Su (tr.). Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy: A Brief Outline of Chinese Philosophy and the Issues It Entails. San Jose: Foundation for the Study of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tang, Junyi. 1977. Life Existences and the Horizons of the Mind 生命存在與心靈境界. Taipei: Student Bookstore. (This extraordinarily profound work integrates the most important ideas of Tang, including the understanding of the existences and the activities of human minds. In addition, the author exhibits different dimensions and levels of horizon that human beings can reach.) ———. 1991. The Spiritual Value of Chinese Culture 中國文化之精神價值. Reprinted in The Complete Works of Tang Junyi (唐君毅全集Tang Junyi quanji), v. 4, Taipei: Student Bookstore. (This book was first published in 1953. It represents the early ideas of Tang on the values of Chinese culture.) Wong, Wai-ying. 2005. Confucian Ethics: Its Substance and Function 儒家倫理:體與用. Shanghai: Shanghai Joint Publishing Co. (This book discusses important philosophical problems in Confucian ethics including moral dilemmas, the nature of Confucian metaphysics and the meanings of the virtues in the Confucian ethical system.) ———. 2017a. “The Unity of Heaven and Man: A New Interpretation,” in Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 43–52. (This book facilitates dialogue

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 Mou (2015: 72).

Discursive Understanding and Experiential Confirmation: Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi… 487 between Confucian ethics and Western ethics. It discusses in what sense and to what extent Confucianism contributes to contemporary moral philosophy.) ———. 2017b. “Ren, Empathy, and the Agent-Relative Approach in Confucian Ethics.” In Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 71–78.

Contemporary Confucian Political Thought David Elstein

1  Introduction In 2009 Jackie Chan drew headlines for saying, “We Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want” (Jacobs 2009). Chan hit a nerve because he parroted one of the typical CCP arguments for maintaining their hold on power: China is not ready for democracy. Politics remains one of the most sensitive issues in the greater Chinese intellectual community today. Is democracy appropriate for China? If not, what form of government is? In the early part of the twentieth century, critics held Confucianism responsible for obstructing development of science and democracy. In response, New Confucians of the last century argued both that Confucianism in fact implies democracy, and that Chinese politics must reflect Chinese tradition and culture. This last point has then been taken up by contemporary defenders of meritocracy, who believe that sensitivity to Chinese tradition means limiting democracy and according greater weight to merit (variously defined) as a qualification for political office. This position, in turn, is rejected by defenders of a Confucian form of democracy, who argue that Confucianism does not imply political meritocracy. Political thought is one of the most important areas in modern Confucian philosophy because of the particular historical circumstances in which modern Confucian thought developed. After several hundred years of occupying a relatively unquestioned role as the dominant political ideology, in the form of being required for the civil service exam system, the role of Confucianism was thrown into doubt in the early twentieth century. The civil service exam system was abolished in 1905, Parts of this chapter draw on (Elstein 2014) and I am grateful for Taylor & Francis for permission to use this material. D. Elstein (*) State University of New York, New Paltz, NY, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_22

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the imperial government was overthrown in 1911, and some attempts at restoring the monarchy were short-lived. A number of intellectuals identified with the May Fourth movement attacked Confucianism as representative of everything backward about China, holding it responsible for the failure to modernize that made China unable to defend against Western and Japanese imperialism (Lin 1979). Liberals such as Hu Shi and Communists such as Chen Duxiu (one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party) joined in their criticisms of Confucianism as hopelessly outdated. Modern Confucian political philosophy formed in this atmosphere. The fall of mainland China in 1949 was another political crisis that spurred a great deal of thought about why the 1911 revolution had failed in producing a stable republic and instead led to two different dictatorships: the CCP on the mainland and the GMD on Taiwan. The major New Confucian thinkers of the period—Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Tang Junyi 唐君毅, and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀—all left mainland China due to the Communist takeover, but were almost as disgusted by the failure of the GMD in Taiwan to democratize. They were strong supporters of democracy, but also defenders of Chinese culture. Hence their aim was to determine why democracy had not taken root in China and to articulate a Confucian basis for democracy, to oppose the liberals who felt that Confucianism could only be an obstacle to democratic government. The next major phase in Confucian political thought can be traced back to the 1990s and turn of the century. Some Anglophone scholars began to look at Confucianism as a communitarian alternative to liberal democracy, offering a form of democracy that would avoid its flaws. Around the same time, then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore touched off the “Asian values” debate, arguing that liberal democratic values are not universal and Asian countries should follow their own illiberal and meritocratic traditions, particularly Confucianism. At this time China was also liberalizing and Confucianism was again supported as a subject of research. Some Chinese scholars supported variants of the Asian values position, arguing for a Chinese form of government with roots in Confucianism. However, they often tended toward meritocratic interpretations of Confucianism, not the democratic readings favored by the overseas New Confucians earlier. Contemporary Confucians continue to debate what form of government can best realize Confucian ideals in the modern world. No recent Confucian political thinker proposes a return to the imperial system, so all confront the question of how to adapt traditional Confucian political thought to very different social, economic, and cultural conditions. There is essentially no dispute that Confucian politics should be democratic to a degree: the question is how much democracy as opposed to selection on merit. This chapter will begin with a representative New Confucian view, followed by an examination of significant recent work on Confucian political thought. I will focus primarily on Sinophone Confucian thought in Asia, but will bring in relevant work by scholars publishing in English. The structure of the political system is still the burning question, but what sorts of values a Confucian government ought to promote in education, the economy, and international relations are also attracting attention. Political thought is one of the most vibrant areas of

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contemporary Confucian philosophy, motivated to a significant degree by dissatisfaction with current politics. There has always been a practical, even existential, dimension to contemporary Confucian philosophy, and this is very evident in its political thought.

2  New Confucian Democracy Philosophically speaking, New Confucian political thought developed as a reaction to the May Fourth rejection of tradition, which branched into liberalism and communism. Politically, the major New Confucian thinkers were not only strongly (often virulently) anti-communist, but also profoundly disappointed by the Nationalist government on Taiwan, which was using Confucian thought to justify submission to the regime. While they favored democratic government, they opposed liberal philosophy. The 1958 “Manifesto on Behalf of Chinese Culture,” co-authored by Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, and Zhang Junmai, was a defense of the value and importance of Confucianism in the face of attacks against it (Solé-­ Farràs 2014: chap. 4). In the remainder of this section, I focus on Mou Zongsan’s approach to Confucian democracy. Mou is often taken as representative of New Confucian philosophers by critics of New Confucianism and so deserves particular attention.1 Mou’s political thought features two important innovations that influenced much of the subsequent Chinese scholarship on Confucian democracy. The first is his idea of an indirect or dialectical connection between Confucian ethical thought and democracy. The second, closely related, is the belief that objective, democratic institutions are necessary to make possible the Confucian ideal of sagely rulership. This is how Mou addresses the complete absence of democratic institutions in the history of Confucian thought while still arguing for their importance.

2.1  Deriving Democracy Through Self-Restriction Mou distinguishes Chinese and Western modes of thought and associated models of governance. In politics, the Western mode of analysis meant distinguishing morality and politics, and a focus on developing political institutions which would be efficacious regardless of who occupied them. Hence the focus on rule of law, representation, and checks and balances, a method he terms “analytic.” Chinese philosophy, on the other hand, employed a “synthetic” approach which offered a moral solution

1  For more on Xu and Zhang’s political thought, see the respective chapters in this volume. On Tang, see (Fröhlich 2017).

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to politics.2 The character of government depends on the character of the leader. And so the political goal was “sagely rulers and worthy ministers” (shengjun xianxiang 聖君賢相) (Mou 1988: 184). There were no concepts of political authority, freedom, or equality, and no thought of specifying rights (Mou 1991: 129–130). So the problem in Mou’s view is not that Confucianism is fundamentally antithetical to democratic values, but that the Chinese mode of reasoning was not conducive to developing actual democratic practices. Democracy, he claims, is in fact a natural extension of the ideals present in Confucian political thought (Mou 1991: 122), a view characteristic of New Confucians. Specifically, the ideals Mou refers to are equality, freedom, and respect for the individual as a moral subject. The ideas were there, but not the means to realize them effectively in an institutional structure. Mou discusses the relationship between ethics and politics in terms of the connection between inner sageliness and outer kingliness (neisheng waiwang 內聖外 王), calling democracy “the new outer kingliness.” Mou distinguishes two types of connections: direct (zhitong 直通) and indirect (qutong 曲通). Developing democracy requires an indirect connection (Mou 1991: 55–56). The problem was earlier Confucians attempted to make a direct connection between inner sageliness and outer kingliness, and this is what led to the focus on sagely rulers and wise ministers, not democracy. In politics, the direct connection is between a virtuous leader and moral politics: the belief that a morally good ruler is necessary and sufficient for good government. Indirect connection is “a sudden twisting change, and it is a twist because it has a kind of ‘contrary’ element to it.” Mou gives another clue when he mentions dialectic: “This is not something that logical inference can achieve. Here, we come to understand the necessity of dialectical development.” The dialectical move is called “self-restriction” (ziwo kanxian 自我坎陷) (Mou 1991: 57–58).3 Mou’s own gloss is self-negation (ziwo fouding 自我否定), and this is a common translation (Tang 2002: 328).4 This term also requires some explanation. What Mou means is that the moral reasoning at the foundation of Confucian thought must restrict itself to allow for the development of theoretical or constructive reason so politics can be partly separated from morality. Democracy is not essentially a moral system. People can vote as they choose and are not required to evaluate candidates morally—elections are not limited to the virtuous. Democracy is not essentially a system for choosing virtuous leaders. This is why there can be no direct logical connection between Confucian morality and democracy. In the ideal of sagely rulers and worthy ministers, government is not independent from morality, 2  Mou uses a number of terms to distinguish the Chinese and Western modes of thought. For more detail, see the chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism” in this volume and (Elstein 2011: 195–196). 3  Mou coined this term based on the Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經). 4  Thomas Metzger’s translation of “self-immolation” (Metzger 2012: 453) seems particularly inappropriate, both because the original hexagrams in the Classic of Changes refer to sink holes or pits that collect flowing water (Angle 2012: 26), and because this dialectical negation is neither complete nor permanent.

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as the possibility of good government depends on moral rulers and officials. However, traditional Confucian thought had no system to transmit power reliably only to sages and worthies. Only democracy can achieve that (Mou 1991: 59). Realizing morality in politics thus demands moral reason restrict itself so theoretical reason can develop, as only theoretical reason can produce the value-neutral democratic institutions to make this possible (Mou 1991: 59, 136–137). The very requirements of morality demand that morality limit itself. This is not a complete or permanent negation of moral reasoning. Mou cautions against thinking that doing away with morality and depending only on theoretical reasoning can work. In his view, this is the flaw with Western democracy. Once moral reasoning is restricted so theoretical reasoning can develop, the moral element must be restored so both are present (Mou 1988: 38–39; Mou 1991: 58–59, 92). Government cannot rely on institutions alone, as institutions ultimately depend on those who participate in them. This is Mou’s response to liberals who advocated complete Westernization, and his claim for the significance of Chinese thought for the West: each side has its own style of reasoning, but neither is sufficient on its own (Yan 1991: 206). The attempt to completely sever politics from morality cannot work. The dialectical method of the self-restriction of moral reasoning can overcome some of the apparent difficulties of justifying democracy through Confucian thought since this justification is understood to be indirect; however, it remains to determine what in Confucian thought can actually lead to democracy even in an indirect manner. In Mou’s analysis, the fundamental ideas for democracy are equality, autonomy, and the primacy of the moral subject. Democracy is necessary to realize these ideals. Mou derives an idea of equality from Confucian sources. He begins with respect for the life of the individual (Mou 1991: 117–118). What deserves respect is the potential in each person to become a moral individual (Mou 1991: 28). In short, the basis for democracy is the doctrine that human nature is good, originally formulated by Mengzi. While there seems little reason to attribute to Mengzi himself a view that persons as such deserve respect due to their moral potential,5 if one concedes that human nature is good it does seem to imply a certain kind of equality which one could make a case for recognizing politically. This becomes the basis for the democratic ideas that Mou advocates. He argues that democracy is in fact necessary to realize the goal of Confucian morality, to allow each person to realize his or her good nature. However, we must be precise about the kind of necessity this is. It is not logical necessity. There is no logical contradiction in an autocratic government allowing people to realize the goodness of human nature. It simply does not often work out. The necessity Mou talks about is dialectical, or as his follower Lee Ming-­ huei refers to it, practical necessity (Lee 1991: 8). It is a question of what kind of government is most likely to make possible the goal of realizing Confucian morality. Mou and Lee believe democratic government is. 5  Irene Bloom argues for attributing such a view to Mengzi (Bloom 1998 : 104–109). While I agree that it may be implied by Mengzi, in my reading he does not seem to have taken that step himself. Thanks to Steve Angle for drawing my attention to this.

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2.2  Democratic Institutions Mou’s democracy encompasses fairly standard liberal prescriptions on rights, rule of law, and political participation (elections). Where he begins to depart from liberalism is in his concept of freedom and his associated views on moral development. Furthermore, Mou’s democracy is explicitly metaphysical in character (and this is the source for much of the criticism directed against him). His commitments to a substantive view of human nature and its connection to heavenly pattern (tianli 天 理) are clear. When discussing the political structure, he spends most of his time on law. Though he recognizes the Confucian tradition has generally not endorsed law in favor of the transforming influence of virtue (Mou 1991: 135), he claims this is no great obstacle. Confucianism does not object to administrative law. Criminal law is a bit more complicated, as Mou recognizes that in Confucianism criminal law is inferior to virtue, and is something to be overcome (Yan 1991: 137). Unfortunately, Mou does not say whether he believes that is possible or whether criminal law is a necessary part of a functioning democracy. He gives much more attention to law that regulates political power. One of his great innovations is the argument that a system of defining and circumscribing the powers of the rulers does not restrict the power of potential sage-­ rulers, but in fact makes sagely rule possible. Mou thinks that law that regulates political power, what he calls regulative law, is unique to modern democracy; to wit, a constitution (Mou 1991: 137, 164). Since China did not have a true system of political authority, the constitution is also something without precedent in Chinese history, but is absolutely vital. Whereas Chinese culture has focused on rule by the virtuous, Mou points out that this means there is only good government when the right people are in charge, and when they are not it is lost. This does not mean rule by virtue is never attainable, but it is inherently unstable. The theoretical, analytic approach objectifies the idea of virtue in government, so it is the institutions that give government its morality rather than relying on individuals. When virtue is located in the political system rather than the individuals who hold power, rule by virtue becomes stable. Mou’s idea is to develop a constitutional structure that is conducive to virtuous rule, and sagely rule is then defined by the parameters in the constitution. Part of his concern with the traditional model is that sages are rare, so a government that relies on sages is subject to the changes of fortune. A collective rationalized process of realizing virtue is likely to work better than one that relies on a superlative individual (Mou 1991: 246). However, this might be taken to mean that when that rare moral exemplar is in charge constitutional limits go out the window. Realizing the dangers of this, Mou denies it: “No matter how great or divine an individual’s accomplishment in realizing his moral character, when it comes to expressing his character in politics, he cannot go beyond these limits (the highest principles of the political world); in fact, exactly due to his greatness, he must make these limits

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inviolate” (Mou 1991: 128). Sages always respect constitutional limits.6 A sage recognizes constitutional limits as necessary requirements of practical reason that make political authority possible. Rather than imposed from without, constitutional regulations are dictated by his own reason.7 Even a sage cannot have legitimate political authority without it being granted in accordance with the accepted structure for investing and transferring political power. The method of self-restriction to argue for the necessity of developing democracy (as well as science) has been influential and drawn substantial criticism. However, some form of the basic idea, that democracy is necessary to realize the moral commitments of Confucianism, allowing everyone to develop their moral nature, is widely accepted among New Confucians who support democracy. The distinctiveness of this approach is that it does not argue that democracy is simply more attainable than sagely rule or a second-best approach to government. Democracy is what Confucians should have worked for all along, if they had conceived of it and it were feasible for them to have done so. Now that it is, democracy should be the form of government Confucians advocate.

2.3  Criticisms of Mou’s Political Philosophy As one of the main architects of New Confucian democracy and the author of the most comprehensive and systematic New Confucian philosophy, Mou is the most frequent target for opponents of New Confucian thought. Here I focus on the criticisms most relevant to Mou’s democratic theory. One of the primary challenges is directed against Mou’s way of relating morality and politics. These are independent, but they are not wholly separated. He not only believed democracy absolutely had to have a moral basis, he also believed government must play a role in encouraging fundamental moral values, continuing the tradition of transformative education (jiaohua 教化) in Chinese thought. Yet Mou is aware of the problems latent in involving government in judging personal morality and he is critical of classical Confucianism’s lack of structures to limit this. Teaching, according to Mou, “means to teach the way of filiality, brotherliness, conscientiousness, faithfulness, ritual propriety, righteousness, and a sense of shame…. These are the minimal and universal way of humanity, not some external concept or theory added onto people. They are based on facts and the true way of human nature and human characteristics” (Mou 1991: 126). It is requiring moral standards in government, education, and other domains that drew the criticism of “pan-moralism” (fandaodezhuyi 泛道德主義) from Taiwanese liberals.

6  This is particularly ingenious, since it implies that anyone who attempts to amend the constitution to remove limits on his or her power is ipso facto not a sage. 7  I am indebted to He Xinquan for very helpful discussion of this issue.

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“Pan-moralism” describes the encroachment of moral values beyond their appropriate limits. It appears to have been coined by the Taiwanese liberal philosopher Zhang Foquan in his important book Freedom and Human Rights (Zhang 1993). An excellent definition is Wei Zhengtong’s: “‘Pan-moralism’ is for moral consciousness to expand beyond its proper bounds and encroach upon other cultural spheres (such as literature, politics, or economics). Morality becomes their master and forces them into subordinate status” (Wei 1986: 85). Zhang did not specifically categorize Confucianism as a kind of pan-moralism, but Mou took Confucianism to be his target. In response, Mou separated the very limited moral instruction that the government could provide from the personal goal of becoming a sage. Individual moral practice should be demanding and have no limit. Governmental and social moral education must be more modest: “These are just rules for preserving a typical humane life. This can only be external preservation. It cannot be a deep internal quest, nor can it be a profound demand. This ‘cannot’ is an impossibility in principle; this is a fundamental limitation on government” (Mou 1991: 127). Trying to deny the importance of a moral element to governing, however, leads to the vice of “pan-politicism” (Mou 1991: 60–61). While Mou did not expand on what he meant by that, he seems to mean a condition in which conformity to political values becomes an overriding standard; he goes on to say communism is a form of pan-politicism. In recent years, prominent scholars on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have charged that New Confucianism is too theoretical and has lost the true spirit of Confucianism, which is practical action. Mou Zongsan is usually one of the primary targets, no doubt due to his great influence and reputation as the most philosophical of the second-generation New Confucians (Chan 2003; Zheng 2000: 223–226). Two exemplars of this criticism are Lin Anwu 林安梧 in Taiwan and Zheng Jiadong 鄭家棟 in China. Lin states that though Mou Zongsan talks about praxis, “this is just praxis guided by a theory that takes priority.” According to Lin, in Confucianism praxis is primary, and it cannot become a way of thinking where praxis is shaped by theory. He refers this as the “intellectualization” of Confucianism, and believes it makes praxis impossible (Lin 1992: 76–77). The way to avoid the failings of earlier Confucian thought, particularly its tendency to be co-opted to serve the goal of political domination, is to emphasize practice and avoid metaphysics (Lin 1998: 47–48).8 Mou does not give practical advice for realizing democracy but only theory, when according to Lin what is necessary is to learn how to realize democracy, not a theoretical explanation of how it is possible (Lin 1998: 36; Makeham 2008: 179). On the mainland, Zheng Jiadong has a similar view about the intellectualization of Confucianism to the detriment of praxis, and also points to Mou as an exemplar of this shift. He describes how New Confucianism became increasingly divorced from history from the May Fourth period on, until it became a purely conceptual

8  Lin argues that Confucian moral and metaphysical theories have led to a domineering politics, what he calls the problem of the “misplaced Dao.” See (Lin 2003: 37–62).

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kind of Confucianism with no relationship to actual history (Zheng 2004). In a tragic manner, he laments how issues of moral awareness and praxis have become academic matters not tied to actual action, and Confucian thinkers have worked on perfecting theories instead of realizing them. This, he says, is the true crisis faced by Confucianism (Zheng 1997: 6). While he sees this as to some extent unavoidable, he wonders if it is still possible to unite the pursuit of learning with the practice of the Way (Zheng 2001: 193–194). Zheng is less critical of Mou than Lin Anwu, seeming to attribute this shift to historical factors beyond Mou’s control, but he is no less concerned about the future of Confucianism. Of course, such concerns about the real-world impact of their activities are not new or unique to Mou Zongsan and New Confucianism. Confucians have faced such criticism for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

3  Confucian Meritocracy 3.1  Jiang Qing While liberals attacked Confucianism for not being liberal enough, more recent criticism in China holds that New Confucians were too liberal and uncritically adopted Western democracy, neglecting how it conflicts with Chinese tradition. A number of scholars, including Jiang Qing 蔣慶 and Bai Tongdong 白彤東, believe liberal democracy is inconsistent with Confucian political values and runs into major practical problems. They agree that the people’s will should be taken into consideration, but the Confucian respect for ability requires limiting the influence of popular will with some form of meritocratic power. They want government to represent the people’s true will, not merely their subjective preferences. In the course of defending meritocracy, they criticize Mou Zongsan’s liberal New Confucianism. Jiang Qing distinguishes two aspects of Confucian philosophy: ethical Confucianism (xinxing Ruxue 心性儒學) and political Confucianism (zhengzhi Ruxue 政治儒學). He believes these were independent traditions, and objects to basing the Confucian political structure on the ethical goal of realizing moral subjectivity (Jiang 2004: 162, 164). In reality, the more important distinction for Jiang is China and the West. Democracy is a Western political system and for that reason cannot be compatible with Chinese tradition. Any philosophy such as Mou’s which attempts to justify democracy through Chinese thought is doomed to fail (Jiang 2004: 166). For this reason, Jiang does not give much serious attention to Mou’s arguments that democracy is practically necessary for realizing Confucian values. He denies that Mou’s concept of “self-restriction” can be found in Confucian tradition (Jiang 2003: 73–93), but that simply means it is Mou’s innovation, not that the argument that democratic institutions will provide a better foundation for Confucian ethics is wrong.

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Lee Ming-huei, a follower of Mou Zongsan, takes issue with Jiang’s characterization of New Confucianism and democracy on several levels. Lee seriously questions the distinction between ethical and political Confucianism, and implies Jiang mistakenly conflates the historical development of democracy with its theoretical justification (Lee 2013). It is a contingent historical fact that democracy developed in Western countries. That does not mean that democracy is only appropriate for Western cultures, or that wanting democracy is a result of being brainwashed by Western thought. Jiang ignores the fact that Chinese people “have struggled for democracy not solely because of pressure from powerful Western cultures, but also by their own rational choice” (Lee 2013: 19). Jiang appears to believe there are absolute boundaries between Chinese and Western cultures, a claim increasingly hard to sustain. He simply uses this as a move to define New Confucians as excessively Westernized and thus avoids evaluating the merits of their arguments. His simplistic criticism of New Confucianism aside, Jiang does deserve credit for creating the most sophisticated alternative Confucian political system. It is a very provocative model, and if not wholly convincing, it does provide food for thought about what a Confucian government should be. A chief problem with democracy is excessive reliance on popular will, which is but one source of political legitimacy. Jiang’s solution is balancing three different sources of legitimacy: the sacred, the popular, and the historical-cultural. He bases this structure on the Gongyang commentary, one of the Confucian classics.9 In Jiang’s view, most Confucian scholars in recent centuries have focused excessively on ethical Confucianism, meaning individual moral development. They neglected the other very important aspect of the Confucian tradition, political Confucianism, which the Gongyang represents (Jiang 1995: 1–60). In the Gongyang, the kingly way is defined as harmonizing heaven, earth, and humanity, and this is the inspiration for Jiang’s threefold legitimacy: the sacred represents heaven, the popular represents humanity, and the historical-cultural represents earth (Jiang 2012: 28). A government must embody all three forms to be truly legitimate; otherwise it falls into one extreme or another. In Jiang’s proposal for China, this threefold legitimacy is embodied by a tricameral legislature in which each house represents one source of legitimacy. The houses collectively choose the executive and chief justice. These houses are the House of Confucian Tradition (tongru yuan 通儒院), the House of the People (shumin yuan 庶民院), and the House of Cultural Continuity10 (guoti yuan 國體院). These represent the sacred, popular, and the historical, respectively. The House of Confucian

9  The Gongyang is a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, an ancient history traditionally held to be compiled by Kongzi. The Gongyang tradition believes Kongzi choose subtle wording (weiyan 微言) to make his judgments about the events in the Annals evident to careful readers. For more on the Gongyang’s use in political thought in earlier Chinese and Japanese history, see (Wood 1995). 10  I adopt this translation from (Bell 2008), since I believe it captures Jiang’s meaning better than a literal rendering, such as House of the Nation’s Body. For Jiang, this house represents the main cultural traditions of a particular sovereign state.

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Tradition will be filled by a mix of noteworthy Confucians recommended by the community, and those who graduate from government-established Confucian academies, successfully pass an exam, and complete an internship in government. This is intended to continue the custom of filling government offices through a combination of recommendation and examination in earlier Chinese history. The representatives of the House of the People are chosen through a combination of general election and election within functional constituencies (Jiang 2004: 313–314). The House of Cultural Continuity will be made up of hereditary and appointed representatives. The hereditary representatives include the descendants of the Kong family (Kongzi’s descendants), the former ruling families of China, and famous figures in Chinese history. Appointed representatives may include retired officials, professors of Chinese history, and representatives of the main religions of China. Appointments will be made by the symbolic monarch, who leads this house. Bills must pass at least two of the houses to become law, but the supremacy of sacred legitimacy is represented by giving veto power to the House of Confucian tradition, so that house can veto any legislation passed by the other two but cannot pass bills on its own (Jiang 2012: 41). Each source of legitimacy can check the other two, so no one house will have too much power. Jiang’s scheme thus avoids the danger of excessively favoring one kind of legitimacy. Recently Jiang has added two additional institutions to his model for China: the first is the symbolic monarch briefly mentioned above and the second is the Academy. It seems that Jiang has in mind a type of constitutional monarchy, though as I will show, the symbolic monarch might not be so symbolic. Historical continuity requires not just a branch of the legislature to represent historical-cultural legitimacy, but also a symbolic ruler to embody the nation and its history (Jiang 2012: 73). This office represents the state as opposed to the government, though Jiang seems to mean something closer to “nation” than state, since he distinguishes this from any particular government. Since heads of government change regularly, without a hereditary office there is no one to represent the historical nature of the state or serve as a lasting focus of loyalty and patriotic respect. The symbolic monarch will be the scion of the Kong family. Jiang suggests he should be given the title of King for his new role (Jiang 2012: 83–85). The monarch serves this symbolic role and officiates at ceremonial occasions such as signing treaties, granting state honors, appointing officials, and the like (Jiang 2012: 77–79). His main substantive power is appointing the members of the House of Cultural Continuity (Jiang 2012: 88). If the king can also dismiss the members at will, he actually has a great deal of power, since the House will essentially do whatever the king demands. Jiang does not specify, but he probably means the king appoints representatives either for fixed terms or for life and cannot dismiss them at will. This would be necessary for the House to maintain its independence. Even the power of appointment is significant, and so I think the monarch has more than just a symbolic role. The other major addition is the Academy (tai xue 太學), a kind of overseeing body modeled after state-sponsored institutions of learning in earlier political and

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historical writings.11 The most important powers of the Academy are oversight of the government, control of training and examining scholars, mediating disputes between different branches of government, and recalling officials (Jiang 2012: 55–56). As the highest supervisory body, the Academy has the authority to judge all government policy, though Jiang does not say whether it has power to enforce its judgments or whether it is just for purposes of historical record. The Academy also administers examinations for top-level officials, not just for the House of Confucian Tradition, but all government officials of a certain level (Jiang 2012: 58). Although the Academy does not directly get involved in running government institutions, it has power of final decision in the case of intractable disputes between different governing bodies and has the authority to remove any top official for moral or legal breaches or performance failures (Jiang 2012: 62–63). Members of the Academy must be accomplished Confucian scholars of impeccable character and may be selected in a number of ways (Jiang 2011a: 84–85). The Academy acts to guarantee that the government practices Confucian values. The addition of the monarch and the Academy in particular make Jiang’s model of government even less democratic than his earlier proposals. This is all to the good as far as he is concerned. Besides the cultural reasons described above, Jiang has some more substantive objections to democracy. One main argument is that equality is one of the foundational principles of democracy, but Confucian thought does not have such a strong view of equality. Jiang concedes that while Confucianism recognizes a kind of theoretical or metaphysical equality, in actuality people are not equal and have different rights and obligations in consequence. Some people (sages) are intellectually and morally superior, and their role is to educate and enlighten the masses, who in turn should accept this teaching (Jiang 2004: 125–26). Even if people have the same nature, in actuality people develop this potential to different degrees such that some are better than others.12 Jiang does follow a significant trend in Confucian thought to see the masses as incapable of making good decisions and basing political participation on moral achievement, not equal potential (Jiang 2004: 27–28, 128–29). For him, inequality in reality trumps equality in theory. Jiang’s other main argument against democracy is that it marginalizes sacred values and leads to government focusing on short-term and selfish interests. As Jiang puts it, democracy is excessively secular and hedonistic (Jiang 2012: 29). Since elected officials must make a case for their re-election every few years, they end up pandering to the electorate and pushing difficult decisions down the road. This “bread and circuses” approach leads to discounting or disregarding the interests of three significant entities: future generations (both those who cannot yet vote and those not yet born), non-citizens (within the state and abroad), and the environment (Jiang 2004: 114, 303, 310).13 Elected officials have no reason in a democracy  The earliest reference I am aware of is in Lüshi chunqiu, a Qin dynasty text (Chen 2002: 209).  Jiang (2011b: 26) asserts that political Confucianism holds that human nature is bad, but since this claim is empirical while Mengzi’s is a priori, they do not actually conflict. 13  Jiang does not specifically mention non-citizens as a disadvantaged entity, but he does find it very problematic how democratic countries approach international relations based solely on their own 11 12

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to consider the interests of those who cannot vote, and so these interests will end up ignored.14 They will be sacrificed to satisfy the immediate desires of the electorate so elected officials can keep their jobs. Sacred values, on the other hand, are concerned with the wellbeing of the environment, the welfare of future generations, and humanity as a whole. Jiang’s idea is that sacred values can check the excesses of popular will and make sure the government looks out for the interests of those who do not vote. The absence of sacred values in democracy means desires run wild, with individual liberty as the excuse.

3.2  Bai Tongdong’s Critique These more practical concerns about the effects of focusing on the immediate, short-term interests of voters finds further development in Bai Tongdong’s criticism of democracy and arguments for a hybrid government. On the basis of both voter satisfaction and doubts about performance, Bai raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of democracy. He is hardly alone in this, but he believes these deficiencies come from deep systemic problems with democracy and cannot be addressed by changing how democracy operates, whether it is measures to increase voter education or reforms to campaign financing. These systemic problems require abandoning what might be the fundamental principle of modern democratic practice: the one person-one vote (OPOV) principle. Bai lists a number of reasons why one person-­one vote must be reconsidered for effective governance. Bai argues that OPOV institutionalizes an anti-intellectual and anti-elitist attitude and encourages suspicion of the power of government, making it more difficult to exercise. It implies that political knowledge and experience is irrelevant to power. Voters are encouraged to think their opinions are valuable no matter what they are based on and become suspicious of claims to superior knowledge. Political choices are thought of as expressions of preferences. If we want to know what most people prefer, one person-one vote is an excellent method.15 If we want to know what has an objectively better outcome, it may not be. Bai believes OPOV and its concomitant attitude are the source of the anti-­ government views and the emphasis on likability for candidates that are common in

interest (2004: 88, 288). It seems reasonable to extend this criticism to treatment of non-citizens within a state’s borders. 14  This is not entirely true, since political donations are another major way people can ensure politicians will care about their interests. For this very reason, democracies typically ban or restrict donations from non-citizens. In any case, Jiang decries the influence of money on elections and he certainly makes a good point (2004: 392). 15  Another interesting consequence for democracy is that if one assumes people are just slightly better than random at making the right choice, the number of voters required for near certainty is relatively small and allowing millions to vote adds very little in terms of expected outcome. A random subset could vote while the rest go about their day (Brennan 2009).

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the US. Rather than competing over who has greater expertise, candidates end up concealing aspects of their background that define them as part of the elite and try to show that they are “one of us.” People tend to vote for those like themselves, which means electing candidates who also profess to be anti-elite and despise government, and it is no wonder such officials think government can do little effectively (Bai 2012: 12–13; Bai 2013: 55–56). He also believes that this attitude explains in part the deep dissatisfaction with Congress. Bai also thinks that there are a number of difficulties concerning what interests are represented by this way of voting. In even the best case, non-voters are not directly represented. The decisions the government makes will affect a number of groups outside the electorate, yet they depend on the willingness of the electorate to consider their interests. Like Jiang Qing and Daniel Bell, who also point out this problem (Bell 2006: 162–163), Bai notes that the interests of non-citizens and future generations are discounted by this practice, and he also suggests it ignores the interests of past generations (Bai 2012: 13; Bai 2013: 56).16 The interests of those who can vote are also not evenly represented. Vocal and powerful minorities, particularly corporations, can be more effective at advancing their interests so the true majority interest is not represented. Even if this is not always the case, the appearance of corporate influence can contribute to voter apathy (Bai 2009: 56; Bai 2012: 13). Furthermore, he doubts whether voters can understand their interests well enough to vote for them or will take the time to do so. Given the increased size of modern states and additional complexity due to growing interdependence in economic and environmental affairs (to name just two arenas), it appears safe to say the circumstances facing modern citizens are significantly more complex than those contemplated by earlier advocates and practitioners of democracy. Several scholars have found voters frequently misunderstand what will actually advance their interests and other matters of fact that affect electoral decisions (Bartels 2005; Blinder and Krueger 2004; Slemrod 2006). Greater access to information might address this. However, there are questions about whether and how voters use information in decision-­making. With many other demands on their time and the effort required to sift through mountains of competing claims, many people may choose to remain uninformed and indifferent on many issues (Bai 2012: 20; Bai 2013: 63–64). The problem is compounded with the increase in disinformation on social media. Perhaps as a result of the difficulty in achieving comprehensive knowledge, voters focus excessively on their own personal, narrow interests instead of trying to determine what is best for the country as a whole, never mind the rest of the world (Bai 2012: 15–16). While democratic theorists argue for the importance of considering

 It may seem odd to talk about the interests of past generations, but it is probably easier than accounting for the interests of future generations. We have to speculate what future generations might want while we typically have a good deal of information about what past generations wanted. One might say that past generations cannot experience the effects of current decisions while future generations will. However, this need not be the rationale for considering their interests, which instead may be thought of as respect for their preferences, similar to following the wishes people express in their wills.

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common interests (particularly in deliberative democracy, e.g., (Cohen 1997; Gutmann and Thompson 2004; Rawls 2005)), the reality may fall well short. In Bai’s view, these problems require a complete rethinking of democracy; attempts at fixes within the system will inevitably fail. He suggests the size of modern states and complexity of the issues they face make it impossible for most voters to make effective decisions even if they were not apathetic, and so various measures to encourage people to become better informed will fail.17 A better system will preserve the beneficial aspects of liberalism while adopting a way of making political decisions that will produce better outcomes. One person-one vote must be abandoned.

3.3  Bai’s Egalitarian Meritocracy Bai’s solution to the problems of OPOV is straightforward: if people are unwilling or unable to make sound political decisions, their power should be limited. Political power should be reserved for those with the ability to use it well. In this way, Bai proposes meritocracy rather than democracy. However, Bai is more aware than Jiang Qing of the potential for meritocracy to become oligarchy. Preserving the democratic ideal of equality of opportunity is important to him, and thus I call his system egalitarian meritocracy. In addition, he recognizes the need for some democratic participation as a check on meritocracy. As with Jiang, we can distinguish two distinct dimensions of equality in Bai’s interpretation of Confucianism: the theoretical equality of human nature and the actual inequalities due to different levels of development. Even if people are essentially equal in potential, few ever manage to develop into wise and virtuous people (Bai 2009: 126). But although the right to participate in politics should be distributed according to moral and intellectual qualities, everyone should have a chance to develop these qualities (Li 2012: 298–299). These means government has two central responsibilities. The first is to provide the education and other conditions to allow all people to realize their nature. Then, for those who have developed themselves sufficiently, the government must ensure they have the time and energy necessary to devote themselves to understanding political affairs (Bai 2009: 47; Bai 2013: 75). The first responsibility points to universal education; moreover, it demands an educational system which insofar as possible really does give equal opportunities to all. How to fulfill the second responsibility is less clear. Bai states that there needs be to freedom of speech and the material conditions necessary to  Although Bai (2009: 51; 2013: 60–61) mentions Ackerman and Fishkin’s proposal of Deliberation Day (Ackerman and Fishkin 2004), it is unfortunate that Bai does not examine Fishkin’s work on Deliberative Polling, which has shown voters often do become better informed and change their initial opinions when given significant opportunity to deliberate with others (Fishkin 2009). In a personal communication (8/2/13) Bai agreed Deliberative Polling can be useful for local issues, but doubted whether it would be sufficient for informed deliberation on national affairs.

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make it possible to become informed. He mentions something like a deliberation day, but one day seems hardly enough to become informed if the issues are as complex as he believes. Many practical questions remain. The goal is to recognize equal potential while also acknowledging that real inequalities mean most people cannot participate effectively in government. The danger of allowing such inequalities, as Bai is well aware, is that those with political power will make decisions that benefit themselves, not the state as a whole. They will rig the system so that there is not true equality of opportunity, but set it up so their relatives and descendants will have advantages. There is then little to stop them from making policy that disproportionately benefits the ruling class. An additional question is whether qualified participants actually do make better decisions. Let us grant that point to Bai for now and concentrate instead on the moral issue: whether qualified participants, knowing what is best for the state, will actually decide to do that rather than what benefits themselves.18 Here Bai considers mechanisms to try to prevent this from happening. He notes that Kongzi, unlike many later Confucians, believed that perfection was hardly attainable by human beings, and so even the elite can fall victim to the pull of self-­ interest (Bai 2009: 44). While he hopes moral education will help, it is not enough (Bai 2012: 30). He discusses several institutional measures to control this problem. Foremost are a stable system of rule of law and certain freedoms (mainly freedom of speech and a free press). Rule of law presumably includes a constitution which would define and limit the power of the unelected elite, though Bai does not specify. The freedoms make it possible for people to know what the government is doing and monitor their decisions. This is another check on the elite pursuing their own interests. A democratically elected house, an idea he adopts from Daniel Bell, is another important check on the elite and provides the public the opportunity for some political participation. This “house of people” will not have the restrictions on participation of the elite house, which he usually calls the house of the experienced or simply the upper house (Bai 2013: 68).19 The house of people provides a check on the house of the experienced, so the elite cannot simply benefit themselves at the expense of the larger public (assuming laws have to pass both houses). Bai also suggests that the meritocratic house be large enough to make it difficult to form a united interest group. The idea is that the house of people checks the elite and the house of the experienced prevents the excesses of democracy. Although he ends up returning an element of democracy in the form of the house of people, Bai maintains his position that the good parts of liberal democracy—rule of law and certain freedoms—are separable from the flawed model of popular sovereignty. These are often conflated, but Bai believes they are theoretically and (more controversially) empirically distinct (Bai 2012: 31). His model of egalitarian  Steve Angle pointed out to me that even if the elite strive to act for the public good, unconscious bias may well tilt their decisions. 19  Joseph Chan also proposes an upper house in some ways similar to Bai’s, though with less power (J. Chan 2013: chap. 4). 18

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meritocracy is intended to preserve rule of law and protect individual freedom while showing these are not dependent on the one person-one vote principle.

4  Pragmatist Confucianism A major current in Anglophone Confucianism also reacts against liberalism, particularly the liberal model of the self. As opposed to the “unencumbered self” of liberalism (to use Michael Sandel’s phrase), these scholars believe in a fundamentally social self.20 In contrast to the excessive rights claims and competing interests that they find in modern liberal democracy, they aspire to a democracy of harmony and cooperative resolution of differences based on a very different view of the self. The view of the self as essentially constituted by its relationships is common in Anglophone scholarship, but is uncommon in contemporary Sinophone Confucianism. It is suggestive that a major point of emphasis in Western scholarship is rarely found in Chinese Confucianism.21 New Confucianism in general with its view of human nature is opposed to such denial of a self outside its existing relationships, though they agree that one’s community is a very important influence. For the contemporary Confucian Lee Ming-huei, communitarianism goes too far. Confucianism is absolutely not collectivism; the individual in certain aspects transcends society (Lee 2005: 235). While New Confucians are more interested in how public institutions contribute to forming the moral self, Anglophone scholarship often focuses on the role of the family and maintaining good family relationships. Some prominent Anglophone Confucians essentially want to privatize what is currently public: relating to others as family entails using informal means (ritual, habit, social pressure) to resolve conflict instead of relying on public institutions such as the courts. This side is best represented by Hall and Ames (1999) and Tan (2003). They use inspiration from John Dewey’s understanding of democracy as foremost a kind of community rather than a system of government. This insight is based on the realization that a government can be formally democratic without allowing the real communication that makes possible shared understanding and pursuit of common goals (Tan 2003: 65–79). Hall and Ames and Tan all emphasize ritual as a form of such communication that recognizes and reinforces relationality, instead of the antagonistic separation of individual realms of interest that they attribute to liberalism. They see in Confucianism a different kind of democracy that recognizes the primacy of relationships, a community that is more than just a group of people who happen to live in proximity. While they make an excellent point that elections alone are not sufficient for democracy, I am not convinced that the community they describe is, either. While Ames has more recently acknowledged that

20 21

 See also chapter “Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory”.  It may have been inspired by the work of sociologist Fei Xiaotong (Fei 1992: 60–79).

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objective institutions are necessary to sustain democracy (Ames 2011: 268), he says little about what those should be. While these scholars perform a service in pointing to excessive reliance on individual rights claims leading to an antagonistic way of relating to one’s fellow citizens, the solution of doing away with rights entirely goes too far. Stephen Angle points out that we usually feel there is something wrong with someone who insists on his legal rights at every possible opportunity, particularly when dealing with family and friends (Angle 2012: 143). But it does not follow that rights claims between family members are never appropriate. It is one thing for rights to exist; it is another to insist on claiming them. The mere existence of a right says very little about when or how it should be claimed or legally enforced (Rainbolt 2006: 151). Not having legal rights means it is never possible to claim them, which can perpetuate a great deal of oppression. It is true that Confucians have historically wanted to avoid relying on law for conflict resolution, pointing to the harm it can cause family relations. However, if those at the top of the hierarchy are not living up to their roles properly, informal methods of resolving disputes will be mostly ineffective. Harmony can become a label for unreciprocated and unequal sacrifices (Allen 2006: 38–48, 106–113).

5  Future Directions This question of the appropriate balance between law and harmony, or public and private resolution of conflict, is one of the major questions for contemporary Confucian political thought going forward. I will briefly describe what I think are the other important questions and directions for twenty-first century Confucianism. The question of meritocracy is clearly significant for Confucian politics. I think Bai Tongdong makes a good case that it has historically been an important part of Confucian political thought. Of course, that is not to say that it should continue to be. Any democratic government has meritocratic aspects: civil servants have to pass exams, appointments to certain offices are based on ability, and so on. What is controversial is meritocracy for distribution of political power. Using Mou Zongsan’s terms, meritocracy in the way of governance (zhidao 治道) is not contentious, meritocracy in the way of political authority (zhengdao 政道) is. A number of scholars have proposed various forms of Confucian meritocracy: in addition to Jiang and Bai I would also include Bell (2000, 2006, 2015) and Li (2012). Some of these have significant practical obstacles, but perhaps there are ways to resolve these. If so, a compelling case for some kind of meritocracy might be possible. International relations is another area Confucians have begun to touch on. The philosophers I have presented here all focus on domestic politics nearly exclusively, but international relations will only increase in importance as China continues to have a greater impact on the rest of the world. Confucianism here faces a quandary, because historically it has not been conducive to dealing with other countries on an equal basis. There is a strong sense of Chinese superiority in many classical texts,

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exemplified by Mengzi: “I have heard of the Chinese changing the barbarians, but never of the Chinese being changed by the barbarians” (Mengzi 3A4). This manifested in a sense that other cultures offered nothing significant to benefit China, a sense which lasted more or less intact until its radical reversal in the twentieth century. It did not produce a recognition of equality in other countries. Some Chinese scholars are recognizing the difficulties with this model and arguing for reconceptualizing it. Gan Chunsong has also argued for a more cosmopolitan understanding of tianxia 天下, the classical term for the world which put China at the center. He denies that Confucianism ever made distinctions based on ethnicity, and instead concedes that while classical sources imply Chinese superiority, this is superiority of culture, not ethnicity. Since other groups can learn and adopt Chinese culture, they are not forced into a position of inferiority (Gan 2012: chap. 2). However, culturocentrism is not necessarily a big improvement on ethnocentrism (Yin 2009: 251). It still treats others as unequal unless they are willing to discard their own culture and adopt another, but why should they have to? This creates another obstacle to a more inclusive outlook on the rest of the world. Confucians such as Gan evidently realize the need for an inclusive and cosmopolitan basis for relating to other countries, but how to justify this in Confucian terms remains to be seen. Rule of law is yet another area that needs to be worked out. Rule of law as a concept is accepted by just about every contemporary Confucian, but they do not always mean the same thing by it. New Confucians, such as Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan, thought of law almost exclusively in terms of a constitution that defines the government’s powers, and said virtually nothing about criminal and civil law. There are suggestions in their works that they follow Confucian tradition in seeing resort to punishment as a failure in itself and something best avoided. Above I noted the hesitation of many Confucians to give too great a role to law as the primary method of conflict resolution. Yet there are undoubtedly times when other ways of resolving conflict fail. In my opinion, Confucians should recognize that moral suasion has its limits and some people will not respond to it or not respond enough. In such cases, criminal and civil penalties must be applied. The difficulty, of course, is knowing when that is. With other scholars also concerned about overreliance on appeals to rights and excessive individualism in American discourse (e.g. (Glendon 1991)), this is an area where Confucianism may be able to contribute to larger questions in political philosophy and philosophy of law. Still another question is distributive justice. There are some vague suggestions in classical Confucian texts about moderating acquisition of wealth and standards of just distribution, but little more. The main twentieth-century New Confucian philosophers had fairly little to say about economic matters as well. “Confucian capitalism” became a common trope, due in large part to the work of Tu Wei-ming and the economic success first of Japan, then Taiwan, Korea, and China. Yet little is said about exactly how to address the question of distribution, which is becoming increasingly unequal in many East Asian economies. These questions show that even if the debate about Confucianism and democracy is resolved, many questions about what a Confucian government should do remain.

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Acknowledgements  Parts of this chapter were written while I was on a research fellowship at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taiwan, courtesy of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would like to express my thanks for their support. Thanks to Steve Angle, Daniel Bell, Chan Wing-cheuk, and Leigh Jenco for their comments on earlier versions.

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Solé-Farràs, Jesús. 2014. New Confucianism in Twenty-first Century China: The Construction of a Discourse. Routledge Contemporary China Series 108. New York: Routledge. (A look at the development of New Confucianism as a movement, focusing on the 1958 Declaration.) Tan, Sor-hoon. 2003. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany: SUNY Press. (An influential statement in favor of pragmatist Confucian democracy.) Tang, Refeng. 2002. “Mou Zongsan on Intellectual Intuition.” In Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, eds. Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, 327–346. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (An examination of Mou’s thought focusing on the significance of intellectual intuition.) Wei, Zhengtong 韋政通. 1986. Confucianism and Modernization 儒家與現代化. Taibei: Shuiniu chubanshe. (Contains one of the prominent criticisms of Confucianism as a form of pan-moralism.) Wood, Alan T. 1995. Limits to Autocracy: From Sung Neo-Confucianism to a Doctrine of Political Rights. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Yan, Binggang 顏炳罡. 1991. “Mr. Mou Zongsan’s Theory of Self-restriction and the Crux of Contemporary Culture 牟宗三先生的自我坎陷說與當代文化癥結.” In Collected Essays on Contemporary New Confucianism: Outer Kingliness 當代新儒學論文集: 外王篇, edited by Liu Shuxian, 197–214. Taibei: Wenjin. Yin, Haiguang 殷海光. 2009. The Future of Chinese Culture 中國文化的展望. 2 vols. Collected Works of Yin Haiguang, 1 and 2. Taibei: Taiwan University Press. (A defense of the need to develop liberal democracy in China and Taiwan.) Zhang, Foquan 張佛泉. 1993 [1955]. Freedom and Human Rights 自由與人權. Taibei: Commercial Press. (A major statement of Taiwanese liberal thought, containing the first criticism of Confucianism as “pan-moralism.”) Zheng, Jiadong 鄭家棟. 1997. On the History of Contemporary New Confucianism 當代新儒學 史論. Nanning: Guangxi jiaoyu. ———. 2000. Mou Zongsan 牟宗三. Taibei: Dongda. (A thorough examination of Mou’s philosophy, arguing that he is less Kantian than commonly thought.) ———. 2001. Tradition in Fragmentation: Between Faith and Reason 斷裂中的傳統: 信念與理 性之間. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. (Argues that Confucianism has become too theory-oriented since it has turned into academic philosophy, to the detriment of praxis.) ———. 2004. “Between History and Thought: Mou Zongsan and the New Confucianism That Walked Out of History.”  Contemporary Chinese Thought 36(2):49–66. (Zheng argues that thought and history were connected in traditional Confucianism—that is, Confucian ideas had an impact in history—but Mou Zongsan represents the transformation of Confucian thought into pure ideas disconnected from actual history.)

In Defense of Chinese Sensibility: Confucian Aesthetics in the 20th Century Su-san Lee

1  Introduction Several major aesthetic paradigms appear in modern China: firstly, the scientific, psychological approach represented by Zhu Guangqian朱光潛 (1897–1986); secondly, the classical, artistic approach led by Zong Baihua宗白華 (1897–1986); thirdly, the Marxist paradigm that has dominated China since 1949; and finally, the “aesthetics of life” (shengming meixue 生命美學) advocated by modern Confucians based in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Following the traditional Chinese humanistic tradition which cherishes culture, life, and living, modern Confucians argue that moral character is integral to the spirit of art. Aesthetics should aim at understanding the meaning of life, and creating a personality integrating truth, goodness, and beauty is the ultimate goal of aesthetics (Gong 1998: 9–24). These modern Confucians, including Thomé H.  Fang 方東美 (1899–1977), Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990), Tang Junyi 唐 君毅 (1909–1978), and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1903–1982), were warriors fighting a twofold battle. As the philosopher Thomé H. Fang laments, “As China declines during the recent century, it suffers not only from the invasive Western powers taking away its cultural properties, but also from the iconoclasts who denounce both contemporary and ancient philosophers, claiming that China has no culture at all” (Fang, 2004: 47). Under such a situation, these modern Confucians were determined to defend traditional Chinese sensibility against not only modern Western powers, but Chinese radicals as well. However, with the exception of Fang for a brief period of time, most of these Confucians wrote and taught in the Chinese world. Therefore, the enemies with whom they fought directly were the latter, not the former. They believed that the loss of Chinese mentality was a serious blow to the Chinese as well as to the rest of S. Lee (*) Department of History and Geography, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_23

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the world (Fang 1980: i). They were confident that the ideas they promoted were important not only for China, but for Western modernity as well. Although diverse in terms of their specialized fields of study, these scholars were concordant with each other in terms of many shared basic assumptions. In the discussion below, we will find that Tang Junyi echoed Thomé H.  Fang in terms of cosmology, Qian Mu shared similar ideas of Chinese literature with Tang, and not surprisingly, they all agreed with Mou Zongsan’s belief of goodness over beauty. Devoting one monograph to the spirit of Chinese art and two essay collections to Chinese literature, Xu Fuguan developed a more systematic aesthetic than his colleagues, but his critique of modern art was still based on the same ideas of nature and human nature as those of Fang, Qian, and Tang. To sum up, modern Confucian moral aesthetics include the following traits: (1) Art correlates with cosmology, human nature, and culture; (2) Moral character is integral to the spirit of art; (3) Aesthetics should aim at understanding the meaning of life; (4) Building a personality integrating truth, goodness, and beauty is the ultimate goal of aesthetics. With ideas overlapping or complementary to each other, their works formed a chorus earnestly calling for the revival of a cultural consensus which was dying out.

2  The Cosmological Assumptions of Confucian-Daoist Aesthetics The spirit of Chinese arts and literature is closely related to Chinese philosophers’ natural cosmology, their outlook on life, and the Chinese pattern of social and cultural existence. (Tang 1979: 291)

In The Spiritual Value of Chinese Culture, Tang Junyi points to the correlation of art with cosmology and culture. He argues that Confucians see nature as a vital, substantial, and continuous process of procreation and transformation; they discovered the great enterprise and high virtue of the Cosmos through nature’s richness and incessant changes. It was the appreciation of the beauty of Cosmos and nature which fostered the Chinese sense of art (Tang 1979: 117, 189). Moreover, the root of Chinese moral spirit also originated from the benevolence of Heaven manifested in both nature and human nature. In The History of the Chinese Philosophy of Human Nature, Xu Fuguan characterized the Confucian idea of humanity as follows: Man’s “mind”—or “reason”—contains both moral and cognitive faculties. The latter was neutral, passive, and susceptible to the drive of sensual desires; whereas the former, though minute compared to the other instincts, was what one can master and expand to distinguish oneself from animals (Xu 1990b: 165, 177). Everybody is equal in terms of this moral nature conferred by Heaven and as divine as Heaven. Without looking for an ultimate value elsewhere (e.g., God or the Platonic idea), such a postulation of immanence encouraged

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mankind’s sense of responsibility toward their behavior and guaranteed the meaning of their life in this world (Xu 1990b: 117–118).1 A corollary to this is that the relationship between humans and nature starts with direct empathy in feelings (Tang 1979: 188). Tang contends that the greatest feature of Chinese cosmology is the belief that nature embodies both the values of goodness and beauty. Even if natural disasters and social conflicts emerge, they can always be resolved by changes and adjustments, according to the Book of Change易經 (Tang 1979: 107, 189). That is why Chinese philosophers appreciate nature not just for its beauty, but also for the merits implied in heaven, earth, water, fire, and living creatures. Rather than celebrate the force or dynamism of primitive natural phenomenon, they prefer the plants (such as pines, bamboos, and plum trees) and animals (such as dragons, phoenixes, and turtles) which thrive peacefully, over the animals competing with or fighting each other (such as lions or tigers) (Tang 1979: 294–295). A similar correlation of perception can be found in Thomé H. Fang’s philosophy. Tang’s ideas may be partly influenced by the philosophy of Thomé H. Fang, who was his teacher at National Central University in 1920s. But more likely, the belief in the innate goodness of nature and human nature was widely shared by many classically educated Chinese intellectuals—including the liberal Jiang Menglin (1886–1964)—at that time (Jiang, 1986: 234–235). Thomé H. Fang also asserts that the sense of beauty is related to its sentiment of life based on the ideas of the universe (Fang 1987: 85). According to Fang, there are three kinds of relationships between humans and the universe: ancient Greeks see their relationship as the whole and its parts comingling harmoniously; modern Europeans consider their relationship as an antipathetic system of duality based upon bifurcation; and the Chinese view the relationship between man and the universe as a sympathetic harmony based upon essential relativity (Fang 1980: 72). In The Chinese View of Life: The Philosophy of Comprehensive Harmony, Fang is deeply skeptical of the Western “segregational mode of thought”: “Western thought is often permeated with vicious bifurcation which sets a number of things in implacable hostility. The universe seems to be a theatre of war wherein all sorts of entities or phenomena are arrayed one against another” (Fang 1980: 11). Based on such a mode of thought, they see Satan competing with God, nature confronting the Supernatural, and humans fighting with Nature. Within nature, the secondary appearance contrasts with primary reality; within a person, the ugly Edward Hyde debases the old Henry Jekyll. “In a word, the extreme importance of harmony is either simply ignored or hopelessly misconstrued” (Fang 1980: 11). By contrast, the Chinese mentality is best characterized by the cultivated sense of comprehensive harmony (taihe 太和). Nature is an infinite realm of the universal flux of life and life is perpetual creativity. Saturated with moral and aesthetic values, the universe represents an all-comprehensive momentum of life, not for a single moment ceasing to create and procreate, not for a single place ceasing to overflow and interpenetrate (Fang 1980: 1–2). Mankind and all creatures in this universe can

1 See chapter “Xu Fuguan: Realizing the Human Spirit” for more—Ed.

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enter into a fellowship in sympathetic unity to enjoy peace and well-being (Fang 1980: i–ii); as Zhuangzi states, “Being in harmony with Man is called human bliss; being in harmony with nature is called heavenly ecstasy” (Fang 1980: 131). This sense of “comprehensive harmony” permeates not only Chinese cosmology but also Chinese theory of human nature. Contrary to the doctrine of original sin in Orphic, Hebrew, and Christian religions, there is “not a single trace of the doctrine of original sin in Chinese thought” (Fang 1980: 3). In spite of the contradicting theories of human mind and human nature of different Chinese schools of thought, scholars generally agree that, based upon the fundamental belief that Heaven and Earth have shown a beneficent spirit in the creation and procreation of all things, the innate beauty and goodness of human nature is assured (Fang 1980: 69). From Fang’s point of view, ancient Greeks and modern Europeans are scientifically-­ oriented whereas the Chinese are more artistically-oriented. As Zhuangzi says, “The sages strive after the beauty of the universe in order to reach to the ground of all things.” Such orientations dictate their philosophy, art and institutions (Fang 1987: 96–97). Generally, Fang examines these differences in a detached manner, yet at times he sounds nationalistic and emotional: “Chinese mentality is abhorrent of the Western lack of fellowship in sympathetic unity in Man and nature.” The Chinese do not value science as much as the West because they are not favorably disposed toward the bifurcation and axiological neutrality that are associated with the theories of science. Their preference for organicism and anthropomorphism is also at odds with scientific thinking (Fang 1980: 1). Fang asserts that many Chinese artistic ideals are inspired by the assumption of comprehensive harmony and perpetual creativity. Whatever forms they take, the Chinese works of art are “nothing more nor less than the expression of exuberant vitality. I take this to be the fundamental value in all forms of Chinese art” (Fang 1980: 131–132). This leads Chinese art to be regarded as metaphysical rather than scientific, symbolic rather than descriptive. Its method is a genuine expression, i.e., making things vital in spirit instead of mimicking them in appearance. Chinese artists try to insinuate this idea into the objects—be they stones or bamboos—that inspired the spirit of life of the artists themselves (Fang 1980: 132–138). Fang maintains that although this type of cosmology was initiated by Confucianism and Daoism, Buddhist sculptures, frescos, and paintings reveal similar characteristics as well (Fang 1980: 131–132). The aesthetics based on such a cosmology may appear quite disconcerting to the modern taste. As the scholar Maija Bell Samei points out disapprovingly, Arts and literature in China have always been expected to reflect, or actually to be an organic extension of, cosmic and natural realities. Correspondingly, traditional Chinese expressive theories were never framed in terms of the expression of individual emotion. Rather, art was seen as a vehicle for the expression of universal human emotional realities. (Li 2010: xvi)

To a modern mindset accustomed to the ideals of individuality, diversity, and multiculturalism, the Confucian emphasis on universal human compassion sounds remote and pretentious.

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Strangely, the perception of “comprehensive harmony” that Fang and his colleagues endorse is in stark contrast to the chaotic era they themselves endured. Fang tells his students, “The modern world is the most troubled and the ugliest one. Those who still long for religious values, moral ideals and philosophical wisdom are doomed to suffer the most in this era, because they can find no chance to fulfill those ideals whatsoever” (Fang 1985: 92). To rescue oneself from such predicaments, Fang suggests, one has to adopt the Daoist bird’s view of life, as the Peng bird in the first chapter of the Zhuangzi, appreciating the beauty, ugliness and even the evil of the world from an aesthetic, transcendent perspective. Thus, one can forgive everything, treating the world as a work of art, transforming its negative value into a positive one. By applying cosmic sentiment and creative emotion, the artists transform and transfigure the evil world into ideal realm of beauty so that their spirit can reside in it (Fang 1985: 74–75). Fang insists that Chinese history has proven that this kind of transformation is possible. During the chaotic period of late Tang and Five Dynasties (nineth to tenth century), everything was deteriorating except for plastic art and romantic poetry, which, in a conjoined effort, managed to keep intact an aesthetic world of sheer beauty to impose upon the ugly reality of life. Upon the framework of aesthetic value, Daoism infiltrated itself into the mentality of the Neo-Confucians to discover an analogous world of moral goodness. The philosophers in the Song dynasty were thus inspired, agreeing with Kongzi (孔子) that men and the world are beautiful and good in value orientation (Fang 1981: 338–339). Together they were able to bring about a much more civilized and peaceful society thereafter. Their wishful thinking did come true. Therefore, modern Confucians’ Panglossian cosmology and their utopian theory of nature and human nature are normative rather than descriptive. These ideas are intended to be their leverage to improve the world, but the task modern Confucians face turns out to be more challenging than the one that their Neo-Confucian predecessors had completed.

3  The Political Background of Chinese Literary Life In addition to the philosophical traits discussed above, Chinese aesthetics can be explained from historical angles as well. Tang Junyi suggests that agricultural life promoted the broad-minded, peace-­ loving spirit of Chinese people, in contrast to the Western transcendent spirit and individualism generated by frequent military and commercial competitions (Tang 1979: 5–16). But the Chinese political establishment is even more critical than the economic background to the development of Chinese aesthetic tradition. As the story of the early sage-king, Yu the Great (da Yu 大禹) shows, Chinese civilization started from the management of nature and organization of people. Not surprisingly, the pragmatic need of good governance remained the primary concern for later sages. The founding of the Zhou Dynasty further consolidated Chinese society and

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nation under a feudal structure. With a king at the center surrounded by feudal princes, the kingdom was congenially coordinated under the rule of music and rites; the political consciousness of Zhou dynasty was infused with an artistic spirit of harmony from the beginning. The splendor of ancient Chinese arts and literature was actually the reflection of such political and ethical order. Polity, society, and ethics were the essence, while rites and music were just their appearance (Tang 1979: 23–25). In other words, arts and literature are considered to be the extension, or the expression, of politics and society. Qian Mu provides even more detailed accounts about the development of Chinese taste. As a historian, he is more aware of the nuances of change and evolution, although he also has a tendency to over-simplify the contrast between China and the West. Qian believes that, unlike that of most of other languages, the Chinese writing system does not closely correspond with its spoken language, hence freeing it from the limitations of time and space and enabling it to appeal to a wider audience (Qian 1998: 34). Moreover, the vastness of a unified empire also forced Chinese writers to create a literature more universalistic and refined (ya 雅) in taste, different from the relatively provincial approach (su 俗) prevalent in a divided Europe (Qian 1998: 13–14). Furthermore, the long, physical distance prevented Chinese authors from meeting their readers/audience face to face; therefore, Chinese literature tended to be more concise, indirect, and introverted in its expression (Qian 1998: 38–39), allowing more room for the readers’ contemplation and imagination. Literature was used widely during various social and political occasions in early China; its pragmatic nature was different from the belles-lettres of the West (Qian 1998: 40). Qian divides Chinese literature into two categories, the political/higher literature and the social/lower literature. In his eyes, the former not only appeared earlier than the latter, but also played a more dominant role in history. The love songs in the Book of Odes, initially considered part of the social/lower literature, were collected and revised by the court of the Zhou Dynasty and became part of the canon widely used on public and political occasions. Rhapsodic poems, historical prose and political essays also belonged to the category of political/higher literature because of their political function. (Qian 1998: 55–56). Qian assumes that, unlike the Western men of letters, whom he supposed to be generally cut off from the circle of power and hence took up writing as their full-time job, the career goal of the Chinese literati was to enter public office. Successful or not as officials, they were always concerned about the well-being of the public, so naturally their writings would be intertwined with politics (Qian 1998: 59). This tradition was not challenged until the late Han period. As the empire faced political disintegration and moral crisis, the Nineteen Ancient Poems (gushi shijiu shou 古詩十九首) led the way in expressing the grief and sorrows of personal life rather than the concern with public welfare. The idea of literary autonomy thus emerged, as did Chinese belles-lettres. After the third century CE, the conviction in the immortality of masterpieces and the aspiration to become part of the great cultural tradition were widely shared among the literati (Qian 1998: 42–43). Du (杜甫: 712–770) and Han (韓愈: 768–824) of the Tang Dynasty tried to turn the tide, yet everyday life had nonetheless become the major literary theme (Qian 1998: 57–58).

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However, although the topics of mainstream Chinese literature—poetry and prose—gradually centered on the authors themselves, their daily lives continued to reflect their Confucian aspiration and the events related to the public sphere. In other words, Chinese literature is supposed to be the manifestation of the author’s complete life as well as the ethos of his or her times. It is the moral greatness of a writer which made his or her works great, not vice versa (Qian 1998: 45–46). While Qian extols the virtues of political/ high literature, what he really cares most about is not a refined literature enjoyed by a small elite circle, but rather, whether its theme addresses public concerns. Popular novels such as Water Margin (水滸傳) and Romance of Three Kingdoms (三國演義) won his applause for the authors’ public-mindedness, whereas Dream of Red Chambers (紅樓夢) appeared to be too narrow-minded for its focus on the decline of a noble family rather than the general degeneration of the Manchu Dynasty (Qian 1998: 64–71). Influenced by current Western trends, modern Chinese scholars pay high tribute to Dream of Red Chambers and insist that literature should be free of politics. Qian laments that they do not realize the crucial differences between Chinese and Western history (Qian 1998: 73). Though Qian regarded a life of leisure, simplicity, and contemplation as symbolic of a great culture and he himself enjoyed a leisured, poetic life over the modern rat-race (Qian 1986: 306–313), he also firmly believed that anything irrelevant to the three types of immortality(san buxiu 三不朽), i.e. memorable virtues, words, and enterprises, was idle (xian 閒). In this sense there is no such thing as pure literature under classical Chinese criteria. Actually there exists no pure philosophy, pure art, pure politics, or any pure specialty in China. Everything can be justified only when it meets the universal, humanistic standard of life. So-called political /high literature is considered universalistic and refined for this reason, whereas social/ lower literature appears provincial and vulgar because it fails in this regard. If traditional literature is gone forever, most of Chinese life—and the most precious part of it—will be dead, too, declares Qian somberly (Qian 1998: 73–74).

4  The Cultural Foundation of Chinese Art Art reflects not only the political and social situations in China, but also its culture in general. According to the general comparison made by Tang Junyi, the spirit of Chinese culture fundamentally diverges from that of the West. Firstly, the West emphasizes transcendent spirit while Chinese culture stresses immanence instead. Secondly, rather than the Western engagement in rational activity and scientific pursuit, the foci of Chinese culture are the praxis of politics, ethics, and life. Thirdly, Chinese culture is also distinct from the West because it values one’s empathy with others more than each individual’s freedom of will. And finally, the Chinese cherish historical continuity and cultural tradition over academic originality or cultural diversity (Tang 1979: 3–4, 59–60).

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Inevitably, the spirit of art in these two cultures differs due to such cultural discrepancies. Unlike Fang’s more critical opinion about the West, Tang acknowledges and appreciates the uniqueness and strength of Western culture, yet he is equally eager to defend the quintessence of Chinese culture as Fang does. In Tang’s eyes, the greatest aspect of Western writers and artists is their transcendent spirit, which pushes them to move beyond their limitations to reach for infinity. Gothic cathedrals, Gregorian chants, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress are representative of such religious philosophy. Sculptures by Michelangelo or Rodin and symphonies by Beethoven and Wagner are also awe-inspiring and eye-­ opening. Tragedy in particular, whether it be the works by the Greeks, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Hardy, Ibsen, or Maeterlinck, is considered to represent the spirit of transcendence par excellence. (Tang 1979: 298–300) Regrettably, other than adore and worship them, the humble readers and audience can do very little to emulate their greatness. One cannot help but feel intimidated by such masterpieces. By contrast, great Chinese art and literature can draw the viewers and readers to befriend them and be nurtured by them; we can even aspire to be as great as the writers and artists (Tang 1979: 300–301). What distinguishes the spirit of Chinese art from that of Western art is the ample room it leaves for their admirers to conserve, cultivate, retreat, and enjoy (cang xiu xi you 藏修息 遊). Moreover, one can become intimate with it, immerse oneself in it, and grow up with it naturally (Tang 1979: 301–302). Chinese architecture, calligraphy, painting, music and sculpture all testify to this point (Tang 1979: 302–314). After the Song dynasty, Chinese preferred scaled-down nature and art in order to observe the Way of cosmos through subtlety. Whether it was the delicate carving of jade, ivory and horn, the symbolic dots and lines in calligraphy and painting, the faint vibration of string instruments and the simple yet sophisticated poems, these aspects do not necessarily mirror the increasing weakness of Chinese mentality, but rather, its insight and imagination (Tang 1979: 296–297). Western aesthetic terminology always differentiates the subject from the object. Whether it be Plato and Aristotle’s “imitation,” Kant’s “disinterested satisfaction,” Hegel and Schiller’s “sensuous manifestation of an ideal,” Schopenhauer’s “objectification of will,” Lipps’ notion of “empathy,” and Croce’s “identity of intuition and expression,” all stress either the object or the subject. None of them can be paralleled with what Kongzi teaches about “immersion in art” (you yu yi 游於藝). From the perspective of Chinese aesthetics, only through the dissolution of the subject-­ object duality can the spirit (shen 神) and vitality (qi 氣) emerge in a masterpiece (Tang 1979: 301–302). Interestingly, Tang also makes comparison of the personality archetypes of Western and Chinese artists. Western artists yearn for certain ideals yet also tend to indulge themselves in emotion and imagination. As the biographies of great musicians (e.g., Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart), sculptors (e.g., Rodin and Michelangelo) and writers (e.g., Dante, Byron, Rousseau, Goethe, and Tolstoy) reveal, their lives were always entangled by agitation, disillusionment, anger, sadness, ecstasy, and remorse. They pursued love, fame, art, humanitarianism, or

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religious causes at various stages of life; meanwhile they also fought hard battles with poverty, fads, and at times, their own insanity (Tang 1979: 370–375). Chinese writers and artists also possess uninhibited talents, strong emotions and a passion for love, similar to their Western colleagues. But Tang finds more differences than similarities between the two groups. The attitudes toward the real world and everyday life mark the first difference. By falling in love frequently and fleeing from their families or countries, Western artists attempt to escape from their tedious lives to look for stimulation elsewhere. They fight desires, ridicule, criticisms, setbacks, and frustrations to create the agitation that inspire their works. By contrast, Chinese writers and artists try to broaden their inner horizon through frequent travelling and extensive reading. Such practices reduce their desires and inner disturbances, enabling them to cope with the real world without being bogged down by seesawing emotions. The realities of daily life could be idealized and etherealized into something in which to conserve, cultivate, retreat, and immerse. Seen from different angles, the ordinary or the trivial can be refreshing and vivacious, providing inspiration for literary and artistic creation. In a nutshell, Chinese writers and artists do not have to build up their characters by fighting against the real world (Tang 1979: 396). What Fang says about the “harmony” in the universe can be testified in this sense. A more fundamental difference between the two groups lies in the Chinese prioritization of life over art. Few Chinese would devote themselves to arts and literature as completely as their Western counterparts. Rather, they choose to engage in art as amateurs instead of professionals. Tang regards this as an asset rather than a liability. He reiterates what Qian has said: The first-rate Chinese writers and artists are aware that the consummate works of art are not their creations but their own personality and temperament; artistic expression is secondary or superfluous to life itself (Tang 1979: 393). The long tradition of “writings are for conveying the Way (wen yi zai dao 文以 載道)” began with Qu Yuan (屈原, c. 340–278 BC), Tao Yuanming (陶淵明, c.: 365–427), Li Bai (李白, 701–762), and Du Fu, and continued through Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元: 773–819), and so on. Advocates of “art for art’s sake” are extremely rare in China. The writers who purposefully refine their works are often ridiculed as “playing through life and having no serious ambitions (wanwu sangzhi玩 物喪志)”. As the sayings go, “one becomes worthless after being a man of letters (yi wei wenren, bian wu zuguan一為文人, 便無足觀)”; “an intellectual must first develop breadth of mind and judgment before engaging in the arts and literature (shi dang xian qishi erhou wenyi 士當先器識而後文藝).” Chinese artists celebrate sincerity and virtue. Seldom do they extol beauty as highly as the school of “art for art’s sake”; neither do they work on the representation of a transcendent domain or on the objective truth of the cosmos and life as the Western literary mainstream. In Tang’s eyes, sincere feelings and respectable virtues are appealing enough to make Chinese writers and artists really great (Tang 1979: 393–396). In a tone similar to Tang, Qian demonstrates that Chinese literary critics always link the writing to the author’s life. They value the author’s virtues and integrity more than the writing per se. That is why Du Fu, the Sage of Poetry, receives more

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acclaim than Li Bai, the Immortal of Poetry. Du Fu was considered greater because he incorporated his seemingly plain everyday life and public concerns into his poetry, revealing the highest Confucian ideals without being overtly didactic and sanctimonious. The literary trend is thus an indicator of the rise and fall of a nation. If one cannot find the track of the author in a piece of work, that work will be regarded as idle reading, intended only for entertainment rather than revealing the ethos of the times (Qian 1998: 73, 135–136). In conclusion, the quality of poetry depends on the author’s motive which was shaped by his or her personality, inner self-cultivation, and the level of aspiration (Qian 1998: 143). Studying literature is to elevate one’s spirituality by learning from the life experiences of one’s favorite writers. The persona emerging from the writing leads the reader to seek out a higher state of life (Qian 1998: 144–145).

5  Empathetic Feelings: Convergence of Art and Morality Human feelings (xingqing 性情) are the key to the understanding of traditional Chinese mentality. In Qian’s opinion, “affection (ai 愛),” including but not limited to romantic love, is the focus of everything in China, including its society, history and literature (Qian 1998: 215). Compared to China, Western science and philosophy attempt to eliminate the interference of emotions, and Christianity preaches God-centered rather than human-centered love because humans are sinful by nature. No wonder the extroverted, utilitarian tendencies of the West contrast sharply to the introverted and sentimental way of Chinese life (Qian 1998: 187). Drama is a good example to showcase the Chinese definition of “love.” As Qian states, Chinese people are too serious about life, so they need drama to relax themselves. If Confucian ethics and morality act as a strict father, then art and literature play the role of a nurturing mother to comfort the souls. Interestingly, although Qian highly commends the “political/higher literature,” he was himself a fan of the Beijing Opera, a popular form of “social/lower literature” which embodies the feelings of the Chinese masses (Qian 1998: 202). According to Qian’s interpretation, the highly symbolic form of Beijing Opera is intended to keep the audience detached from reality. By turning actions into dance, language to music, and settings into ornamental patterns, the opera fictionalizes and idealizes the “real” life to give it a loftier meaning (Qian 1998: 201). The theme of the play tends to be universalistic rather than particularistic, so that it can transcend specific time and space to find resonance with everyone (Qian 1998: 217–218). In this sense, the opera also embodies the spirit of high literature mentioned above. The format of the opera is simple: the theatrical masks manifest the personalities of each character from the beginning of the play to minimize the individuality of characters. The plot is also easy to understand: it appeals to the audience’s deep sympathy for the commonly-shared human conditions instead of distracting them with sophisticated storylines (Qian 1998: 45). What really engages the audience is the deep and sincere sentiment which the performers express through their vocal

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skills. Rid of the distractions of sophisticated plots and lifelike scenery, the audience can concentrate on and immerse themselves in the emotional, moving confessions of the characters and learn crucial life lessons from the protagonists (Qian 1998: 205–206). Where feelings are concerned, Western literature is inclined to celebrate the romance of free love, yet Chinese literature prefers to honor the commitment to marriage, such as the plays about Wang Baochuan (王寶釧), Han Yuniang (韓玉 娘), Zhao Wuniang (趙五娘) and Xue Sanniang (薛三娘). Romantic love comes and goes easily, but the fidelity between husband and wife can secure a family, which is also essential to the existence of a community, society, and even all of humanity (Qian 1998: 187–192). Instead of focusing on romantic relations only, Chinese dramas reach out to touch every aspect of human relationships (Qian 1998: 215). Loyal friendship and ruler-subject relations are popular themes in Chinese literature and theater. The famous play “The Fourth Son Visits His Mother” (silang tanmu四郎探母) exemplifies the complicated affections between husband and wives, mother and son, sisters and brothers, and uncle and nephews in wartime (Qian 1998: 215–216). All of Chinese poetry, prose, novels, and plays are heart-to-­ heart enterprises, concludes Qian. They manifest that humanity is not specific to one person or one place, but common to all the ordinary people for centuries to come; there may be unpredictable changes in life, yet constancy (chang常) will remain the norm (Qian 1998: 213). Therefore Chinese literature is not only a form of art, but also a form of life education to all. To many iconoclasts, the absence of Western-style tragedy is seen as an evidence of Chinese inferiority in literature. Qian refutes this idea by pointing out that the ups and downs of life can create tragedy, comedy or a mixture of both; since tragedy and comedy are mutually inclusive, it makes no sense to treat the former as superior to the latter (Qian 1998: 196–198). Coincidently, the Western fondness for tragedy may have led the civilizations of Greece and Rome toward their tragic endings, whereas the history of the more comedy-loving Chinese fared relatively better, although its continuous development was tinted with tragedy from time to time (Qian 1998: 189). Reminiscent of Fang’s criticism of the Western mode of thought, Tang thinks that Westerners pay such high tribute to tragedy because their life is full of violent contradictions. The inevitable death of the protagonists put an end to their sin and passion; their otherwise ambiguous personality can, hence, be sublimated in the transcendental realm. Tragedy makes one reflect intuitively on the goodness of human beings, liberating one from the manipulation of the will of survival. In this sense, Western tragedy helps elevate human spirit to a higher level (Tang 1979: 350–351). However, the Chinese mindset finds it unbearable if pure spiritual value is unable to actualize in this world. The real world is supposed to support the ideal one, minor mistakes should be forgiven, and virtue should be rewarded with happiness in life. It seems banal and childish that Chinese novels and dramas always end with a grand reunion, yet the sincere longings and deep compassion behind such wishful thinking are praiseworthy (Tang 1979: 352–353).

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In fact, Chinese people also have their own sense of tragedy. The Western tragedy involves the tragedy of individual character, yet Chinese sense of tragedy usually relates to the tragedy of the whole world. Beneath the surface of the outlaw warriors’ riotous adventures, the novel Water Margin (水滸傳) reveals the deep sense of desolation and solitude of the author Shi Nai’an (施耐庵). Similarly, the novel Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) explores the impermanence of human life though unconsummated love as well as the rise and fall of a noble clan. Unlike their Western counterparts, these novels do not really explore the root of the tragedy, be it the will to survive, the blind cosmic destiny or the threat of social forces. The authors do not tackle the questions concerning the existence of God or the spiritual world, as long as the reader is able to realize that the sensory world is an illusion (Tang 1979: 353–358). To highlight spiritual value, Western tragedies usually begin with conflicts between the subjective and the objective forces and end with the liberation from one’s ego. By contrast, a Buddhist sense of impermanence frequently surfaces in Chinese historical novels and dramas. As the poems in Romance of Three Kingdoms (三國演義) and Peach Blossom Fan (桃花扇) suggest, everything is ephemeral and contingent, including all the people, all the enterprises, and even the world itself. Yet the realization of the illusory nature of the mundane world does not prevent one from maintaining a Confucian sense of responsibility for the past and the present. The virtual thus mixed with reality, and desolation blended with inner strength, as the poetry of Du Fu reveals; the highest Chinese sense of tragedy is to rise above tragedy (Tang 1979: 358–361). In this respect we can discover the convergence of the sentimental with the moral. Some denounce the Chinese way of life as that of a few elites imposing strict moral standards on the general public and depriving them of their freedom. However, as Kongzi says, “I set my heart on the Way, base myself on virtue, lean upon benevolence for support and take my recreation in the arts. (zhi yu dao, ju yu de, yi yu ren, you yu yi, 志於道, 據於德, 依於仁, 游於藝)” (Analects 7.6, Lau 1992: 57). Qian Mu argues that the Master has shown us the path to a meaningful life. The Way (dao道) is about common human behaviors based on each individual’s morality (de 德), which involves empathetic feeling toward others, a major component of what Kongzi teaches about benevolence (ren 仁) (Qian 1998: 161). While pursuing moral self-fulfillment, one also enjoys the creativity of art (yi 藝). Therefore, a moral Chinese life is also an artistic life, and the Analects can be recited as a piece of poetry (Qian 1998: 161). Xu Fuguan, a scholar of Chinese literature and intellectual history, echoes Qian’s point by illustrating the convergence of art and virtue. Many modern Chinese literary critics assume that morality is incompatible with literature, and that to promote literature, one has to denounce morality at the same time. In Xu’s eyes, didactic dogma is certainly not literature, yet the highest motivation and greatest driving force of literature must come from the author’s sublime moral consciousness. Both moral consciousness and the spirit of art lie side by side in the depth of one’s feelings. Many great works ridicule and criticize hypocrisy precisely because the

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authors intend to discover more solid and profound virtue in humanity, not to deny it (Xu 1990a: 62–63). Xu firmly believes that writing style is closely associated with an author’s temperament, and the power of one’s physical vitality (qi氣) can connect subjective temperament with the objective use of language (Xu 1990a: 48, 297, 328). Moreover, as Mengzi (孟子, c. 372–289 BC) describes, through the effort of moral reason, one can overcome the physical restraint of qi and turn it into a spiritual one. The effect of nourishing qi (yangqi 養氣) will emerge as the author fuses his individuality with sociality properly (Xu 1990a: 346–347). As for the Chinese motto of “writings are for conveying the Way,” Xu explains that the “Way” means the sociality underlying individuality to be expounded by a writer with the consciousness of public responsibility. According to Tolstoy’s What is Art, “art for life’s sake” is also part of the mainstream in Western arts and literature, similar to the literary tradition of China. Using literature as a tool for moral preaching can inhibit creative writing indeed, yet the exclusion of morality from literature will destroy literature altogether. Actually, morality and art can merge naturally in the beginning and the end, and the empathetic feelings are the point of their convergence (Xu 1990a: 62–63). It is a pity that there is such widespread opposition to conveying the Way in creative writing, which explains why literature in modern China has declined (Xu 1990a: 62–63). One does not have to agree with the Confucian definition of the “Way,” yet the ideal of “wen yi zai dao” per se should not be totally abandoned (Xu 1990a: 398). Who is qualified to define or represent the Confucian standard of wen yi zai dao in modern times? In Xu’s opinion, Lu Xun (魯迅, 1881–1936) is praiseworthy for his writing skills as well as his life-long struggle with the dark side of China. However, Lu Xun’s short stories are incisive but lack inner depth; his polarized way of thinking prevents him from self-reflection. His bitterness toward his wife, nanny, and neighbor is also detestable (Xu 1990a: 540–542). Rather than Lu Xun, Xu considers the Taiwanese novelist Chen Yingzhen (陳映真, 1937–2016) to be the best writer in the modern Chinese world, not only for his refreshing use of language and insightful critique of the society, but also for his delving deep into humanity, especially his uncovering of contemporary Chinese’s rootless state of life (Xu 1984: 233–237). Therefore, Xu cannot agree with the modern novelist Bai Xianyong (白先勇, 1937–) for his preference of artistry over social consciousness. Bai denounces the utilitarian approach of the May Fourth literary revolution and the leftist revolutionary literature; instead of social consciousness, he advocates the autonomy of literature which transcends nationalism and patriotism. To Xu, however, best literature is usually inspired by heartfelt emotions (gandong感動); the authors are either motivated by the basic, existential feelings of their own individual life, or by the cultural, communitarian feelings of their people, i.e., the social consciousness. Both arise from the depth of the author’s heart which find resonance across boundaries, but only those who live with the masses and are conscious of their common fate are able to voice such emotions and produce the greatest works. Of course, it takes much learning and experience to convey this theme successfully, yet artistry is

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complementary to content, not independent of it. It is regretful that Bai considers social consciousness as something external to writing, ignoring the fundamental role it plays in literature, especially the role it plays in the literary tradition of China (Xu 1984: 155–164).

6  T  he Spirit of Chinese Art: Contradictions and Synthesis of Daoist and Confucian Aesthetics In their discussion of Chinese aesthetics, Thomé H.  Fang, Qian Mu, and Tang Junyi do not analyze thoroughly the complicated, and at times, conflicting, elements it contains. By comparison, Xu Fuguan appears to be more aware of the tension between the Kongzi and Zhuangzi 莊子paradigms of aesthetics. In The Spirit of Chinese Art, Xu considers Kongzi the first and the greatest discoverer of the Chinese spirit of art through his love of music. To Kongzi, the basic requirement for music is the unity of the good and the beautiful. The two entities can be fused together because the essence of music is “harmony (he 和),” or the dissolution of contradictions and unification of heterogeneity. Harmony can be said to coincide with the realm of benevolence (ren 仁). Art and morality can thus be merged and mutually reinforced at both the fundamental and highest levels (Xu 1976: 13–17). That is why music was the core of education among the nobility of early China. Music can greatly impact people through sensory delight; the physical function of senses integrates with the Way and supports it via a concrete force (Xu 1976: 5–8, 12–13). As modern scholar Li Zehou, explains, unlike rites, music is not an external, coercive institution, but an internal guide. By molding the temperament and shaping the emotions, music establishes human nature internally, and, therefore, works along with the rites to achieve a harmonious order that binds society together (Li 2010: 19). Although the role of music was gradually replaced by rites and rituals, Kongzi continued to pay high tribute to music education for its functions of cultivating character and improving governability (Xu 1976: 8). However, the method and process for moral cultivation is qualitatively different from that of music after all. In contrast to the moral spirit, which strongly requires altruistic actions, aesthetic activity as Kant proposed is to rid one of all personal interests and free oneself from any utilitarian purpose. Art does not necessarily obstruct the sense of social responsibility motivated by benevolence, but neither is art alone able to shoulder the moral tasks demanded by Confucians (Xu 1976: 19). Since one can find more direct ways of achieving moral betterment than music, the emphasis on music in the Confucian tradition eventually declined (Xu 1976: 36). Confucians failed to recognize the autonomy of art; neither were Laozi or Zhuangzi able to formulate a systematic aesthetic theory in their philosophies. Nevertheless, although the fulfillment of their Way did not necessarily involve the creation of any artwork, Zhuangzi’s speculation on the “art of life” unwittingly

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created the highest aesthetic spirit that made artistic activities possible, argued Xu (1976: 51). Following the teaching of Laozi, Zhuangzi considers “openness and serenity” (xujing 虛靜) as both “the essence of the universe” and “the way to achieve inner peace.” Through “fasting of the heart” (xinzhai 心齋) and “sitting and forgetting” (zuowang 坐忘), one dissolves one’s sensual desires and intellectual biases to achieve a “selfless” (wuji 無己) state of mind (Xu 1976: 70–75). It leads one to look at the world aesthetically, reflecting on the world like a mirror, expecting nothing nor rejecting anything (Xu 1976: 81–83). To Xu, this “aestheticized outlook on life” meant an equalitarian view of the world. Getting rid of personal bias and self-interest, then the opposites of life or death, right or wrong, and failure or success appear to be one and the same. Similarly, endowed with different attributes by nature, each creature is unique and equal from the Daoist perspective nevertheless. By acknowledging every individual's existential meaning, we are set free from the tyranny of bias and egoism (Xu 1976: 105–106). In other words, if Kongzi aspired to transform this world into a better one and music was instrumental to his project of moral betterment, Zhuangzi decided to accommodate himself to the chaos of his times. Instead of transforming others, Zhuangzi adjusted himself to appreciate the turbulent world as if it were a piece of art. In what sense is this open and peaceful mentality congenial to art? In Xu’s point of view, this mentality eliminates the estrangement between artists and their materials. Whatever one’s occupation (diving, wood-carving or butchery), the integration of subjectivity and the object will produce incredible craftsmanship (Xu 1976: 126–128). In Xu’s opinion, Zhuangzi masters the spirit of art in its full scale from his self-­ cultivation of life. By discovering the source of art from human beings’ heart and innate nature, he gets hold of the key to spiritual liberation and inspires great artists to create masterpieces. Xu believes that this discovery is of great significance not only in Chinese history, but also important to the present and the future of the world (Xu 1976: 2). By contrast, most Western scholars of aesthetics only partially understand this because they draw inferences from specific works of art, but not the full scale of life (Xu, 1976: 132). The Zhuangzi paradigm had a strong impact on Chinese landscape painting. Chinese aesthetic self-awareness became widespread during the Wei-Jin period (third century) because of the decline of the classic political pragmatism and the revival of Daoism. The Han practice of “character appraisal (renlun jianshi 人倫鑒 識)” also shifted the emphasis from political talent evaluation to aesthetic appreciation during this period. Such zeitgeists inspired the prevalent figure paintings of that time to depict the spirit of the subject beyond just physical resemblance. What Gu Kaizhi (顧愷之, c.348–405) called chuanshen (傳神, conveying the spirit), or more clearly, qiyun shengdong (氣韻生動, vivid charm), as Xie He (謝赫: 479–502) put it, eventually became an unshakeable tradition in Chinese painting (Xu 1976: 150–159). When landscape painting succeeded figure painting as the predominant form of artistic expression, qiyun shengdong continued to be the criteria for aesthetic judgment (Xu 1976: 184).

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According to Xie He, qi (氣, vitality) initially represented the beauty of masculinity while yun (韻, charm) implied the beauty of femininity. It is to be noted that yun is based on otherworldly purity, which can be associated with Zhuangzi’s notions of untaintedness, void, mysteriousness, and remoteness. As the skills of ink use appeared, Chinese painters preferred the expression of yun to qi, further proof of how the mainstream of Chinese painting developed under the influence of Zhuangzi (Xu 1976: 180–182). Previously, Chinese writers tended to personalize nature in the manner of poetic metaphor (bi 比) and imagistic association (xing 興); only after the Wei-Jin period did they begin the quest to settle one’s life in nature by capturing the beauty of mountains and waters. Understandably, landscape paintings expressed the spirit of Zhuangzi better than figure painting, because the painter can project his inner life to nature more easily than to a human figure (Xu 1976: 230–231). However, the most popular paintings from Wei-Jin to the Tang dynasty were still the figure paintings related to Buddhist themes, not of nature. Although Li Sixun ( 李思訓 651–716) of the early Tang dynasty broke new ground for landscape painting, the golden and green colors he used still reflected his elite background, not the reclusive lifestyle more congenial to the spirit of Zhuangzi (Xu 1976: 254–256). As Jing Hao (荊浩, d. 915 AD) recognized, the shift from the use of colors to ink-and-­ water in the late Tang was revolutionary. Using ink-and-water met Zhuangzi’s requirement of simplicity; the masterful command of this style can be mysteriously vibrant, reflecting the vitality of the cosmos (Xu 1976: 297). Moreover, among the “three perspectives (san yuan 三遠)” illustrated in The Poetic Charms of Woods and Streams (linquan gaozhi林泉高致) by Guo Xi (郭熙, c. 1000–1087), the perspective of “plane-and-remote (pingyuan 平遠)” was more celebrated than “lofty-and-­ remote (gaoyuan 高遠)” and “deep-and-remote (shenyuan 深遠)” styles because the former’s hinting at flexibility, passivity, and looseness was regarded more Daoist than the staunchness, ambitiousness, and aggressiveness which the latter two styles implied (Xu 1976: 342–349). Zhuangzi’s impact was later firmly established as styles of “elegant simplicity” (yige 逸格) and “blandness” (pingdan 平淡) were recommended by Huang Xiufu (黃休復) and Dong Qichang (董其昌: 1555–1636) as the top qualities of landscape painting. More than a matter of artistic style or as gestures of passive resistance in times of political chaos and social turmoil, these qualities are emanations from the artist’s noble and unsullied personality, such as the reclusive painter Ni Zan (倪瓚: 1301–1374) (Xu 1976: 308–319, 408–414). Although some artists, such as Huang Shangu (黃山谷1045–1105) and Dong Qichang, acknowledged the impact of Chan (禪) Buddhism on their styles of painting, Xu still believed that Zhuangzi exerted a greater influence on Chinese art in general. Indeed, in terms of the initial stage of cultivation, the Chan ridding of craving and obsession seems similar to the Daoist removal of knowledge and desires. However, despite certain Chinese revisions, the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to reject the burdensome life and to liberate oneself from the mundane world, including art. However, the way Zhuangzi deals with the entanglement of reality is to be forgetful (wang 忘) and to observe the constant changes of the cosmos. Rather than

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denounce the substantial existence of the world, Zhuangzi affirms this life and this world through his quiet and serene state of mind. Achieving such a state of mind is necessary to the creation of art, especially in landscape painting (Xu 1976: 372–374). Intriguingly, despite the fact that the Zhuangzi paradigm was firmly established in traditional landscape painting, the Chinese literary mainstream nevertheless continued to follow the Kongzi paradigm. Xu’s study of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍) by Liu Xie (劉勰 c.465–?) revealed such a tendency. The Literary Mind is a comprehensive and systematic theory of Chinese literature which integrates Daoism with Confucian aesthetic ideals. As in the case of paintings, Xu argues that since late Han, being self-conscious of the beauty of writing is related to the appreciation of people’s appearance and manners (renwu pinzao 人物品藻). Literary critics during the Six Dynasties applied similar notions and terminology in the appraisal of creative writings (Xu 1990a: 23–25). This is a key for understanding Chinese literary critique as well as Chinese art. According to The Literary Mind, an ideal writing style (wenti文體) is the combination of excellent content and graceful forms. Liu Xie maintains that a quiet and passionless state of mind (xujing zhi xin 虛靜之心) is essential to the spirit of literature. By combining this with talent, learning, reflection and practice, one can gradually develop a style through his or her temperament (qingxing 情性) (Xu 1990a: 43–44). Though this sounds Daoist in its connotation, Liu Xie attempts to rectify the lapses of current writings by Confucian standards, replacing the over emotional and splendid style of the Book of the South (Chuci楚辭) with the more rational and practical style of the Confucian Five Classics (wujing五經) (Xu 1990a: 26, 426–428). As the prototype of Chinese literature, the five classics are characteristic of humanism, rationalism, and pragmatism. With their sincere souls and artistic expression, the literary aspect of the five classics is even more appealing to Liu Xie. It explains why the Five Classics always functions as a source of introspection and moderation whenever the literary trends deviate to become over-decorative (Xu 1990a: 426–428). Likewise, despite Xu’s appreciation of Daoist expression in Chinese landscape painting, the type of aesthetics to which he attaches himself is not necessarily a Daoist one. As revealed in the controversy over modernist painting (see below), the aesthetics with which Xu himself identifies are more Confucian than Daoist in spirit. At some points Xu does try hard to synthesize the aesthetics of Confucianism and Daoism. For example, both schools of thought espouse the principle of “art for life’s sake.” Conditioned by traditional Chinese literary practices, Xu assigns different functions to writing and painting: while the former assumes a more active role in conveying the Way, the latter functions as a sanctuary for man to shun nuisances and entanglements, a catharsis for one to regain peace of mind and start afresh (Xu 1980b: 168). He argues, despite the historical differences between the Confucian altruism illustrated in literature and the Daoist seclusion revealed in painting, they are identical in terms of their “art for life’s sake” attitude. Viewing art either as a means for moral cultivation or as the reflection of a free soul, Confucianism and

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Daoism differ significantly from the principle of “art for art’s sake” of western modernism (Xu 1976: 133–136). Furthermore, Xu contends that Confucianism and Daoism coincide in their goal of eliminating the confrontations between subjectivity and objectivity, and the clash between individuality and sociality (Xu 1976: 132). At this point, the “subjective vs. objective” and “individual vs. society” motifs prevalent in modernist works obviously contradict the Confucian-Daoist aesthetic. In Xu's opinion, works of purely subjective self-expression can be powerful and occasionally moving, yet masterpieces are always created by the artists who share in the suffering of their people, who echo the inarticulate pathos of the masses when expressing themselves. And the source of this convergence must be traced to the universally shared good human nature which makes communion and consensus among people possible (Xu 1990a: 84–87). Xu maintains that even the seemingly reclusive Zhuangzi does not stand against society: “In accord with the spirit of the universe, he is at peace with all creatures.” As a man most responsive to the turbulence of his times, Zhuangzi transcends the mundane world, but at the same time, breathes what the public breathes. His illustration of a spiritual world of openness and serenity aims at liberating himself as well the public from the oppression of politics and dogmas (Xu 1990b: 412). In Xu’s eyes, the contemporary painter, Pu Xinyu 溥心畬 (1896–1963), a former Manchu aristocrat who is simultaneously refined, humorous, candid and mysterious, embodies the ideal synthesis of Confucianism and Daoism (Xu 1980c: 152). But still we find more incongruence between Xu's aesthetic propensity and the Zhuangzi he describes. To Xu as well as traditional Confucian literati, “immersion in art” (you yu yi 游於藝) should never be the chief concern in life for one who “sets his heart upon the Way” (zhi yu dao 志於道). In Xu’s eyes, “art” is only “part of life” rather than “an attitude toward life” as Zhuangzi proposes. Moreover, Xu still favors the Confucian union of the good and the beautiful. Art is worthwhile when it is instrumental to moral purposes; only virtuous persons can create beautiful works, and only artists with “love” can discover “beauty” (Xu 1991: 223). He tries to parallel the Daoist equalitarian state of mind with Confucian benevolence and righteousness (Xu 1976:106), yet the Confucian sense of right and wrong is after all a far cry from Zhuangzi’s “equal confirmation of all values.” His strong dislike for the “ugly” modern paintings is inconsistent with Zhuangzi’s “identity of contraries” (qiwu 齊 物); his inclination that “the good as the beautiful” diverges from Zhuangzi’s preference for “the true as the beautiful.” If viewed in this light, Xu's position in the debate on modern art will be easier to understand.

7  Critique of Modern Art and Culture Equipped with such an understanding of Chinese culture and aesthetics, Xu Fuguan was extremely shocked by Western avant-garde and modernism during his first encounter. In his eyes, modern art is nothing but the “symbol of destruction.” He

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finds modern artists “exerting themselves to destroy images which can be illuminated by clear light in the world, searching instead for the images hidden beyond normal people’s senses.” Some look just like “a heap of pus and blood.” Others skilled at the use of lines and colors to foster a sense of special changes of light, but in such changes of light emerge only “fragments of a dull, flimsy life” (Xu 1991: 263). If art is the reflection of life, what kind of life does this sort of art reflect? Xu makes this conjecture: “reason” is a unity between intellect and virtue, yet in practice, Western culture appears to be more intellect-oriented compared to China’s ethical inclination. Westerners are intelligent toward the external world, but they keep their own inner life in a primitive state, constantly breaking the control of intellect, generating conflicts within and without. Xu speculates that, as science and capitalism developed, such a primitive impulse is simultaneously boosted and shocked by this mechanical, materialistic world. The swelling of this savage power further eclipses the light of intellect in the modern era. Without the balance of virtue, it gives rise to irrational, anti-humanistic modern Western ideas such as logical positivism, behaviorism, and Freudianism. Modern art is yet another expression of this wild primitive power. “Primitive life is turbulent, grotesque, and dismal, therefore the art that represents it is also turbulent, grotesque, and dismal.” He predicts that this blind force will drive human beings to complete destruction (Xu 1991: 265). Xu’s assumption stirred heated debate in Taiwan, especially strong opposition from the young artist Liu Guosong (劉國松: 1932–). Xu was forced to think more thoroughly about the artistic/cultural implications and social/political ramifications of modern art (Lee 1998: 308–354). His critique reveals both the insights and blind spots of modern Confucian moral aesthetics vis-à-vis modernity. First, Xu takes issue with the “negation of natural image” in modern paintings, a trend he describes as “a denial of art itself.” The wild landscape is the sanctuary for one to be free from social pressures and to hold communion with all creatures, argues Xu (1980b: 154–155); modern artists’ distortion or elimination of nature (or more broadly, natural image) is unacceptable. He does not necessarily advocate “realism” or “naturalism,” because he contends that art works are artists' spirit conveyed by objective forms. Art is neither totally subjective nor totally objective. But more often than not, he emphasizes the importance of “natural image” to check the over-subjective tendency of modern art, believing that nature is the major theme of both Chinese painting and Western art since the Renaissance (Xu 1980a: 249–250). Contrary to Liu Guosong, who has explored traditional Chinese and modern Western styles of painting extensively and concludes that “abstract painting is the only absolutely authentic painting,” Xu asserts that abstract art will pass away after new ways of representation are found (Xu 1991: 216). Aside from abstract art, Xu is also deeply disturbed by the irrationalism of Dada and surrealism. To him, they represent desperate skepticism, a total denial of art, ethics, society, and law, a strong destructive impulse, and a craving for meaninglessness (Xu 180a: 241–244). Instigated by the terror, confusion, agony of the two world wars, Dadaists and Surrealists advocate that art is foolishness and madness. To these iconoclasts, parrots, idiots, and natural forces are capable of creating art;

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nails, hair, tickets, odds and ends are materials suitable for art. Since they abandon communication with others, it is no wonder they are stuck in the wasteland of absolute chill and terror (Xu 1991: 212–214). Xu thus observes: Spiritually modern art originated from a group of sensible men sensitive to the hopelessness of the era and each individual. Secluding themselves from society and from nature, they locked themselves in their own "unconsciousness" to let loose its libido or indulging its solitude and darkness. This is the fundamental trait of modern art; factors such as evolution of art history or pursuits of new forms are nothing but secondary....This kind of art is a symbol of trauma in history; it contains no enduring aesthetic value by itself whatsoever. (Xu 1980a: 268)

If we dig deeper, it shows that actually what worried Xu was not any specific form of modern art; instead, he was more concerned with the artists' view of nature, society, and history as well as its political implications (Xu 180a: 267). Xu suspected that, if modern surrealists succeeded in their destruction of the past, they would, unwittingly, clear the path for communism (Xu 1991: 217). Admittedly, during the period of the Cold War and White Terror, such a warning had very serious political connotations. As a democratic socialist, he indeed had no intention to threaten contemporary young artists with communist allegations, but being a Confucian and a historian, he had to honestly express his concerns to the public. Xu maintained that, with Dadaist absolute nihilism and total denial, modern artists were capable of destroying the current establishment but unable to build a new order. They were doomed to face an unfathomable abyss after they swept away all the values related to history and culture. But nobody can stay in such an abyss forever; they must cling to some hope to keep life going, and communism seemed to be that hope. Compared with Dadasim, communism was equally iconoclastic toward the past yet more constructive in its vision of the future, so it attracted many avant-gardists to follow it. This is why Xu believed that modern artists would unwittingly clear the path for communism (Xu 1991: 220). Indeed, what eventually happened in Europe of the first half of twentieth century justified Xu’s worries.2 Finally, like Thomé H. Fang, Xu’s Confucian faith in human nature made him critical of Judeo-Christian culture in general and Freudian theory in particular. Xu fully recognized how Confucian faith in human goodness differed from the Christian idea of original sin (Xu 1991: 28). He also realized that the natural world is considered homogeneous with man in ancient China but it is perceived as the “source of paganism” to Christians in the Medieval Age (Xu 1980a: 249). Hence, he praised the Renaissance which saw the liberation of humanity from the dominion of God 2  Renato Poggioli agrees with Xu that it is the innate features of the avant-gardists which explain their conversion to communism. Extending their antagonistic and nihilistic tendencies to the political field, they turned against the whole of bourgeois society, not just against culture. The activist impulse led them to participate in a party of action and agitation, while the agonistic and futuristic impulses induced them to accept the idea of sacrificing themselves and their own movements for the social betterment of the future. Such mystical ecstasy prevented the artists from realizing that they would have neither the reason nor the chance to survive in a communist society. See: Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant Garde, Gerald Fitzgerald trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 99–100.

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and the development of a closer relationship between human and nature (Xu 1980a: 250). It was deplorable to Xu that in the modern age, humanity’s status is diminished and their relationship with nature is alienated once again. He is particularly alarmed by Freud’s analysis of human unconsciousness and its permeation into almost every sphere of humanity and social sciences: literature, art, religion, anthropology, education, law, sociology, criminology, and historiography. To Xu, the three psychical realms that Freud dissects—sub-consciousness, consciousness, and conscience— are comparable to the three dimensions that Mengzi and other Confucians analyze—feelings (qing 情), mind (xin 心), and heaven-conferred nature (xing 性). In Xu’s understanding, Confucianism never renounced feelings and desires as some religions do, but different from Freud’s theory, it believes that the conscience lies deeper in man's inner self than sexual desires, and that an autonomous mind was capable of reconciling the conflict between conscience and feelings/desires. By contrast, modern artists saturated with Freudianism consider the Eros-driven sub-consciousness as the predominant force (Xu did not notice the role of Thanatos), thwarting consciousness and conscience as the moving power in human life (Xu 1990b: 174; Xu 1976: 26–27). Initially they adopted this approach to check over-­ reliance on rationality in modern civilization, yet in reality, this hardly affected the ethos of scientific rationality. Instead, what it successfully threatened were moral reason and humanity (Xu 1991: 217). These artists attempt to navigate the perplexed age toward a new direction, but Xu raised this question: how can this goal be achieved if they withdraw into individual solitude and expel the world from their works?

8  D  ifferentiation and Syncretism of the True, the Good and the Beautiful Modern westerners divide the true, the good, and the beautiful into three parallel categories, whereas the Chinese consider the good as the ultimate value. It was not unusual for Xu to prioritize life over art, and the good over the beautiful. Almost all modern Confucians share his point of view. Such pan-moralism is related to Chinese humanism (renwen zhuyi 人文主義). It began with the early Zhou Dynasty (eleventh century BC) when the belief in the supernatural powers gradually gave way to the sense of human responsibility. The conviction that human beings are born good (renxing benshan 人性本善) and are held accountable for their own destiny rose to become the core of Chinese spirituality (Xu 1990b: 161–163). The Great Learning (Daxue 大學) says, “The way of great learning consists in promoting moral character, renovating the people, and achieving perfect goodness (大學之道, 在明明德, 在新民, 在止於至善)” (my translation). Likewise, Mengzi defines “the good” as morally desirable (keyu zhiwei shan可欲之謂善) and “the beautiful” as morally fulfilled (chongshi zhiwei mei 充 實之謂美) (Mengzi 7B25). Without the guidance of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God, the only moral compass that humans can count on in the turbulent

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world is but their conscience conferred by Heaven, which needs to be checked and maintained through constant efforts. Morality is therefore a matter of utmost importance to Confucians. Qian Mu believed that the good is concerned with human feelings (renqing 人 情). Truth without feelings is of no worth and no good; likewise, objects without feelings cannot be considered as beautiful. Truth, goodness, and beauty must be in harmony with each other (Qian 1998: 160–161), and goodness is the necessary condition for both truth and beauty to be accepted by Chinese mentality. The status of professional artists in Chinese society is therefore lower than other men of honor. In Thomé H. Fang’s hierarchy of perpetual human advancement, a “man of art” is situated in the middle place, ranking above a “man of nature,” a “man of action,” and a “man of reason” but standing below a “man of virtue”, a “man of religion,” and a “man of nobleness” (Fang 2004: 29–30). Tang Junyi’s attitudes toward the good and the beautiful are more ambivalent. He used to claim that art is the utmost spiritual triumph of human being. The materials of art are nothing but the sound and colors of physical world; once they pass through the artist’s heart, sound and color become the symbols of a human being’s heart. Therefore, art is the greatest victory of human spirit; appreciating art simply for sensory joy or sentimental comfort is regarded an insult to the dignity of art (Tang 1956: 65). However, Tang Junyi continues, “the pursuit of the beautiful should be turned into the pursuit of the good.” The worship of beauty starts with enjoying one’s own creation and ends with enjoying everybody’s as well as nature’s creation. The delight of appreciation is endless, so the world of beauty extends endlessly. Nevertheless, endless pursuit of one’s meaning of life via other people’s work of art makes one lose his or her own individuality. Creating a piece of art by oneself is also unsatisfactory because, once completed, it is alienated from the creator and becomes just another object of appreciation, just like numerous other natural or artificial objects. Even life-long devotion to creative work cannot save one from this predicament, for everything one creates will eventually depart from the author, leaving nothing to the creator himself. So, Tang contends that, only when using one’s own character—the only thing one possesses forever—as the material and crafting it into a piece of art, can he or she create a unique masterpiece in the cosmos. Therefore, the highest quest for beauty is a quest for goodness; the highest beauty is the beauty of character; the beauty of personality is identical with the goodness of personality (Tang 1956: 65). As a result, Tang has mixed feelings toward the rise of Chinese aesthetical self-­ awareness during the Wei-Jin period. During this epoch of political upheavals and disintegration, the consciousness of individuality surpassed the consciousness of community. People of that time preferred to enjoy nature and the world in an aesthetic manner, to express themselves and their personalities without the constraints of ritual formality and politics. On the one hand, Tang blames most prominent poets, artists and thinkers of this period for being unwilling and unable to bear responsibility for the whole nation. However, on the other hand, he admires the fact that after ridding themselves of such a sense of responsibility, their outlook appeared to be livelier, fresher, more elegant and natural than their dull and earthy predecessors of

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the Han dynasty. And he calls this a positive new development of Chinese humanism (Tang 1988: 22-23). The philosopher Mou Zongsan offers two theories—“differentiation theory (fenbie shuo 分別說)” and “unity theory (heyi shuo 合一說)”—to settle the relation among the true, the good and the beautiful after he translated Kant’s Critique of Judgment. When considered separately, truth corresponds to science and knowledge, goodness relates to morality, and beauty coincides with natural and artistic grace. They are spheres independent from each other, each containing certain advantages and disadvantages. Truth is the “principle of breath (huxi 呼吸)” that opens a window to life, yet it leads one to discover only appearances, not things-in-themselves. Goodness is the struggle of life based on the “principle of endless self-improvement (jingjin buyi 精進不已),” but without the flexibility to let it go, good may frequently conflict with the spheres of truth and beauty. By contrast, beauty is the “principle of leisure and contentment (xianshi 閒適),” which makes it easy and free for one to live, flourish, and soar. However, if constantly indulged in such a condition without exerting oneself for some higher cause, one may end up becoming decadent and spoiled (Mou 2003a: 79–80). Mou argues that, if “thing-in-itself” is flat ground, then these spheres are “appearances” similar to three heaps of earth. According to Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, human beings have “intellectual intuition” (zhi de zhijue 智的直覺) that can reach the level of “thing-in-itself” to level the heaps of earth into flat ground. (Kant, however, denies such human possibility and attributes rational intuition to God only.) (Mou 2003a: 76–77). How can the true, the good, and the beautiful be integrated at the same time? According to Mou’s “unity theory,” the initially separate three spheres can be united because the good—i.e., morality or practical reason—plays a leading role after one makes continuous efforts for self-improvement. According to Confucian teaching, the first challenge for moral cultivation is to raise one’s conscience to overcome sensual desires. However, the increasing endeavor toward morality may turn one into a great, glorious figure yet nervous, arrogant, and hostile at the same time. Such a sense of moral superiority may create hypocrisy and make one scary and abhorrent to others. Therefore, he or she must undergo further transformation, eliminating the delusions of grandeur to become amiable, gregarious, care-free, and comfortable with the world. When he or she rises beyond distinctions (wuxiang 無相) with effortless ease, he or she will be able to enjoy the directionless freedom of intuitive talent and start to “immerse in art.” Rather than the ordinary meaning we understand, “beauty” here is defined as a sage’s “heart of no distinction,” and goodness can be equated with beauty in this sense. Moreover, because a sage’s heart makes no distinctions, he can transcend human sense and sensibility as well as phenomena and truth. The thing-in-itself will emerge, and beauty, goodness, and truth will thus become one and the same (Mou 2003a: 80–82). Like most of his modern Confucian colleagues, Mou does not think highly of the value of beauty in the ordinary sense of the word. Beauty as such is, subjectively speaking, the “intuition of wonderful cleverness” (miaohui zhi zhigan妙慧之直感),

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or objectively speaking, “the brilliance of vital activity” (qihua zhi guangcai 氣化 之光彩). Based on the “principle of leisure and contentment,” beauty is appreciated in quiet contemplation; it is not a guiding principle that sets the ultimate goal for life. Although it is indispensable, it can melt away and become part of the flat ground (Mou 2003a: 75–76, 86). Mou is also critical of Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment. As an “intuition of wonderful cleverness” and “the brilliance of vital activity,” beauty has nothing to do with reason. Kant’s “purposive principle” cannot be applied to explain aesthetic judgment (Mou 2003a: 75–76). Furthermore, Kant expects aesthetic judgment to connect freedom and nature and fuse them into a harmonious, unified, and complete system. To Mou, this is a task beyond the capacity of aesthetic judgment. It makes no sense for Kant to relate it to the “purposive principle” and conclude that “beauty is the symbol of good” (Mou 2003a: 80). Mou is also critical of Liu Shao (劉劭, c. 168–249), the author of Records of Personages (Renwu zhi 人物志) which delineates the Wei-Jin style of character. Different from the Mengzian moral assumption of human nature, Liu Shao observes people from an aesthetic angle and judges them by their talent (caixing 才性) instead. To Mou, whereas Mengzian moral potential is universal and equalitarian, talent is particularistic and differentiated. According to the latter, genius is rare and each individual is destined to be unequal. Not surprisingly, under the influence of Liu’s work, the people of Wei-Jin Dynasties possessed natural grace and were highly concerned with class and lineage status. It proved that the discovery of aesthetic spirit and naturally endowed artistic talent did not lead to universal human dignity; neither was it sufficient to set people free from the repression of class hierarchy (Mou 1978: 44, 46, 50). If nature and temperament are inherent and predestined as Liu Shao claimed, they cannot be changed or transformed at any rate. By contrast, Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty believed that the embodied nature (qizhi zhi xing 氣質之性) could be transformed by the nature of moral reason (yili zhi xing 義理之性), which makes the learning of virtue (chengde zhi xue 成德之學) possible. The universality and equality of human dignity can thus be guaranteed. In Mou’s eyes, an irrational life may be enjoyable artistically and aesthetically, yet it is disturbing morally and religiously. It results in the absurdity and eccentricity of numerous heroes and genius, as do many irresolvable tragedies (Mou 1978: 58–59). The aesthetes of both ancient China and modern Europe are unacceptable to him in this regard. Intriguingly, Mou was sympathetic with the artistic, willful protagonists of the novel Dream of the Red Chamber when he was young. Compared with the character of Baochai (寶釵), a paragon of virtue, the eccentric and non-conforming Baoyu ( 寶玉) and Daiyu (黛玉) won more applause from him (Mou 2003b: 1064–1067). In addition, like a Daoist, he also admired the rebellious, impetuous outlaws of the Water Margin for their uncompromising spirit. One has to forgive everything, acknowledge everything, and transcend everything in order to appreciate those mavericks, said he. He adored them, one suspects, partly because those unruly and lonely souls resembled himself (Mou 1991: 228–235).

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However, the chaos in modern China left little room for self-indulgence. Mou was forced to curb his aesthetic inclination and take up his moral responsibility. The study of Confucianism led him to follow the path of the sage, trying to re-construct the political, intellectual and everyday life order by promoting democracy, science, and moral values (Mou 1991: 3–5, 235). He could not but declare war on his former self when he solemnly denounced the aesthetic approach to life. To some extent, this challenge confronted not just Mou, but his New Confucian colleagues as well. All of them were sensitive men with literary bent and a certain degree of eccentricity. The Confucian choice between the good and the beautiful was never as easy as it seemed.

9  Conclusion As the works of Thomé H. Fang, Mou Zongsan, Qian Mu, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan show, different from the epistemological, psychological aspects of Western aesthetics, modern Confucian moral aesthetics is characteristic of the stress on culture and life. Their ideas of art are closely related to their cosmology, ideas of nature and humanity, and the political, social and cultural life in traditional China. Intriguingly, while New Confucians try to assert the uniqueness of Chinese aesthetics by juxtaposing it with its Western counterpart, American philosopher Larry Shiner reveals the disparity between traditional and modern concepts of art. He argues that the word “art” used to signify any human activity performed with skill and grace. For over two thousand years, art was commissioned by patrons and it had specific religious, political, or social functions in Europe. As the patronage system was replaced by an art market and middle-class public since the eighteenth century, the concept of “art” was split apart. The dichotomies of “fine art vs. craft,” “artist vs. artisan,” and “aesthetic vs. purposive” emerged, accompanied by new institutions such as museums, concert halls, and copyrights. Romanticists of the nineteenth century even raised Art to the level of the highest values, making the artist’s vocation a unique spiritual calling, transforming artists into either prophet, priest, and dandy, or bohemian, martyr, and rebel. (Shiner 2001: 5–9, 225). There the idea of “art for art’s sake” took root. Although several trends tried to challenge the split (notably the Arts and Crafts movement, dada/surrealism, and the Bauhaus), the division continued by assimilating the rebels into the fine art system (Shiner 2001: 227–228). In terms of the Confucian idea of “art for life’s sake,” we found some resonances in the “old” system of art in the West, whereas Chinese literati artists’ high regard of themselves over court and folk artists can be comparable to the “new” system in Europe, although Confucian pursuit of the good prevented them from exalting art— whether fine art or craft—as the highest goal in life. Confucians would not agree with the “art for art’s sake” attitudes, but it is unlikely for them to appreciate the dada/surrealist style of resistance. When trying to defend Chinese sensibility against Western (and Westernized) critics, New Confucians tend to view Chinese culture as a holistic and organic entity

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for strategic purposes. Overlooking the multiple and sometimes contradictory components of Chinese culture, their statements may seem over-simplified to some readers. In fact, although labeled as modern Confucians, they are also the beneficiaries of several other intellectual traditions from China and the world. Integrating Confucianism with Daoism, Buddhism, and the theories of Bergson, Hegel, and Kant, they continue to place “goodness” above “beauty” as the ultimate value of life, making them unmistakably Confucian in their final outlook. Some critics complain that modern Confucians are not “scientific” and “broad-­ minded” enough to focus on the epistemology of aesthetics as the Western scholars (Wan and Aihua 2014: 4). In light of the criticisms Thomé H. Fang held toward the “Western segregational mode of thought,” perhaps an “aesthetics of life” was exactly what they preferred. Disquietingly, following the Confucian literary tradition, Qian, Tang, and Xu’s stress on the utilitarian and political dimension of art was reminiscent of the social realism that Maoist literary policy promoted. Fortunately, however, the Confucian propositions of “comprehensive harmony” and “empathetic feelings” stand in stark contrast to Marxist class struggle and historical materialism. Perhaps modern Confucian aesthetics can function as a remedy to Maoist oppression in this respect. What about its compatibility with Western modernity, then? Xu Fuguan is critical of avant-garde and modernism for their “primitive impulses,” but in turn modern artists may attack Confucian moral aesthetics as conformist and repressive. It would be a serious challenge to the validity of Confucian moral aesthetics in modern times. As the critic Li Zehou puts it, relatively speaking, expressions of individual feelings are not prominent in Chinese works; rather, Chinese art aims at molding human emotions for the benefit of the society as its goal (Li 2010: xvii). Because of the primacy of this goal, Chinese aesthetics excludes unrestrained desire, instinctive impulse, intense emotion, purgative distress, and any objectionable emotional form of art that serves up the ugly, weird, or evil (Li 2010: xviii). This was what the New Confucians inherited from their predecessors. Actually, before the arrival of Western powers, challenge to Confucian aesthetics occurred several times in Chinese history. Zhuangzi was probably the first and foremost dissident; then the eccentric Wei-Jin elites followed suit; one thousand years later came the iconoclasts of the Ming. Appropriating Wang Yangming’s theory of mind, they pursued individual independence and the expression of desires. One no longer avoided, but should actually pursue the kind of shocking, vulgar, romantic, or startling effect previously proscribed. Regretfully, Li laments, this trend was interrupted by the struggle for national salvation in the twentieth century when individual desire and the arts in general once again acquiesced to the needs of society and the state (Li 2010: xv). The “seduction” of Western modernity that Xu denounced was only the revival of such a trend. So, a modern artist may challenge modern Confucians with the following questions: Politically and socially speaking, can “comprehensive harmony” grow spontaneously without top-down indoctrination? Artistically and aesthetically speaking, can diversity and freedom of expression thrive under its sway? Is it possible for a pluralistic democracy to flourish in a society with Confucian aesthetics?

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Even a sympathetic follower of modern Confucianism may worry about the scenario of its future. With the absence of traditional cosmology, the collapse of its political-cultural foundation, and the disappearance of its major patron, the scholar-­ official gentry class, can Confucian aesthetics continue in modern times? Is it able to survive in a world of liberal democracy? Confronting such challenges, modern Confucians may fight back by asking another set of questions: If a liberal democracy still requires the coercion of the rule of law as its prerequisite, will the rules of music and rites based on the assumption of comprehensive harmony better serve the same purpose? Is a society built upon capitalistic competition and material consumption more livable than the one based on empathetic feelings with people and with nature? Must we sacrifice communitarian life and emotional inter-connectedness to endorse individuality unconditionally? Of course, if modern Confucian were to incorporate the Daoist spirit of art more successfully and if they can really rise beyond any distinction and be tolerant of all possible things, then the chances of its compatibility with modernity should increase. Before we can find a feasible solution, let us hope that the two types of worldviews can live and let live.

References Fang, Dongmei 方東美. 1985. Eighteen lectures on new confucian philosophy 新儒家哲學十八講. Taipei: Liming Culture Co. (Lectures on the major figures of Northern Song neo-Confucians.) ———. 1987. Three types of philosophical wisdom 哲學三慧. Taipei: Sanmin Bookstore. (A succinct comparison of the traits of ancient Greek, modern European, and traditional Chinese philosophies.) ———. 2004. The Chinese philosophy of life 中國人生哲學. Taipei: Liming Culture Co. (An introduction to the traditional Chinese ideas of cosmos, humanity, morality, politics, and art for the general public.) Fang, Thomé H.方東美. 1980. The Chinese view of life: The Philosophy of comprehensive harmony. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. (A discussion of Chinese views on nature, human, morals and politics based on the assumption of “comprehensive harmony.”) ———. 1981. Chinese philosophy: Its spirit and its development. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. (A survey of the characteristics and major trends of Chinese philosophy up to the early Qing Dynasty.) Gong, Pencheng龔鵬程. 1998. The Development of Aesthetics in Taiwan 美學在台灣的發展. Chiayi: Nanhua College of Management. (Articles on the traits of aesthetics developed in Taiwan after 1949.) Jiang, Menglin 蔣夢麟. 1986. Tides from the West 西潮. Tainan: Chuanwu Bookstore. (An inspiring autobiography by a liberal focusing on the West’s impact on traditional China.) Lau, D. C. 劉殿爵. 1992. The Analects. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. (Translation of Kongzi’s teaching by a world renowned sinologist.) Lee, Su-san 李淑珍. 1998. Xu Fuguan and New Confucianism in Taiwan (1949-1969): A cultural history of the exile generation. Ph.D.  Dissertation, History Department, Brown University. (A research on the political and cultural legacy of Chinese diaspora intellectuals in post-1949 Taiwan, with Xu Fuguan as the focus.)

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Li, Zehou 李澤厚. 2010. Maija Bell Samei, trans. The Chinese aesthetic tradition 華夏美學. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (Insightful and provocative examination of the development of aesthetics throughout Chinese history.) Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1978. Natural endowment and the mysterious principle 才性與玄理. Tapei: Xuesheng Bookstore. (In depth analysis of the philosophies from late Han Dynasty to the Wei-Jin period.) ———. 1991. The learning of life 生命的學問. Taipei: Sanmin Bookstore. (Miscellaneous articles on Confucian humanism.) ———. 2003a. Kant’s critique of judgment 康德「判斷力之批判」. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. (Mou’s translation and comments on Kant’s masterpiece.) ———. 2003b. Mr. Mou Zongsan’s early essay collection (II) 牟宗三先生早期文集(下). Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd. (Mou’s works before 1949.) Qian, Mu 錢穆. 1986. Mentors and friends: A memoir 師友雜憶. Taipei: Dongda Publisher. (A memoir about both Qian’s life and the academic circle of China in the 20th century.) ———. 1998. Essays on Chinese literature中國文學論叢. Taipei: Linking Publisher. (General observation on the characteristics of Chinese art, literature, and drama.) Shiner, Larry. 2001. The invention of art: A cultural history. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (A history about Western art before and after the division of fine art vs craft.) Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1956. Personal experience of life 人生之體驗. Hong Kong: Rensheng Publisher. (Tang’s early philosophy of life written in a literary style.) ———. 1979. The spiritual value of Chinese culture中國文化之精神價值. Taipei: Zhengzhong Bookstore. (A defense of the value of Chinese culture by comparing it with that of the West.) ———. 1988. The development of the Chinese humanistic spirit 中國人文精神之發展. Taipei: Xuesheng Bookstore. (Essays on how humanism developed in the history of China and the West, and how China should accommodate science, democracy, morality, and religion in its modern nation-building.) Wan, Xiaoping 宛小平 and Fu Aihua 伏愛華. 2014. A study of the aesthetics of modern new confucians in Hong Kong and Taiwan港台現代新儒家美學思想研究. Hefei: Anhui University Press. (Essays on the aesthetics of Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, Tang Junyi, and Thomé H. Fang.) Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀. 1976. The spirit of Chinese art 中國藝術精神. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (A study of Zhuangzi’s spirit of art and his influence on Chinese landscape paintings and its art theories.) ———. 1980a. Selected miscellaneous essays by Xu Fuguan 徐復觀文錄選粹. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (Xu’s commentary on issues of modern culture, literature, and art.) ———. 1980b. Reflections記所思. Taipei: Shibao Wenhua. (Miscellaneous articles on contemporary politics and culture.) ———. 1980c. Recollections 憶往事. Taipei: Shibao Wenhua. (Memoirs on Xu himself and other intellectuals.) ——— 1984. Essays on Chinese literature: A sequel 中國文學論集續篇. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (An essay collection of Xu’s critique of Chinese poetry.) ———. 1990a. Essays on Chinese literature 中國文學論集. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. 5th edition. (An essay collection on Wenxin diaolong (文心雕龍) and other literary criticism.) ———. 1990b. The history of the Chinese philosophy of human nature: The pre-qin period 中國 人性論史: 先秦篇. Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan. (A comprehensive and in-depth exploration of Confucian, Mohist, and Daoist philosophies of human nature.) ———. 1991. A collection of miscellaneous essays by Xu Fuguan 徐復觀文存. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. (Xu’s commentaries on the challenges that Chinese culture faces under the sway of modernity.)

New Confucian Hermeneutic Thought Wei-chieh Lin

1  Introduction The establishment and development of Confucian scholarship has always been tied to the Classics. The doctrines of the classical Confucians Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzi were founded on the Five Classics. By the Song dynasty, Confucians added the Four Books to the Five Classics as sacred texts. Broadly defined, these classics can be considered the “words of the sages.” Confucians believe that reading and studying the works (words) of the sages can cultivate the self and further, stabilize the household, bring order to the state, and pacify the world.1 Reading the works of the sages can realize the objectives of cultivating the self, bringing order to the state, and pacifying the world, and therefore they portray the sages as the highest and most complete moral figures. However, the lofty figure of the sages’ moral character and the majestic figure of their authorial character are not initially necessarily connected. Those with the highest attainment in moral character cannot necessarily express their truth in words; possessing excellence in practical ability and possessing outstanding expressive ability ought to be considered two different kinds of excellence. According to traditional historical records, there were some Confucian figures with very strong ability in practice and a high attainment in cultivation with no known writings. One such group includes Yao, Shun, and the Duke of Zhou;

 This language comes from the Great Learning.—Trans.

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Translated by David Elstein W. Lin (*) Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_24

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another includes Kongzi’s disciples Yan Hui and Zengzi (Zeng Shen).2 Yao, Shun, and the Duke of Zhou belong to the “outward king” category.3 They obtained their reputation through their special achievements [in governing]. Yan Hui and Zengzi were closer to the “inward sage” category, being honored by Kongzi for their work in moral cultivation and perfection of character. Looked at in this light, a sage does not need verbal teachings to have attained an infinite moral character. Such a person is a “sage in conduct.” Once a “sage in conduct” has an advanced achievement in writing, he can also be a “sage in words”; however, it seems there have been no such cases in the history of Confucianism. The usual case is that a “sage in words” is simultaneously considered to be a “sage in conduct.” These speakers and writers were even more appreciated by later Confucians because they left materials later people could follow, model themselves on, and engage in dialogue with. People like Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, the Duke of Zhou, Yan Hui, and Zengzi only had an ideal character. It was Kongzi and Mengzi who left writings and so they are the ones passed down to later ages as personifications of perfection. Confucians call the eminent works left by the “sages in words” the Classics. The process of the establishment of the classics is complex. Contention over the Five (or Six) Classics and the Four Books4 not only is a representation of transitions and developments of Confucian philosophical thought, it also encompasses a change in the manner of setting down the sages’ words. Those who dictated the Five Classics remained anonymous, their identities unknown, while the sources of the Four Books—Kongzi, Mengzi, and Zisi (according to tradition Zisi was the author of the Doctrine of the Mean, a chapter of the Record of Ritual, while the Great Learning is another chapter of that text with an unknown author)—leapt onto the historical stage. More importantly, the authors of the Five Classics were not entirely recognized as exemplars of perfect character, while the elevation of the Four Books in the Song dynasty finally marked the authors of the Classics as sages. In other words, the development from the Five Classics to the Four Books cannot just be explained in terms of philosophical progress in the system of Confucian ethics; it also represents a change in the status and position of speakers and writers in Confucian history. Their moral images and outstanding works set off each other, making the Classics the important foundation for later Confucians to study. Later Confucians had to interpret the Classics, not just study them. The sages’ composing the Classics and later Confucians’ interpreting them are both ways of attaining glory from speaking and writing. The difference is that the former are “creative words” 2  Yao and Shun were revered sage rulers in the distant past. The Duke of Zhou was the brother of the founder of the Zhou dynasty, particularly esteemed by Kongzi for preserving traditional culture. Yan Hui and Zengzi were two notable disciples of Kongzi.—Trans. 3  “Inward a sage, outward a king” was a common Neo-Confucian formulation, though it dates much earlier. New Confucians adopted variations of it as well.—Trans. 4  The Five Classics are the Odes, Documents, Changes, Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals (with the lost Music classic being the sixth). The Four Books are the Analects, Mengzi, Great Learning, and Mean, categorized together by Zhu Xi.—Trans.

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while the latter are “hermeneutic words.” From the perspective of classical hermeneutics, continuous interpretation is a kind of creation. It deepens the meaning of the Classics and strengthens their influence. When later Confucians studied and explicated the Classics, they often took a further step to consider how to interpret and how to confront the Classics. The most famous example is the debate between Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and Lu Xiangshan (1139–1193). Zhu Xi venerated the Classics, believing, “The words of the sagely Classics are like the master and those who expound them are like servants” (Li and Xingxian 2004: 1.193). Therefore, he claimed that people must first “objectively understand” the meaning of the Classics and only then would they secure a basis for moral practice. In contrast, Lu Xiangshan believe that the reason the Classics are important is because “what the Classics say” is founded on “what the fundamental heart-mind says,” and since this is the case, why should we set aside the primary and pursue the secondary? Lu’s most famous proposition is “The Six Classics are all my footnotes,” which he applied to the activity of explaining the Classics (Lu 2008: 394). Later, Wang Yangming (1472–1529) put forward the proposition “The Six Classics are account books for my heart-mind” (Wu et al. 1992: 255) comparing the Classics to ledgers provided simply for the auditor’s (reader’s) browsing and confirming. Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan (Wang Yangming as well) represent two different hermeneutical ways of thinking: the former hoping for the “reappearance of the meaning of the Classics” and through this reappearance cultivating oneself; the latter believing that making an effort to pursue this “reappearance” might lead to the falling into the great trap of getting lost in words. They held that interpreters should turn their gaze away from objects and to the self (the fundamental heart-mind). This is the real way to study. In their attitudes toward the Classics, the contemporary New Confucians Mou Zongsan (1909–1995) and Tang Junyi (1909–1978) represent Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan, respectively. Mou stood with the Lu-Wang side in moral theory, but in hermeneutics he was a supporter of Zhu Xi, while Tang was a follower of Lu-Wang in both moral and hermeneutical theory, even though neither of them had read works on modern hermeneutic theory. Xu Fuguan (1902–1982) authored many works on Confucianism, but in hermeneutics he mainly put forth his thoughts in literary studies as well as historiography. Xu probably absorbed some Western hermeneutic concepts and ideas through Japanese translation. Compared with those three, Liu Shuxian (1934–2018) had a greater understanding of contemporary hermeneutical thought and developments. He was acquainted with the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer; however, he had a greater love for Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, which is an another type of hermeneutics and has the potential to be influential in his field of concern: cross-­ cultural dialogue. Because Xu Fuguan’s discussions of hermeneutics and the problems of understanding are mainly focused on literature, with little relation to Confucianism, I will discuss the hermeneutical thought of Mou, Tang, and Liu, and in addition analyze the significance of their thought in the development of Chinese hermeneutics.

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2  Mou Zongsan’s Zhu Xi-Style Model In his introduction to the first volume of Heart-Mind as Reality and Nature as Reality 心體與性體, Mou distinguished a kind of hermeneutic model. In the process, he touched on the Ming Confucian Wang Longxi (Wang Ji) (1498–1583) and Kant: Wang Longxi had a saying: “There are different kinds of realization of the Way: there is realization by understanding, verified realization, and penetrating realization.” Nowadays people don’t talk about realizing the Way. For now, we should look at the discourses and words of 600 years of Song-Ming great Confucians as one period of scholarship, first to understand them objectively, which will also be of assistance in comprehending this learning. There are different kinds of comprehension: sensible comprehension, comprehension by understanding, and rational comprehension. Reading casually and interpreting words too literally: this is sensible comprehension. Clarifying and verifying meanings of each word: this is comprehension by understanding. Bringing [ideas] together and unifying them, acquiring the entire system: this is rational comprehension….Rational comprehension is not mere objective comprehension. One has to absorb it into one’s life before it is real, and it has to have relevance in one’s life as its center. Otherwise one cannot fully comprehend the meaning of the words of the ancients and acquire the system of thought. (Mou 1968–1969: vol. 1: preface 1–2)

There are two critical points in the above quotation to discuss. First, the opening paragraph is Wang Longxi’s presentation of three paths to realization of the Way. Here Mou is brief, not giving further explanation, but in fact Wang’s “three kinds of realization” and Mou’s “three kinds of comprehension” are internally connected. Wang’s original text is: There are three teachings for entering the master’s gate. Acquiring [knowledge] through understanding is called realization by understanding. It relies on language and interpretation. Acquiring [knowledge] through quiet sitting is called verified understanding. It is still relying on state of mind. Acquiring [knowledge] through practice in human affairs, forgetting language and state of mind, meeting with the source everywhere, becoming stiller the more one is rocked: this is how one begins to have penetrating comprehension. It is the treasury of the true dharma eye.5 (Wang 2007: 466)

The “master’s gate” refers to Wang Yangming. Wang Longxi’s sequence of realization can in general be looked at as going from external language to the internal mental level, and finally overcoming outer and inner and forgetting both. Acquisition from language and interpretation (understanding written texts) is called “realization by understanding” and is the preliminary, fundamental requirement. As realization by understanding increases, one still must do quiet sitting and still one’s thoughts to have “verified understanding.” At this point, one seeks a state of mind. Finally, one tempers oneself through real affairs to be able to meet the source everywhere. This is the penetrating realization in which language and state of mind are forgotten.

 A saying of Chan Buddhist origin meaning the essence of Buddhist teachings.—Trans.

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To look at these through the vocabulary of hermeneutics, realization by understanding is very close to epistemological hermeneutics. It demands the basic work of combing through documents. Verified realization and penetrating realization are close to the demands of ontological hermeneutics.6 In the activity of understanding, these directly point to the state of mind or an even more direct being, to the point where understanding is personal verification of what exists. Hence, the work of the three stages of realization may be looked at as a development from epistemology to ontology. Second, there are the three kinds of comprehension Mou described in the second paragraph: sensible comprehension, comprehension by understanding, and rational comprehension. This three-part division was drawn from Kant’s three faculties of the subject. Sensible intuition is a passive and receptive faculty; its object is the appearances given in sense data. Understanding is an active faculty of judgment; it confirms knowledge through the corresponding relation of the categories to the synthesis of appearance—this synthesis of appearances is formed by the imagination acting on the appearances given by sensible intuition. Reason is a faculty of inference; its unconditional a priori ideas (the soul, world, and God) are the ultimate foundation that confirms knowledge. In Kant, the distinction of these three faculties illustrates the types of the subject’s cognitive abilities. Mou Zongsan applies these, with an added value judgment, to classical hermeneutics. He explains “sensible comprehension” as a reckless attitude of dealing with the basic level of words (similar to the disorder of sense data). “Comprehension by understanding” is explained as clarifying the meaning of individual words (similar to the knowing activity of the categories), and ultimately “rational understanding” indicates grasping the essential meaning of the system of the whole text (similar to ultimate confirmation of rational ideas). Kant’s “cognitive distinction” is here applied to classical hermeneutics by Mou, becoming a “comprehension distinction.” In Mou’s distinction, sensible comprehension is overly literal; although it is given the name “comprehension” it lacks the substance. Comprehension by understanding and its successor rational comprehension are the real activities of comprehension. The former is the basic work of understanding the words and the latter is putting together the essential meaning of the entire text based on this basic work (“Bringing [ideas] together and unifying them, acquiring the entire system”). Put differently, the distinction between “comprehension by understanding” and “rational comprehension” makes evident a hermeneutical position that relates individual and holistic comprehension, to the point where we can infer that there is a cyclical process of complete (rational) and partial (understanding) comprehension. The third paragraph points out that objective rational comprehension must be responsive to life before it can be true comprehension. This point is extremely important; it is the crux of comprehension. Regarding this point, Mou gave examples from Song-Ming Confucianism: 6  Epistemological hermeneutics focuses on the question of how to understand the content of the object of understanding. Ontological hermeneutics focuses on understanding the subject of understanding.—Trans.

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The average person believes Song-Ming Confucianism derived from Buddhism and Daoism, but this is nonsense….Modern people have no existential resonance with earlier scholarship (meaning Song-Ming Confucianism), and then they add in some crazy, mixed­up new concepts, and it becomes even more difficult to understand. The crux of whether one understands it or not depends on whether one feels an existential resonance, a feeling of authenticity….After one has an objective, responsive understanding, then one can talk about new problems and new developments. (Mou 1983b: 226)

This section emphasizes that Song-Ming Confucianism should be put in the tradition stemming from the pre-Qin Classics. Only this way can we perceive the new developments and new problems of Neo-Confucianism. And looking at Song-Ming Confucianism as originating in Buddhism and Daoism is “a crazy, mixed-up new concept” without any basis. In fact, it is what the previous excerpt called “sensible comprehension.” Attaining “objective, responsive understanding” can only be achieved by having “an existential resonance and feeling of authenticity” regarding the background and origins of Confucianism. In other words, ontological “existential resonance” is the prerequisite for “objective understanding,” which is the final synthesis and highest domain of comprehension.7 However, in the previous quote, Mou said that only the combination of “objective comprehension” and “existential resonance” is “rational comprehension.” Clearly, “objective comprehension” and “existential resonance” are two things in distinct categories: the former is epistemic while the latter is ontological. The highest, final “rational comprehension” is a unity of “epistemic objectivity” and “ontological life response.” What Mou said in these two places is definitely different, but it is only a difference in detail and what we should pay attention to is his fundamental thinking. Comprehension requires epistemic comprehension by understanding as its foundation, yet ontological life response is the key to achieving the highest stage of “rational comprehension.” In German hermeneutics, “life” (Leben) is one of the core concepts of the activity of interpretation. Dilthey developed this to a considerable level. The basic fact of this concept is that “life” is the fundamental characteristic of the human as Dasein, and is also the core of all historical recognition, which ultimately goes back to this fact. Comprehension can only be certain in the midst of a life nexus (Lebenszusammenhang) (Dilthey 1990: 5, 318). Mou Zongsan emphasized being inspired by and responding to life in the activity of comprehension in a manner much like Dilthey, in which “life” is the critical value in the activity of historical and cultural understanding. He additionally expanded life from the individual to the culture. Mou always considered Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism to be “learning for life,” a point he emphasized in many works, noting: In the last year I have truly had an “existential experience” regarding “life.” Although life can be treasured, it can also be a source of worry. If one cannot face this, one has no way to understand “ignorance” in Buddhism or “original sin” in Christianity, or even “physical nature” in Song Confucianism. Furthermore, one cannot deeply comprehend the implications of “reason,” “divinity,” or “Buddha-nature.” The development of culture is due to purity of life and a manifestation of reason. However, deeply entering into both the active

 See also chapter “Methods and Approaches in Contemporary Confucianism”—Trans.

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and passive aspects of learning of life reveals them to be great human affairs: how can one in a heartbeat rashly and impulsively dismiss them as meaningless pseudo-profundity and ignore them…? Learning of life always depends on fitting together true life and true dispositions. Without these, not only is learning of life meaningless, no kind of learning has any chance of developing. (Mou 1983a: preface, 2–3)

Mou used the “existential experience” of life to link the learning of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity, further raising them to the elevated level of “cultural” developments. This is reflected in a number of his works. From a simple kind of angle, one characteristic of cultural development is that through filtering and reflection, it allows life to get beyond the blind push to get ahead of the primitive animal spirit and ultimately manifest a rational structure, as Mou described in his Philosophy of History (Mou 1988: 257ff). In this way, real life is not merely a simple and unaffected existential feeling, but involves existence finding “clarity” and manifesting “reason” through the influence of the great doctrine of a culture. Only in this way is true “rational comprehension” possible. People of Mou’s generation had a deep understanding of the problems of the nation, and so the fortunes of their nationality, their impression of the times, and classical interpretation were frequently connected together. In his Learning for Life he explained this point in detail, especially in the essay “Regarding ‘Life’ Learning: On Fifty Years of Chinese Thought,” where he used the category of life to connect the continuation of the nation and the development of scholarship (Mou 2000: 33–39). Hence a few years later he said he had “truly had an ‘existential experience’ regarding ‘life’” while writing Inherent Nature and Profound Pattern. This was on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, when a whole series of previous hardships of the nation became known overseas. These sharply affected the contemporary New Confucians who themselves had left China and were drifting abroad. To Mou, existential experience was not merely the activity of an individual life, but had to be the movement of life in a collective. Therefore he said that comprehension from an existential experience of life is “existential comprehension” or “ontological comprehension,” and using the terminology of hermeneutics, we should be able to say that comprehension by understanding is epistemological while rational comprehension is a synthesis of epistemology and ontology. Returning to the fundamental relationship between “comprehension by understanding” and “rational comprehension,” Mou’s thought actually echoed Zhu Xi’s standpoint of interpreting the Classics. There is a famous saying of Zhu: “Knowing and acting are always mutually reinforcing. It’s like the eye cannot move without the feet and the feet cannot see without the eye. In terms of sequence, knowing comes first. In terms of importance, acting is more important” (Li and Wang 2004: 1.148). According to Zhu, knowing and action include two mutually explanatory levels: ethics and hermeneutics. Ethical knowing and acting are cognition and practice, respectively; hermeneutic knowing and acting are comprehension and practice (putting into practice the moral pattern of the Classics to nurture one’s life). In regard to the latter, “first knowing then acting” expresses that comprehending the Classics is the prerequisite or basis for nurturing life, while “knowing is less

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important, acting is more important” expresses that nurturing life is the point and purpose of understanding the Classics. There is no doubt that it is fitting to look at Mou through Zhu Xi’s way of thinking, because Mou believed that objective comprehension by understanding is a prerequisite and rational comprehension, which includes “responding to life,” is the highest pursuit. This kind of hermeneutic thought which combines epistemology and ontology while also distinguishing them in sequence is very different than Tang Junyi’s.

3  Tang Junyi’s Lu Xiangshan-Style Model The term Tang Junyi used in connection with interpretation in Chinese thought is “philosophical truth (yili 義理).”8 Philosophical truth is the starting point of his hermeneutic awareness, referring to both his thought and its form. It also includes the demand for truth in his thought and so can perhaps be understood as thought with true reference. The question of understanding truth of this kind constitutes an extremely important research task for understanding Tang as a philosopher and interpreter. He pointed out that when sorting out philosophical truth in Chinese philosophy, “philosophical truth” and “glossing terms” are equally important principles: In Chinese philosophy, when approaching the philosophical truths of the different schools, usually one should first separate their various aspects, types, and layers and explain them. Within these there are several problems on which they have held different views over the thousands of years, which depend on being sorted properly. Explaining and sorting these out on the one hand certainly requires textual research on the documents and glossing the words, but on the other hand also requires addressing the philosophical truths themselves, clearing their obscurities and revealing their purpose. (Tang 1986: 4)

Between them, glossing and textual research and clarifying philosophical truths involve investigation of the words of a document (understanding meaning) as well as grasping the universal principles pointed to by the meaning of the words (understanding truth). From a hermeneutic angle, “principles of philosophical truth (yili 義 理)” are “principles of truth (zhenli 真理).” Although “glossing principles” and “meaning principles” are not exactly equivalent, in Tang’s thought they can be considered as one category. He further pointed out: If the obstructions to philosophical truth are not removed and its purpose not made evident, then glossing words will be difficult and textual research on documents will be wasted labor with little reward. According to Qing Confucians, once word glosses are clear then philosophical truth will be clear: textual examination is the source of philosophical truth. Now we should supplement that and say once philosophical truth is clear then word glosses will be clear: philosophical truth is the starting point for textual examination. (Tang 1986: 4)

8  Yili 義理, a very difficult term to translate. It can mean reasoning or argumentation, but as Tang used it, it is closer to the truth revealed in the Classics, which is truth with an essential moral aspect.—Trans.

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In the previous quotation he held that word glosses and philosophical truth occupied equal—even contending—positions. This quote is different, expressing that text glossing and philosophical truth must each be the starting point (source, foundation) for the other. This illustrates not only that these two principles should mutually support each other, but that based on this support we can further look at their relationship as a methodological circle. Han learning scholars in the Qing advocated, “Once word glosses are clear then philosophical truth will be clear,” and for this reason criticized Song Confucians, feeling that they only focused on philosophical truth and ignored word glossing. Tang’s position of making word glossing and philosophical truth equally important and advocating that each is the origin of the other may be looked at as an attempt to mediate this dispute between the two approaches. The possibility of further developing a circle (each being the origin of the other) between these two interpretive principles based on their equal importance will make people recall German hermeneutics, which can be described a little here. According to the development of the hermeneutical circle, progress is from epistemology and methodology to ontology. A pioneer of this was the German Romantic hermeneutist Schleiermacher. Based on the foundation of “the circle between part and whole” developed from classical rhetoric and the German religious reform movement, he put forward a methodological circle between grammatical interpretation and psychological interpretation. Psychological interpretation is a “historical interpretation” of the individuality of the original author, although in Heidegger and Gadamer, this “author’s historicity” must give way to the “interpreter’s historicity,” opening an ontological circle between the interpreter and what is interpreted. What a methodological circle is directed toward is the different parts of the text as well as the text and its author, and this circle can end when complete understanding is achieved. But when the ontological element is added, then the phenomenon of the circle of hermeneutic activity cannot end, because the mind of the understander is constantly in a state of transformation, precipitation, and awakening. Tang followed the Qing dynasty discourse of the principle of textual interpretation and philosophical interpretation, adding onto this foundation that each is the origin of the other, which is seemingly a kind of methodological circle. However, the problem does not end here. His argument seems to have two possible areas for extended discussion. First, there is the question of which principle takes priority in the circle, and then the “subjectivity” encompassed by this principle. Using the terminology of hermeneutics, the problem is not just that that methodological principles conflict, but there is also the aspect of the ontological subject. On related questions, we can look at chapters nine and ten of Tang’s On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy: Introduction, where he reconsidered the arrangement of the Great Learning, as well as chapters thirteen to fifteen of the same work where he discussed the methodology of Song Confucians’ “Explanations of the Supreme Ultimate.” Both of these were born out of the relationship between principles of philosophical truth and principles of textual research. First, when dealing with the method of examining the arrangement of the Great Learning, he wrote,

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[We] on one hand should first look at how the philosophical truths are placed, and do what least affects the original text when rearranging the passages. Yet where the worthies of the past made mistakes in revising, we should point them out and also discover something of value in intellectual history in the source of their mistakes. (Tang 1986: 8)

As the quote describes, the method of textual research is that one must first look at the philosophical truth of the passage and only then, based on this, discover its value in intellectual history. According to this sequence, this method of textual research is undoubtedly a variant of “once philosophical truth is clear then word glosses will be clear.” An even better example is from the same book where Tang reflects on the method behind Zhu Xi’s and Lu Xiangshan’s discussion of the Supreme Ultimate: When we look at the differences between the two worthies Zhu and Lu’s textual research and glosses, we find they come out of the differences in the philosophical truth they perceive. So if we want to judge the positives and negatives of their textual research and word glosses, this absolutely depends on first illuminating the philosophical truth they perceived. This is another example of first needing to clarify philosophical truth and then being able to clarify the positives and negatives of glosses and textual research. (Tang 1986: 9)

Tang believes one must first understand Zhu Xi’s and Lu Xiangshan’s claims of philosophical truth before one can examine the differences in their textual studies, and therefore concludes only once philosophical truth is clarified is one able to clarify the positives and negatives of glosses and textual research. This is obviously a stance that puts principles of philosophical truth ahead of textual principles. It seems that Tang’s circle of philosophical truth and textual study being the source of each other in concept and operation must give way to a principle of the precedence of philosophical truth. Compared with Mou Zongsan’s Zhu Xi-inspired stance of “comprehension by understanding first, then rational understanding,” Tang Junyi absolutely advocates a principle of circular operation, but it does faintly reveal a tendency of “philosophical truth first, then words.” His circular principle mediates the conflict between Zhu and Lu, but his “philosophical truth first, then words” principle is closer to Lu Xiangshan’s teaching. The reason it is close to Lu Xiangshan is because the precedence of this “principle of philosophical truth” has a strong orientation toward heart-mind doctrine (xinxue 心學), particularly when Tang talks about moving from philosophical truths of individual thinkers toward universal philosophical truths. The shadow of Lu Xiangshan’s and Wang Yangming’s heart-mind doctrine can be seen everywhere: Besides this, there is also an understanding that tends toward universal philosophical truths even more; that is, when looking at a philosophical truth, looking at how it connects the minds of worthy thinkers of different places and times, looking at how people have had this heart-mind and this pattern in every place and from the distant past into the future, being the same although different and being different but still the same. This is what comparative philosophy does. Entering in deeper from this, there is no past and no present, no east or west, no self or others. Then one only sees the world of that philosophical truth: above it is not in heaven, below it is not in the fields, but it illuminates all the lands with its own resplendent light, as brilliant as the sun and moon. This is the work of a pure philosopher. At the highest turning point, then philosophy transcends philosophy…and again enlightens the world of philosophical truth that I mentioned above. No matter how vast or

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brilliant, all originate in the clear, numinous awareness of my heart-mind and can always be carried out in actual life and daily living. Philosophical truths come from within and are applied below: all Pattern is in events and all events are Pattern. A jade palace or house appearing in the sky is my home. This is how one reaches the level of sagely wisdom. (Tang 1986: 17)

Comparative philosophy is comparative philosophical truth. This is already not limited to the scope of textual understanding, but is rather a kind of comprehensive grasp of entering into various philosophers and the images of philosophical thought, even to the point of surpassing absolute images of philosophy. No matter what direction this course takes, all paths return back to “my home”; that is, running through sagely wisdom and the real heart-mind of everyone. The phrase about all places and from the distant past into the future comes from Lu Xiangshan’s chronological biography (Lu 2008: 482–483), while the phrase “clear, numinous awareness of my heart-mind [innate moral awareness, heavenly Pattern]” is typical language of Wang Yangming. The whole section is permeated with the flavor of Lu-Wang philosophy; that is, the “subjectification of philosophical truth.” Tang’s perspective at this point reveals that the universalization of his principle of philosophical truth is in fact the principle of heart-mind doctrine (xinxue 心學). Borrowing Kant’s terminology, the pure methods of the principles of philosophical truth and textual principles are the constitutive principles of interpretation; the further step where philosophical truth transforms into the heart-mind of the subject is the regulative principle of understanding all philosophical thought and interpretation. In addition, we can see how Tang’s thought is concerned with the individual heart-mind from the “origin” in the title of his series of works On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy. Clarifying and understanding philosophical truth is related to his concept of the origin; however, Tang did not explicitly define it. Still, we can put together two meanings based on his related arguments. The first is the one mentioned previously, that word glosses and philosophical truths are each the origin for the other. This kind of meaning is also illustrated in the origin of a problem, the origin of textual interpretations, and in giving rise to the sequence of thought and philosophical truth (Tang 1986: 4). Here, “origin” refers to the essence or foundation. Besides this meaning, “origin” also has the meaning of “source,” which we find in his author’s preface to On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy: On the Way where he wrote, I have always had certain holistic impression of the entire body of Chinese philosophical thought. Although the philosophies formed from following different ways, they all came from a single source, as the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers both originate in the Xingxiu Sea or how the mountains in China all come out of the Kunlun range. There are three Kunlun mountain ranges, and the Yellow, Yangzi, and Pearl Rivers are also three, all meandering east to the ocean where they meet the sun rising out of the azure sea. This can be an analogy for Chinese thought: how the Zhou-Qin mainstream three schools of Confucianism, Daoism, and Mohism—or the later three doctrines of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism—have different ways yet can be practiced together without contradiction. When we living in today’s world look at how Chinese, Western, and Indian thought all flow out of our heart-mind, we must see that they too can be practiced together without contradiction. (Tang 1984: 1, 24–25)

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This section uses the format of three, illustrating that in one aspect, like the examples of the mountain ranges of China coming out of the Kunlun mountains or how the Yellow, Yangzi, and Pearl Rivers all originate in the Xingxiu Sea, in the same way Confucianism, Daoism, and Mohism all came from a single source. In another aspect, it extends the meaning of “origin,” using the examples of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism as well as Chinese, Western, and Indian thought to explain that different sects and ways of thinking can be “practiced together without contradiction.” Both these phrases—“came from one source” and “can be practiced together without contradiction”—aim at mediating differences and conflicts, the former emphasizing the common source and the latter focusing on successive developments. Both, however, can be looked at as saying that “all flow out of our heart-­ mind.” The prerequisite for these ways of thought all flowing out of our heart-mind is that the heart-mind is the origin; “origin” here meaning essence or foundation and also meaning source. Combining the meanings of retracing the source and laying the foundation, both emerge from the heart-mind. Considered in this way, On the Origins of Chinese Philosophy is both a discussion of the source of the philosophical truths and sects of China and a discussion of laying the foundation: the source and foundation are both “in our heart-minds,” and so each system of philosophical truth can dialogue with the others, reach mutual accommodation, and be practiced together. Compared to Mou Zongsan, who followed Zhu Xi’s teaching in hermeneutics, Tang Junyi instead adopted the standpoint of Lu-Wang philosophy. The differences in ethical theory between Zhu Xi and Lu-Wang are common knowledge in Chinese Confucianism, and the hermeneutical differences in their teachings on interpreting the classics are another important topic that researchers in SongMing Confucianism cannot ignore. Tang and Mou’s different attitudes toward classical hermeneutics reveal their backgrounds in Western philosophy. Mou Zongsan was deeply impressed with Kant, and so in his epistemology (including hermeneutical thought) and ethics there is a shadow of Kant’s first and second Critiques. Tang Junyi was deeply influenced by Hegel’s philosophy. The theory of “our heart-minds” that he brought up is actually a variation on Hegel’s absolute spirit. The interesting point is that both of them expanded the scope of academic research and interpretation to the domain of culture. Mou tied the development of Chinese culture to the survival of the nation, while Tang expanded the scope to cross-cultural research. This kind of cross-cultural orientation can be fruitfully contrasted with Liu Shuxian’s concern with conflict between different cultures.

4  Liu Shuxian’s Cassirer-Zhu Model Based on the relevant documents and materials, Liu Shuxian’s hermeneutic point of view can be divided into two parts. In the first he took Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms as a model for a hermeneutics distinct from Heideggerian

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hermeneutical theory. In the second, he used Zhu Xi’s “pattern is one but its manifestations are many” and Zhuangzi’s “pattern of two ways” to reflect on the possibility of establishing Chinese hermeneutics and mediating cross-cultural philosophy. I first discuss Cassirer below. Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms was built on a dual orientation of epistemology and semiotics: how it can be a model for hermeneutics is worth analyzing. His analysis of various symbolic systems, including language, mythology, religion, art, history, and science is a form of cultural morphology and cultural phenomenology. The various cultural manifestations of symbols in the activity of the human spirit can be explained in terms of function rather than substance or structure. In his analysis of Cassirer, Liu focuses primarily on his idea of “unification of functions” which can explain the hermeneutic efficacy of “cultural universals.” He additionally believes this unification of functions has commonalities with the Confucian idea of “pattern is one but its manifestations are many.” In his essay “Philosophical Analysis and Interpretation: Reflections on Method,” Liu quotes a passage from Cassirer’s An Essay on Man which mentions the domain of power in hermeneutics. “If we seek a general heading under which we are to subsume historical knowledge we may describe it not as a branch of physics but as a branch of semantics….History is included within the field of hermeneutics, not within that of natural science” (Cassirer 1944: 246–247). Following the quotation, Liu gives a brief comment: “Cassirer developed his own understanding of interpretation (jieshixue 解釋學), which I believe to be superior to the hermeneutics (quanshixue 詮釋學) developed by Heidegger” (Liu 2001: 12).9 There are a couple of points to observe in this comment: first, the difference between the Chinese use of jieshixue 解釋學 and quanshixue 詮釋學, and then Liu’s belief that Cassirer’s jieshixue is superior to Heideggerian quanshixue. In fact, in other sections of this article Liu also uses a portmanteau term containing both Chinese words, jie(quan)shixue 解(詮)釋學, illustrating that his use is based on the common Western language source for both words (Liu 2001: 16). The initial reason may have been that Gan Yang’s translation used jieshixue, so Liu could only retain it in his comment, but in fact he did this intentionally because the Chinese meanings of jieshixue and quanshixue can elucidate the different connotations of “hermeneutics.” Liu points out that the meaning of jieshixue is fidelity to the original text’s meaning, fitting with Dilthey’s methodological style; the meaning of quanshixue refers to the individuality of the interpreter and the mingling of viewpoints of different periods, belonging to ontological form (Huang 2002: 436). Based on his distinction, we could also call the two styles “methodological interpretation (jieshixue)” and “ontological hermeneutics (quanshixue),” although in fact epistemology and methodology often follow together since understanding (interpretation) of a text

9  In the article, Liu explains that the quotation is drawn from Gan Yang’s translation. According to Cassirer’s original text, his discussion of history here follows up on the differences between Dilthey and Tanier, that history should belong to hermeneutics or even human sciences and so is explaining Dilthey’s position, not directly expressing Cassirer’s standpoint.

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often requires the aid of a methodology, as the development of German hermeneutics demonstrates. As for why Cassirer’s hermeneutics is superior to Heidegger’s, the reason has nothing to do with Dilthey, but is rather because Cassirer’s model can complete the mediation between “universals” and “particulars.” Liu quotes a passage from Cassirer’s An Essay on Man about this: Modern philosophers have often attempted to construct a special logic of history. Natural science, they have told us, is based upon a logic of universals, history upon a logic of individuals….But it is not possible to separate the two moments of universality and particularity in this abstract and artificial way. A judgment is always a synthetic unity of both moments; it contains an element of universality and of particularity. These elements are not mutually opposed to each other; they imply and interpenetrate each other. (Cassirer 1944: 235–236)

After the quotation, Liu again added a comment: “Humanistic study as well wants to subsume the particular in the universal and just differs in the method of doing it” (Liu 2001: 12–13). “Subsuming the particular within the universal” is in fact how Liu Shuxian explains the model of mediating conflicts between the great cultures and religions; the model of “global ethics” he later proposed is also related to this. This is the reason why Liu initially praised Cassirer. As far as Liu is concerned, this kind of universality is not determined by the substantiality of reason, but is explained by the process and effects of the functioning of symbols (Liu 1985: 120ff). The opposition of substance and function illustrates well that we should not make “essential” rules for cultural forms and human studies but start looking at them from the aspects of human activity, function, and even direction. In addition to this, Liu believes Cassirer’s philosophy displays a kind of dynamic, progressive energy (a philosophy of “creativity of life”) (Liu 2001: 15). The course of development of symbols in each culture (developing science out of language, developing religion out of myth) represents the bold advance of the human spirit. The reason Liu feels Cassirer surpassed Heidegger is exactly because Cassirer “subsumed the particular in the universal” regulated by non-essentialized functionality, and that this kind of subsumption displays the “creativity of life.” The way he refined the character of universal norms using an analysis of the functional activity of human symbols (and taking the further step to mediate cultural conflict this way) and the fact that the philosophy of symbolic forms included the progressive spirit of unending creativity illustrates that Cassirer attempted to synthesize humanism and axiology. However, Liu did not always criticize Heideggerian hermeneutics. He has used it to explain Wang Yangming’s concept of the world and the construction of its meaning (Liu 2001: 19; Liu 1993a: 176–77), and believes that integrating philosophical analysis with the hermeneutic method can elucidate “preunderstanding” for all thought and ultimately can communicate across the distance between different forms of thought to reach a “fusion of horizons” (Liu 2001: 17). This ontological thought and significance of “world” was developed by Heidegger, while the “fusion of horizons” was an idea created by Gadamer’s integration of phenomenology and Heidegger’s philosophy. We can see from Liu’s quotations and discussion that he does not at all reject Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s ontological line, but in Liu’s hands their ontological hermeneutics is shifted to take on more of a methodological character.

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Liu Shuxian also applies Zhuangzi’s “pattern of two paths” and Zhu Xi’s “pattern is one but its manifestations are diverse” to the question of mediating conflicts of pluralism. The “two ways” comes from Zhuangzi’s “On Equalizing Things”: “For this reason, the sage harmonizes things with affirmations and negations and rests them on the wheel of heaven. This is called walking two paths.” Originally referring to the way the sage uses the perspective of the Way of heaven to mediate disputes over right and wrong, in Liu’s interpretation, the “two paths” are altered slightly into immanence and transcendence. He points out, “If transcendence is taken to be one way and immanence is taken to be another and harmonizing these two aspects is taken to be the realization of Zhuangzi’s highest wisdom, then we can see that Zhuangzi indeed expressed the deep wisdom of the pattern of two paths” (Liu 1993b: 198). In fact, mediating between immanence and transcendence is not merely a characteristic of Daoism, but mainly points to Confucianism. The manner in which Confucian ethics requires that the way of Heaven manifest in worldly rituals and laws illustrates the contrast and connection between the transcendent way of Heaven and the immanent heart-mind and nature in Confucian metaphysics. However, Liu’s interest in hermeneutics remains primarily the relation between common universals and pluralistic particulars. Again employing the theory of “pattern is one but its manifestations are diverse”: The transcendent unity of pattern needs a concrete manifestation; it must become finite diverse particulars. Elevating some finite diverse particulars to the level of infinite pattern produces the effect of bigotry. When Kongzi spoke of ritual in the Analects he clearly meant it as a natural—even unintentional—disclosure of human feelings. It was only in later periods that it became formalized, losing its spirit to the point of degenerating into the ritual teachings of “eating people” that violated human nature.10 How ironic this was! If one can realize the spirit of “pattern is one, its manifestations are diverse,” then one will understand that monism and pluralism are not (necessarily) contradictory. In modern times, we must give up on a monistic structure. (Liu 1993b: 236)

Liu not only thinks that we must give up the fossilization of “pattern is one” but also search for accommodation of diversity: “We must accept that other people will also choose what they believe to be the best possibilities and through mutual interaction and debate, expand our own horizons and create a fusion of horizons” (Liu 1993b: 237). In fact, the condition of conflict between each “diverse manifestation” can be turned into a fusion of horizons through dialogue and interaction. This is the only way to conform to the practical requirements of co-existence in a modern pluralistic world. Naturally, a positive meaning of the principle of “pattern is one” still has a guiding effect. “The inchoate unity of pattern is a transcendent regulative principle that guides our behavior. What we want to achieve is not a kind of substantive unity, but what Cassirer called ‘functional unity’” (Liu 1993b: 237). The fact that Liu again cites Cassirer here can demonstrate that the unity of pattern that subsumes the diverse manifestations is indeed not substantive or structural, but rather functional. Liu uses Cassirer to respond to these two concepts—“pattern is one, its manifestations are  An allusion to Lu Xun’s story “Diary of a Madman”—Trans.

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diverse” and “the pattern of two paths”—in order to combine the epistemic features of philosophy of culture with the ethical demands of Confucian philosophical thought. This work of synthesis in particular is carried out in a hermeneutical fashion. Based on a foundation of Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and Gadamer’s fusion of horizons, and then adding the Confucian concept of “pattern is one, its manifestations are diverse” and the Daoist concept of “the pattern of two paths,” Liu Shuxian went beyond a simple distinction between methodological or ontological hermeneutics and moved toward a different type of cultural hermeneutics. This kind of hermeneutics has a goal similar to Habermas’s of resolving disputes around pluralism through communicative rationality, while also manifesting the guiding character of Confucian ethical values by borrowing regulative principles from Kant. Liu himself perhaps did not give much attention to whether this doctrine could be a kind of hermeneutics, but he did know from experience its effectiveness and value for resolving disputes and conflicts around pluralism, strong evidence of which can be found in the fact that he continuously advocated the idea of one pattern with diverse manifestations on many occasions. In addition, Liu has a strong identification with the Confucian theory of immanent transcendence and because of this his hermeneutic theory is not without presuppositions, nor is it purely methodological. In the end it has a strong ethical orientation. Because of this, Liu experiences a tension in many of his related arguments, a tension between polylogue to accommodate different cultures and the monologue of the Confucian ethical orientation. In the current vogue for cross-cultural philosophy or intercultural studies, no one can really be free from this tension: all philosophers or theologians who advocate accommodating pluralism have their own area of ultimate concern. For Liu Shuxian, the fundamental value of hermeneutics (or interpretation) is that we must extend respect and appreciation to other cultures. In other words, the monologue of a certain value orientation is not truly a monologue, but rather a entering into a community of dialogue with a certain approach of service and contribution.

5  Conclusion Comparing the hermeneutical concerns of Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Liu Shuxian is an interesting endeavor. Mou’s doctrine of “three kinds of comprehension” is primarily an approach for comprehending the traditional Classics and their scholarship, emphasizing the sequence of comprehension by understanding and rational comprehension in a manner very close to Zhu Xi. Tang’s application of a circle between textual principles and philosophical principles ultimately tends toward a philosophical principle that emerges from Lu Xiangshan’s heart-mind thought. Although their standpoints differ, they share a common cultural concern. Mou felt that the call of individual life and the life of one’s people’s culture are tied together, and so advocated that rational understanding had to have a dimension of culture and life. Tang had a deep characteristic of mediation, believing that Chinese culture itself and the cultures of the world could all “flow in myriad ways back to

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the same source,” and that this “source” was a moral combination of Hegel’s absolute spirit and Lu Xiangshan’s heart-mind thought. Liu Shuxian also has this characteristic of mediation, integrating Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and Zhu Xi’s one pattern with diverse manifestations into a kind of “cultural hermeneutics” and attempting to use this hermeneutic model to resolve intercultural conflicts. When all three are compared, Mou Zongsan is an evident nationalist and culturalist, while Tang Junyi and Liu Shuxian position themselves as mediators of cultural conflict. Yet Tang still took the standpoint of his own nation’s culture. For him, Hegel’s absolute spirit was actually an outer shell, while the nucleus of his thought was Lu Xiangshan’s heart-mind thought. Only Liu Shuxian is a true mediator. Zhu Xi is a peacemaker in his theory, quite different from the Zhu Xi who plays the role of a establisher of order in Mou Zongsan’s theory. For Liu, the pattern of “pattern is one” should be a universal truth and cannot be a truth which is limited to a particular form of thought or culture.

References Cassirer, Ernst. 1944. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dilthey, Wilhelm. 1990. In G. Karlfried, ed., The spiritual world: Introduction to philosophy of life die geistige welt: Einleitung in die philosophie des lebens. Collected works, vol. 5, 318. Stuttgart: Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft. Huang, Junjie 黃俊傑. 2002. The special characteristics of Chinese classical hermeneutics: Record of an academic roundtable (November 6, 1999 at National Taiwan University) 『中 國經典詮釋學的特質』學術座談會記錄(臺北:臺灣大學, 1999年11月6日). In The tradition of Chinese classical hermeneutics 1: Overview. Taibei: Himalaya Research Development Foundation. (Record of a roundtable on hermeneutics in the Chinese tradition, featuring Liu Shuxian.) Li, Jingde 黎靖德 and Wang Xingxian 王星賢. 2004. Categorized conversations of Zhu Xi朱子語 類. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Liu, Shuxian 劉述先. 1985. Cassirer’s view of philosophy of culture 卡西勒的文化哲學觀. In Explorations in philosophy of culture. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Liu’s work analyzing Ernst Cassirer’s thought on culture.) ———. 1993a. A contemporary interpretation of ‘pattern is one, its manifestations are many’ 「理一分殊」的現代詮釋. In The tension between ideals and reality 理想與現實的糾結, 157–188. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Liu applies the Neo-Confucian idea of “pattern is one, its manifestations are many” to ethics, arguing for a form of pluralism based on seeing diverse values as manifestations of the one pattern.) ———. 1993b. ‘The pattern of two ways’ and settling oneself and establishing one’s life 「兩行 之理」與安身立命. In The tension between ideals and reality 理想與現實的糾結. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Interprets the “two ways” from the Zhuangzi in terms of immanence and transcendence.) ———. 2001. Philosophical analysis and interpretation: Reflections on method 哲學分析與詮釋: 方法的反省. Legein Monthly 《鵝湖月刊》 318. December:11–23. (A discussion of hermeneutic principles, comparing Cassirer and Heidegger.) Lu, Xiangshan 陸象山. 2008., In Zhong Zhe ed., 鍾哲 Collected works of Lu Jiuyuan [Xiangshan] 陸九淵集. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.

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Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1968–1969. Heart-mind substance and nature substance 心體與性體, 3 vols. Taibei: Zhongzheng shuju. (Mou’s analysis of Neo-Confucianism, in which he analyzes Neo-Confucian philosopher in terms of the ethics of autonomy and heteronomy.) ———. 1983a. Inherent nature and profound pattern 才性與玄理. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Mou’s history of Wei-Jin period philosophy.) ———. 1983b. Nineteen lectures on Chinese philosophy 中國哲學十九講. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Transcribed from lectures given at National Taiwan University, this volume covers many of the main topics in Mou’s thought.) ———. 1988. Philosophy of history 歷史哲學. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Analyzes classical Chinese history to illustrate how the Chinese mode of thinking differed from Western thinking.) ———. 2000. Learning of life 生命的學問. Taibei: Sanmin shuju. (A collection of essays focused around the importance of understanding the existential meaning of Chinese philosophy.) Tang, Junyi 唐君毅. 1984. On the origins of Chinese philosophy: On the way 中國哲學原論‧原道 篇, vol. 1. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. ———. 1986. On the origins of Chinese philosophy: Introduction 中國哲學原論‧導論篇. Complete works of Tang Junyi 唐君毅全集, vol 12. Taibei: Xuesheng shuju. (Two volumes in Tang’s major series on the history of Chinese philosophy, where Tang reflects on the characteristics of Chinese philosophy and his method for understanding it.) Wang, Ji 王畿. 2007. In Wu Zhen 吳震. ed., Collected works of Wang Ji王畿集. Nanjing: Fenghuang Press Wu, Guang 吳光, Qian Ming 錢明, Dong Ping 董平, and Yao Yanfu 姚延福. 1992. Complete works of Wang Yangming 陽明全集. Shanghai: Shanghai guji.

Confucian Thought and Contemporary Western Philosophy Andrew Lambert

1  Introduction Writing in the 1960s and mindful of its struggles in the twentieth century, the great China historian Joseph Levenson suggested that the Confucian tradition would not play a living role in Chinese society in the future, and instead belonged in the “museum” of human history (1968: 115, 110–125). Rumors of the tradition’s demise have proved exaggerated, however, and one reason is the interest in Confucian thought that has emerged in European and Anglophone philosophy (crudely, “Western”), especially since the last decades of the twentieth century. Systematic interest in Chinese thought among twentieth-century Anglophone philosophers can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s, and historians of Chinese philosophy educated in the West such as Feng Youlan (馮友蘭) and Hu Shi (胡適). English-language editions of Feng’s A History of Chinese Philosophy中國哲學是 上下冊 (1983a, b) were particularly influential.1 Feng harnessed the anti-religious rationalism of China’s reform movement, but used it to defend Confucian ideas rather than dismiss them. He also aligned Chinese thought with Western philosophy by aligning the long-standing interest in human nature, self-cultivation, and the nature of the cosmos with Western philosophical categories such as epistemology, logic, monism and pluralism, and universals and particulars.2 Chinese thought 1  On Feng’s work, see Lomanov (1998: 323–341) and Lin (2014: 40–73). On Hu Shi’s work, see Hu (2013: 209–216). 2  Feng writes, “The activities of Confucius were similar in many ways to those of the Greek Sophists” and “The activities of Confucius, and his influence in Chinese history, have been similar to that of Socrates in West” (Feng 1983a: 48–49); tian 天is glossed as “the natural universe” (Feng 1983b: 8).

A. Lambert (*) City University of New York, College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_25

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thereby acquired the form of philosophy and became worthy of the interest of Western-trained philosophers. The burgeoning encounter between Anglophone or European philosophy and traditional Confucian thought has faced challenges, however. These include disagreement over how to approach the Confucian intellectual tradition, which includes questions about what the Masters’ texts are (Denecke 2010) and whether the tradition has “philosophy.” On the one hand, there is the demand to understand Confucian thought in its own time and place, seeking original meaning by prizing textual fidelity and sensitivity to historical and cultural milieu. This approach, however, can diverge from attempts to read traditional texts in direct dialogue with Western philosophy, often with the aim of extending or reinventing the Confucian tradition, and perhaps detaching it from earlier manifestations that were later deemed problematic (such as sexist or oppressive practices and norms). This intellectual-history-versus-­philosophy split is reflected in translation methodologies, where origin-centric or literal translations contrast with creative interpretations that speak to the needs of the contemporary reader while denying the possibility of a single transcendental meaning (Gu 2014). A closely-related question in Anglophone debate is whether or not the Confucian intellectual tradition has something that should be called ‘philosophy.’3 There is no simple answer to this question, since much depends on what is meant by ‘philosophy’ (Defoort 2001; Struhl 2010). The question encompasses, for example, whether Chinese texts use explicit argument that systematically moves towards valid conclusions, whether philosophy should be understood more capaciously, reflecting a more general ‘love of wisdom,’ whether the Chinese tradition suggests a redefinition of the term, and how to assess philosophers who engage Chinese texts using ‘philosophical’ methods. Instead of attempting a direct answer to this question, this chapter explores the evolution in philosophical methods and heuristics employed by Western thinkers in the past 50 or so years, which has often separated Confucian thought from its specific social and historical roots. This has involved bringing the Confucian tradition into dialogue with Western philosophy, articulating new forms of Confucian philosophy not explicit in traditional texts, developing critiques of Western modernity, contributing solutions to debates in Western philosophy, and seeking to reimagine Confucian thought for an East Asian modernity. Attention must also be paid, however, to those skeptical of the need or value of such philosophical theorizing. Illustrating what Western philosophers have regarded as valuable in the Confucian tradition (or what was wrong with Western intellectual traditions and practices), as this present study aims to do, can partly justify taking the philosophical path rather than the path of intellectual history. Furthermore, by laying out how Western philosophers have engaged the Chinese tradition it is possible to indirectly shed light on what “Chinese philosophy” means, without becoming mired in definitional claims.

3  See the chapter “Recent Developments in Confucianism in Mainland China” for the similar debate in China.

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2  Confucianism and East Asian Development One early form of interest in the Confucian tradition emerged from the question of the tradition’s usefulness to modernity—with “modernity” understood as having Western characteristics: democratic, with institutionalized science and market-­ based economies. In early republican China, Western learning was often presented as an alternative to traditional Chinese values and practices, which were criticized as decadent and inimical to modernization.4 One form of this debate in European and Anglophone circles focused on economic development, and whether capitalism and Confucian values were compatible. Weber’s famous study of China (1953 [1915]) had concluded that Chinese social structures did little to foster the growth of capitalism. This viewed cohered with the New Culture Movement within China, which blamed Confucian values for China’s ills. In the 1960s, however, the relation between Confucian values and capitalism became contested, and Confucian values were used to make contradictory arguments. Some Western scholars—exemplified by Levenson and John K. Fairbank—still considered Confucian values a hindrance to progress and economic success.5 Within a few decades, however, Confucian values were heralded as instrumental to the rapid development of East Asian economies in the post-war period.6 The notion of “Confucian Capitalism” emerged with the Asian tiger economies, and sociologist Peter Berger coined the term “East Asian Development Model” to describe the combination of free market economics and a commitment to state intervention prevalent in countries such as Japan.7 More generally, the extended family unit provided competitive advantages such as cheap labor and networks of loyal personal connections. Confucian capitalism thus offered new insight into how capitalism operated. This was a form of modernity that reaffirmed the worth of the Confucian tradition.8 It was not merely interest in alternative forms of capitalism that drove interest in Confucian thought, however. The Confucian tradition was also presented as a critique of capitalism per se. Weber had noted the negative effects of capitalism—the loss of personal meaning within an impersonal bureaucratic system dominated by the drive for efficiency and profit—and Confucian thought was increasingly regarded as an alternative value system.

 See the collected essays in Hon and Stapleton (2017). See also Tan (2003: 1–16).  For Fairbank, China’s failure to react to the emergence of Western economic and military power lay in China’s longstanding view of itself as “central, superior and self-sufficient” (quoted in van Dongen 2017: 29). On how late Qing-era China’s contact with the West was conditioned by traditional notions of Chinese cultural superiority, see Teng and Fairbank (1954: 2–5, 17–19). 6  For early formulations of such a view, see Morishima (1978) and Ezra Vogel (1979). 7  See Berger and Hsiao (1988: 3–11). 8  Tu (1996). On how the “modernization” of Confucian thought, perhaps unwittingly, amounted to a discourse that has reinforced capitalism, see Dirlik (1995: 229–273). 4 5

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This approach drew on Weber’s distinction between instrumental rationality, integral to capitalism, and value rationality.9 Value rationality referred to “belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its prospects of success” (Weber 1978: 25). This meant acting for ideals independently of their utility. Some Confucian scholars used this distinction to develop an account of the Confucian tradition that distinguished it from the conservative tradition attacked by May Fourth reformers. Cultural conservatives within China had affirmed social norms that were historically- and culturally-­ rooted and constituted ‘orthodox’ state Confucianism. On this view, the Confucian tradition was inseparable from specific historical and social circumstances. Chinese Communist Party co-founder Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀), for example, criticized Confucianism as the upholding of institutionally-enshrined hierarchical relations. Familial bonds structured the political sphere, such that, according to Chen, “advocating respect for Kongzi must necessarily lead to an emperor ascending the throne” (quoted in van Dongen 2017: 26). In Western academia, however, scholars such as Tu Wei-ming (杜維明) distinguished between historically-situated traditions, and a Confucian moral vision rooted in personal cultivation.10 The latter approach was rooted in a theory of the self and a broader cosmological framework, which transcended particular social institutions or economic systems. Consequently, debate shifted from social norms and practices to abstract and philosophical ideas such as ren (仁 humaneness), yi ( 義 rightness), li (禮 ritual) and human nature (性), and Tu developed the more abstract notion of a “fiduciary community” (Tu 1989: 39–66). This made possible a philosophical defense of Confucian practice grounded in a self that was sculpted around Confucian values and embedded in a grander cosmological vision. Unlike the practices of state Confucianism in China, such values were ahistorical.11 This new approach offered a new normative foundation for the Confucian way: social obligations and entrenched social practice were now subservient to more abstract ideals that were to be found in the heart-mind of the ordinary person. This created a reflective space beyond social and historical realities, and made possible a Confucian critique of existing social institutions. Confucian values were thus detached from the more oppressive or objectionable elements of China’s past, and could provide an intellectual foundation for a modernized Confucian culture.12

9  Weber (1978: 24–25). For a full discussion of how Confucian scholars such as Tu Wei-ming and Chen Lai used Weber’s work to rehabilitate Confucian thought, see van Dongen (2017: 19–43). 10  Within China, Chen (2009), who studied with Tu at Harvard, has explored similar themes. 11  See Tu (1984: 90) on the distinction between political Confucianism and Confucianism as a way of life. 12  Recently, rather than explore a Confucian version of capitalist social and economic order, some have explored the prospects for “Confucian Marxism” (Chen Weigang 陳維綱 2014). This asks whether a Chinese Marxist repurposing of the Confucian tradition can generate a conception of the public realm, in which the laboring masses were central to accounts of social justice (Chen 2014: 194).

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Furthermore, this understanding of Confucian values suggested an alternative to a Western liberal capitalist modernity. It offered a standpoint from which to confront the spread of instrumental rationality, technical control of society, and understanding of human interaction in terms of equality within market-orientated relations. Tu expressed concern that this “Enlightenment mentality” approach to modernity had become the preferred outcome “for the future of the human community” (Tu 2014: 145). The idea of cultivating an inner nature is not novel, and extends the philosophy of Mengzi and Song-Ming Neo-Confucian thought.13 The approach of thinkers such as Tu Wei-ming is distinguished, however, by what Tu terms “Cultural China” (Tu 1991). This is the idea that Confucian philosophy is not limited to a single historical tradition, but can extend beyond the Sinitic world as a form of “inclusive humanism” or “religiousness.”14 One example of transposing a Confucian way of life to cultures beyond East Asia is Boston Confucianism, with which Tu was associated. This approach treated the Confucian way as a participant in intercultural dialogue and global debate, offering a distinct humanistic perspective. Robert Neville, a representative Boston Confucian notes, “philosophically I think with Confucianism, in relation to my own mainly Western culture and in relation to the various problems of world cultures” (Neville 2010: 147). One concern of the school was recognition of the relevance of Confucian ritual theory for the modern world. Xunzi’s theorizing about ritual, for example, could be understood as a way of layering the world with a system of social meaning to guide human action, and this could be compared with the semiotic theory of Charles Peirce (Neville 2008: 153–155).

3  A  nalytical Philosophy and Conceptual Analysis: Herbert Fingarette A focus on ritual brings forth another way in which philosophers in the West have helped to reinvigorate Confucian thought. This is the use of analytical philosophy to generate new readings of canonical texts and new glosses of key terms. By drawing on work in different disciplines of philosophy, such as ethics and the philosophy of language, and applying techniques such as conceptual analysis, Western trained analytical philosophers reimagined the Confucian vision. The vision or visions that have emerged are sometimes at odds with traditional interpretations, and can show little awareness of classical texts’ broader historical and literary contexts. Nevertheless, these thought-provoking readings facilitated discussion of Confucian

 In his culture-transcending philosophy, Tu was building on the ideas of Chinese scholars earlier in the century, beginning with Xiong Shili (熊十力) (2015), who revived the Lu-Wang NeoConfucian emphasis on the cultivation of mind and the self. Xiong’s approach influenced later New Confucians, including Mou Zongsan (牟宗三) and Xu Fuguan (徐復觀). 14  See also the chapter “Tu Weiming: The Global Confucian”. 13

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ideas in Western universities, partly due to the use familiar methodologies and terminology. I.E Richards (1932) is an early example of this approach, but a more influential early work is Herbert Fingarette’s book Confucius— The Secular as Sacred. Fingarette reimagined the figure of Kongzi, transforming him from “a prosaic and parochial moralizer” into a thinker with “profound insight” (Fingarette 1972: vii), and so liberated the Analects from more traditional or conservative understandings. He did this by focusing on a topic neglected by Western philosophers: ritual (li). Kongzi’s genius lay in recognizing the extent to which human conduct is structured by ritual, broadly construed as “the entire body of the mores, or more precisely…the authentic tradition and reasonable conventions of society” (1972: 7). Mastery of ritualized customs, norms and conventions was the basis for a person’s effectiveness or potency (de 德) in the social world, and brought with it a “magical” power to induce the appropriate response in others. At its apex, ritual provided a vision of the good society as an extended “sacred ceremony,” participation in which provided the greatest human fulfillment. Accordingly, Fingarette located key Confucian terms such as ren (“humanity at its best”) within this paradigm of ritualistic communal being. Fingarette’s work is significant for its use of contemporary analytical philosophy to develop this account. He drew on work in the philosophy of language and, in particular, J.L.  Austin’s account of speech acts (1972: 11–14). Through Austin, Fingarette demonstrated the importance of social context for effective action in the Analects, and how some speech acts should be understood not in terms of their literal or semantic meaning but for what they brought about in certain contexts as performative utterances. In the right context, the ritual word was the critical act. Understood in this way, the Analects was not simply a humanistic text that emphasized personal cultivation (though this was important); it also revealed how social structure makes certain actions possible, and how the skilled use of social norms and practices can bring about desired effects. Words or gestures deployed appropriately compel assent by virtue of implicit conventional power imbedded within them. Fingarette highlights how contemporary analytical philosophy can enrich understanding of classical Confucian ideas. For example, Fingarette’s account provided an explanation of spontaneity or effortless action (wuwei無為, Analects 15.5) as the skillful command of customs and conventions. Such command was more crucial to practical outcomes than typically acknowledged by theories of action that focused narrowly on rational deliberation or inner attitudes or mental states.15 Consequently, where once Confucian rituals were viewed with suspicion, as entrenching traditional authority or inequality, they now became constitutive of the good life. Fingarette’s analysis of human dignity and ritual suggested another contribution of Confucian thought to Western philosophy: a novel account of human nature and

 On the importance of wuwei to classical Chinese thought in general see Edward Slingerland (2000, 2007).

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flourishing (1972: 63).16 For Confucians, human participation in sacred secular ceremony, as ceremonial beings, was the fullest expression of human nature and human dignity: “Man is transformed by participation with others in ceremony which is communal […] Ceremony is justified when we see how it transforms the barbarian into what we know as man at his best…his best life is a life of holy ceremony rather than of appetite and mere animal existence” (1972: 77). Such human nature can be compared with other accounts of the distinctively human in the classical Western corpus—such as possession of a soul, as labor and productive power, or as human dignity rooted in a rational autonomy. Thus, while scholars such as Tu Wei-ming offer a critique of, and alternative to, Western modernity, figures such as Fingarette showed how classical Confucianism could be read in direct dialogue with Anglophone philosophy. Fingarette’s rehabilitation of Kongzi stimulated various critical responses. His insistence, for example, that the Analects contains no meaningful discussion of psychological states (1972: iv and passim) was perhaps a product of the behaviorism popular at that time—and contrasts with the recent studies of Confucian shame, as well as the view that “concerned consciousness” (憂患意識youhuan yishi) is a distinguishing feature of the Confucian sensibility (Xu 2005). Fingarette also claimed that the Confucian way (dao), at least in the Analects, lacked the language of “choice or responsibility” (18), and was, in Fingarette’s words, “a way without a crossroads.” This raised the question of whether the Confucian vision—of human society modeled on sacred ceremony—gave sufficient attention to practical deliberation and public reason in the evaluation of social practice. Chad Hansen, in his account of the Warring States schools, notes that “Confucius did not encourage debating as a method, Confucius did not view himself as participating in or resolving a debate between schools” (Hansen 1992: 59).17 This perceived lack of interest in choice, justification and rational judgment, alongside the supposedly diminished status of the individual in classical Confucian thought, raised doubts about what the Analects could offer to contemporary philosophy, insofar as the latter was concerned with individual agency, rational choice and moral responsibility.

 Also, Fingarette writes, “Confucius may be taken to imply that the individual human being, too, has ultimate dignity, sacred dignity by virtue of his role in rite, in ceremony, in li (ritual practice).” (Fingarette 1972: 75). 17  Hansen writes of the Analects’ sheep-stealing passage (13.18) that, in his prescriptions “Confucius, however, does not raise the debater’s metaquestion of justification…. Indeed, he seems to have no cognizance of the metaquestion at all” (Hansen 1992: 82); and that, “He does not appear to have taught his disciples a discipline of arguing for a position. His conception of careful thought is more like taking good aim than it is like proceeding from premise to conclusion.” (Hansen 1992: 83) 16

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4  C  ultural Assumptions, Guiding Narratives and Bridging Concepts This concern shaped the work of another scholarly duo prominent in the development of Anglophone Confucian thought—Roger Ames and David Hall. They were sympathetic to Fingarette’s ideas (Hall and Ames 1984: 19), but denied that the historical Kongzi was insensitive to the reform of tradition and individual discretion. Even if deliberative choice and reasoned debate were not central concerns in the Analects, good judgment and individual experience were, they argued, central to the personal cultivation and influence exhibited by the exemplary or consummate person (junzi). Fingarette, they argued, had overlooked a key theme of the Analects—that indicated by the term yi (義). Sometimes rendered as justice, morality or duty, Hall and Ames understood yi as appropriateness. It indicated the point at which accumulated tradition and personal judgment met. One who had the requisite education, cultural awareness, ability and charisma was not a subject determined by traditional norms or limited to the manipulation of social convention. Rather, the junzi was able to make appropriate changes to existing traditions, in ways consistent with the past but appropriate to present needs. This was the site of revision and cultural renewal that could save the Confucians from dogmatism and authoritarianism, and retain a prominent role for the individual. It also distinguished the classical Confucian vision from later institutional “Confucianism” that become ossified and eventually collapsed under the challenges of Western modernity. How such judgment functions is discussed below. Hall and Ames were motivated by another concern, which was crucial to the reception of Confucian thought among Anglophone audiences. This is the extraction of texts from inappropriate cultural assumptions and interpretative frameworks prominent in earlier translations and scholarship.18 Infelicitous use of the Western philosophical canon, including the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, and Christian cosmology, had distorted earlier interpretations and translations.19 In response, Hall and Ames articulated a general interpretive framework for classical Confucian thought, one that made clearer its distinctive vision of human life and society (Hall and Ames 1987, 1995, 1998). They began by identifying a set of “uncommon assumptions” implicit in classical Confucian texts (1987: 10–25). These included the rejection of common dualisms found in the Western canon  Chinese scholars shared these concerns, which are seen in the famous New Confucian document “A Manifesto on the Reappraisal of Chinese Culture” 為中國文化敬告世界人士宣言:我們對中 國學術研究及中國文化與世界文化前途之共同認 (Chang et al. 1987). On some problems with translating Chinese texts, see Gu (2014). 19  Hall and Ames write, “The primary defect of the majority of Confucius’ interpreters – those writing from within the Anglo-European tradition as well as those on the Chinese side who appeal to Western philosophic categories – has been the failure to search out and articulate those distinctive presuppositions which have dominated the Chinese tradition.” (1987: 11) (See also the chapter “Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory”.) 18

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(mind-body, material-immaterial, good-evil, etc.), in favor of the interdependent polarities that characterize classical Chinese metaphysics and typified by the correlative yin-yang pairing. Furthermore, the notion of history as driven by great individual figures was replaced by the idea of a tradition that gradually evolves, integrating change into existing practices and understandings. Most famously, Hall and Ames denied that a certain kind of transcendence, important in Western metaphysics and cosmology, is relevant to understanding pre-­ Qin China. This transcendence is defined as: “a principle, A, is transcendent with respect to that, B, which it serves as principle if the meaning or import of B cannot be fully analyzed and explained without recourse to A, but the reverse is not true.” (Hall and Ames 1987: 13) Hall and Ames claim this form of transcendence is prominent in much of Western philosophy—in Christian cosmology, Plato’s theory of forms, Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, reductive materialist accounts of realities that seek the basic explanatory units or principles of existence, and even in existentialism in which authentic individuals supposedly create unprecedented rules for living. The understanding of sensible entities or events involves grasping some kind of underlying or pre-existing principle or order, whose source might be the mind of God, or the immutable laws of nature, or the categorical imperative that governs the truly rational mind and so forth. In contrast, classical Chinese thought makes little use of such transcendence. Hall and Ames’ pragmatism seeks to express the worldview intimated in the Book of Changes 易經, in which change is more fundamental than stasis, substance, or essential nature. In the early Chinese world, principles and norms are understood to emerge from the interaction of things and people rather than existing prior to them. These “uncommon assumptions,” especially the denial of transcendence, are instrumental to extracting the texts from unduly Westernized or Christian readings. This is seen in disputes over the meaning of tian (天 heaven or cosmos) in classical Confucian thought. For some translators, such as James Legge, tian was “Heaven,” sometimes explicitly understood as an anthropomorphic deity, with similarities to the Abrahamic God.20 Against this, Hall and Ames argued that tian is not a transcendental force controlling the universe, but is “a general designation for the phenomenal world as it emerges of its own accord” (1987: 207). They offer a “focus-field” model to articulate this organic understanding of tian (1987: 237–241, 1998: 219–252). In this model, the interconnected whole or “field” was tian, broadly understood to include historical, cultural and physical aspects, while tian and every particular or “focus” that constitutes tian are interdependent and mutually determining.21 Within the field of tian any single focus (or person) was both determined by 20  E.g., Legge (1881: 42). Benjamin Schwartz (1985: 50–51) relies on Legge’s translations in his overview of Shang and Zhou history. For a defense of tian as a transcendent, personal, and moral deity, see Kelly James Clark (2005, 2009). 21  Hall and Ames recognize that tian in classical China sometimes indicates an anthropomorphic deity (1987: 206), including ancestors who have passed into a spiritual realm and exert influence on the living. Such deities are not transcendent, however: they do not determine the world according to transcendental and fixed principles or orders.

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the whole and also exerted influence on it. The Confucian junzi, as a focal point within a larger surrounding whole, could embody and partly determine that whole (such was his or her excellence, de). This cohered with the classical Confucian idea of a triumvirate of tian-ren-di 天人地, and of tian ren he yi (the unity of tian and the human 天人合一), wherein tian, humans (ren) and the earth (di) are co-creators of reality in the broadest sense—historically, culturally and even physically.22 Tian was to be understood on its own terms, and not by analogy to a creator-deity, reductive naturalism or other Western cosmological frameworks. Hall and Ames did not, however, seek the complete separation of Western philosophy and Chinese thought. They drew on interpretive frameworks present in Western thought, though these were peripheral rather than orthodox. Their process worldview approach could be traced back to Heraclitus, but was expressed more systematically in Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and Deweyan pragmatism. Although Confucian texts did not mirror their vocabulary, these frameworks provided pragmatic “bridging concepts” for reading classical Confucian and Daoist texts. This processual and pragmatic framework enabled Hall and Ames to address the paucity of Fingarette’s account of rational debate and individual judgment in the Analects. They highlighted an alternative model of decision-making and order: “aesthetic order.” Such order contrasted with logical order derived from transcendent or first principles and established through rational discourse; and it rendered the Confucian junzi reasonable even though not explicitly concerned with rational debate. Hall and Ames’ account belongs to a broader lineage that understands the Chinese tradition as an aesthetic tradition.23 Their rendering of “aesthetic” was distinguished, however, by its use of Whitehead’s notion of an aesthetic order.24 “Aesthetic” names “the sort of order comprised by particulars construed precisely in terms of their particularity” (Hall and Ames 1987: 351, n. 3).25 Aesthetic order was the optimal arrangement of a set of particulars, distinguished by the effect produced. At its simplest, such order can be understood by analogy with the arts, such as painting. Constitutive elements, such as line, form and color are brought together to create an aesthetically pleasing effect. The same order can be applied in more practical or everyday affairs, including the creation of a social order, where a multiplicity of incommensurable social phenomena cannot be captured by a few reductive ordering rules or principles. Instead, each element of social life is to be optimally arranged, with attainment marked by a judgment based on a sense of fit or appropriateness. Ames writes, “Harmonious order is an aesthetic achievement made possible through  On religious concepts in early China and their evolution, see the editors’ introduction and essays by Robert Eno and Martin Kern in Lagerwey and Kalinowski (2008). 23  This lineage includes Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培; see his famous essay “Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education” 以美育代宗教 in Denton (1996: 182–189). See also Xu (1966). 24  See, e.g., Whitehead and Auxier (1996: 105). 25  Note also: “Aesthetic order is achieved by the creation of novel patterns,” (Hall and Ames 1987: 16) without “the imposition of antecedently existing patterns upon events” (1987: 105). 22

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ars contextualis, ‘the art of contextualizing,’ and hence is most appropriately expressible in an aesthetic language of elegance, complexity, intensity, balance, disclosure, efficacy, and so on” (Ames 2010: 74). Exemplary persons or junzi excel at such judgments. After a long process of personal cultivation, they understand their traditions and ritual norms, have practical interpersonal skills to effect appropriate reform and, like Kongzi at age 70, can give free rein to their heart-mind without overstepping the mark. In practical terms, this ideal arrangement of particulars is seen in the integration of different social roles, the lack of social conflict and in the absorption of new ideas or events into existing tradition. With such accomplished people serving as models around which others cohere and find order, the Confucian social world is conservative yet reasonable and able to accommodate change. This account of practical judgment and social order offers an alternative to those derived from rational public debate and normative justification based on transcendental or immutable principles (or rights). Hall and Ames interpretive framework aroused much critical discussion.26 Some have denied that classical Chinese thought was “aesthetic,” claiming it relies more on metaphysical speculation and observation of systematic phenomena (Cheng 1999: 191). The identification of uncommon assumptions and a Chinese worldview also raises concerns about an essentializing East-West dichotomy, with the West characterized by transcendence and China by immanence (Slingerland 2018: 2). Others questioned whether this processual holistic interpretation had conflated translation and interpretation, veering too far towards interpretation while purportedly offering translation; this raised questions about whether key concepts and the logical relations in the original are preserved in the translation (Graham 1991: 288). Some Chinese scholars have challenged Hall and Ames’ denial of transcendence.27 New Confucians thinkers, in particular, often identified transcendence in classical Confucian thought. For Mou Zongsan (牟宗三), transcendence and immanence were both present in classical Confucian thought and not in opposition (Mou 1987, 2003). Lee Ming-huei (Li Minghui 李明輝 2001: 131–135), building on Mou’s approach, criticizes Hall and Ames for focusing narrowly on a dualistic metaphysical picture that fails to capture the transcendence in classical Chinese thought. On this account, transcendence and immanence expressed a tension between the actual and the ideal—the finite sensible world and the infinite realm of the moral subject. Transcendence referred to the moral imperatives originating from tian and constituting the “command of heaven” (tianming天命), and could be known by the moral subject through Kantian intellectual intuition. As with mathematical truths, this need not involve perceptual experience or empirical knowledge, though Mou also emphasises the creative or authorial aspect of such intuition. Such

 A summary of important criticisms of the Hall and Ames approach is provided in Slingerland (2018: 22–64). For a more sympathetic assessment see Behuniak Jr (2018). 27  For a book-length study of transcendence and immanence, see Brown and Franke (2016); Franke (2016: 35–65) summarizes responses to Hall and Ames’ denial of transcendence in classical Chinese thought. 26

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transcendence did not therefore presume metaphysical dualism, or knowledge of an independent or unchanging realm that grounded principled distinctions. In debates about transcendence in classical Chinese thought, much depends on how “transcendence” is understood. Hall and Ames’ goal was to articulate an order that is contingent, such that the historically-rooted human way is always provisional (even if often stable), and is not determined by timeless reality or transcendental sources of knowledge. Order emerges from the multiple particulars making up the whole, i.e., the cumulative achievements of people embedded with historical tradition, social custom and the natural world. Consequently, the identification of a transcendental realm that guides action via intellectual intuition would seem to qualify as transcendence according to Hall’s and Ames’ particular definition.28 What is clear, however, is that both approaches to judgment—intellectual intuition or judgments of appropriateness—face a problem of justification; namely, how they can be translated into public explanations and reasons that can support the authority claimed for such judgments. Setting aside the thorny issue of transcendence, others objected that the historical Kongzi was less of an innovator than the figure depicted in Hall and Ames’ account. On conservative readings, the Analects treats the rites and norms of the Zhou dynasty as authoritative, as expressing essential cosmic or human realities, and so needing or permitting only limited change. On a similar theme, Philip Ivanhoe argued that Confucian traditionalism permitted flexibility in the application of received norms but not their overturning. He writes, “Confucius…never innovates. What he does do is appropriate and propagate traditional patterns of behavior and apply them to solve the challenges of his day. He is flexible and creative in his application of traditional norms, but he never challenges these norms themselves.” (Ivanhoe 1991: 244) More recently, however, several scholars have attributed to the early Confucians a more flexible approach to ritual norms, with greater scope for contextual judgments (Van Norden 2007; Wong 2009). Another scholar who identified a unifying framework in the pre-Qin texts, but who rejected the idea of Kongzi as a pragmatic innovator, was Chad Hansen (1992). For Hansen, the historical Kongzi was not a discerning judge, and the original Confucian school was not particularly rational: it “does not come out on top philosophically” (Hansen 1992: 3). The ascendency of Confucian ideas in the Chinese tradition was due to socio-political factors rather than philosophical worth, since they reinforced the imperial ideology from the Han onwards. Hansen’s historicist theory of the classical schools centered on their increasingly sophisticated treatment of language and discourse. In Confucian texts, language functions as a prescriptive discourse (a dao) that seeks to guide practical conduct; it does not aim for truth-functional descriptions of an external reality. Each school  Hall and Ames denial of transcendence is not solely aimed at metaphysical dualism; Hall and Ames also deny that individuals can, by themselves, be the source of transcendental principles for determining action (Hall and Ames 1987: 14). Rather than serving as a direct refutation, the force of Lee’s criticism is bound up with the larger interpretive question of whether Kantian categories, and the appeal to intellectual intuition, make better sense of the Analects then aesthetic order.

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offered their own dao or guiding discourse, with later schools responding to earlier views and developing successively more evolved understandings of how language generates social order. The most sophisticated linguistic or logical analysis was developed in the later Mohist canon. As with any attempt to organize the classical schools around a single unifying explanation, Hansen’s theory has been disputed.29 One doubt is whether language was the primary means by which the Confucians created social order. Other ways of securing socialization and social harmony seem equally prominent in classical Confucian texts—such as embodied ritual participation, the use of music and even the natural emergence of emotions through personal attachment.30

5  B  eyond Guiding Frameworks: Anti-Theory and Starting from Otherness The critical reaction to interpretive philosophical frameworks yielded an alternative methodological approach to the texts. This was an “anti-philosophical way of reading Chinese thought” (Møllgaard 2005: 321). Eske Møllgaard, for example, laments “the philosophical turn in the study of Chinese thought” (Møllgaard 2005: 322). Hansen’s and Hall and Ames’ use of analytic philosophy or American pragmatism, respectively, distorts the texts, and “the notion of philosophy that is introduced into the study of Chinese thought is too narrow to do justice to the wide range of styles and concerns of Chinese thinkers” (2005, 321). Wiebke Denecke (2010) also deconstructs attempts to parse the pre-Qin Masters’ texts using the categories of modern Euro-American philosophy, and explores the historical reasons why Chinese thought was presented as philosophy, going back to Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci (Denecke 2010: 4–7). Møllgaard argues that reliance on theory inhibits patient and careful reading: meaning is generated by jumping to the level of abstract theory, with idiosyncratic elements or illuminating contradictions overlooked in favor of data consistent with the overarching theory. A theoretically unencumbered mode of reading is needed, in which understanding of an initially strange text is achieved slowly and with effort. Instead of judging a thinker utilitarian, pragmatist, relativist or skeptic, or that two texts present incommensurable conceptual schemes, the reader—to use a Gadamerian term—should instead “tarry” with the prose poems, fables, aphorisms and striking images of a text (Møllgaard 2005: 335). Through such mindful encounters, piecemeal and organic connections between parts of the text are made, and a more holistic understanding emerges.

 Another account of the pre-Qin thought that relies on a single unifying explanatory structure— wuwei 無為or effortless action—is Slingerland (2007). Fraser (2007) offers a critical assessment of this account. 30  See Ames (1994) for a critical review of Hansen’s claims. 29

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This approach is partly motivated by concern about making the classical texts appear philosophical in a contemporary Anglophone sense—concerned with structured argument, the law of non-contradiction and so on—and that this obscures distinctive accounts of thinking and feeling found in the texts. Reading the classical texts as sources of answers to the problems of Western thinkers thus inhibits appreciation of the texts’ own viewpoints. Furthermore, in so far as the texts are composites compiled over time and contain the different voices of schools evolving over time, so higher-level unification might be unrealistic. At the same time, however, whether all generalizations and Gadamerian prejudice can or should be avoided is unclear (Gadamer et al. 2004: 273). Arguably, all readings of such alien texts rely on some interpretative framework and, consequently, it is better to make guiding assumptions explicit. Defenders of bridging concepts and interpretative frameworks would argue their generalizations are not imposed on the text but rather emerge after several years of tarrying with it.31 Perhaps, in summary, the use of bridging concepts and guiding interpretive frameworks constitutes an important stage in the evolution of Western scholars’ encounters with the Confucian intellectual tradition. Much like later feminists owe much to earlier feminist movements, strengthening the feminist cause overall without necessarily replicating or endorsing those earlier ideas or positions, so these interpretive frameworks were instrumental in securing greater cultural and intellectual capital for these texts—even if they were later subject to increased scrutiny and challenge. One alternative to potentially inappropriate macro-level interpretive frameworks is to focus more narrowly, on specific concepts or terms characteristic of classical Chinese thought. The works of Francois Jullien illustrates this approach, offering book-length studies of important terms such as shi (勢 the propensity of things) (Jullien 1999a, b), yangsheng (養生“to feed one’s life”) (Jullien 2007), or the use of indirect methods or indirect speech to achieve desirable effects (Jullien 2000). Jullien does still attempt comparison, but this begins from a study of a single idea, not a set of axioms. Jullien insists he is not “extrapolating some overall unity to a body of thought” (2007: 9). Jullien’s aim is to examine classical Chinese discourse, because it developed independently of Greek or classical Western learning, to better understand the assumptions and foundations of European philosophy (Jullien 1999a). Ideally, such investigations can stimulate a reconsideration of European and Anglophone thought. For example, appreciating the role of circumstance and context in practical success prompts reflection on beliefs about individual agency and moral responsibility (1999b), while the implications of ‘nourishing life’ (yangsheng) shed light on the dualistic European categories of body and soul (2007). Jullien, too, has been criticized for exoticizing China (Slingerland 2018): exaggerating the effects of syntactical and etymological differences in language, and producing an imaginary place whose primary function is as a counterpoint for

31

 See also Ames’ (2005) response to Møllgaard.

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thinking about the Greek-Roman or Judeo-Christian traditions.32 In response, Jullien denies that he replicates the familiar orientalist binaries of “East” and “West” by highlighting differences; rather, he argues that precisely because China exists outside the conceptual frameworks familiar in Western traditions so such direct comparisons and lists of binary opposites are impossible. Jullien notes, “One must not confuse ‘elsewhere’ with ‘difference’: China is elsewhere, beyond the European sphere — it is not more different from Europe than it is similar to it” (Jullien 2004: 12). For Jullien, sincere investigation of the initially strange problematizes concepts and values previously unreflectively accepted; and this in turn can generate new understandings of the Chinese texts and ideas. Regardless of how one judges Jullien’s work as a whole, one noteworthy feature has been the muted interest in familiar terms such as humaneness (ren), ritual propriety (li) and dao. Jullien explores ideas less familiar to Western readers, and so invites new perspectives on the nature of beauty (2014), time (2011), and the value of blandness in aesthetic experience (2004).

6  C  ontemporary Research: Confucian Thought in Dialogue with Western Theory The last few decades have seen increasing diversity in philosophical approaches to Confucian thought. Approaches rooted in European and Anglophone thought have generated new ways of reading the texts, and also enriched debates in Western philosophy or even created new ones. Such boundary-crossing work has arisen across philosophical disciplines, including epistemology (Allen 2015), the philosophy of language (Geaney 2018), metaphysics (Liu 2017), and aesthetics (Shusterman 2009). Western scholars have also explored feminist perspectives consistent with the Confucian tradition, thus accommodating gender in a way that is absent from classical texts (Rosenlee 2012; Foust and Tan 2016). One area where Anglophone theory has been actively developed to categorize and open Confucian texts to wider cross-cultural engagement is ethics.33 Particularly prominent have been readings of classical Confucian thought structured around Western ethical theories such as (Kantian) deontology, consequentialism, care ethics and virtue ethics. The most sustained dialogue has focus on an ethics of virtue.34 This has seen comparative studies of Chinese and Greek thinkers (Sim 2007; Yu 2009), questions about whether ‘virtue ethics’ is an appropriate way to conceptualize that tradition (Lee 2017), and attempts to reconstruct a Confucian virtue ethics.

 Zhang Longxi 張隆溪 (1998) has expressed doubts about such comparative study of China. On Jullien, specifically see Zhang (1999). 33  See also the chapter “Contemporary Confucianism and Ethical Theory”. 34  For a general discussion on the prospects for Confucian virtue ethics, see Hutton (2015) and Tiwald (2010). 32

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Van Norden (2007, 2013) argues that classical Confucian thought yields a naturalistic virtue ethics, since it has a conception of human flourishing and recognizes virtues that are instrumental to that goal. The Confucian picture of the good life is distinctive, however. Ritual is central, since it structures human emotions and inculcates appropriate attitudes to social life, as are aesthetic appreciation and a heightened concern for the special bonds of kinship and family (Van Norden 2007: 102–117). Integral to this vision of living well is thus a distinctive set of virtues, which include “humaneness [ren], wisdom [智zhi], devotion [忠zhong], and faithfulness [信xin]” (2007: 125). A virtue ethics rooted in the Analects thus differs from canonical Western analogues, Aristotle’s contemplative eudaimonia. Intellectual virtues, including sustained reflective deliberation, play only a minor role in the Analects.35 Emphasis on the particularistic bonds of family life also distinguishes Confucian well-being. Thus, studying Confucian thought as an ethics of virtue can, as with Fingarette’s account, help generate conceptions of flourishing beyond those found in the Western canon.36 The equation of Confucian ethics with virtue ethics has faced various responses. One is defenses of alternative conceptions of Confucian ethics, such as Mencian consequentialism (Im 2011) and Confucian care ethics (Li Chenyang 李晨陽 1994). These approaches also face challenges, however (Tiwald 2010: 60, Star 2002; Lambert 2016). More directly, Lee Ming-huei (2017) argues that virtue is not a useful explanatory category In Confucian thought, partly due to the vagueness and ambiguity of the notion. Lee argues that teleology (consequentialism) and deontology are the only possible grounds of normative judgment, logically excluding “a third type of ethics” (2017: 51), and that Confucian ethics is best understood as a species of deontological ethics. In this, he echoes recent work in Kantian ethics on the importance of virtue to compliance with the moral law; virtue is important but the normative ground of moral action remains universalizing reason (Johnson and Cureton 2018; Baron 2011). Virtues, particularly in so for as they are relativized to a tradition, as in Van Norden’s study, may be unable to resolve moral disagreement when it arises between different communities or traditions, and conflict resolution is arguably one of the purposes of moral theory. Much depends here on whether such universal accord or principle is necessary for a viable ethics, and whether moral relativism is pernicious or benign (Wong 2009). Another objection to Confucian virtue ethics derives from the characterization of Confucian ethics in terms of generic human qualities or traits. The relationships constituting the family life of Confucians are, on this view, better understood in terms of an ethic of roles. In extremis, this is a quasi-metaphysical view that human beings are constituted entirely by their roles (Rosemont and Ames 2009). More  Van Norden follows Waley in suggesting that si (思, attention) indicates not systematic thinking but thought deriving from recent concrete observations (2007: 129). 36  Confucian virtue ethics is being developed in various ways, which includes reconceptualizing “virtue.” Ivanhoe (2013), for example, suggests that, in the Mengzi, individual virtues can be conceived of as contributions to the good of larger social units. 35

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subtly, Ames (2011) argues that the lived experience of playing a role, such as a father, incrementally builds into a pattern of action appropriate to that role. While generalized norms governing a particular social station matter, a role develops beyond this, coming to include a highly personalized interpretation of how to be a good father. Focusing on virtues as generic excellences obscures such personalization of a role and the many idiosyncratic norms, insights and emotions that arise through personal experience and then guide action within that role. Whether such an account is best described as a “role” and whether classical Confucian accounts of family life can accommodate such particularistic understandings is debatable. Notably, however, defenders of Confucian virtue ethics also emphasize particularistic decision-making in the Analects (Van Norden 2007: 99). Another challenge to the role ethics approach, and particularly its claims to be a sui generis moral theory, is that it might be unnecessary (Angle 2018). Undoubtedly, Confucian ethics should not be reductively co-opted by existing Western theory; however, Angle argues, the emergence of more nuanced understandings of Confucian thought mean that a strong emphasis on incommensurability is no longer needed to ensure open-minded engagement with Confucian thought. Furthermore, advances in virtue ethical theory offer the best way to articulate the Confucian ethical vision. Nevertheless, role ethics is developing as a field in Anglophone philosophy (Evans and Smith 2018).

7  T  he Future of Confucian Tradition: Political Thought and Democracy One final heuristic that captures how European and Anglophone philosophy have engaged Confucian thought is the attempt to theorize a Confucian modernity. This means extrapolating the tradition into the future. Perhaps the most significant example of this is found in political philosophy, since new ideas here can shape public life and political decisions in both China and the West. Certainly, scholars can draw on a wealth of Western political theory to imagine a modern Confucian polity. At the same time, the Confucian tradition also offers models of social order and community with global relevance, and which challenge orthodoxies in market-based liberal democracies. This includes examining the relationship between justice and harmony and whether liberal democratic societies have committed too much to the former and to the detriment of the latter (Li 2016); whether networks of social relations or guanxi constitute an important form of civil society, a corrective to centralized power (Lo and Otis 2003); and whether ritual can be used as a social mechanism to limit economic inequality and sustain social cohesion (Bell 2010: 38–53). Here, however, we focus on Western scholarships’ contribution to a single question of Confucian modernity: whether there can or should be a viable Confucian

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democracy.37 An obvious starting point for debate is the division between proponents of Confucian democracy and those favoring meritocratic rule. Both Chinese-­ language and Anglophone literature feature those sympathetic to meritocracy (Jiang 2014; Daniel Bell 2016; Bai 2014) and to democracy (Mou 1991; Lee 2005; Hall and Ames 1999; Tan 2003; Angle 2012; Kim 2018).38 However, the issue is more complex than this basic dichotomy. Meritocrats can allow a limited role for democratic elections, while democracy can be elitist, as when representative democracy, in the form of party politics, generate de facto hierarchies of ruler and ruled. It is more helpful to determine the possibilities for Confucian democracy by analyzing some underlying constitutive questions. The first is the compatibility question: whether the classical Confucian way and its values, lacking a tradition of liberal rights, are compatible with core features of democracy. There are quasi-democratic comments in texts like the Mengzi, such as the removal of tyrant rulers, and the proto-egalitarian notion that anyone can be a sage. Such sentiments, however, merely entail the replacement of one aristocratic ruler with another, while leaders offer virtuous models to be followed with little direct input from the populace. There is, for example, little trust that the common people will make wise decisions (Elstein 2010). This is unsurprising given the era’s limited literacy and education. Even if not explicitly part of the tradition, however, might a modern Confucian democracy be based on some classical Confucian values or at least suggested by them? This is partly a normative question: are Confucian values also democratic values, such that a modern Confucian polity should accommodate the latter? The answer generated by Western scholars is not always affirmative, however. Defending a largely meritocratic Confucian polity, Bell (2016) highlights some familiar limitations of democracy: uniformed voters can make poor electoral choices, while limited terms of government produce short-sighted and expedient policy. Democratic politics can also lead to greater incivility (Chan 201: 189). Conversely, greater virtue may be a basis for greater political authority. This explains meritocrats’ fondness for unelected higher legislative chambers, populated by virtuous figures, which take into account a broader range of public interests over an extended period of time. Arguably, however, such critics underestimate how democracy can cultivate virtues, and so acquire atleast instrumental value to the Confucian tradition. The virtues cultivated can be civic or political, such as treating others as equals, but they might be the virtues and cultivated character central to classical Confucian perfectionism (Angle 2012). An argument for Confucian democracy might be: complete virtue requires excellence in all areas of life; this includes the public sphere; excellence in the public sphere means active engagement in managing the rules that govern it; and this requires democratic participation. Democracy is thus a modern means to a traditional Confucian end.

 See also the chapter “Contemporary Confucian Political Thought”.  On how contemporary scholars in China and Taiwan have approached modernizing Confucian political thought, see Elstein (2014).

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This line of thinking faces challenges, however. Does the cultivation of good Confucian character really require political participation? The Analects, for example, portrays cultivation not as political participation but as family life, ritual command, and aesthetic delight as the grounds of cultivation, and hints that to be filial and fraternal is to engage in governing (2.21). If democracy is instrumentally valuable because it secures personal flourishing, the possibility remains that flourishing can be attained without democratic engagement. The goods of family and community life can be secured while public administration is left to benevolent and virtuous rulers. If flourishing does require political participation, this raises questions of what kind and how much. Furthermore, regarding democracy as only instrumentally valuable is not sufficient to establish a modern participatory democracy. Meritocrats also embrace the instrumental value of democracy. Limited, local elections prevent cronyism (Bell 2016: 150), ensure virtuous leaders and create at least a symbolic bond between the ruler and the ruled (Chan 2014: 85). This is why distinctions between democrats and meritocrats are sometimes blurred. An alternative conception of Confucian democracy is offered by Deweyan democrats (Hall and Ames 1999; Fox 1997; Tan 2003). They start from Dewey’s idea of the “Great Community” (Dewey 1946: 143–184): democracy is not instrumentally valuable but rather an intrinsically valuable way of life. Democracy is a “social idea” that extends beyond institutions of the state and affects “all modes of human association, the family, the school, industry, religion” (1946: 143). The actions of each affect all, and so the consequences must be coordinated by the community. The state simply is the organized public realm, but with laws and enforcement. The idea of the individual and society existing in a harmonious relationship, symbiotically evolving, clearly resonates with classical Confucian values. Therein, society is constituted by roles and relationships and a family-like connection between ruler and ruled. For Deweyan Confucian democrats, coordination of this harmonious community is rooted in ritual participation and contextual judgments of appropriateness or yi 義 (Tan 2003: 79–88). Consistent with the classical Confucian texts, interest in the formal institutions and procedures of a democratic state, including elections, is limited. This communitarian conception of Confucian democracy is also problematic. As noted above, harmonious and orderly civil society may be possible without participatory democracy. More importantly, this approach seems to undervalue the democratic institutions and procedures that sustain contemporary democratic participation, and the values that motivate such participation such as self-determination and political equality. Communication and regulation within an organic and holistic community require little commitment to such values (Kim 2018: 2). But why should Confucians value political rights and electoral participation? Deweyan democrats, mindful of Confucian meritocrats’ concerns about one person, one vote, might query whether political rights and electoral participation are valuable. Mindful of how classic liberal rights can lead to a pernicious atomistic individualism, this is precisely why Confucian Deweyan democrats have attempted to redefine democracy and equality in terms of equal participation in ritualistic social life (Hall and Ames 1999). Furthermore, political equality and procedural

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fairness are typically associated with a state that is neutral between competing conceptions of the good life; but the Confucian tradition envisions a specific form of good society. A commitment to political equality and self-determination, as intrinsically valuable aspects of democratic and electoral participation, while also recognizing that Confucian society aims at particular goods, has led to a third account of Confucian democracy: pragmatic Confucian democracy (Kim 2018). This argument does not depend on compatibility with traditional Confucian political thought, however. Its starting point is contemporary and empirical: the state of East Asian societies today and their political needs. A problem with the abstract prescriptions of both meritocrats and many democrats is that they show little attention to the realities of contemporary East Asian political experiences (Kim 2018: 62). Empirical study reveals increasingly diverse societies, striving to coordinate decisions across the public realm. Given such conditions, institutionalized participatory democracy is the best (or least worst) political system for coordinated decision-making. This form of Confucian democracy does not emerge from an existing tradition of democracy, and so does not begin from the individual freedoms and rights of the liberal tradition. It is, rather, instrumentally useful. Furthermore, over time and with success, its success can lead citizens to value such democracy for its own sake. They come to identify with its constitutive values, including self-determination and treating other citizens as political equals, in “a way of life marked by equality of social relations” (Kim 2018: 51). Thus, Confucian citizens, although unsure of democracy at first, come to value it for its own sake, in a way of life that includes political goods not originally found in the Confucian tradition. At the same time, this democratic way of life is, arguably, compatible with core Confucian social values—such as filial responsibility, respect for elders and, ritual propriety. After all, nineteenth century reformist Confucians who called for democratic reform did not thereby reject Confucian values, while current East Asian democracies take seriously laws to compel filial piety. The idea is that public reason—what counts are reasonable and what rights are recognized—in democratic societies with Confucian heritage will be shaped by Confucian values and Confucian conceptions of the good life. In this way, a commitment to democracy is compatible with Confucian social values, even as new political goods (equality, popular sovereignty, etc.) are also recognized. This account also responds to meritocratic concerns about one person, one vote. Since Confucian democrats are guided by a notion of the good society, they are less likely to vote from crude self-interest, and instead seek to realize collectively valued social practices, such as respect for elders. There will still be disagreement about policy and at the ballot box, since how best to enact such values will be disputed; but such disagreement honors political equality and self-determination, and a substantive notion of the good. While this approach is refreshingly grounded in empirical claims about modern East Asian societies, it too faces questions. One is whether the account incorporates a sufficiently rich account of Confucian values and their practical implications. If a society is sufficiently diverse such that democracy becomes valued for its

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coordinating effects, this suggests that the Confucian vision of the good life no longer commands widespread assent—other visions of the good life are equally attractive. If this is so, however, then it’s questionable whether public reason can effectively serve to promote Confucian values. There might not be a consensus or majority to secure such goods. Arguably, the societal image that emerges here is a democracy in which citizens sympathetic to Confucian values are merely one group among others. Whether this can be called a Confucian democracy is debatable. That said, returning to the empirical starting claim, perhaps this is as much Confucian democracy as can be expected in East Asian societies increasingly less bound to a single cultural tradition. All of these attempts at conceptualizing a modern Confucian polity face challenges. Nevertheless, they illustrate how contemporary and canonical Western thought is being used in imaginative extensions of the Confucian tradition. In conclusion, looking to the future, what other kinds of encounters can be expected between Western scholarship and the Confucian tradition? A few new approaches are emerging. One is the use of science and experimentation to examine tenets of Confucian thought. For example, recent experimental research in embodied moral response has been used to support the Mencian moral psychology characterized by the four moral beginnings (Seok 2012). A second focus is the emerging “philosophy as a way of life” movement. This emphasizes wisdom and the everyday benefits of philosophical practice, and finds resonances in the Confucian tradition (Ni 2016; Lai et al. 2018). Beyond these, various pressing global problems invite Confucian thought to make its own contribution, such as the future of the environment (Brasovan 2017; Tucker and Berthrong 1998) or technology. No doubt other projects will emerge in due course. Contra Levenson, the Confucian tradition is very much alive, and Euro-American scholarship—increasingly in dialogue with Chinese-language work—is now a part of that story.

References Ames, Roger. 1994. “Review, Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation by Chad Hansen.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54.2: 553-561. Allen, Barry. 2015. Vanishing Into Things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2005. “Getting Past the Eclipse of Philosophy in World Sinology: A Response to Eske Møllgaard.” Dao 4.2: 347-352. ———. 2010. “What is Confucianism?” In Leah Kalmanson and Wonsuk Chang, eds., Confucianism in Context: Classic Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, East Asia and Beyond. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ———. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. (Argues that Classical Confucian thought features a sui generis ethical outlook, grounded in personalized social roles.) Angle, Stephen. 2012. Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. (Develops an account of progressive Confucianism through an exploration of issues such as political authority and legitimacy, and human rights.)

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———. 2018. “Building Bridges to Distant Shores: Pragmatic Problems with Confucian Role Ethics.” In Jim Behuniak, ed., Appreciating the Chinese Difference: Engaging Roger T. Ames on Methods, Issues, and Roles. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Baron, Marcia. 2011. “Virtue Ethics in Relation to Kantian Ethics: An Opinionated Overview and Commentary”. In Lawrence Jost and Julian Wuerth, eds., Perfecting Virtue: New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Behuniak Jr, Jim. 2018. Appreciating the Chinese Difference: Engaging Roger T.  Ames on Methods, Issues, and Roles. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Essays exploring Ames’ work, written by his contemporaries, with responses from Ames.) Bell, Daniel A. 2010. China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Meditations on the impact of Confucian values on contemporary Chinese society.) ———. 2016. The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (A study of the limitations of democracy and advantages of meritocratic government in China.) Bai, Tongdong. 2014. “Early confucian political philosophy and its contemporary relevance.” In Vincent Shen, ed., Dao Companion to Classical Confucian Philosophy. Springer. Berger, Peter L. and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao. 1988. “An East Asian Development Model.” In Peter Berger and Michael Hsin-Hsiao, eds., In Search of an East Asian Development Model. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books. (Explores the links between distinctive features of East Asian society and economic development in the region.) Brasovan, Nicholas S. 2017. Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism: An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (A study of the connections between modern ecology and traditional Confucian thought.) Brown, Nahum and William Franke. 2016.Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. (Collected essays exploring the meaning and role of transcendence in China and the West.) Cai, Yuanpei. 1996. “Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education.” In Kirk Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press. Chang, Carsun 張君勱, Yu-wei Hsieh 謝幼偉, Foo-kwan Hsu 徐復觀, Chung-san Mou 牟宗三, and Chun-I T’ang 唐君毅. 1987. “A Manifesto on the Reappraisal of Chinese Culture” 為中 國文化敬告世界人士宣言:我們對中國學術研究及中國文化與世界文化前途之共同認. In Tang Junyi, ed., Essays on Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Taipei, Taiwan: Student Books. (The seminal statement of the New Confucian project by some of the major “New Confucian” scholars.) Chen, Lai 陳來. 2009. Tradition and Modernity: A Humanist View. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Chen, Weigang 陳維綱. 2014. Confucian Marxism: A Reflection on Religion and Global Justice. Leiden: Brill. Chan, Joseph. 2014. Confucian perfectionism: A political philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton University Press. Cheng, Chung-ying 成中英. 1999. “Chinese-Western Conceptions of Beauty and Good and their Cultural Implications.” In Karl-Heinz Pohl, ed., Chinese Thought in a Global Context: A Dialogue between Chinese and Western Philosophical Approaches. Leiden: Brill. Clark, Kelly James. 2005. “The Gods of Abraham, Isaiah, and Confucius.” Dao 5.1: 109-136. ———. 2009. “Tradition and Transcendence in Masters Kong and Rorty.” In Huang Yong, ed., Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism: With Responses by Richard Rorty. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Defends the importance of transcendence in the Confucian tradition.) Defoort, Carine. 2001. “Is there such a Thing as Chinese Philosophy? Arguments of an Implicit Debate.” Philosophy East and West 51.3: 393-413. (Widely-cited paper examining whether or not China has “philosophy”.)

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Denecke, Wiebke. 2010. The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought From Confucius to Han Feizi. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. (An alternative interpretative approach to the pre-Qin Masters’ texts, questioning the need to approach them as philosophy.) Dewey, John. 1946. The Public and its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry. Chicago, IL: Gateway. Dirlik, Arif. 1995. “Confucius in the Borderlands: Global Capitalism and the Reinvention of Confucianism.” Boundary 2 22.3: 229-273. Elstein, David. 2010. “Why Early Confucianism Cannot Generate Democracy.” Dao 9.4: 427-443. ———. 2014. Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy. New York, NY: Routledge. (Explores the prospects for democratizing Confucianism by surveying modern Chinese thinkers such as Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan and Lee Ming-huei.) Evans, Jeremy and Michael Smith. 2018. “Toward a Role Ethical Theory of Right Action.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21.3: 599-614. Feng, Youlan 馮友蘭. 1983a. A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ——— 馮友蘭. 1983b. A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Influential account of the development of Chinese thought, emphasizing commonalities with Western philosophy.) Herbert Fingarette. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New  York, NY: Harper and Row. (Highly influential English-language rehabilitation of Confucian thought, focusing on ritual.) Fox, Russell Arben. 1997. “Confucian and Communitarian Responses to Liberal Democracy.” The Review of Politics 59.3: 561-592. (An introductory comparison of classical Confucian and contemporary communitarian thought, which rejects the view that Confucianism is necessarily authoritarian.) Franke, William. 2016. “Classical Chinese Thought and the Sense of Transcendence.” In Nahum Brown and William Franke, eds., Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Fraser, Chris. 2007. “Review: On Wu-Wei as a Unifying Metaphor.” Philosophy East and West 57.1: 97-106. (A critique of Slingerland’s influential interpretation of wuwei in early Chinese thought.) Foust, Mathew, and Sor-hoon Tan, eds. 2016. Feminist encounters with Confucius. Leiden: Brill. Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Joel Weinsheimer, and Donald Marshall. 2004. Truth and Method. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA. (Gadamer’s classic articulation of hermeneutical method.) Geaney, Jane. 2018. Language as Bodily Practice in Early China: A Chinese Grammatology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Argues that early Chinese conceptions of speech and naming should not be understood through the dominant Western philosophical approaches to language, but as pairings of sounds and visible things.) Graham, Angus C. 1991. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing. (Influential overview of the early schools of Chinese thought.) Gu, Ming Dong. 2014. Translating China for Western Readers: Reflective, Critical, and Practical Essays. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Collected essays discussing both the theory and practice of translating literary texts.) Hall, David and Roger Ames. 1984. “Getting it Right: On Saving Confucius from the Confucians.” Philosophy East and West 34.1: 3-23. (Early Hall and Ames paper emphasizing the importance of informed contextual judgement – yi 義.) ———. 1987. Thinking through Confucius. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ———. 1995. Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ———. 1998. Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Trio of texts laying out Hall and Ames pragmatic and process-philosophy approach to the Confucian tradition.)

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———. 1999. “The Democracy of the Dead.” In Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China. Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing. (An attempt to develop a conception of Confucian democracy using John Dewey’s thought.) Hansen, Chad. 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. New  York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Analytic overview of classical Chinese schools, focusing on the role of language and discourse in their development.) Hon, Tze-ki and Kristin Stapleton, eds. 2017. Confucianism for the Contemporary World: Global Order, Political Plurality, and Social Action. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Discusses contemporary Confucianism’s capacity to address current social and political issues.) Hu, Shih 胡適. 2013. “Chinese Thought.” In C. P. Chou, ed., English Writings of Hu Shih. Berlin: Springer, China Academic Library. Hutton, Eric L. 2015. “On the Virtue Turn and the Problem of Categorizing Chinese Thought.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 14.3: 331-353. Im, Manyul. 2011. “Mencius as Consequentialist.” In Chris Fraser, Dan Robins and Timothy O’Leary, eds., Ethics in Early China: An Anthology. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Ivanhoe, Philip J. 1991. “Review of Thinking through Confucius.” Philosophy East and West 41.2: 241-254. Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2013. “Virtue ethics and the Chinese Confucian tradition.” In Daniel Russell, ed., The Cambridge companion to virtue ethics. Cambridge University Press. Jiang, Qing 蔣慶. 2014 Political Confucianism: The Reorientation, Characteristics and Challenges of Contemporary Confucianism 政治儒學:當代儒學的轉向, 特質與發展. Fuzhou, China: Fujian Educational Publishing. (Influential conservative defense of traditional Confucian values.) Johnson, Robert and Adam Cureton. 2018. “Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition). . Jullien, Francois. 1999a. “A Philosophical use of China: An Interview with François Jullien.” Thesis Eleven (57): 113-30. ———. 1999b. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. New York, NY: Zone Books. (Imaginative exploration of the role of efficacy 勢 shi in Chinese thought and society.) ———. 2000. Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece. New York, NY: Zone Books. (Cross-cultural exploration of the usefulness of indirect means of communication and action.) ———. 2004. In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics. New York, NY: Zone Books. (Challenges the belief that blandness is an undesirable quality, through an examination of traditional Chinese literary and philosophical culture.) ———. 2007. Vital Nourishment: Departing from Happiness. New  York, NY: Zone Books. (Inquiry into how to “nourish” life, which draws on Zhuangzi’s notions of breath, energy, and immanence.) ———. 2011. The Silent Transformations. London: Seagull Books. (Compares Western and Chinese ways of thinking about time and the process of change.) ———. 2014. This Strange Idea of the Beautiful. London: Seagull Books. (Comparative study of beauty in China and the West.) Kim, Sungmoon. 2018. Democracy After Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Argument for Confucian democracy, as a response to contemporary social need rather than as a direct continuation of classical Confucian thought.) Lagerwey, John and Marc Kalinowski. 2008. Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC-220 AD). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. (Collection of essays exploring multiple aspects of early Chinese religious belief and practice.) Lai, Karyn, Rick Benitez, and Hyun Jin Kim. 2018. Cultivating a Good Life in Early Chinese and Ancient Greek Philosophy: Perspectives and Reverberations. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. (Edited volume exploring how Chinese and Greek thought can contribute to the “good life”.)

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Lambert, Andrew. 2016. “Confucian Ethics and Care: An Amicable Split?” In Mat Foust and Sor-­ Hoon Tan, eds., Feminist Encounters with Confucius. Leiden: Brill. (Argues that, though it values care, classical Confucian thought cannot be an ethics of care.) Lee, Ming-huei [Li Minghui]. 李明輝. 2001. The Self-Transformation of Contemporary Confucianism 當代儒學的自我轉化. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Publishing. (Offers a Kantian interpretation of Confucian thought, including a defense of the role of the transcendental in Confucian ethics.) ——— [Li Minghui]. 李明輝. 2005. Political Thought from a Confucian Perspective 儒家視野下 的政治思想. Taipei, Taiwan: National Taiwan University Press. ——— [Li Minghui]. 李明輝. 2017. Confucianism: Its Roots and Global Significance. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (An English-language collection of Lee’s work, including a critique of virtue-ethical interpretations of Confucian ethics.) Legge, James. 1881. The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism Described and Compared with Christianity. New York, NY: C. Scribner’s & sons. Levenson, Joseph R. 1968. Confucian China and its Modern Fate: Volume Three: The Problem of Historical Significance. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. (Part three of a three-­ volume history of the Confucian tradition and its future prospects.) Li, Chenyang 李晨陽. 1994. “The Confucian Concept of Jen and the Feminist Ethics of Care: A Comparative Study.” Hypatia 9.1: 70-89. (Influential paper arguing for a reading of Confucian ethics as an ethics of care.) Li, Zehou 李泽厚. 2016. “A Response to Michael Sandel and Other Matters.” Philosophy East and West 66.4: 1068-1147. (Argues that liberal theories of social order over-value justice and under-value harmony.) Lin, Xiaoqing Diana. 2014. “Creating Modern Chinese Metaphysics: Feng Youlan and New Realism.” Modern China 40.1: 40-73. Liu, JeeLoo 劉記璐. 2017. Neo-Confucianism: Metaphysics, Mind, and Morality. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Lo, Ming-Cheng M. and Eileen M.  Otis. 2003. “Guanxi Civility: Processes, Potentials, and Contingencies.” Politics & Society 31.1: 131-162. Lomanov, Alexander V. 1998. “Religion and Rationalism in the Philosophy of Feng Youlan.” Monumenta Serica 46.1: 323-341. Møllgaard, Eske. 2005. “Eclipse of Reading: On the ‘Philosophical Turn’ in American Sinology.” Dao 4.2: 321-340. (Rejects the theoretical frameworks imposed on pre-Qin texts by American sinologists such as Hall and Ames, and Hansen.) Morishima, Michio. 1978. “The Power of Confucian Capitalism.” Manchester, UK: The Observer Newspaper, June. Mou, Zongsan 牟宗三. 1987. 中國哲學的特質 [The Features of Chinese Philosophy]. Taipei: Student Books. ——— 牟宗三. 1991. 政道與治道 [Authority and Governance]. Revised edition. Taipei: Student Books. (Explores the relationship between personal virtue and political authority.) ——— 牟宗三. 2003. The Metaphysics of Mind and the Metaphysics of Nature 心體與性體 3 volumes. Taipei: Zhengzhong Publishing. (Mou’s account of a moral metaphysics that serves as the transcendental ground for a modern Confucian spirituality.) Neville, Robert. 2008. Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (In-depth study of the value of ritual, with particular focus on Xunzi’s treatment of ritual.) ———. 2010. “The Short Happy Life of Boston Confucianism.” In Wonsuk Chang and Leah Kalmanson, eds., Confucianism in Context: Classic Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, East Asia and Beyond. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Summary of the Boston school of Confucianism in the United States.) Ni, Peimin 倪培民. 2016. Confucius: The Man and the Way of Gongfu. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. (Interpretation of the Analects and Kongzi as aiming at the cultivation of character and abilities that enable one to excel at the art of life, broadly understood.)

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Rosenlee, Li-Hsiang Lisa. 2012. Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Rosemont, Henry, & Ames, Roger. 2009. The Chinese classic of family reverence: A philosophical translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. New  York, NY: Harvard University Press. Seok, Bongrae. 2012. Embodied Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. (Applies work in the emerging field of embodied moral psychology to Confucian moral thought.) Shusterman, Richard. 2009. “Pragmatist Aesthetics and Confucianism.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 43.1: 18-29. (Explores the convergence between pragmatism and classical Confucian in the area of aesthetics.) Sim, May. 2007. Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (Comparison of the ethics of Aristotle and Kongzi, especially their views of the cosmos, the self, and human relationships.) Slingerland, Edward. 2000. “Effortless Action: The Chinese Spiritual Ideal of Wu-Wei.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68.2: 293-327. ———. 2007. Effortless Action: Wu-Wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New  York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Interprets the early Chinese schools of thought through the conceptual framework of wu-wei or “effortless action”.) ———. 2018. Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA. (Promotes the use of scientific methods in the study of ancient texts and in interpretations of early Chinese thought, while criticizing strongly holistic interpretations.) Star, Daniel. 2002. “Do Confucians really Care? A Defense of the Distinctiveness of Care Ethics: A Reply to Chenyang Li.” Hypatia 17.1: 77-106. (Argues against understanding classical Confucian ethics as an ethics of care, and defends a virtue ethics reading.) Struhl, Karsten J. 2010. “No (More) Philosophy without Cross-Cultural Philosophy.” Philosophy Compass 5.4: 287-295. (Argues for the important of cross-cultural comparison to the discipline of philosophy.) Tan, Sor-Hoon. 2003. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (An account of a possible Confucian democracy based on Deweyan democracy.) Teng, Ssu-yü 鄧嗣禹and John King Fairbank. 1954. China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. Tiwald, Justin. 2010. “Confucianism and Virtue Ethics: Still a Fledgling in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy.” Comparative Philosophy 1.2: 52. Tu, Wei-ming 杜維明. 1984. Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge. Singapore: Federal Publications. ——— 1989. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness A Revised and Enlarged Edition of Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-Yung. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Important English translation of the Zhongyong, introducing themes developed throughout Tu’s later works.) ——— 1991. “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center.” Daedalus 120.2: 1-32. (Account of China as the center of sphere of cultural influence, which is characterized by Confucian social values.) ——— 1996. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. ——— 2014. “Beyond the ‘Enlightenment Mentality’: An Anthropocosmic Perspective.” In Fred Dallmayr, Akif Kayapınar and Ismail Yaylacı, eds., Civilizations and World Order: Geopolitics and Cultural Difference, Lanham, MD: Lexington. (Argues that Confucianism is an inclusive humanism, characterized by a cosmological orientation.) Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John H. Berthrong. 1998. Confucianism and Ecology the Interrelation of Heaven, Earth, and Humans. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. (Early collection of papers exploring how Confucian thought can contribute to ecology.)

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van Dongen, Els. 2017. “Confucianism, Community, Capitalism.” In Tze-ki Hon and Kristin Stapleton, eds., Confucianism for the Contemporary World: Global Order, Political Plurality, and Social Action, Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Van Norden, Bryan. 2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. (Explores early Confucianism as a form of virtue ethics and Mohism as a version of consequentialism.) ———. 2013. “Toward a Synthesis of Confucianism and Aristotelianism.” In Stephen Angle and Michael Slote, eds., Virtue Ethics and Confucianism. New York, NY: Routledge. Vogel, Ezra. 1979. Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. New  York, NY: Harvard University Press. Weber, Max. 1953 [1915]. The Religion of China, Confucianism and Taoism. London: MacMillan. (Applies Weber’s social theory to the Chinese tradition, analysing the structures of early society and religion; includes the question of why capitalism did not develop in China.) ———. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. (Weber’s classic work in social theory, presents a framework for understanding the relations among individual action, social action, and economic institutions.) Whitehead, Alfred North and Randall Auxier. 1996. Religion in the Making: Lowell Lectures, 1926. New York, NY: Fordham University Press. Wong, David B. 2009. Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (A defense of moral relativism.) Xiong, Shili 熊十力. 2015. New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness 新唯識論. Translated by John Makeham. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀. 1966. The Spirit of Chinese Art 中國藝術精神. Taipei, Taiwan: Student Books. ——— 徐復觀. 2005. The History of Human Nature in China 中國人性論史. Shanghai, China: East China Normal University Press. (Argues for the importance of human nature and inner moral vitality to the Confucian tradition.) Yu, Jiyuan 余纪元. 2009. The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue. New York, NY: Routledge. (Comparison of Aristotle and Kongzi with a virtue ethics framework.) Zhang, Longxi 張隆溪. 1998. Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China. Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press. (Questions both the application of Western theory to Chinese materials and the resistance to theory in sinological scholarship.) ——— 張隆溪. 1999. “Sinology and the Opposition of Chinese and Western Cultures: On Reading the Interview with François Jullien” 漢學與中西文化的對立: 讀于連先生訪談錄有 感 In Twenty-First Century 二十一世紀 53: 144-148.

Recent Developments in Confucianism in Mainland China Yong Li

1  Introduction Since the May Fourth movement of 1919 that promoted science and democracy in China, the overall development of Confucianism in China can be summarized as focusing on one thing: how to respond to modernization, or more accurately, how to respond to Westernization. For many Chinese Confucians, modernization is reduced to Westernization.1 For the past hundred years, Chinese Confucian scholars have had to answer the question: how to respond to modernization or Westernization. Within this context, Confucian scholars in China have been puzzled by modernization and Westernization. On the one hand, Confucianism has a long tradition and has provided rich resources for China and the whole of East Asia for the past several hundred years. It has been the dominant ideology for those East Asian counties. On the other hand, modernization and Westernization have overwhelmingly influenced China for the past one hundred years, which jeopardizes the status of Confucianism. Thus, how to respond to modernization and Westernization has been an urgent mission for most Chinese Confucians for the past 100  years. This challenge has generated a lot of anxieties among Chinese scholars. Some of those anxieties are shown through violence and social conflicts, such as the May Fourth Movement. But most of those anxieties are expressed in academic discussions and research. I want to thank David Elstein and Yong Huang for many insightful suggestions to improve this chapter. 1  This might sound radical to the English-speaking world. However, the rivalry between China and the West that was triggered by the Opium War in 1840 has been part of the major cultural narrative in mainland China. How to learn from the West and be better than the West is the crucial question for many Chinese intellectuals, especially Chinese Confucians.

Y. Li (*) Wuhan University, Wuhan, China © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_26

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Among those Chinese Confucians, some of them have come up with interesting proposals. There are different ways to group these people. The following is a popular option. As Liu Shuxian 劉述先 points out, there are three generations of Chinese Confucians in the twentieth century. The first generation includes Liang Shuming 梁簌溟, Zhang Junmai 張君勱, Xiong Shili 熊十力, Ma Yifu 馬一浮, Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, He Ling 賀麟, Qian Mu 钱穆, and Fang Dongmei 方東美. The second generation includes Tang Junyi 唐君毅, Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀. The third generation includes Yu Ying-shih 余英時, Tu Wei-ming 杜维明, Liu Shuxian 劉述先, and Cheng Chung-ying 成中英 (Liu 2017: 70). I think that the anxiety of Chinese Confucians over modernization and Westernization has continued after 1978 when the mainland China opened up. This chapter provides a survey of recent developments of Confucianism in mainland China for the past four decades. Due to the limits of length, it is not intended to be comprehensive. It will provide a peek into the development in Confucian thought in mainland China, which includes the following themes: Chinese philosophy, including Confucianism, as philosophy, Confucianism and moral partiality, and Confucian meritocracy. There has been a heated debate for the past several years with regard to Overseas New Confucianism (ONC), which covers the second and the third generations of Confucian scholars of the above category, and Mainland New Confucianism (MNC), which refers to Confucian scholars in mainland China after 1978.2 All the second generation and third generation of Confucian scholars in the twentieth century lived in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or the US.  Their approach to Confucianism has its own distinctive features. For example, almost all of them endorse liberal democracy. As more and more Confucian scholars in mainland China come up with new understandings of how to promote Confucianism in China, it seems reasonable to identify this group in distinction to ONC. At this point, the term Mainland New Confucianism can be understood in a narrow sense and a broad sense. In a narrow sense, MNC is a school of Confucianism that is different from ONC.  Since Overseas New Confucians value moral cultivation and embrace liberal democracy, Mainland New Confucians promote political ideals and Confucian meritocracy. Overall, according to this narrative, MNC is portraited as an alternative and even a rival to ONC. However, there is a broad sense of MNC. According to this broad understanding, MNC refers to what takes place related to Confucianism in mainland China over the past several decades. In this chapter I am going to focus on the broad sense of MNC for two reasons. First, MNC scholars in the narrow sense are a minority among mainland Confucian scholars. There are a large number of other Confucian scholars in mainland China who have been doing serious research on Confucianism and promoting Confucian values. We should not ignore them. Second, most of those MNC scholars in the narrow sense have a singular issue in mind: how to make Confucianism relevant politically in China today. This is an important issue. However, there are many other issues that are relevant concerning Confucianism in contemporary China. 2  Cf. Contemporary Chinese Thought, 2018, Vol. 49, No. 2. There is a group of articles written by Stephen Angle, Huang Yushun, Zeng Yi & Fang Xudong, Guo Qiyong, Lee Ming-huei, Chen Ming, Chen Yun, and Tang Wenming.

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In the following I will present four of the leading scholars of MNC of the past forty years. Following, I will present three of the most discussed topics among them.

2  Leading Scholars of MNC Over the past forty years, there are a number of leading Confucian scholars from mainland China. They include: Tang Yijie 湯一介, Pang Pu 龐璞, Zhang Liwen 張立文, Yu Dunkang 余敦康, Meng Peiyuan 蒙培元, Mou Zhongjian 牟鐘鑒, Chen Lai 陳來, Yang Guorong 楊國榮, Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇, Wu Guang 吴光, Li Cunshan 李存山, Zhang Xianglong 張祥龍, Yan Binggang 顏炳罡, Jing Haifeng 景海峰, Wu Zhen 吳震, Li Honglei 黎紅雷, Zhu Hanmin 朱漢民, Zhang Xinmin 張新民, Cai Fanglu 蔡方鹿, Shu Dagang 舒大剛, and more (Guo 2018: 160). Besides these, there are the so-called political Confucians or MNC scholars in the narrow sense: Jiang Qing 蔣慶, Zeng Yi 曾亦, Guo Xiaodong 郭曉東, Chen Ming陳明, Su Xiaokang 蘇曉康, Bai Tongdong 白彤東 and others. Mainland Confucian scholars have proposed a number of theories and interpretations of Confucianism. Due to the limitations of length, I will discuss Tang Yijie’s idea of the unities of heaven and humanity (tianren 天人), knowledge and action (zhixing 知行), and emotion and context(qingjing 情境); Zhang Liwen’s theory of harmony (hehexue 和合學); Chen Lai’s ontology of benevolence (ren bentilun 仁 本體論); and Jiang Qing’s idea of political Confucianism (zhengzhi ruxue 政治儒學).3

2.1  Tang Yijie Tang believes that there are essential differences between Confucianism and other philosophical traditions, such as Indian, Islamic or Greek traditions. Tang argues that there are three major statements of Confucianism: the unity of heaven (tian 天) and humanity, the unity of knowledge and action, and the unity of emotion and context (Tang 2006). The unity of heaven and humanity provides a metaphysical picture about the relationship between human beings and the cosmos. It seems that for Tang, “heaven” does not mean nature. It also refers to the universe. Apparently, he is not taking a naturalistic understanding of Heaven. There are underlying principles of heaven. Those principles are not just physical laws. Tang claims, “In Chinese history, ‘heaven’ has many different meanings. Here are three major meanings: (1) a divine commander (with agency); (2) natural existence; (3) an existence with moral order” (Tang 2005: 6). For him, Xunzi tends to treat Heaven as a natural existence. “Xunzi

 I do not discuss Li Zehou 李泽厚 since there is a chapter on him in this anthology.

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points out ‘distinction between Heaven and humans’. He treats ‘Heaven’ as an existence opposite and external to human beings. Thus, according to Xunzi, with regard to the relation between Heaven and humans, on the one hand, the laws of Heaven will not change for human beings. On the other hand, human beings can follow the laws of Heaven and make use of them” (Tang 2005: 5). Tang thinks that Heaven as a divine commander was mostly endorsed by people before Kongzi. Even though people like Mozi treats heaven as having volition, Tang thinks that for most Confucians throughout history, “Heaven refers to not just a natural existence outside human society, but as an organic, continuous, living, active existence, in relation to human beings” (Tang 2005: 6). Heaven in Confucianism for Tang is an existence with moral order. Tang thinks that “‘heaven’ and ‘humanity’ are the most fundamental ideas in Chinese traditional philosophy. And ‘the unity between heaven and humanity’ is the most fundamental statement in Chinese traditional philosophy. Many philosophers in Chinese history have treated the discussion on ‘heaven’ and humanity as their basic mission” (Tang 2006: 8). He points out that human beings and nature are united. Human beings are part of nature and should coexist with nature. He makes four observations concerning this unity. First, this unity is a general and holistic view of the relation between human beings and the universe. Second, understanding of heaven should be embodied in one’s practice. There should be no separation between understanding and practice. Third, we should view heaven as evolving rather than static. Social developments and moral practices are an adaptation of the way of heaven. Fourth, even though heaven is objective and human beings should follow the way of heaven, human beings are the heart of heaven. Human beings are supposed to build up and cultivate this heart for heaven. Heaven without human beings is meaningless (Tang 2006: 75–76). Tang emphasizes that “We should not treat the relationship between heaven and humanity as external. Heaven and humans cannot be separated. Humans cannot survive without Heaven; Heaven without humans would not express its life” (Tang 2019: 17). The unity of knowledge and action deals with interpersonal and intrapersonal relations. According to Tang, most contemporary Chinese scholars treat knowledge as an epistemic issue. But for Tang, it is rather a moral issue in the history of Chinese philosophy. Knowledge here refers to our understanding of self-cultivation in morality. Thus, the consistency between moral knowledge and moral action is crucial for Tang’s understanding of the unity of knowledge and action (Tang 1984: 74). Wang Yangming 王陽明 is famous for proposing the unity of knowledge and action. Tang claims that for Wang, “Action starts with having an idea” (yinian fadong chu, bian shi xing le 一念發動出, 便即是行了). Wang was mostly concerned about our ignoring the demand of moral rules (Tang 2009: 146).4 Tang claims, “Overall, ‘the 4  I think that even though Tang refers to knowledge in a broad sense, most of his discussions are confined to the moral domain. In other words, he argues that we should put our moral knowledge into moral action. We should not ignore the demand of moral rules that we are fully aware of. I do not think that he argues for a general thesis that we should put all our knowledge, such as scientific knowledge into practice.

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unity between knowledge and action’ is consistent throughout the history of traditional Chinese philosophy. Ancient Chinese philosophers think that the unity of knowledge and action is necessary to discuss ‘goodness’ (shan 善)” (Tang 1984: 76). According to Tang, Kongzi treats the unity of knowledge and action as one that distinguishes between a gentleman and a petty person (xiaoren 小人), “a gentleman cannot put his words into practice if he would overstate (Analects, 1982: 14.20)” (Tang 1984: 76). Tang also believes that for Mengzi, to practice one’s four sprouts of moral sentiments is to practice one’s moral knowledge. According to Tang, Mengzi is clearly committed to the unity of moral knowledge and moral practice (Tang 1984: 76). We should follow the moral demands and put them into practice. For Tang, the unity of emotion and context is an issue of aesthetics. Here the concept of context has a very broad meaning. Our emotions are included as part of the context. Furthermore, things that are contributing to our aesthetic and emotional cultivation are regarded as also contributing to our moral development. In this sense, aesthetics is closely related to ethics. Tang appeals to Wang Guowei 王國維 to illustrate the above idea. According to Wang, the state of cultivation (jingjie 境界) is the key for poems. The things in the context are part of the context. But one’s emotions are also part of the context. Whether we can have a delicate depiction of the things in the context partly depends on our own emotions (Wang 2016: 5). Tang argues that Wang’s view can be used to explain Kongzi’s understanding of the connection between the good the beauty. Tang argues, “In traditional Chinese thought, the good and the beautiful tend to go hand in hand” (Tang 1984: 78). According to Tang, the right emotions in pursuit of beauty are morally related, which are part of the context. For Tang, the above three types of unities are closely related to each other. They are expressions of truth, goodness, and beauty. He believes that these three unities constitute the humanistic tradition of Confucianism.

2.2  Zhang Liwen Zhang proposes the theory of harmony (hehexue 和合學). There are two parts to this theory. The first part includes his understanding of the three layers of the world: earth, humanity, and heaven. The second part includes five different principles that are applied to these three layers of the world (Zhang 2006). Zhang believes, “All the phenomena and all the elements constitute the state of harmony and are expressions of the spirit of harmony. There are certain structures of new lives and new composites. Those structures can be regarded as the basic forms of those new lives and new composites…The spatial-temporal structure and its overall system can be regarded as a system of harmony” (Zhang 2006: 99–100). Apparently, Zhang proposes that the theory of harmony is a theory of the basic structure of all beings. Zhang claims that “The theory of harmony is to disclose the order of the universe. The universe includes the basic structure of earth, human, and Heaven”

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(Zhang 2006: 100). Of the three layers of the world, the first layer is “earth.” This is the layer that we all cohabitate with nature. Furthermore, human beings are the managers of the layer of earth. “The world of living is primarily the living of human beings. Harmony is a generalization of the ideas and activities of those lives. The theory of harmony is essentially about the fact of the lives of human beings” (Zhang 2006: 102). As more ecological crises come along, such as global warming, no one on the earth can escape from those crises. Thus, we need to build a harmonious “earth” world. The second layer is the “human” world. This is the layer where we find meaning in life. We find a home for ourselves, and for our minds. This is also the layer that we cohabitate with other human beings. We need to build a harmonious “human” world. “The meaning of heaven and earth comes from their values to human beings. Their values depend on human needs and attitudes. However, the status of human beings also partly depends on how we perceive ourselves between heaven and earth. We are establishing ourselves while give meaning to heaven and earth. We are finding the meaning of our lives while creating values to heaven and earth” (Zhang 2006: 103–104). The third layer is the world of “heaven.” This is the layer where we find ideal worlds. In different religions, they do describe those ideal worlds in different ways. For example, nirvana in Buddhism, heaven in Christianity, the world of gods in Daoism, and grand unity in Confucianism. In those ideal worlds, there are no wars, no murders, and no frauds. They are happy and harmonious worlds. Zhang claims, “Heaven as a possible world is beautiful, good, and perfect. It is a criticism and denial of the ugly, bad, evil and defects of the living word (earth). In other words, Heaven as a possible world is a creation of our intellect” (Zhang 2006: 106). Corresponding to these three layers of worlds, Zhang believes that there are four kinds of conflicts and crises. The first is conflict between humanity and nature, which causes the crisis of ecology. The second is conflict between individuals and society, which causes the crisis of civility. The third is conflict among individuals, which causes the crisis of morality. The fourth is conflict among different religions, which causes the crisis of spirituality (Zhang 2006: 434–477). Zhang proposes five principles in dealing with the above conflicts and crises (Zhang 2006: 477–482). He believes that those principles are derived from Confucianism and other philosophical resources in China. The first principle is harmony of life. Human beings should cohabit with other species peacefully. The second principle is harmony of peace. Different individuals should deal with each other peacefully. The third principle is harmony of respect. Different people and different nations should respect other’s autonomy and independence.5 The fourth principle is 5  With regard to the tension between nations respecting each other’s autonomy and independence and nations having grave human rights violations, Zhang appeals to ‘desiring to take his stand, one who is Good helps others to take their stand’ (ji yu li er liren 己欲立而立人) and ‘wanting to realize himself, he helps others to realize themselves’ (ji yu da er daren 已欲达而达人) (Zhang 2006: 479). I think that Zhang would argue to help those nations with grave human rights violations since one would not want one’s own nation with grave human rights violations.

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harmony of flourishing. Developed nations should help those developing countries. The enlarging gap between rich countries and poor countries is a cause for global unrest. The fifth principle is harmony of love. If there is love among people, societies, and nations, there will be real and ultimate harmony. If the kind of love proposed by Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Mohism, could be endorsed by us, there would be peace and flourishing. Even while this has never happened in history, Zhang believes that there is hope: “In the twenty-first century, human beings have to respond to and solve the tensions between humanity and nature, individuals and society, among individuals, and among religions. Harmony is the best value and method to solve those tensions. Harmony is not only a value from Confucianism. It also fits with Daoism, Mohism, the Yin-yang School, Classic of Changes, and Guanzi” (Zhang 2006: 477). One may wonder about the connection between the theory of harmony and Confucianism. During an interview, Zhang directly touches upon this question and claims, The theory of harmony inherits and innovates Chinese culture, which certainly includes Confucianism. However, this theory is not just a transformation of Confucianism, but also a result of interactions among Chinese culture, western culture, and Marxism-Leninism. It is not a parallel system to Confucianism, but rather an adaptation of ideas of Confucianism to our contemporary society. For example, the principle of harmony of respect is similar to ‘desiring to take his stand, one who is Good helps others to take their stand’ of Confucianism. The principle of harmony of flourishing is similar to ‘wanting to realize himself, he helps others to realize themselves’ of Confucianism. Our discussions about love of nature and other species is inspired by ‘being benevolent to others and loving other beings’ (ren ming ai wu 仁民愛物) of Confucianism” (Li 2007: 57).

Zhang recognizes that the theory of harmony is an adaptation of Confucianism in contemporary society.

2.3  Chen Lai Chen is a historian of Confucianism. Recently, he has developed a new Confucian metaphysics, called benevolence as ontology (renxue bentilun 仁學本體論). Chen thinks that he has proposed an alternative Confucian ontology, different from Xiong Shili’s benevolent heart-mind as ontology (renxin bentilun 仁心本體論) or Li Zehou’s emotion as ontology (qing bentilun 情本體論) (Chen 2014: 14). According to Xiong, the ultimate reality of the universe is not a transcendent entity that is beyond human touch. Instead, it is the unity of the universe and human heart-mind. Through our heart-mind, we can apprehend this ultimate reality. And moral and social practice are the way to understand this unity between the human heart-mind and the universe. This is also the unity between apprehension and practice (see Guo 2017b: 65–95). However, according to Li, human feelings are the ultimate reality. These human feelings grow out of human nature and are closely related to the virtue of benevolence. He believes that human feelings are biological and social. He argues

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that this benevolence-related feeling is the result of human nature and human practice (Li 2011: 39–63). For Chinese Confucians, the term ontology is used differently than contemporary analytic metaphysics. Ontology refers more to something being ultimately important. This ultimately important thing might not be the basic element of the physical universe. In this sense, Chen proposes that instead of heart-mind or feeling, benevolence is the ultimately important being of the universe. Chen claims, “Chinese ontology is different from Western ontology. The ‘onto’ in Chinese ontology is also different from the Western ‘onto’. From beginning, Western philosophy assumes a transcendent entity, which is unchangeable, and gradually becomes the object of our pursuit. The ‘onto’ in Chinese philosophy is also real. However, it is not external, static, an object that is not part of the reality. It is a holistic and dynamic process. It is a reality that is built upon our life experience” (Chen 2014: 12). There are several important proposals related to this benevolence ontology. First, benevolence is the unity of everything, natural and human. Chen argues that the heart-mind of feeling cannot fully capture the essence of this unity of nature and humanity. Chen claims, Li Zehou focuses on benevolence of Confucianism. However, he always understands benevolence as emotional experiences. He does not see the different dimensions of benevolence in the history of Confucianism, which include the ontological and cosmological meanings. Thus, he only places benevolence in his ontology of emotions. From my perspective, benevolence is a reality in the metaphysical sense. The emotions of love are only expressions of benevolence in practice. His understanding of benevolence has always been restricted to this benevolence in experience. Thus, he does not comprehend the idea of benevolence as ontology. (Chen 2014: 363–364)

Second, this benevolence ontology does capture not just the Confucian understanding of the universe, but also the East Asian understanding of the universe. Even though this is a local understanding, according to Chen, it does provide an alternative to the Western understanding of ontology. Chen believes, The construction of the ontology of benevolence not just serves not just the need of modern Confucian metaphysics, but also serves to rebuild and revive Confucianism while China rises again. Furthermore, while morality collapses in China and the rest of world, the ontology of benevolence will focus on values, ethics, and morality. It will help to rebuild our society and morality…. Anyway, several thousand years of history in China has shown that the way of benevolence as a non-religious humanism can bring together different social groups without faith in divinity. Only after the Enlightenment and Religious Reformation did the West start to see the power of non-religious humanism. (Chen 2014: 91)

Third, there is something universal about this benevolence ontology. Even though it has its origin in the Confucian tradition, it does capture how moral life plays a significant role in our understanding of the universe, which has universal implications for various cultures. Chen claims that the ontology of benevolence shows the differences between Confucianism and Western cultures. Without a universal moral principle as a foundation, it is impossible to build a healthy global culture post-Cold War. The idea of benevolence in Confucianism can be a moral foundation for this shared global view. There are many readings of this benevolence throughout the Confucian tradition. There are two that are relevant. Here is the first one. Kongzi claims that people with

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benevolence love others. Han Yu 韩愈 reads benevolence as ‘universal love’ (boai 博愛). Zhu Xi 朱熹 also reads benevolence as a ’pattern of understanding love’ (aizhili 愛之理). Here is the second one. Benevolence is read as ‘everything as a unity’ (wanwu yiti 萬物一 體). One with benevolence would recognize oneself and the rest of universe as closely related entities. One would see every part of the universe as closely related to oneself. (Chen 2014: 473)

Clearly, Chen believes that the ontology of benevolence would help people from different cultures see this interconnection among themselves, which is essential to have a healthy global community.

2.4  Jiang Qing Jiang is a very controversial figure among Confucian scholars in China. Jiang is a representative of mainland Confucianism in the narrow sense. On the one hand, some people think that he is the only serious thinker after 1949 in mainland China (Liu 2004a). On the other hand, most leading scholars of Confucianism do not recognize his contribution. They think that he does not understand Confucianism at all. For example, Guo Qiyong claims, It is absurd for Jiang Qing to make the distinctions between political Confucianism and heart-mind Confucianism. Throughout history, China never had someone who only did political Confucianism without addressing the heart-mind issue, or someone who only did heart-mind Confucianism without addressing the political issues. Being a sage internally and a king externally (nei sheng wai wang 內聖外王) are connected and consistent. (Guo 2017a)

Jiang is most famous for promoting the idea of political Confucianism. This idea was first proposed by him in 1997 (Jiang 1997). He argues that the development of Confucianism can be divided into two branches: heart-mind and nature (xinxing 心 性) Confucianism, represented by Song and Ming Confucians, and political Confucianism, represented by the Gongyang (公羊) school of Confucianism. The Gongyang school was created by Confucians such as Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 of the Han Dynasty. They focus on the study of the Gongyang Commentary (Chun Qiu Gong Yang Zhuan 春秋公羊傳), a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (chunqiu 春秋). It promotes the political unity and political reform. Jiang claims, Heart-mind and nature Confucianism concerns the major problem of the value of life, the meaning of life, and how to cultivate oneself morally. However, the Gongyang School of Confucianism is different. It is concerned with the foundation of a political society (the unification of a state), the legitimacy of political order, the reforms of political institutions, the justice in history, norms of political actions, and the construction of political institutions. All of the above are worries about political institutions. (Jiang 1997: 2–3)

Jiang argues that Overseas New Confucianism cannot solve the real issues in China. He argues that ONC can be called as the life Confucianism or the heart-mind and human nature Confucianism. This is because their primary concern is about individuals lives and heart-mind and human

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nature. In philosophical terms, it is about individual existence, metaphysical beings, and the abstract history and culture that is based on this understanding of life and heart-mind and human nature. This can be clearly seen from Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan…There is not much to blame them if they merely tried to uncover the true meaning of Confucianism by caring about life and heart-mind and human nature. However, they became extreme and radical. They could not go beyond mere life and heart-mind and human nature. They did not pave the way for the new external kingship that was expected from a new Confucianism. (Jiang 2003: 13)

He does believe that ONC is focused on individuals, metaphysics, internal cultivation, and transcendentals (Jiang 2003: 14–18). He concludes that those focuses lead to the failure of ONC for promoting realistic solutions for politics in China. Jiang is clearly against democratic ideals. He believes that liberty and democracy are the products of Western civilization, which are not compatible with Confucianism. Jiang claims, Democracy is different from science and technology, which are universally shared by human beings. Democracy is the product of Western history and culture. It does not have the universal truth. It merely belongs to one of many cultures in the world. That is to say, democracy emphasizes formal thinking, rather than substantive thinking; the legal rights, but not moral consciousness; the extremes, rather than harmony; the theoretical reason, rather than practical arts. Therefore, democracy is merely Western, rather than of all human beings, or of China. There can only be the Western idea of democracy. There cannot be a universal idea of democracy or Chinese democracy. (Jiang 2003: 284)

Most people may find the above reasoning flawed. However, Jiang is a relativist about democracy. For him, Confucians promote relational values and our responsibilities towards family and the state. In contrast, the West promotes individual liberties. Thus, the resulting political institution of liberal democracy would not be compatible with Confucian tradition. Jiang concludes that we should uphold Confucianism against Western ideals. He further proposes that we should develop Confucian meritocracy rather than endorse Western liberal democracy. One key idea of Confucian meritocracy is to challenge political equality in democracy. The political rights of citizens should be in proportion to their capacities, which could include moral and other forms of knowledge. Jiang proposes that political power should have three kinds of legitimacy: heaven, earth, and the human. In his words, The legitimacy of heaven refers to a transcendent ruling will and a sacred sense of natural morality. The legitimacy of earth refers to a legitimacy that comes from history and culture. And the legitimacy of the human refers to the will of the people that determines whether or not the people will obey political authorities…the multiplicity of things comes from the one principle of heaven, hence the sacred legitimacy of the way of heaven is prior to both the cultural legitimacy of the way of earth and that of the popular will of the human way. (Jiang 2013: 6–7)

Jiang also clearly argues for political Confucianism, rather than moral Confucianism that is based on the discussion of personal moral cultivation. Jiang believes that there have always been two lines of Confucianism in China: political Confucianism and moral Confucianism. He believes that moral Confucianism assumes good human nature and values personal cultivation. However, as a comparison, political Confucianism assumes that even though the source of human

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nature is good, after human nature is situated in a particular context, it tends to be corrupted. His argument is that since political Confucianism is largely ignored by Confucian scholars throughout history, we should recognize its importance. Furthermore, political Confucianism that is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese political practice can provide an alternative political guidance for current Chinese political practice. Jiang argues, Political Confucianism is different from heart-mind and nature Confucianism. It does not concern the moral cultivation of an individual. It concerns the perfection of the society. Political Confucianism does not understand human nature in terms of the heart-mind and nature of an individual. It views human nature from social relations. It treats human beings as relational beings rather than individual beings. Therefore, we cannot build a perfect and harmonious society by individual’s moral cultivation. We have to change the social relations…According to Political Confucianism, social relations are the foundation of human existence…. Thus, Political Confucianism focuses on social relations, rather than individual’s life, heart, and nature. (Jiang 2003: 29)

Based on his relativism about rights and democracy, Jiang believes that political Confucianism is what China needs rights now. I believe that the above four Confucian scholars from mainland China share the following similarities. First, their articulations of the most important values for Confucianism are derived from the history of Confucianism. They find similar ideas in Kongzi, Mengzi, Confucians from the Han dynasty, and, with the exception of Jiang, most importantly, from the Song and Ming dynasties. They believe that their understandings of those values are a continuation of what most important Confucians held throughout history. This kind of historical continuity is a very important source of legitimacy. What the ancients said has prima facie justification. It was the same reasoning that for Kongzi: what the ancient sage kings said has prima facie justification. This reasoning might seem strange or unacceptable for people who do not see intrinsic values in tradition. They would perceive it merely as an argument from authority. Second, they have a strong teleology in their theory building, too. For them, building a functional and harmonious society is the final end of any theory. Whether a moral virtue should be promoted is decided by whether this moral virtue will contribute to this pragmatic end.6 Also, a theory for them should aim to solve various current crises, such as the ecological or cultural conflict challenges. They do believe that ancient values are instrumental in solving those crises. Third, their discussion is situated in the context in which Western philosophy or culture is dominant in the world now. They believe that there is a unified 6  One may argue that in order to achieve social harmony, a society may encourage some people to accept a lower place in the social hierarchy with more limited opportunities. In much of East Asian history, younger people, especially women, were pressured to sacrifice their interests for others in the family. It seems that those Mainland New Confucians are comfortable with this. Most Mainland New Confucians endorse the modern values of equality and liberty. They would not sacrifice the fundamental value of equality for harmony. But for people like Jiang Qing, they would argue that certain inequality can be justified. For example, only certain people may be given the opportunities for political power. Jiang would not accept the egalitarian assumption.

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understanding of Western philosophy or culture. This belief clearly is problematic. They try to promote Confucianism as an alternative and even a rival to this dominant ideology. They try to justify Confucianism’s relevance in contemporary China and contemporary world. They might hint at the idea that the Confucianism has some universal implications for the contemporary world. A much stronger claim would be that it is the time of Confucianism. This claim could be associated with or motivated by the idea that it is the time of China. One may argue that there is strong epistemological optimism among the above scholars. The ideal of social harmony seems too good to be true. There are no reliable ways to achieve a harmonious and well-ordered society by merely cultivating virtues that are widely agreed on and readily identifiable in other people. This criticism against MNC scholars is consistent with criticisms against Kongzi and Mengzi by Han Feizi (韓非子): “If one still uses political ideals of the ancient sage kings to rule contemporary society, it is as ridiculous as waiting for a rabbit to crash into a tree (shou zhu dai tu 守株待兔) ” (Han Feizi 2007: 272). The political ideals of the ancient sage kings and their ways of ruling, even if they were effective in those days, might not be realistic today. However, most MNC scholars are ideal theorists. They think that their primary job is to provide social, moral and political ideals. They are confident that those ideals are applicable.

3  Important Issues for MNC Most MNC research is about important Confucian thinkers throughout history, such as early Confucians, Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzi, or Song-Ming Confucians such as Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, or earlier New Confucians, such as Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan. In other words, Confucian studies in mainland China is mostly historical. However, there are several interesting issues discussed. In the 1990s, there was a discussion on “Confucianism and modernization.” It focuses on Confucianism and its relation to market economy, democracy, and human rights. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, there was a debate about whether Chinese philosophy is philosophy at all. Confucian scholars were involved in this debate. The third issue was about the son covering a father’s stealing a sheep case in Analects: whether it is moral to conceal one’s family members’ wrong doing. This case drew huge attention in mainland China. It is about the tension between family partiality and impartial justice. The fourth issue that has been popular for the last several years is political Confucianism. The rivalry between Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats has become more intense. This rivalry is partly related to how to understand the group of mainland new Confucians. In this section, I will present the issue of Chinese philosophy, including Confucianism, as philosophy, the issue of Confucian familial partiality, and the issue of Confucian meritocracy. Important discussions on the issue of Confucianism and modernization will be included in the discussion of Confucian meritocracy.

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3.1  Chinese Philosophy as Philosophy In 2001, Zheng Jiadong 鄭家棟 started the debate about whether there is Chinese philosophy (Zheng 2001). Zheng made the distinction between philosophy in China and Chinese philosophy. He recognized that there has been philosophical research in China for the past 100 years or so. However, the question is whether there is a discipline of Chinese philosophy that is distinct from the European philosophical tradition throughout Chinese history. Historically speaking, China did not have the discipline of philosophy until the end of nineteenth century. In 1895, a Japanese scholar translated philosophy as “哲 學” in Chinese. In 1919, the first philosophy department was created in China. Thus, it is fair to say that we did not have the academic discipline of philosophy until the beginning of the twentieth century. However, whether Chinese philosophy shares something similar with Western philosophy, or with philosophy in general is a different question. Currently, there are three different views on this issue among mainland Chinese Confucians (Huang 2011). First, that “philosophy” is a unique discipline in the West. There is no philosophy outside the West. The so-called “Chinese philosophy” as a kind of philosophy refers to philosophy in China. Over the past century, there have been many Chinese scholars who work on Western philosophy. There are also many Chinese scholars who work on Chinese philosophy using Western or modern methods. They can be called philosophers in China. Traditional research on Confucianism, Daoism, and Chinese Buddhism cannot be recognized as “philosophy” in this sense. Zheng holds this view. He claims, “The essential definition and basic norms of ‘Chinese philosophy’ as an academic discipline come from the West. One’s achievements in the research of Chinese philosophy depend on one’s study of Western philosophy. ‘Chinese philosophy’ is a branch of ‘philosophy’. ‘Philosophy’ as a discipline, its concept and method, all comes from the West. This condition determines the fate of ‘Chinese philosophy’” (Zheng 2004: 7).7 Second, Chinese philosophy is a unique presentation of the kind of “philosophy” that originated in ancient Greece and developed through history in the West. However, what China has throughout history, such as Confucianism, Daoism and Chinese Buddhism, has core features that one can find in Western philosophy. Thus, Western philosophy is the standard philosophy. Chinese philosophy is an incomplete form of this standard philosophy. For example, Chinese philosophy lacks argumentation or formal conceptual schemes. Zhang Dainian seems to hold this view. He argues, If philosophy only refers to Western philosophy, or Western philosophy is the only paradigm for philosophy, then anything that is different from Western philosophy would belong to something other than philosophy. Chinese thought is indeed different from Western thoughts. According to this reasoning, Chinese thoughts cannot be defined as philosophy. However, alternatively, we can treat philosophy as a kind, rather than merely as Western

 People hold the similar views: Ge (2001), Luo (2002).

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philosophy. In this way, anything that is similar to Western philosophy can be called philosophy. According to this understanding, Chinese thought about the universe and human life can be called philosophy. Chinese philosophy might be different from Western philosophy on some issues. However, with regard to the ultimate questions, Chinese philosophy is quite similar to Western philosophy. (Zhang 1994: 2)8

Third, there is a broad concept of philosophy that is present in different cultures. For example, even though throughout history China did not have the term zhexue 哲 學 and did not use this term to refer to Confucianism, it does not imply that Confucianism is not a kind of philosophy. Here philosophy refers to systematic reflection on important issues, such as the nature of reality, knowledge, the good life, and beauty. Confucianism does discuss those issues. And their discussions are quite different from how the West, Indians, Africans, and South Americans view those issues. This makes Chinese philosophy unique. Most contemporary Confucian scholars in mainland China hold this view. For example, Chen Lai believes that Confucianism belongs to a broad concept of philosophy that is expressed differently in various cultures and traditions. Chen claims, Those philosophical ideas in China are Chinese philosophy. Even though its extension is different from Western philosophy, and its questions are different from Western philosophy, these do not stop it from being philosophy in China. This shows the unity between the particularities and the commonalities of philosophy as a discipline. One of the most important jobs for non-Western philosophers is to develop a broad concept of ‘philosophy’. Then popularize this concept and deconstruct the Western-centric concept of philosophy. I believe that only through this can we promote genuine cross-culture philosophical dialogue and develop philosophical wisdom for the twenty-first century. If our future understanding of philosophy is limited to the European tradition or analytic tradition, then the wisdom and value of philosophy will be lost. (Chen 2003: 23)9

One may wonder why the question of whether there is Chinese philosophy is related to recent developments of Confucianism in China or how the question is tied to Confucianism. There are several reasons. First, almost all Chinese philosophy scholars who engaged in the debate are Confucian scholars. Those prominent Confucian scholars include Zheng Jiadong 鄭家棟, Huang Yushun 黃玉順, Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇, Chen Lai 陳來, Yang Guorong 楊國榮, Peng Yongjie 彭永捷, Li Cunshan 李存山, etc. Second, all the features that are drawn about Chinese philosophy are derived from discussions about Confucianism. Few scholars appeal to Daoism or Chinese Buddhism to characterize features of Chinese philosophy. Third, how to understand the nature of Chinese philosophy is seen as a prerequisite to do scholarly study of Confucianism in mainland China. For the past several decades, most major philosophy departments in mainland China have a required graduate seminar for graduate students who specialize in Confucianism, the Methodology of (Doing) History of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學史方法論. The seminar is primarily about the nature of Chinese philosophy.

 I think that Hu Weixi shares the above view (Hu 2004).  Most mainland Confucian scholars hold this view. Cf. Guo (2005).

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One may find the MNC scholars’ obsession over the nature of Chinese philosophy irrational. Their obsession is mostly driven by a sense of national or cultural pride. Even though Confucianism is quite different from some key philosophical schools of Western philosophy, Confucianism is understood by MNC scholars to be as good as Western philosophy. However, the legitimacy of the above claim depends on an affirmative answer to the question of whether Confucianism is philosophy.

3.2  Confucianism and Moral Partiality The Confucian tradition is famous for its emphasis on family values. This tradition emphasizes that, after one’s moral sentiments are cultivated in the family, one is capable of caring for people outside the family. Furthermore, when there is a conflict between the love towards one’s family and the love towards those outside the family, according to Kongzi and Mengzi, one in general should make family love the priority. However, since the early 2000s, there has been a debate in the Chinese philosophy community about how to understand the story in the Analects in which a son covers for his father’s theft of a sheep. This is a puzzle because while Kongzi’s theory of virtue implies that concealing a theft is wrong, Kongzi contends that it is right when family members cover up each other’s crimes. Scholars have developed three different readings of why, according to Kongzi, a “True Person” (zhigong 直躬) would cover for his father or son (Li 2012a). The first reading claims that a ‘True Person’ understands that what the father or the son does is wrong, but believes that turning them in to authorities is not the right way to reform him. Guo Qiyong apparently endorses this view (Guo 2002). The second reading claims that a “True Person” thinks that there must be a good reason for the father or son to take the sheep. Thus, what the father or son does might not be morally wrong (Ames and Rosemont 1998: 254).10 The third reading claims that a “True Person” knows that what the father or the son does is wrong and believes that turning them into the authorities is the right way to reform him, but still covers for them because he values family relationships more than public interests. Liu Qingping seems to endorse this view (Liu 2002). Among these readings, the first reading is the most appealing. For example, one may argue that covering up the crime will preserve the intimate family relationship. There is no direct textual support for this reading, but it seems to be  According to the Zhu Xi commentary, the father took the sheep because the family was in dire straits. See Ames and Rosemont 1998, p. 254, fn212. Guo Qiyong points out that it may be the case that the sheep may be lost and follow with the family’s own herd of sheep and the father did not return the sheep on time (Guo 2007: 90). Huang Qixiang argues against this reading and points out that it trivializes the issue by intentionally weakening the meaning of rang 攘(taking). (Huang 2017a, b: 127).

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consistent with Kongzi’s idea of familial attachment. Then it becomes possible that the son can help the father to reform more effectively than just by reporting him. The problem with the second reading is that there is no textual evidence for there being a good reason to steal the sheep. If one insists that there must be a good reason for the father or the son to steal the sheep, then it seems to imply that there is always a good reason for some apparently immoral actions in the Analects. The problem with the third reading is that if one knows that turning the father or the son into the authorities is the right way to reform him, then a just person would not cover for the father or the son. Therefore, if one is reasonable and knows that turning the father or the son into the authorities is not the right way to reform him, then one should cover for the father or the son. This is exactly what the first reading suggests. Liu Qingping argues that those who endorse the first reading claim that by covering the father or the son, one displays overwhelming partiality towards one’s family, which is in conflict with one’s obligation to be impartial (Liu 2002: 43–47). Since impartiality is a requirement of justice, covering is not just. Apparently, when one covers for one’s father or the son who steals a sheep from the neighbor, even though one’s covering is for the care of the beloved, one cannot forget one’s obligation towards one’s neighbor. In this case, one should respect the neighbor’s rights for his property or even care for the neighbor’s well-being, which is required by an egalitarian principle. Now we have a dilemma for Kongzi: on the one hand, one is supposed to cover for one’s family; on the other hand, one is expected to respect the neighbor’s rights to his own property and care for the neighbor. Many Confucians in mainland China respond to the above challenge by claiming that the virtue of xiao, filial piety, is the basis for the virtue of benevolence, benevolence towards people outside family.11 Confucians use the tree as a metaphor for the relationship between the xiao and benevolence. Xiao is the root of the tree, and benevolence is the branches of the tree. Without the root, the branches cannot grow. With the root being damaged, the branches will die too. When one is a child, one acquires the virtue of xiao by cultivating the love of one’s parents. When one grows up, one acquires the virtue of benevolence by extending one’s love of one’s family to other people (Li 2012b: 42). Those who are against this partial love towards one’s family in Confucianism argue that this kind of partial love would have a place in the private domain.12 However, in the public domain, we would not allow partiality. We are required to be impartial in order to exclude any discrimination and corruption. Apparently, all those interesting cases in Confucianism are not in the private domain. Thus, it seems that Confucians are arguing for the stronger claim that partial love for family is always more important than impartial justice.

11 12

 Cf. Ding (2006), Guo (2002).  Cf. Huang (2003), Liu (2004a, b).

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3.3  Confucian Meritocracy Kongzi claims that by nature people are similar and that their differences are the result of practice (Analects 17.2). Mengzi also claims that all human beings have the four sprouts of the moral virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom (Mengzi, 2A6). However, both of them seem to make the distinction between great men and petty persons (Analects, 16.8); people who work with their hands and people who work with their heart-minds. The great men are not just different from petty persons, but also superior to them. The people who work with their heart-­ minds should rule those who work with their hands (Mengzi 1988: 3A4). Therefore, there seems to be a dilemma here. On the one hand, Confucians promote a sense of equality related to universal human nature and moral potential. On the other hand, Confucians hold a sense of inequality, at least difference, related to superior persons and petty persons. Some scholars argue that Confucianism insists on consistent moral and political equality: I call this group Confucian egalitarians. The second group claims that Confucians promote a sense of moral and political inequality. I call this group Confucian inegalitarians. The third group claim that Confucians promote moral equality and political inequality. I call this group Confucian meritocrats. The majority of Confucian scholars in mainland China are Confucian egalitarians. This fact might surprise many overseas scholars. English-speaking scholars are familiar with Sor-Hoon Tan (2016) and Sungmoon Kim (2014) as Confucian egalitarians.13 But they may not know that Guo (2010), Huang (2017b), Xie (2019) and many other Confucian scholars in mainland China are also Confucian egalitarians. Since Confucian meritocrats have the loudest voices, people tend to believe that they are the majority in mainland China. Confucian meritocrats and their claims draw a lot of attention. But I think that Confucian egalitarians and Confucian meritocrats are dealing with the same dilemma: on the one hand, it seems relatively clear that there is a sense of moral equality in Confucianism; on the other hand, it seems relatively clear that there is a sense of political inequality in Confucianism. For Confucian egalitarians, they generally make two moves. First, they argue that if human beings share the same or similar moral potential, they are morally equal. Second, they argue that if human beings are morally equal, they should be treated equally in politics. One of the key claims made by Confucian meritocrats is that “everybody should have an equal opportunity to be educated and to contribute to politics, but not everybody will emerge from this process with an equal capacity to make morally informed political judgments. Hence, the task of politics is to identify those with above average ability and to make them serve the political community. If the leaders perform well, the people will basically go along” (Bell 2013: 3). Confucian meritocrats  I believe that Li Chenyang is sympathetic to the egalitarian position. He believes that everyone is equal in political participation. But political power should be given in proportion to capacity. Cf. Li (2012a, b).

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make two moves to justify the above claim. First, they will point out the challenges that face liberal democracy. They believe that those challenges are directly related to the kind of political equality assumed by liberal democracy. Second, they will appeal to a different kind of political legitimacy than liberal democracy. And they argue that this alternative is much better than the one from liberal democracy. With regard to the first move, Bai Tongdong lists four problems with democracy, especially its institution of one person, one vote. The first problem is that “the contemporary mainstream ideology behind one person, one vote, especially in today’s America, is the belief in the power of the people, and, by implication, the suspicion of the power of the elite and even the power of the government.” The second problem is that “the institution of one person, one vote lacks effective mechanisms to take into account the interest of nonvoters, including future (and past) generations and foreigners.” The third problem is that “even among the current living adults of a state, the interest of the vocal and powerful tends to trump the interest of the silent (or silenced) and the powerless.” The fourth problem is that “even with regard to their own interests, it is questionable whether voters alone can be the best judges of what those interests are and how to satisfy them” (Bai 2013: 55–56). One implication that we can draw from the comments made by Bai is that the kind of political equality implied by one person, one vote of (American) liberal democracy has many problems. Those problems are internal to the kind of autonomy and individualism assumed in (American) liberal democracy. Some of those problems are instrumentally bad, which means that they would not help build a well-functioning community. Some of those problems are intrinsically bad, which means that they are not consistent with the kind of equality and respect that the liberal democracy tries to promote. The above problems open the space for the kind of political inequality that Confucian meritocrats want to argue for. To propose an alternative idea of political inequality is the second move of Confucian meritocrats. This is related to their understanding of the alternative idea of political legitimacy: the minben 民本idea (people as the root). The minben idea can be captured by the slogan: of the people, for the people, but not by the people. Bell claims that this minben idea is the key to Confucian understanding of political legitimacy. None of the three elements of citizenship—equality, exclusivity, and patriotism—of Greek citizenship was widely practiced or defended in the Warring States period. Most societies were rigidly hierarchical ‘clan-law’ (zongfa 宗法) feudal societies, where the patriarch of a clan or extended family had almost complete authority over the members of the family. Confucian critics of these societies did not argue for political participation by equal citizens; rather, the dominant Confucian view was that political legitimacy comes from the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ (tianming 天命), an all-pervading cosmic power that secures the moral and physical order of the universe and passes judgment on the performance of rulers. The workings of ‘Heaven’ were to be partly determined by the ruler’s success at providing benefits for the people—the idea of minben—but the people are still being ruled, unlike the ancient Greek citizen who partakes of both ruling and being ruled. (Bell 2013: 139–140)

Confucian meritocrats also appeal to the idea of a perfectionist state: the state is responsible to provide guidance to citizens with regard to how to live a valuable life (Chen 2014). Furthermore, they believe that the political power should be held by the virtuous people who have moral knowledge (Bai 2010: 19).

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For most MNC scholars in China, Confucian meritocrats promote outdated ideals from tradition. The major challenges to Confucian meritocrats from Confucian egalitarians focus on the idea of political equality. First, they believe that the modern concept of political equality in the form of one person, one vote has been regarded as a great achievement of modern civilization. For a long time, gender, race, religion, and other factors were used to exclude certain people from enjoying the rights of political participation. Even though people disagree about distributive equality of opportunity, resource, and welfare, they have overall consensus about the equality of political participation. If Confucian meritocrats deny equality with regard to political participation, they go against the progressive understanding of equality (Guo 2010: 12; Xie 2019: 210). Second, the modern concept of political equality is closed related to the idea of universal human rights. We tend to think that the right of political participation is a universal human right. Excluding certain people from political participation merely because they are not wise enough is a violation of their basic human rights (Guo 2010: 24).

4  Conclusion As I have presented, the development of MNC of the past forty years as part of the growth of Confucianism is partially driven by reacting to modernization and Westernization. Thus, the key question is how to find the proper place for Confucianism in Chinese modernization. I think that compared to Chinese scholars who do research on Western philosophy or Marxism in China, mainland Chinese Confucian scholars are a special breed. For them, their research is more than academic investigation. They believe that they are destined to carry out certain missions to promote Confucianism as a culture or ideology. Also set in this particular political reality, they have to walk a fine line with power. On the one hand, they want to rely on the state to promote Confucianism and restore the moral tradition; on the other hand, they want to maintain their integrity and be critical. It is quite a challenge. But I do believe that a lot of interesting and inspiring ideas will come out of their struggles and endeavors, as they always did throughout Chinese history.

References Ames, Roger, and Henry Rosemont. 1998. The analects of confucius: A philosophical translation. New York: Ballantine Books. Analects 論語譯註. 1982. Edited by Yang Bojun楊伯峻. Beijing: China Press. Bai, Tongdong 白彤東. 2010. Heart-mind and nature confucianism or political confucianism 心性 儒學還是政治儒學? Open Forum 開放時代11: 5–25. (Argues that we should give up heart-­ mind and nature Confucianism and endorse a new version of political Confucianism that is applicable to all modern states.)

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———. 2013. A confucian version of hybrid regime: How does it work, and why is it superior?” In Daniel Bell and Chenyang Li, eds. The East Asian challenge for democracy. New  York: Cambridge University Press. (Articulates the problems with liberal democracy and argues for the benefits of a hybrid democratic-meritocratic state.) Bell, Daniel. 2013. Introduction. In Daniel Bell and Chenyang Li, eds., The East Asian challenge for democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Presents the theory, history, and practice of political meritocracy.) Chen, Lai 陳來. 2003. Reflection on the ‘Legitimacy’ of Chinese Philosophy and ‘Subjectivity’中 國哲學‘合法性’反思與‘主體性’重構筆談. Jianghan Forum 江漢論壇7: 21–23. (Argues for the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy based on the idea that Chinese philosophy is a unique presentation of philosophy in general.) ———. 2014. Benevolence as ontology 仁學本體論. Beijing: San Lian Press. (Argues that benevolence is the foundation of Confucian ontology and ethics.) Ding, Weixiang 丁為祥. 2006. Modern reflections on confucian kinship and relationships儒家血 緣親情與人倫之愛的現代反思. Wuda Philosophical Review 哲學評論 1: 1–40. Feizi, Han 韓非子. 2007. Edited by Chen Bincai 陳秉才. Beijing: China Press. Ge, Zhaoguang 葛兆光. 2001. Wearing an unfit cloth: On the debate about chinese philosophy and confucianism as a religion 穿一件尺寸不和的衣衫: 關於中國哲學和儒教定義的爭論. Open Times 开放时代11: 48–55. Guo, Qiyong 郭齊勇. 2002. On ‘a son covers for his father’ and Mengzi’s discussion on Shun 也談 ‘子為父隱’與孟子論舜. Philosophical Study哲學研究10: 27–30. (Argues that familial partiality is the foundation of ethical cultivation and social solidarity.) ———. 2005. ‘Chinese philosophy’ and its autonomy ‘中國哲學’及其自主性. Literature, History and Philosophy 文史哲3: 14–16. (Argues that Chinese philosophy is a different kind of philosophy from Western tradition.) ———. 2007. ‘Covering of family’ and ‘the law of allowing covering of family’ and its inspiration for rule by law ‘親親相隱’‘容隱製’及其對當今法治的啟迪. Social Science Forum 社會 科學論壇 8: 90–106. (Argues for the legitimacy of familial partiality and that the law should protect familial partiality.) ———. 2010. On confucian political philosophy and its theory of justice 再論儒家的政治哲學及 其正義論. Kongzi Study 孔子研究 6: 10–24. (Argues that promoting the interests of the people is the basis of Confucian concept of justice.) ———. 2017a. On confucian political philosophy 儒家政治哲學略論. Retrieved Feb 11, 2020, from https://www.rujiazg.com/article/11006 ———. 2017b. Research on modern and contemporary new confucianism 現當代新儒學思潮研 究. Beijing: People Press. (Discusses major figures of contemporary new Confucianism in the 20th century.) ———. 2018. How to properly view the new developments of mainland confucianism. Contemporary Chinese Thought 49(2): 159–164. (Argues that the fundamental political goal of most leading Confucians in mainland has been liberalism.) Hu, Weixi 胡偉希. 2004. Chinese philosophy: ‘Legitimacy’, features of thoughts and types 中國 哲學: ‘合法性’, 思維態勢與類型”. Modern Philosophy 現代哲學 3: 54–61. Huang, Qixang 黃啟祥. 2017a. On ‘a father covers for his son, and a son his father, which uprightness is found in this’ 論 ‘父為子隱, 子為父隱, 直在其中’. Literature, History, and Philosophy 文史哲 3: 123–134. (Argues that familial partiality is the foundation of social justice.) Huang, Yushun 黃玉順. 2003. The starting point of universal ethics 普遍倫理學的出發點. History of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學史3: 13–23. (Argues that the starting point of universal ethics should be based on autonomous individuals rather than relations.) ———. 2011. Trace the origin of philosophy: On ‘the legitimacy issue of Chinese philosophy’ 追 溯哲學的源頭活水:'中國哲學的合法性'問題再討論”. Journal of Sichuan University 四川大 學學報4: 12–19. (Summarizes the debate on the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy and argues for a broad understanding of philosophy.)

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———. 2017b. Confucian Liberalism’s criticism of New Confucianism as a religion 儒家自由 主義對 ‘新儒教’的批評. Dong Yue Tribune 東岳論叢 6: 39–44. (Argues that the so-called Mainland New Confucians are against equality, liberty and other modern values.) Jiang, Qing 蔣慶. 1997. Introduction to Gong Yang School 公羊學引論. Shenyang: Liaoning Education Press. (Explores the Gong Yang School that represents political Confucianism.) ———. 2003. Political confucianism 政治儒學. Beijing: Sanlian Press. (Elaborates his understanding of political Confucianism as an alternative to heart-mind and nature Confucianism.) ———. 2013. A confucian constitutional order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Argues that Confucian constitutionalism as an alternative to both the current regime and Western style liberal democracy.) Kim, Sungmoon. 2014. Public reason confucianism. New  York: Cambridge University Press. (Argues for a Confucian democratic perfectionism that the democratic state promotes a Confucian conception of the good life.) Li, Chenyang. 2012a. Equality and inequality in confucianism. Dao 11: 295–313. (Argues for the inclusive principle of general election by citizenry based on the numerical equality and the exclusive principle of qualification for public offices based on the proportional equality in Confucinaism.) Li, Jing 李靜. 2007. The theory of harmony as a way to solve human puzzles: Interview with Zhang Liwen 和合學是化解人類困惑的一種選擇: 張立文教授訪談錄. Theoretical Reference 理 論參考2: 56–58. Li, Yong. 2012b. The Confucian puzzle. Asian Philosophy 22(1): 37–50. (Argues that the major arguments for Confucian familial partiality fail.) Li, Zehou 李澤厚. 2011. Outline of philosophy 哲學綱要. Beijing: Beijing University Press. (Outlines Li’s ethics, epistemology and ontology that are based on his understandings of goodness, truth and beauty.) Liu, Dongchao 劉東超. 2004a. ‘Genius’ of restoring the ancient ways: On Jiang Qing’s. Political Confucianism ‘奇思妙想’的復古主義——讀蔣慶. Book Reviews博覽群書 8: 55–59. Liu, Qingping 劉清平. 2002. Virtue or corruption 美德還是腐敗. Philosophical Study 哲學研究 2: 43–47. (Argues that familial partiality in Confucianism is not a virtue rather than a source of corruption. This paper started the debate about Confucian partiality.) ———. 2004b. Confucian ethics and public virtues 儒家倫理與社會公德. Philosophical Study 哲學研究1: 37–41. (Argues that Confucian ethics can only be used in private domain and is not fit for the public domain.) Liu, Shuxian 劉述先. 2017. On the three generations of Confucianism 論儒家哲學的三個世代. Beijing: China Press. (It presents a popular distinction about the three generations of Chinese Confucians in the 20th century.) Zhang, Liwen 張立文. 2006. An introduction to the theory of harmony和合學概論. Beijing: Renmin University of China Press. (A comprehensive introduction to Zhang’s theory of harmony) Luo, Zhitian 羅志田. 2002. Chinese classics is not a discipline 國學不是學. Social Science Research社会科学研究 1: 117–121. Mengzi 孟子譯註. 1988. Edited by Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. Beijing: China Press. Tan, Sor-Hoon. 2016. Why equality and which inequality? A modern Confucian approach to democracy. Philosophy East and West 66(2): 488–514. (Reconstruct a modern value of equality that is based on Confucian objections to socioeconomic inequalities, in order to reconcile Confucianism with democracy.) Tang, Yijie 湯一介. 1984. On truth, goodness, beauty in traditional Chinese philosophy 論中國 傳統哲學中的真善美問題. China Social Science 中國社會科學 4: 73–83. (Argues that the unity between heaven and human expresses the ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty in traditional Chinese philosophy.) ———. 2005. On the unity between heaven and human 論天人合一. History of Chinese Philosophy 中國哲學史 2: 5–10. (It presents Tang’s view of the unity between heaven and human.)

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———. 2006. My road to philosophy 我的哲學之路. Beijing: New China Press. (Summarizes Tang’s view on traditional Chinese philosophy, modern Chinese philosophy, and Chinese culture.) ———. 2009. On the unity between knowledge and action for Confucians 論儒家的 ‘知行合 一’. Study on Confucian Classics and Thoughts 儒家典籍與思想研究1: 139–148. (It presents Tang’s view of the unity between knowledge and action.) ———. 2019. Ten lectures on Confucianism 儒學十講. Beijing: Beijing Press. (It presents Tang’s views on the unity between heaven and human, knowledge and action, emotion and context, the issue of harmony, the issue of transcendence, and other topics in contemporary Confucianism.) Wang, Guowei 王國維. 2016. On human words人間詞話. Nanning: Guangxi People Press. Xie, Xiaodong 謝曉東. 2019. Human nature, good government and justice 人性、優良政府與 正義. Beijing: China Social Science Press. (Argues for social Confucianism that features the ideas of freedom, rationality, and individualism as a version of Confucian egalitarianism.) Zhang, Dainian 張岱年. 1994. The outline of Chinese philosophy 中國哲學史大綱. Beijing: China Social Science Press. (Presents the major issues in Chinese philosophy that are divided into cosmology, theory of life, and epistemology.) Zheng, Jiadong 鄭家棟. 2001. The ‘legitimacy’ issue of Chinese philosophy 中國哲學的 ‘合法 性’問題. China Philosophy Annual 中國哲學年鑒: 1–14. (It started the debate about whether Chinese philosophy is philosophy.) ———. 2004. The writing of ‘history of Chinese philosophy’ and the modern dilemma of Chinese thought traditions ‘中國哲學史’寫作與中國思想傳統的現代困境”. Journal of Renmin University of China 中國人民大學學報3: 2–11. (It argues that basic norms of Chinese philosophy as an academic discipline come from the West.)

Methods and Approaches in Contemporary Confucianism Yiu-ming Fung

1  Approaches in Contemporary Confucian Studies Confucian studies in modern China mainly employ two kinds of methodology: kaojuxue 考據學 (philological studies) and yilixue 義理學 (philosophical studies). The former is a method of textual studies based on philological analysis and historical explanation, while the latter is a method of philosophical study with focus on the Confucian idea of ultimate concern which is of transcendental import and is also related to moral cultivation. In comparison, the former seems to be a kind of pure theoretical studies while the latter seems to go beyond the theoretical realm and to emphasize more the practical dimension in terms of moral cultivation and faith. After the fall of the empire, especially in the 1930s, some scholars, such as Xiong Shili 熊十力 and Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, adopted some methods from Buddhism or Western philosophy respectively to deal with Confucian ideas and ideals. The former approach has been recognized as xinxinxue 新心學 (the new learning of heartmind) which claims to follow the line of thinking in Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 and Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 xinxue 心學 (the learning of heart-mind). On the other hand, the latter approach has been labeled as xinlixue 新理學 (the new learning of reason/principle) which claims to be a reconstruction of the lixue 理學 (the learning of reason/principle) of the Cheng brothers 二程and Zhu Xi 朱熹. Xiong and his students, such as Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 and Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (as the founders of the school of contemporary New Confucianism in Hong Kong and Taiwan), declare that their method in theoretical study is transcendental and that in practical learning is intuitionistic. From their transcendental cum practical viewpoint, Confucian

Y. Fung (*) Department of Philosophy, Taiwan Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Elstein (ed.), Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_27

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philosophy can be understood as a kind of transcendental philosophy and a learning of life which can only be grasped through cultivation or moral practice (or gongfu 工 夫) and ascertained by a special kind of inner and transcendental experience. So, for them, to use an analytic or historical method would explain away the wisdom and truth which can only be grasped by a moral agent through long-term effort at cultivation or moral practice. In contrast to Xiong’s approach, Feng borrows the conceptual scheme from Platonic realism and New Realism to deal with the problems in Confucian philosophy and stresses that his method is of the kind of logical analysis which is not only different from the Western method of metaphysical speculation, but also from both philological and intuitionistic methods. These two lines of thinking (i.e., the new learning of heart-mind and the new learning of reason/principle) are mainly philosophical though they differ from each other in terms of methodology. These two schools have been recognized as the two wings of contemporary Confucianism. Although both schools have made significant contribution to contemporary Chinese philosophy with innovative and provocative ideas, they were not the mainstream of Chinese studies before the 1950s. The dominant voice from the 1920s to the 1950s was that of Hu Shi 胡適 and his followers. They declare that the only scientific method of studying Chinese thought, including Confucianism, is a kind of historical cum philological method. They reject Xiong’s transcendental and intuitionistic method and think that Xiong’s approach is out of historical context and that his theory is only an intellectual play without substantial content grounded on the text. Based on their approach of intellectual history and philology, they also think that Feng’s analytic method cannot be used to analyze the complicated ideas in the real history of China. To understand Chinese thought, they stress, the historical cum philological method is the only reliable tool. It is because to put the ideas into a historical context and thus to explain them by historical evidence and to explicate them on philological grounds is the only way to grasp the truth of thought in history. Contemporary Confucians, including Xiong, Tang, and Mou, think that Chinese and Western philosophy are essentially different from each other in the sense that the former is an intuitive truth and practical wisdom while the latter is an intellectual inquiry and theoretical study. Similarly, some Western scholars in Chinese philosophy, such as David Hall and Roger Ames, also maintain that there is an incommensurability between Chinese and Western modes of thinking. But they believe that the difference between the two traditions is not that as described by contemporary Confucians. Instead, they argue that there is an unbridgeable gap between the correlative mode of thinking in ancient Chinese philosophy and the analytic mode of thinking in the Western philosophical tradition (Hall and Ames 1995: 123–133). However, as they are based on A.  N. Whitehead’s process ontology and Marcel Granet’s comparative studies, their views on the different modes of thinking, I think, lack textual support and valid arguments.1 Their approach is basically comparative with a theoretical base in Western philosophy though they reject applying the 1  Detailed arguments against Ames and Hall’s view on the essential difference between correlative and analytic modes of thinking can be found in Fung 2010.

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method of analytic philosophy, one of the mainstreams in contemporary Western philosophy, to ancient Chinese philosophy.2 In addition to these four types of methods and approaches (i.e., Xiong’s new learning of heart-mind, Feng’s new learning of reason/principle, Hu’s intellectual history, and Hall and Ames’s comparative philosophy), in the past 30  years, the approach of analytic philosophy and its method are frequently used by some scholars of the new generation who have training in analytic philosophy. They try to use the Western theories of ethics, moral psychology, action theory, logic, and philosophy of language to deal with their topics of interest in Chinese philosophy, including Confucian philosophy. I think this new inclination of using the analytic method in Chinese philosophy is promising and the approach can compete with the other types of approaches as mentioned above. It seems to me that the two types of contemporary Confucianism developed by Xiong and Feng, respectively, have had great influence on the philosophical studies of Confucianism for about one century. Based on this reason, in this chapter, I will discuss these two types of method and approach with special focus on Mou, Tang, and Feng’s new Confucianism and try to evaluate the merits and difficulties of their methods and approaches in the studies of Confucian philosophy. In the following, the discussion will be focused on the practical approach of Xiong, Mou, and Tang’s philosophy and the problem of transcendental argument in Xiong, Mou, Tang and Feng’s theories.

2  Mou Zongsan’s Intellectual Intuition and Tang Junyi’s Transcendental Reflection For most contemporary Confucians and traditional Song-Ming Confucians (Song-­ Ming Rujia 宋明儒家), Confucianism is more than Confucian studies. They believe that Confucian teaching is a kind of practical wisdom and transcendental truth which cannot be understood by any empirical, logical, or objective method. Here,

2  Some Western scholars, including Donald Munro and Edward Slingerland, recently take a naturalistic approach and, based on scientific findings in sociobiology, cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, try to give a rational interpretation and explanation for Confucian morality and moral psychology. But I don’t think this approach is feasible. As argued by Thomas Nagel and Joseph Levine, the explanatory gap between phenomenal concepts and physical concepts cannot be bridged. No one has ever given an account, even a highly speculative, hypothetical, and incomplete account of how a physical thing could have phenomenal states (Nagel 1974: 435–450; Levine 1983: 354–361). I think both the computer model of cognitive science and the neuro model of neuro-philosophy cannot give us a satisfactory explanation about semantic content and the mapping between the mental and the physical. Why is there a difficulty in explaining the mapping? As argued by Donald Davidson, it is because we have to put a mental term in a rich context to grasp its meaning and propositional content. In Davidson’s words, “It is the holism of the mental that makes its emergence so difficult to describe.” Furthermore, “What we lack is a satisfactory vocabulary for describing the intermediate steps” (Davidson 2001: 127).

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the term “truth” is not used by contemporary Confucians as a semantic concept with propositional value. Instead, it means the real or noumenal reality in their moral metaphysics. The term “transcendental” is not used by them in the Kantian sense in the first Critique of Kant’s trilogy. For them, “transcendental truth” is the truth of the transcendent entity in terms of its ontological status and of the trans-empirical characteristic in terms of its epistemic status. In addition to treating truth as a metaphysical entity, Mou Zongsan also thinks that, in contrast to the so-called “extensional truth” in Western philosophy and science, the truth in Chinese philosophy is a kind of “intensional truth” as claimed by Bertrand Russell (Mou 1985: 5).3 Based on these two kinds of truth, he stresses that there is a kind of essential difference between Chinese philosophy (including the three teachings: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism) and Western philosophy in the sense that they are incomparable or incommensurable to each other. He believes that the spiritual essence of Chinese philosophy can only be accessed by a special kind of moral metaphysics which is essentially different from the Western speculative one, and that the wisdom or truth of the spiritual essence can only be obtained or grasped by a special kind of intellectual intuition or transcendental reflection as described in their moral metaphysics. (Mou 1983: 31, 336, 347, 356) Most contemporary Confucians think that their ultimate concern or noumenal reality is not an object of empirical investigation or logical analysis. So, it cannot be known by the cognitive mind; it is only obtained or grasped by a transcendental mind (in terms of a kind of non-sensible and non-cognitive experience) which can be described as intellectual intuition (for Mou Zongsan), absolute consciousness (for Tang Junyi) or liangzhi 良知 (the originally endowed knowing/dominating power) (as explained by most contemporary Confucians). Based on this assumption (of course they do not regard this as an assumption or hypothesis), they believe that only through a long effort at cultivation or moral practice can their ultimate concern or noumenal reality, which is both transcendent (not transcendental in the Kantian sense) and immanent, be grasped by us. In terms of its transcendence, it is the Way of Heaven (tiandao 天道) (the natural daoti 道體 as an ontological entity) or the Heavenly Pattern (tianli 天理) (the natural liti 理體 as an ontological entity); in terms of its immanence, it is the transcendental or non-empirical benxin 本心 (original heart-mind) in humans or tianming zhi xing 天命之性 (endowed nature or essence from heaven) of everything in the cosmos. To use Mou’s slogan, it is: “the unity [in terms of token-identity] of the tiandao (the transcendent dao of heaven) and xingming (the moral order or decree in human nature)” (tiandao xingming xiang guantong 天道性命相貫通) or “the penetration of tiandao and xinxing (the original mind as essence) into oneness” (tiandao xinxing tong er wei yi 天道心性通而為一) (Mou 1968: Chapter One “Synthetic Introduction”). In treating tian as token-­ identical with xin, Mou uses the term “ziyi” 自一 (identical) to describe their

3  Here, we cannot find the term “intensional truth” in Russell’s publications though Mou claims that it is coming from Russell. Instead, Russell only mentions the term “intensional context” which is about the problem of referential opacity and he never claims that there are two kinds of truth. Detailed arguments about this point can be found in Fung 2003: chapter one.

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relation (Mou 1968: 86). I think Mou’s idea is similar to Cheng Hao’s 程顥. To use Cheng’s words, “Only xin is (token-identical with) tian; to exhaust xin is to know xing; and to know xing is to know (the dao of) tian. It cannot be sought outside” (只 心便是天, 盡之便知性, 知性便知天, 更不可外求) (Cheng and Cheng n.d.: 20).4 Since nothing known by the empirical and analytical mind is both transcendent and immanent, this ultimate concern or noumenal reality must be understood as transcending our rational or analytical thinking. So, analytic language is unable to express this reality. Instead, Mou suggests to use a kind of “non-discursive language” or “language without distinctions” (fei fenbie shuo 非分別說) to do the job (Mou 1983: 347, 369). Moreover, Mou thinks when we use language to express the ultimate concern or noumenal reality, all expressions may be helpful to approach it to some extent but never attain it in itself. It is because its truth is ineffable. It goes beyond all languages. Basically, this transcendentalist view is an appeal to the first-person authority in terms of the non-cognitive mind’s private access to noumenal reality or transcendental truth. The so-called “non-sensible or transcendental experience” of juedui zhutixing 絕對主體性 (absolute subjectivity) for Tang or wuxianxin 無限心 (infinite mind) for Mou, which is without the opposition (wudai 無待) of the knower and the known or without the duality of subject and object, is claimed to be a special knowing power which can provide a real justification of attaining noumenal reality or transcendental truth. To use Xiong’s words, it is a kind of “tizheng” 體證 (embodied verification or justification by bodily experience). To use Tu Weiming’s 杜維明 words, it is a kind of “tizhi” 體知 (embodied knowing or knowing by bodily experience). Some contemporary Confucians, such as Tu and his followers, sometimes identify this kind of knowing as knowing how. But, I think, it is not knowing how in the Rylean sense, because knowing how is still empirical and cognitive while this kind of knowing, as described by Mou, is non-empirical and non-cognitive. Most importantly, the appeal to a kind of transcendental experience is not a patent right of contemporary Confucianism; we can find a similar appeal in Daoism, Zen Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Western mysticism (even Mou has recognized this kind of knowing as gongfa 共法 (common event/teaching) for Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). According to Xiong’s new learning of heart-mind, the characteristic of the Confucian teaching or learning is opposite to that of cognitive inquiry in terms of methodology. He asserts that There is a kind of special spirit in Chinese philosophy. It means that the devotion to the learning basically stresses the method of tiren 體認 (embodied recognition). Tiren is [a

4  As argued in my article on the problem of bridging the gap between philosophy and philology (Fung forthcoming), Wang Yangming’s idea of zhi 知 (know/manage) of zhitian 知天 or zhi of liangzhi is not a knowing power, but a mastering/dominating power. Wang claims that, just like a master (tounao 頭腦 and zhuzai 主宰) or the county magistrate (the zhi of zhixian 知縣之知), it is a mastering/dominating power endowed in the mind and realized in the world (Wang 1992: 5, 43). In addition, Cheng Hao, Zhu Xi and Xiong Shili also use the same expression “zhixian” to explicate the term “zhi” as a “mastering/dominating power” in the mind.

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Y. Fung method] that what is able to know intuitively enters into what is to be known intuitively which are integral and indivisible in one body. The so-called inner and outer, object and subject, sameness and difference, and all kinds of distinguished phenomena and appearances, cannot be obtained. Only because of this, therefore, unlike Western metaphysics, in Chinese philosophy, the reality/substance of the universe is not treated as an external existent object for searching. … After all, [the ultimate] truth is without location, without form. Hence, it cannot be inferred or conjectured by knowledge and cannot be treated as an external existent object. If a philosopher wants to confirm the truth with solidity, the only way is coming back to her own enlightened intuition. (It is also called “zhi” 智.) Only based on the self-understanding and self-acquaintance of this enlightened intuition, an integral and indivisible state without difference between inner and outer, without the divisibility of the knower and the known, can the truth be realized in front of her. Only this can be called “solid confirmation.” As I said before, it means “embodied recognition.” (Xiong 1975: 22) 中國哲學有一種特別精神, 即其為學也, 根本注重體認的方法 體認者, 能覺入所 覺, 渾然一體而不可分, 所謂內外、物我、一異、種種差別相, 都不可得 唯其如此, 故 在中國哲學中, 無有像西洋形而上學, 以宇宙實體當作外界存在的物事, 而推窮之 者… 真理畢竟無方所, 無形體。所以不能用知識去推度, 不能將真理當作外在的物事 看待。哲學家如欲實證真理, 只有返諸自家固有的明覺。(亦名為智。) 即此明覺自 明自了, 渾然內外一如, 而無能所可分時, 方是真理實現在前, 方名實證。前所謂 體認者即是此意.

He also claims that Why they [Chinese or Indian philosophers] have justified understanding (zhenghui證會) or embodied recognition of the real of the noumenal world is that it directly originates from their wise light. In other words, this is a self-evident reason. (This reason is self-evident, so it is called “self-evident reason.”) It is not obtained by sensory experience, nor by inference. Therefore, it transcends knowledge. (Xiong 1975: 24) 他 [中國或印度哲學家] 所以證會或體認到本體世界底真實, 是直接本諸他底明智 之燈。易言之, 這個是自明理。(這個理是自明的, 故曰自明理。) 不倚感官的經驗而 得, 亦不由推論而得。所以, 是超知識的。

Here, my question is: If this kind of knowing or acquaintance is not obtained from external perceptual experience and also not by rational analysis such as logical inference, is it coming from a kind of aesthetic experience or subjective feeling? According to the view of Xiong and most other contemporary Confucians, tiren, zhenghui or tizheng is not aesthetic or subjective in terms of inner sense, though they agree that it is a kind of inner experience without subject and object or knower and known. According to Mou, this acquaintance is a “non-discursive” (fei fenjiede 非分解的) experience, a “concrete manifestation” (juti chengxian 具體呈現) of the original substance (benti 本體) or the original heart-mind (benxin 本心) itself. Hence, it must be intuitive but not aesthetic. Since this metaphysical benti or benxin is not the object of sensory experience, it must be “non-sensible” or “intellectual.” If my understanding is right, Mou’s idea of nijue tizheng 逆覺體證 (embodied verification by reversed or reflexive intuition), including chaoyue tizheng 超越體證 (transcendental embodied verification) and neizai tizheng 內在體證 (inner embodied verification), is not a kind of sensible intuition, but an intellectual intuition similar to the Kantian one.5 Xiong believes that this tiren is “what is capable to intuit/

 See also chapter “Mou Zongsan: Between Confucianism and Kantianism”—Ed.

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know enters into what is intuited/known” in which inner and outer are integral without separation. The so-called “nei-wai” 內外 (inner-outer), “wu-wo” 物我 (object-­ self), “yi-yi” 一異 (sameness-difference), and various phenomena of distinction, cannot be obtained. In sum, it seems to be a kind of mystic experience though it might be grasped by people through a long effort at cultivation or moral practice. In regard to the meaning of “no objectification” (wu duixianghua 無對象化) in zizhi zizheng自知自證 (self-knowing and self-justification), Mou has given a detailed explanation as follows: This kind of reflexive tizheng (guan 觀or zhi 知) is at the virtual level. It can melt into this original mind (benxin 本心) at the very moment and acts as the manifestation of the mind in which there is no real meaning of [opposition of] knower and known (the meaning of [opposition of] subject and object). If simply speaking, this is only the self-knowing of the mind, one cannot find any reason to argue against this. For example, in regard to my mind observing mistakes in behavior, I am also able to reflexively know it itself as the mind of observation. When it observes, this is the mind’s act of real manifesting (full knowing). [So] I am also able to reflexively and directly know that this is the act of observation and full knowing. This reflexive knowing is merely the self-function of the mind itself which has the activity of full knowing. [So] eventually, that is still the mind itself which has the activity of; this is not another mind that knows that. It has the light [ming1 明, knowing power] to light [ming2 明, know] things. How can it not know itself being knowing? This is why it knows itself knowing, it is really still itself, still the mind itself which has the activity of full knowing. It does not divide into two minds. Here, there is no real meaning for the distinction between the [knowing] subject and the [known] object. This only has nominal meaning; it is only a gesture. 此種反身的體證 (觀或知) 實是虛層, 當下即可融於此本心而只是此本心之呈現, 並無真實的能所義 (主客體義)。此若簡單地說, 此只是心之自知而已, 並無何可反對 處。此如觀察過失之心, 吾亦可反身知道它是觀察之心。它觀, 這是心實際在呈現 ( 明了) 之活動, 吾亦可反身直接知道這是觀察明了的活動。這個反身的知只是這明了 活動的心之自用於其自己, 結果還是那明了活動的心之自己, 並不是另有一個心來知 它。它有其明能明物, 豈不能明其自己為明耶?是以它明其自己為明, 實仍是它自己, 仍只是這一明了活動之心之自己, 並未歧為二心。此時之能所並無實義, 只有名言上 之意義, 只是一個姿態。

Mou calls this well-rounded idea by the name “reflexive soft circle” (fenshen de ruanyuan 反身的軟圓) (Mou 1969: 334). Here, I think Mou’s idea is that: based on “what is to know the other can also know itself,” he believes that he can clearly explain “self-knowing is without the opposition between the knower and the known.” If there is really no opposition, he may think, the ontological process of this kind of nijue 逆覺 (reversed or reflexive intuition) cannot be confused with the genetic process of ordinary inner experience or self-consciousness. It is because the former is without temporal priority while the latter is not. Mou agrees that, only relying on tiren or tizheng, it is possible that what has been grasped is an illusion, i.e., a case of playing with light and shadow (wannong guangying 玩弄光景). It is because the tiren of self is only in the abstract state. It only reflects what is called by Hegel as “being’s pure universality itself” (ti zhi chunpubianxing ziji 體之純普遍性自己). In contrast with “being in itself,” it is “being for itself.” Nevertheless, according to Mou, only having the tiren of self which is only in the abstract state, the real being or noumenal reality cannot be ascertained in any concrete case (Mou 1969: 339). So, he thinks that tiren (體認 embodied

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recognition) by virtue of nijue tizheng (逆覺體證 embodied verification by reversed or reflexive intuition) is not sufficient to access benti (本體 original substance) or benxin (本心 the original heart-mind). This is only the first state obtained in the process of cultivation or moral practice. In order to achieve benti or benxin, he says, one has to enter into the realm of “tiyong xiangji” 體用相即 (the unity of benti or benxin and its function), i.e., the benti or benxin manifested or presented (tixian 體 現) in the concrete action by its function without staying in the abstract state (Mou 1969: 340).6 To reach the final state of obtaining dao, benti or truth, Mou puts emphasis on the idea of “tixian,” in addition to tiren. In this regard, Mou quotes some Confucian ideas, such as “jianxing” 踐形 (practice by body), “zuimian angbei” 晬面盎背 (mild of face and honest of back), “yi dao xun shen” 以道徇身 (to comply with dao in body), and “xinuaile fa er zhongjie zhi he” 喜怒哀樂發而中節之和 (the harmony in the expression of delighted, angry, sad, and happy emotions), as the evidence of tixian (Mou 1969: 103). He believes that these are the concrete exhibition or presentation of benti or benxin. For example, he thinks, the cases that “there is an intimate relation [of love] between father and son” (fuzi you qin 父子有親) and “there is an obligation between the monarch and his subjects” (junchen you yi 君臣 有義) are the here and now manifestation or presentation (dangxia chengxian 當下 呈現) of benti or tianli 天理 in various actions taken by people who play different roles in their actions (Mou 1969: 6–7). The idea of “tiyong xiangji” is about the unity of benti or benxin and its function. According to Mou, the former is infinite mind or liangzhi (the original knowing/ dominating mental power) which is a kind of intellectual intuition, whereas the latter is the thing-in-itself which is a function of the intellectual intuition both of which are brightly presented in unity (yiti langxian 一體朗現). In other words, for Mou, yong 用is not qiyong 器用 (instrumental function) or xianxiang 現象 (phenomenon) as described by his teacher Xiong and previous Confucians (Mou 1975: 128, 445). It is the thing-in-itself which is realized in the phenomenon by the exhibition of benti or benxin. I think there is a mutual dependence between ti and yong: on the one hand, the realization of yong (thing-in-itself) in the phenomenon depends on the existence of ti (intellectual intuition); on the other hand, the exhibition of ti depends on the realization of yong in phenomenon. It seems that, metaphorically speaking, without the sun, there is no sunshine on the object; without sunshine on the object, there is no the sun. So, there is a circle in tixian. One may ask a question to Mou; that is: if, in the first state of gongfu, it is possible that what is tiren is an illusion, how can we make sure that what is tixian in the final state of gongfu is not illusive? Just like the case that: if we go in a wrong way in the first step of the two, how can we make sure that the second step is guaranteed to be a right way to the destination? I think Mou and his followers should answer 6  Mou’s idea of “tixian” is similar to Hegel’s “concrete universal” in terms of their structural feature. Mou thinks that ren 仁 (benevolence or humanity) in terms of sheng sheng 生生 (the creative creativity) as a universal principle is not abstract; it can be manifested in the real human life that is before our eyes (Mou 1983: Lecture Two).

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this question about his practical methodology if this question cannot be explained away. In addition to the practical methodology of tiren and tixian stressed by contemporary Confucians, sometimes they also mention a kind of theoretical method for obtaining dao. To use Tang’s own words, it is the method of “transcendental reflection” (chaoyue fanxing fa 超越反省法) (Tang 1961: 191). For example, Xiong says To become a thing, everything is endowed with yiyuan 一元 [oneness]. … Without [yi]yuan, things would be what is said in Buddhism as something like illusion. … Now we see that all real things are developed [and thus not illusory]. Based on this, we justify the recognition that all things are produced with the endowment of yiyuan. (Xiong 1993: 91) 凡物, 皆稟受一元, 以成為物。… 物若無元, 便是佛氏所說為如幻的物。…今見一 切實物, 皆是發展的。以此證知, 萬物皆稟受一元而生起。

According to Xiong, simply speaking, “separated from qiankun 乾坤 [dao or the two producing powers of dao], there is nothing” (離乾坤無萬物) (Xiong 1993: 92). It is because “phenomena cannot be established and sciences also cannot be established if benti is insensate and without yong” (如本體是頑空的而沒有用, 即現象 界不能成立, 科學亦不可能) (Xiong 1975: 13). It means that the possibility of phenomena presupposes the existence of yiyuan 一元 (the primordial oneness), dao, or benti. Basically, I think, it is a transcendental argument or transcendental deduction with a premise which presupposes a transcendent entity. Although Mou believes that liangzhi, benxin renti 本心仁體 (the original mind as the substance of benevolence) or zhi de zhijue 智的直覺 (intellectual intuition) is a manifestation or presentation in practice, not a hypothesis in theory, it is confirmed or affirmed by a first-person non-sensible experience, not justified on a rational ground. Here, what is (transcendentally) experienced is a kind of content in this experiencing mind, but it still has not yet been ascertained as something existent before having the experience. In other words, whether it is mind-dependent or mind-­ independent is still a question. Like Song-Ming Confucians, Mou believes that ceyin zhi xin 惻隱之心 (the mind of compassion) is the presentation of a feeling of discomfort (bu’an 不安), but, unlike other Confucians, he thinks that this moral consciousness cannot be “seen as below form (xingerxia 形而下), aesthetic and purely subjective” (看成是形而下的, 感性的, 純主觀的) (Mou 1971: 194). In this regard, to explain the objectivity of benti, Mou also uses a transcendental argument for justification. So, he says, “Xing 性 [spiritual essence/nature] is the transcendental ground of moral action” (性是道德行為底超越根據) (Mou 1971: 190), “Xinxing 心性 [the original mind-essence] is the a priori ground of the possibility of moral action” (道德實踐所以可能之先驗根據) (Mou 1968: 8), and “The decision of ‘the ought-ness of existence’ in moral consciousness is a ‘moral decision’. In regard to making a transcendental analysis for moral decision, it is also simultaneously an analysis of existence. This is to expose a ‘moral substance/reality’ to enable the possibility of the moral decision” (道德意識中「存在的應當」之決定 就是一個「道德的決定」。對於道德的決定作一超越的分解, 同時, 亦即是存 在的分解 就是要顯露一「道德的實體」以使此道德的決定為可能) (Mou 1975: 62–63). In other words, the possibility of moral decision or the decision of ‘the ought-ness of existence” presupposes a moral substance/reality. Without the

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latter, there would be no guarantee for the former. It is obvious that this is a transcendental argument or transcendental deduction. In comparison with the practical methodology in Mou’s moral metaphysics, any method in theory does not need to appeal to first-person authority in justification and thus it is characteristic of inter-subjectivity, if not objectivity in an absolute sense. So, to have a justification of benti or benxin in a non-subjective sense, it is necessary to provide a theoretical method in our rational space. As a theoretical method, Mou’s argument based on the presupposition of “transcendental ground” is basically a transcendental one. In Tang’s words, it is the method of “transcendental reflection.” Tang makes a figurative description for this method as follows: What is called “transcendental reflection” is a reflection which does not attach to what we have said, what we have recognized, and the existence of what we have known, and the value of what we have known, but transcends them and thus turns to their back, upper, front or lower sides, and sees what is necessary for them as the closest other side of discourse, recognition, existence, or value. (Tang 1961: 191) 所謂超越的反省法, 即對於我們之所言說、所有之認識、所知之存在、所知之價 值, 皆不加以執著, 而超越之, 以翻至其後面、上面、前面、或下面, 看其所必可有之 最相切近之另一面之言說、認識、存在或價值之一種反省。

Besides this pictorial description, Tang also provides some examples to illustrate this method, including Descartes’ method of proving the existence of the transcendental ego and Kant’s method of proving the possibility of empirical knowledge. These are paradigm cases of transcendental deduction or transcendental argument in Western philosophy. In Chinese philosophy, he mentions Wang Yangming’s 王 陽明 idea of liangzhi (良知 the originally endowed knowing/dominating power). According to Tang, Wang’s “zhi de bushan” 知得不善 (knowing what is not good) can be interpreted as a transcendental reflection which presupposes the existence of liangzhi. It is because “in my being able to reflect on my consciousness of this not goodness, simultaneously, there exists ‘the liangzhi of hating this not goodness,’ and, in this liangzhi, there is a positive value” (我可反省到我對此不善之覺之中, 即有「惡此不善之良知」之存在, 而此良知中有正價值) (Tang 1961: 193). This is just like Wang’s saying that “if there were no real self [i.e., liangzhi], there would be no physical body” (若無真己, 便無軀殼). Tang also claims that the existence of xin as benti can be justified by moral reflection in the infinite process of transcendence (Tang 1963: 87–88). In elaborating his theory of the “nine visions of the mind” (xinling jiujing 心靈九境), he says, It is not the case that people can directly infer the existence of [absolute] subjectivity from an infinite process of [reflective] activity. Instead, in people’s consciousness of the infinity of their activity, simultaneously, they have a direct consciousness of an activity which transcends all the previous activities of what they have been conscious of before; and there will be another activity which comes from nothingness. When people’s activity comes from nothingness or is in the very moment of moving from nothingness to existence, they are conscious of the activity coming from people’s mind or the subjectivity of life-existence and conscious of that as an activity different from all the previous activities and only known by this subjectivity. (Tang 1977: 1000) 此非由此活動之相續不窮, 即可直接推論此主體之在。而是人於其感其活動相續 之時, 即同時直感一超越於其先所感之一切已有活動以外, 尚有一由無而出之活動。

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人於此活動由無而出之際, 或由無至有之幾上, 感此活動出於吾人心靈或生命存在之 主體, 而為一不同於一切已有之活動, 以只為此主體之所知者

I think this is definitely a transcendental argument. As mentioned above, the question whether it is mind-dependent or mind-independent is still there.

3  Feng Youlan’s Logical Analysis in the New Learning of Reason/Principle Most scholars think that, different from both Hu Shi and Fu Sinian’s 傅斯年 approach of intellectual history and its method of history cum philology, and Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi’s transcendental approach and its method of tiren cum tixian which is based on moral cultivation (gongfu), Feng Youlan tries to bring the Western method of logical analysis into Chinese philosophy, especially in his Confucian theory which is reconstructed and developed from Song-Ming lixue 宋 明理學 (the learning of principle/reason in Song-ming dynasties). Feng declares that he is the first philosopher who uses the method of logical analysis to deal with Song-Ming Confucianism and his new system of Confucianism (the new learning of principle/reason) is constructed with this method. But, it seems to me that it is not logical analysis in its proper sense. Let’s see the main ideas of his new learning of principle/reason. Feng’s program of xinlixue新理學 (the new learning of reason/principle) is that: It is the case that things exist. In making a formal analysis of things and existence, we will arrive at the concepts of li 理 (principle or ideal form) and qi 氣 (matter). In making a formal generalization of things and existence, we will arrive at the concepts of daquan 大全 (a great whole as static oneness) and daoti 道體 (a cosmic evolution as dynamic oneness). This kind of analysis and generalization is a formal interpretation of actuality and experience. He thinks that this metaphysical program is constructed with logical analysis and formal generalization. Based on these four concepts, Feng uses his logical analysis and formal generalization to establish four propositions: “If there are things, there must be ze/li (principles or law)” (you wu bi you ze/li 有物必有則/理), “If there is li, there must be qi” (you li bi you qi 有理必 有氣), “There is non-being (wuji 無極), yet there is the supreme ultimate (taiji 太 極)” (wuji er taiji 無極而太極), and “The One is the all, and the all is the One.” (yi ji yiqie and yiqie ji yi 一即一切, 一切即一). I have discussed these four propositions in details elsewhere, so I don’t want to repeat it here. In the following, I would only discuss the first proposition to illustrate its argumentative strategy.7 To use logical analysis to construct the first analytic proposition that “you wu bi you li,” Feng gives a general explanation Anything (event and thing or event-thing) cannot but be a certain thing and, being such, cannot but belong to a certain class of thing. A certain class of thing is a certain class of  Detailed arguments about Feng Youlan’s approach can be found in Fung 1994: 217–240.

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thing, and therefore there must be that by which that class of thing is that class of thing. To borrow an old expression of Chinese philosophy, it can be said: “If there are things, there must be ze 則 [principles or law].” (Feng 1997: 65–66) 凡事物必都是甚麼事物, 是甚麼事物, 必都是某種事物。有某種事物, 必有某種事 物之所以為某種事物者。借用舊日中國哲學家的話說:「有物必有則」

For a specific example, he says, When there is a square thing there must be that by which a square is a square, and when there is a round thing there must be that by which a circle is a circle. (Feng 1997: 65–66) 有方底東西, 則必有方之所以為方者; 有圓底東西, 則必有圓之所以為圓者。

Here, the expression “that by which a square is a square” (fang zhi suoyi wei fang zhe 方之所以為方者) is used to describe the square-ness as a universal (or Platonic idea) and the expression “that by which a circle is a circle” (yuan zhi suoyi wei yuan zhe 圓之所以為圓者) means roundness as a universal. Based on this analysis, he thinks that he can make an inference from the empirical fact that things exist to the non-empirical reality that li or ze exists. As far as I know, almost all scholars in the Chinese communities and the West talking about Feng’s Confucian philosophy agree that Feng did use logical analysis to construct his new learning of principle/reason. Some of them even believe that this is a successful case of applying the Western logical method to Chinese philosophy. Nevertheless, I think, the Platonic realistic presupposition asserted by Feng is not accepted by any non-realist or nominalist. They do not agree that the existence of a phenomenal thing or physical object is metaphysically grounded on a kind of transcendental or transcendent object, such as li 理 (metaphysical form/principle/ reason) which is above form (xingershang 形而上). For example, his thesis of “you wu bi you li” (the existence of a thing necessitates the existence of a metaphysical form/principle/reason as a Platonic universal) cannot be accepted as a convincing argument for a nominalist. I think what Feng has proved is not a logical analysis with soundness, but an analysis based on a kind of transcendental argument, just like the Kantian transcendental deduction. We may agree that “that by which a square is a square” and “that by which a circle is a circle” is something which can be used to explain the generation of a square and a round, but it is not legitimate to shift the “which” in “by which” to a Platonic Idea or universal. So, I conclude that his approach is not logical but metaphysical or speculative.8 A transcendental argument or transcendental deduction with a transcendental presupposition (including the presupposition of a transcendental entity and a transcendent entity) usually has the following form:9 1. P. (P is a statement of empirical fact.) But how is P possible? It is because: 2. P presupposes Q. (Q is a statement about the existence of a transcendental entity or a transcendent entity.)  Detailed arguments about this point can be found in Fung 1994: 217–240.  I have made a distinction between two kinds of transcendental arguments. See Fung 2006: 117–162. 8 9

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3. Therefore, Q. In Feng’s case, Q is about the existence of a Platonic Idea called “li” or “ze.” In Christian theology, Q is about the existence of transcendent God. In Descartes’s deduction, Q is about the pre-condition of transcendental ego. In Kant’s First Critique, Q is about the epistemological priority of transcendental categories or a priori concepts. Since the premise of this kind of transcendental presupposition is not true without doubt, based on this kind of premise, we cannot obtain any sound argument, though it may be valid. According to Feng, the analysis for the two concepts (li and qi) in the first two analytic propositions is labeled by him as “positive method,” while the illustration for the two ideas (daquan and daoti) in the last two formal generalization is labeled by him as “negative method.” He thinks that the last two ideas are ineffable or indescribable. (Feng 1986: 41–42 and Feng 1948: 337–338) The argument runs like this: When the great whole as static oneness (i.e., daquan) or the cosmic evolution as dynamic oneness (i.e., daoti) is thought of or spoken of, it does not include that very thought or that very speech, and, hence, is not really the oneness or the great whole. He doesn’t formulate his argument. Let’s try to do it for him. His argument seems like this:10 [1] (1) Oneness/great whole is describable. Premise [2] (2) If any x is a thing then x is a member of k (oneness/great whole) Definition of oneness [1] (3) If oneness/great whole is describable, the description is not a member of k. 1, Entailment [1] (4) The description is not a member of k. 1, 3, MP [5] (5) The description is a thing. A fact [2] (6) If the description is a thing, it is a member of k. 2, Universal Elimination [2,5] (7) The description is a member of k. 5, 6, Modus Ponens

 The formal version of the proof is as follows: [1] (1) Dk Premise [Oneness/great whole is describable] [2] (2) (∀x)[Tx→(x∈k)] Definition of the oneness [If any x is a thing then x is a member of k (oneness/great whole)] [1] (3) [Dk→~(eDk∈k)] 1, Entailment [Dk entails eDk (the event of Dk) is not included in k] [1] (4) ~(eDk∈k) 1, 3, MP [5] (5) TeDk The fact that eDk is a thing/event [2] (6) [TeDk→(eDk∈k)] 2, UE [2,5] (7) (eDk∈k) 5, 6, MP [1,2,5] (8) [(eDk∈k)&~(eDk∈k)] 4, 7, Conjunction [2,5] (9) ~Dk 8, RAA [Here, the individual constants “k” is used for “the oneness/great whole” and “eDk” for “the event of Dk,” the predicates “D” for “is describable” and “T” for “is a thing.”] 10

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[1,2,5] (8) (The description is not a member of k) and (The description is a member of k.) 4, 7, Conjunction [2,5] (9) It is not the case that oneness/great whole is describable. 8, RAA In the above argument form, line (9) is derived from (2) and (5) by Reductio ad Absurdum (RAA), therefore it is a valid and self-refuting argument. However, the term “oneness” or “great whole” can have more than one interpretation. If we use Bertrand Russell’s theory of definite descriptions to elaborate the argument, the story would be different.11 That is, there would be no commitment to the existence of a great whole which is indescribable. It only says that there is no such a great whole which is describable. Based on the above analysis, we can conclude that, if one describes a collective whole of infinite components as an entity of “one finished thing” or to give a name to such an entity, it is unconstructable and thus would lead to a contradiction. However, if one uses a predicative description to express a mere collection of infinite components, its description does not necessarily have the commitment of the existence of an entity of such a collection. Hence, to describe it does not necessarily commit a contradiction which is used as an indirect proof to demonstrate that there is an indescribable entity of oneness, though it can be used to indirectly prove that there is no such an entity of oneness which is describable.

4  Conclusion Hu Shi and his followers complain that the transcendentalist approach is mystical and non-empirical. But the transcendentalist replies that the Confucian enlightenment is not rationally recognizable in terms of empirical evidence and logical inference, and that the inner wisdom or transcendental truth can only be obtained from a  The formal proof is as follows: [1] 1. (∃x){[Gx&(∀y)(Gy→y=x)]&Dx} Assumption [2] 2. (∀x)(Dx→Ex) Assumption [3] 3. (∀x)(Ex→~Gx) Assumption [1] 4. {[Gb&(∀y)(Gy→y=b)]&Db} 1, EE [1] 5. Db 4, Simplification [2] 6. (Db→Eb) 2, UE [1,2] 7. Eb 5, 6, MP [3] 8. (Eb→~Gb) 3, UE [1,2,3] 9. ~Gb 7, 8, MP [1] 10. [Gb&(∀y)(Gy→y=b)] 4, Simplification [1] 11. Gb 10, Simplification [1,2,3] 12. (Gb&~Gb) 9, 11, Conjunction [2,3] 13. ~(∃x){[Gx&(∀y)(Gy→y=x)]&Dx} 12, RAA [Here, “G” is used for “the oneness/great whole,” “D” for “is describable” and “E” for “is exclusive of its description.” The last sentence (13) means that there is no such an oneness which is describable.]

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non-sensible intuition or transcendental experience through a long effort at moral practice and mental transformation. Nevertheless, they think that the theoretical analysis as a skillful strategy of preliminary understanding for the entrance to the transcendental realm is helpful. As a matter of fact, they often claim that their ultimate concern is not rationally analyzable, but almost all of their writings are theoretical works. Although sometimes they talk about non-sensible intuition and transcendental experience, they have to use the Western metaphysical concepts to explicate the “inexplicable” and analyze the “unanalyzable.” For example, as claimed by Tang, his method of “transcendental reflection” for explaining the concept of “absolute consciousness” or “pure consciousness” of moral subjectivity is basically similar to Descartes’ or Kant’s transcendental deduction. Although Mou stresses that liangzhi is not something of a hypothesis, as claimed by Feng, but a self-manifesting or self-presenting (ziwo chengxian 自我呈現) entity, he cannot but demonstrate the self- manifesting or self-presenting entity by a kind of transcendental deduction which is similar to what he says about the Kantian idea of practical necessity.12 I think his ideas of “transcendental embodied verification” and “inner embodied verification” cannot be understood as justification by any intuition. Instead, most plausibly, it can be explained as a kind of transcendental deduction. Moreover, since Mou and Tang’s appeal to non-sensible intuition or transcendental experience is not different from other religious traditions’ appeal to the private experience of the first-person authority, and their theory-constructions are mainly based on transcendental arguments, I think that their approach to Chinese philosophy is still in the category of metaphysical speculation. If I am right on this point, I can also conclude that although Feng claims that his approach is logical and conceptual while Mou and Tang believe that their approach is non-analytical and intuitionistic, it is very interesting that they both use transcendental arguments to build up their speculative philosophy or transcendental metaphysics.13 In 1950s, Herbert Feigl, one of the major figures in logical positivism, wrote an essay to criticize the method of intuition. He says, With the list of the meanings of the word “intuition” now completed, I turn to a critique of the last-mentioned form, i.e., of trans-empirical intuition. In accordance with my bias toward the Western “rationalistic” tradition, I am naturally suspicious of the knowledge claims of trans-empirical intuition. As I often say (perhaps I borrowed this from Bertrand Russell), I prefer the “silent mystic,” [my italics] because, when a mystic begins to speak, he admits that he is not speaking directly, but indirectly; his language does not describe, it circumscribes; he is not really giving an adequate account of what he actually experiences, of what he knows through intuition. The mystic can merely allude to what he has experi-

 Here, it seems that Mou’s conception of “practical necessity” is different from Kant’s. For Kant, it means a pre-condition or presupposition (for example, free will) for making, say, moral action feasible or in practice; while it is treated by Mou as a special kind of necessity in terms of a kind of modal force which is comparable to physical necessity and logical necessity. Mou sometimes calls it “moral necessity.” In contrast, Mou’s conception of “dialectical necessity” is borrowed from Hegel, not from Kant. He sometimes calls it “historical necessity.” 13  Detailed arguments about contemporary Confucians’ approach can be found in Fung 2003. 12

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enced, he can only hint at it; he is, in fact, almost helpless in expressing himself about the great blaze of glory that he beholds. If we put aside his standpoint of positivism, I think he has a point that we cannot ignore. That is: If an intuition is trans-empirical or non-sensible, it is impossible for someone who has the intuition to describe anything and thus it would fall into “silent mysticism.” It is because what can be grasped by someone’s intuition is via a first-person subject. Hence, by definition, what is grasped cannot be taught or transmitted from one person to another. If there is any absolute knowledge, truth or wisdom, they can only be owned by a first-person subject. In other words, all these are known privately. There is no objectivity in a public sense. So, the absolute knowledge, truth, or wisdom cannot be transmitted among ­people. (Feigl 1958: 7)

P. T. Raju does not agree with Feigl’s view. His response is: However, all this applies to the role of intuition in empirical knowledge. But what is its role in the trans-empirical knowledge of the mystic? Or, does he have no knowledge at all, but only live his experience? It is here that the mystic takes issue. Feigl says that mystic experience cannot be called knowledge, because it is not descriptive and communicable. But, first, how is my experience of the pen in front of me communicable? Can my experience be transferred to another person? I can only make him have a similar, but not the same, experience. (Raju 1958–9: 150)

I think Raju’s response cannot answer Feigl’s challenge. In contrast to perceptual experience or sensible intuition, such as “my experience of the pen in front of me,” the experience grasped by trans-empirical intuition or non-sensible intuition does not have the following two characteristics: 1. The similar perceptual experiences among different people have a common external cause. 2. The similar experiences for different people can be conceptualized and explained with rational language. So, there is an important difference between perceptual experience and trans-­ empirical experience which cannot be explained away. Return to contemporary Confucians’ intuitionism, I think it is a real question that they have obligation to answer. I believe that the non-sensible intuition embedded in their practical approach based on moral cultivation cannot be falsified as fake, but its objectivity cannot be justified without falling into solipsism.

References Cheng, Hao 程顥, & Cheng, Yi 程頤. n.d. Chengs’ surviving sayings (Yishu) 程氏遺書. (Refer to https://ctext.org.) Davidson, Donald. 2001. Subjective, intersubjective, objective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feigl, Herbert. 1958. Critique of intuition according to scientific empiricism. Philosophy East and West 8 (1/2): 1–16. Feng, Youlan. 1948. A short history of Chinese philosophy. New York: The Free Press. ———. 1986. A new treatise on tracing the origin of Dao新原道The Corpus of Sansongtang 三 松堂全集, vol. 5. Henan: People’s Publisher 河南人民出版社. (This volume and A Treatise

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on New Learning of Principle 新理學 are the two main publications of Feng’s new Confucian system which borrow ideas from the Platonic realism to reconstruct the theory of Cheng-Zhu Confucianism.) ———. 1997. A new treatise on the methodology of metaphysics 新知言. Translated by Chester C. I. Wang. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. (A collection of essays aims at defending Feng’s new system of Confucianism in terms of its logical characteristics in methodology and its difference from traditional Western speculative metaphysics.) Fung, Yiu-ming. 1994. Feng Youlan’s neo-confucianism and transcendental analysis 馮友蘭的新 理學與超越分析. Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies, Taiwan 24 (2): 217–240. ———. 2003. The myth of transcendent immanence: A perspective of analytic philosophy on contemporary neo-confucianism 超越內在的迷思:從分析哲學觀點看當代新儒學. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ———. 2006. Davidson’s charity in the context of Chinese philosophy. In Davidson’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy: Constructive engagement, ed. Bo Mou, 117–162. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ———. 2010. On the very idea of correlative thinking. Philosophy Compass 5(4): 296–306. (A critical remark on the idea of “correlative thinking” and its difference from “analytic thinking.”) ———. forthcoming. A bridge between philosophy and philology: Pride and prejudice: A methodological issue of Chinese philosophical studies. In Presented at the symposium on “Lici, Bianyan and Wendao: A new start of classical studies” (離詞、辨言、聞道──古典研究再出 發), Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 11–12 June 2016. Hall, David, & Ames, Roger. 1995. Anticipating China: Thinking through the narratives of Chinese and Western culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (A new interpretation of ancient Chinese philosophy based on process ontology with emphasis on the correlative vs. analytic thinking between Chinese and Western ways of thinking.) Levine, Joseph. 1983. Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64: 354–361. Mou, Zongsan. 1968. The substance of heart-mind and the substance of essence 心體與性體 (vol. 1). Taipei: Zhengzhong Book Company 正中書局 (One of the classics in contemporary Neo-Confucianism on the key concepts of xin 心 (heart/mind) and xing 性 (immanent nature) in Song-Ming Confucianism.) ———. 1969. The substance of heart-mind and the substance of essence 心體與性體 (vol. 3). Taipei: Zhengzhong Book Company 正中書局. (One of the classics in contemporary Neo-­ Confucianism on the key concepts of xin 心 (heart/mind) and xing 性 (immanent nature) in Song-Ming Confucianism.) ———. 1971. Intellectual intuition and Chinese philosophy 智的直覺與中國哲學. Taipei: Commercial Publisher 商務印書館. (Mou’s first volume to reconstruct Kant’s ideas of “intellectual intuition” and “thing-in-itself” for his new interpretation of Confucian moral metaphysics.) ———. 1975. Phenomenon and thing-in-itself 現象與物自身. Taipei: Xuesheng Book Company 學生書局. (Mou’s second volume to reconstruct Kant’s ideas of “intellectual intuition” and “thing-in-itself” for his new interpretation of Confucian moral metaphysics.) ———. 1983. Nineteen lectures on Chinese philosophy 中國哲學十九講. Taipei: Xuesheng Book Company 學生書局. ———. 1985. Bridging Chinese and western philosophy中西哲學之會通, vol. 124, 1–6. Taipei: Legein (Goose Lake) Monthly鵝湖月刊. (A collection of Mou’s lectures on the difference and bridging of Chinese and Western philosophy.) Nagel, Thomas. 1974. What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review 83: 435–450. Raju, P.T. 1958. Feigl on intuition. Philosophy East and West 8 (3/4): 149–163. Tang, Junyi. 1961. Introduction to philosophy 哲學概論 (vol. 1). Hong Kong: Mengshi Education Foundation 孟氏基金會. ———. 1963. The establishment of moral self 道德自我之建立. Hong Kong Rensheng Publisher 人生出版社. (Tang’s early work on moral self in terms absolute mind.)

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———. 1977. The existence of life and the vision of mind 生命存在與心靈境界 (vol. 2). Taipei: Xuesheng Book Company學生書局. (Tang’s new system on the absolute mind which is the mental power for the transformation of different levels of spiritual vision) Wang, Yangming. 1992. Wang Yangming quanji 王陽明全集 (the complete works of Wang Yangming). Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publisher上海古籍出版社. Xiong, Shili. 1975. Shili’s essential sayings 十力語要 (vol. 2). Taipei: Guangwen Book Company 廣文書局. (Xiong’s essential sayings in the form of correspondence with his students and other scholars on his new theory of Confucian moral metaphysics.) ———. 1993. Jottings of Cunzhai 存齋隨筆. Taipei: Legein (Goose Lake) Publisher鵝湖出版社. (Xiong’s later work on moral metaphysics.)

Index

A A History of Chinese Philosophy, 127, 130, 131, 146, 150, 152, 559 A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, 131, 135 absolute truths, 96, 138, 308, 309 absolutism, 310 abstract inheritance, 141 Abstruse Learning (Xuanxue), 35, 92, 95, 135 Academy, 6, 52, 73, 74, 107, 199, 223, 277, 448, 499, 500 Academy of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua shuyuan 中國文 化書院), 74 Academy of Recovering Nature (Fuxing Shuyuan 復性書院), 52 “actual self” (xianzai de wo 現在的我), 75 aesthetic order, 568, 570 aesthetic sensibility, 17, 284–286 Aesthetics, 17, 21, 76, 109, 112, 136, 162, 167, 191, 200, 258, 277, 278, 280–287, 289–292, 295, 296, 304, 513–539, 562, 568–570, 573, 574, 577, 591, 614, 617 affective resonance gǎntōng, 16, 20, 92, 235–245, 247, 310, 401, 461, 481 alarm and commiseration (ceyin 惻隱), 259, 417, 472 ālaya, 368–370, 376 alienation, 77, 286 Alitto, Guy, 73, 74, 81, 84, 203 Almond, Brenda, 233 Ames, Roger and David Hall, 428, 566 An Yanming, 84, 458

Analects (Lunyu), 6, 22, 29, 119, 142, 164, 170, 177, 179, 181–183, 194, 208, 214, 216, 277, 288, 290, 291, 295, 307, 315, 326, 327, 337, 409, 415–420, 423, 424, 429–431, 524, 542, 555, 564–566, 568, 570, 574, 575, 577, 591, 598, 601–603 Angle, Stephen C., 3, 19, 205, 210, 215, 216, 272, 409–440, 492, 493, 504, 506, 575, 576, 588 Anglophone, 12, 18–20, 130, 281, 415, 421–425, 438, 439, 490, 505, 559–561, 565, 566, 572, 573, 575, 576 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 412, 422 Anthropocosmic, 18, 349, 354 anti-rationalism, 75 appearance/thing-in-itself, 16, 97, 99, 168, 189, 238, 242, 258, 259, 266, 283, 324, 375, 376, 378, 396, 398, 400, 417, 423, 464, 465, 502, 515, 516, 518, 529, 535, 545, 614, 616 applied ethics, 20, 409, 410, 421, 428, 433–438 Aristotle, 94, 129, 130, 151, 391, 395, 412, 414, 415, 422, 423, 425, 426, 430, 437–439, 520, 566, 567, 574 ars contextualis (the art of contextualizing), 569 article of faith, 354 Asian values, 490 Asymmetry, 28, 429, 430, 437–439 attachment to the self due to discrimination (fenbie wozhi 分别我執), 76

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627

628 attachment to the world due to discrimination (fenbie fazhi 分别法執), 76 attainment of utmost knowledge 致知, 188, 207, 264 autonomy and heteronomy, 16, 19, 395, 416 Awareness, 10, 22, 91, 97, 101, 102, 131, 152, 185, 189, 206–209, 215, 226, 229, 230, 233, 244, 246, 280, 283, 303, 308, 309, 329, 360, 369, 387, 391, 394, 401, 449, 451, 459, 464, 465, 474–477, 483, 484, 497, 548, 551, 563, 566 B Bai Tongdong, 21, 497, 501–506, 576, 589, 604 Baillie, J.B., 131 Balance, 15, 77, 80, 83, 113, 115, 117, 121, 175, 176, 179–183, 185–190, 193–195, 232, 307, 313, 417, 432, 437, 438, 491, 506, 531, 569 Beauty, 17, 21, 162, 164, 277, 281–287, 289, 291, 295, 339, 340, 460, 482, 513–517, 521, 528–530, 534–536, 538, 591, 600 Beijing, 4, 40, 72, 73, 81, 83, 89, 90, 92, 108, 109, 129, 140, 141, 177, 222, 255–257, 308, 347, 348, 522 Bell, Daniel, 498, 502, 504, 506, 575–577, 603, 604 Bellah, Robert, 346 benevolence 仁, 8, 22, 37, 53, 91, 102, 118, 182, 184, 205, 207, 210, 223, 232, 233, 237, 288–291, 301, 305–307, 311–313, 317, 381, 401, 417, 470, 514, 524, 526, 530, 589, 593–595, 602, 603 as ontology, 593, 594 See also humaneness benevolent heart-mind of humans rén zhī rénxīn, 98 benevolent heart-mind rénxīn, 90, 92, 99, 101, 183, 184, 204, 312, 314, 593 benxin 本心, 54, 91, 258, 371, 401, 453, 612, 614–616, 618 See also fundamental heart-mind Bergson Henri (1874–1941), 95, 108, 160, 161, 171, 189, 457, 458, 538 Berthrong, John, 314, 579 Berkeley, 116, 347 Bhabha, Homi, 348

Index Bioethics, 434, 435, 437 Blondel, Maurice, 351 bloodline of the study of the sages, the shèngxué xuèmài, 93 Bloom, Irene, 186, 187, 212, 493 Bluntschli, Johann Kasper, 110 Bodde, Derk, 130, 136 Book of Changes 易經, 13, 50, 56, 58, 59, 65, 66, 90, 94, 95, 99, 161, 162, 166, 170, 171, 236, 257, 261, 315, 369, 492, 515, 567 Book of History 書, 170 Book of Music 樂, 50, 65, 66 Book of Odes 詩, 29, 50, 65, 518 Book of Rituals 禮, 29, 36 Boston Confucianism, 314, 563 Breakthrough, 145, 420 Bresciani, Umberto, 3, 83, 84, 224, 247 Brisson, Thomas, 360 Buber, Martin, 79, 350 buddhahood, 264, 373–375 Buddhism, 1, 7, 11–13, 15, 16, 18, 31, 36, 38, 40, 44, 47–59, 62, 63, 71, 72, 75–77, 80–84, 89, 90, 94–97, 103, 160, 169–171, 202, 203, 205, 223, 226, 241, 245, 258, 259, 262–264, 266, 269, 270, 299, 307, 309, 315, 350, 367–382, 394–396, 457, 528, 535, 538, 546, 547, 551, 552, 592, 593, 599, 600, 609, 612, 613, 617 Buddhist, 7, 11, 13, 16, 37, 48–51, 56–58, 60, 61, 68, 71–77, 79–81, 84, 90, 95, 96, 102, 137, 147, 148, 159, 170, 177, 181, 193, 210, 235, 238, 239, 262, 264, 308, 311, 358, 367, 368, 370, 371, 373–375, 377, 378, 453, 455, 457, 458, 465, 516, 524, 528, 544 Buddhist doctrine of conditioned arising yuánqǐ lùn, 96 Buddhist sūtras, 72 Bunnin, Nicholas, 2, 84, 422 C Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, 5, 43, 72, 89, 255, 568 calligraphy, 520 calming the mind (śamatha) zhǐguān, 101 Capitalism, 105, 115, 228, 256, 356, 430, 507, 531, 561, 562 Cassirer, Ernst, 17, 22, 164, 301–306, 310, 543, 552–557 causality, 191, 192, 239, 262

Index CCP (Chinese Communist Party), 41, 53, 137, 138, 144, 199, 200, 208, 256, 292, 489, 490, 562 ceaseless creative creativity shēng shēng bù xī, 93–95 chain of being, 353 Chairman Mao, 139, 142, 143, 149 See also Mao Zedong Chan Buddhism, 50, 51 Chan Wing-tsit, 84, 90, 353 Chang, Carsun, see Zhang Junmai Chang Hao/Zhang Hao, 4, 37, 38, 40 change (bianyi 變易), 13, 17, 28, 32, 33, 41, 55, 58–62, 64–66, 75, 95, 97–99, 105, 106, 121, 122, 132, 147, 149, 161–163, 170, 263, 281, 301, 318, 325, 327, 331, 332, 338, 340, 375, 386, 418, 478, 492, 499, 503, 518, 542, 567, 569, 570, 590, 597 character, 6, 42, 65, 90, 95, 100, 101, 111, 130, 131, 140, 141, 147–150, 177, 191, 201, 210, 215, 222, 245, 280, 290, 291, 314, 331, 335, 339, 350, 375, 376, 397, 398, 401, 413, 418, 422, 425, 429, 431, 492, 494, 500, 513, 514, 521–524, 526, 527, 533, 534, 536, 541, 542, 554, 556, 576, 577 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀, 2, 5, 12, 42, 43, 278, 490, 562, 589, 593–595 Chen Lai, 22, 83, 84, 223, 562, 600 Chen Yinge 陳寅格, 81 Chen Zhongxin, 271 cheng (truthfulness), 18, 153, 310, 336–338 Cheng brothers, 50, 51, 186, 280, 388, 427, 437, 609 See also Cheng Hao: Cheng Yi Cheng Chung-yi 鄭宗義, 306, 307, 312, 316, 318 Cheng Chung-Ying, 3, 8, 17, 84, 172, 316, 323–341, 588 Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085), 186, 261, 315, 396, 471, 477–479, 613 Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), 16, 60, 62, 186, 261, 305, 315, 396 Cheng-Zhu and Kong-Meng, 188 Chinese Buddhism, 62, 63, 94, 170, 264, 599, 600 Chinese Buddhist Cultural Institute (Zhongguo fojiao wenhua yanjiusuo 中國佛教 文化研究所), 74 Chinese Marxism, 228, 293

629 Chinese modernity, 17, 278–281, 287, 293, 294, 447 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi中國人民政 治協商會議), 73 Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), 3, 6, 159, 178, 221, 256, 299, 434 Chinese worldview as anthropocosmic worldview, 354 as inclusive humanism, 354, 360, 563 Christian belief, 148 Christianity, 34, 35, 41, 80, 83, 111, 242, 245, 294, 310, 372, 400, 401, 522, 546, 547, 592, 593 circularity (huihuan 迴環), 305, 307, 311, 355 Civil society, 82, 213, 214, 575, 577 class bias, 143 class struggle, 78, 114, 121, 538 classification, 40, 64, 118, 195, 262, 292, 300, 314–317, 410, 411, 434, 435 cognition, 74–76, 208, 334, 335, 394, 397, 449, 454–460, 464, 547 Cognitive nature, 206, 207 cognitive subject, 267, 268, 449, 465 Collective morality, 114 Collingwood, R.G., 304 Columbia University, 125, 129, 130, 140 communal critical self-consciousness, 360 Communism, 105, 108, 114, 117, 118, 177, 228, 231, 316, 491, 496, 532 Communists, 7, 8, 10, 41, 53, 73, 105, 106, 108, 114–116, 118, 119, 122, 137–140, 178, 228, 232, 256, 278, 490, 532 Communitarianism, 505 comparative philosophy, 299, 305, 324, 326, 429, 430, 550, 551, 611 comprehension, 50, 65, 101–103, 127, 255, 256, 259, 263, 323, 449–455, 459, 544–548, 550, 556 Comprehensive harmony, 161–163, 166, 168, 171, 172, 515–517 conceptual fields mù, 97 Concern consciousness, 203, 204, 292 confirmation by transcending reflection, 475–477 Confucian Capitalism, 507, 561 Confucian egalitarianis, 603, 605 Confucian ethics, 19, 22, 42, 75, 78, 118, 270, 311, 347, 409, 411, 415, 420, 423, 425, 428–430, 434, 438, 439, 469, 497, 522, 542, 555, 574, 575

630 Confucian meritocracy, 10, 21, 22, 497–506, 588, 596, 598, 603–605 Confucian role ethics, 169, 412, 428–433, 438, 439 Confucianism as humanism, 211 as political, 22, 361, 497, 498, 500, 562, 589, 595–598 as religiophilosophy, 360, 361 third epoch, 18, 345, 347–349 Confucius, see Kongzi consciousness xīn, 14, 18, 43, 59, 92, 97–99, 103, 110, 125–128, 131, 132, 134, 138, 149, 150, 152, 186, 187, 189, 190, 203, 204, 226, 227, 229, 230, 235, 237, 242, 244, 245, 278, 279, 285, 288, 289, 292, 302, 312, 317, 328, 340, 350, 354, 368–370, 373, 376, 389, 393–396, 402, 416, 448, 452–455, 457, 459, 461, 462, 470, 496, 518, 524–526, 533, 534, 565, 574, 596, 612, 613, 617, 618, 623 Consciousness-Only Doctrine Xīn wéishí lùn, 90, 104, 223 consciousness-soul xīnlíng, 99, 235, 237, 301, 302 constancy zhǔzǎi, 97, 226, 332, 523, 613 Constitution, 14, 41, 106, 108, 214, 215, 238, 239, 242, 246, 268, 397, 402, 494, 495, 504, 507 Constitutionalism, 107, 108 constitutive principle, 306, 312–314, 551 Contemporary Confucianism, 2–11, 13, 18, 32, 82, 83, 394, 409–440, 447, 485, 505, 546, 566, 573, 609–624 Contemporary Neo-Confucians, 314–316, 385 Contemporary New Confucianism xiàndài xīn rújiā, 2, 68, 168, 175–195, 316, 367, 387, 469, 609 continual change biànyì, 58, 61, 97, 98 continuity, 15, 113, 130, 164, 169, 172, 175–195, 225, 279, 337, 353, 370, 450, 498, 499, 519, 597 Conversations of Master Zhu 朱子語類, 185 cosmic human life yǔzhòurénshēng, 91, 100, 103 cosmic reality yǔzhòu běntǐ, 94, 336 cosmic spirit yǔzhòu jīngshén, 99 cosmology yǔzhòulùn, 61, 93, 95, 163, 164, 169, 186, 201, 304, 317, 367, 369–371, 379, 381, 386, 514–517, 537, 539, 566, 567

Index cosmo-ontological mode of vertical formation, the, 478 creation and destruction shēngmiè, 97 Criticizing Liang Shuming’s Thought (Liang Shuming sixiang pipan 梁漱溟思 想批判), 73 “Criticizing Lin Biao and Kongzi” (pilin pikong 批林批孔) campaign, 74 cultural China, 345, 348, 349, 363 cultural philosophy, 66, 74–76, 152 Cultural Revolution, 3, 22, 53, 71, 74, 90, 138–140, 142, 144, 152, 153, 277, 547 cultural-psychological formations 文化心理結 構, 285, 287–289, 293, 295 culture of sociable delight 樂感文化, 17, 291 D Dallmayr, Fred, 348, 349 Dao, 29, 53, 101, 166, 258, 329, 409, 426, 477, 496 Daodejing, 95, 101, 133 Daoism, 15, 31, 40, 43, 53, 135, 159, 160, 169, 171, 202, 226, 237, 258, 259, 263, 264, 266, 269, 315, 396, 516, 517, 527, 529, 530, 535, 538, 546, 547, 551, 552, 555, 592, 593, 599, 600, 612, 613 Daoists, 37, 38, 48, 95, 101, 129, 135–137, 145, 147, 148, 151, 159, 170, 177, 181, 193, 237, 285, 465, 517, 526–530, 536, 539, 556, 568 Daotong, 2, 159 Daquan, 136, 147, 619, 621 Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論 (The Awakening of Faith), 49, 238, 367, 369, 374–378, 380 Daxue, 29, 91, 92, 118, 142, 203, 204, 207, 264, 356, 533 death of philosophy, 75 “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of the World” (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijierenshi xuanyan 為中國文化敬 告世界人士宣言), 83, 106, 566 See also “Manifesto” Democracy Confucian democracy, 10, 20, 213, 216, 491–497, 576–579 Deweyan democracy, 577 Participatory democracy, 577, 578

Index Democratic socialism, 106, 107, 115, 116, 121–122 Deng Xiaomang, 271, 279, 347, 386 Dennerline, Jerry, 176, 177, 180 deontology, 19, 324, 411, 412, 415–422, 425, 427, 434, 437–439, 573, 574 depending on the action and function of the intellect píng lǐzhì zuòyòng, 94 Desires and wishes 欲望, 190 developing new outer kingliness kāi xīnwàiwáng, 95 Dewey, John (1859–1952), 14, 21, 79, 84, 129, 130, 177, 189, 295, 505, 577 Dharmapāla, 368, 370, 371 dialectics/dialectical, 3, 125–154, 171, 177, 227, 232, 268, 271, 294, 306, 327, 330, 334, 355, 374, 377, 392, 433, 452, 491–493, 623 dialogue among civilizations, 345, 348, 349, 359, 360 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 323, 543, 546, 553, 554 direct connection, 492 direct perception, or xianliang 現量, 75–77, 458 Dirlik, Arif, 356, 561 discretion (quan 權), 436, 566 dissatisfaction/dissatisfied, 18, 97, 117, 126, 127, 324, 329, 392, 491, 502 Divine command theory, 203 divinize/divinization, 141, 142 divinized heaven shéntiān, 94 Dizigui 弟子規, 82 doctrine of reality běntǐ xuéshuō, 94, 95 doctrines of the cognitive realm jìngjiè lùn, 96 Dong Zhongshu, 32, 94, 202, 211, 315, 595 Du Weiming, see Tu Wei-ming dualism, 98, 164, 168, 172, 186, 187, 261, 281, 317, 329, 369, 412, 566, 570 Duality, 187, 476, 477, 480, 485, 515, 520, 613 duan (beginning, sprout, appearance 端), 3, 4, 16, 22, 28, 31, 52, 57, 73, 97, 99, 102, 163, 168, 179, 181, 182, 185, 189, 238, 242, 256, 258, 259, 266, 283, 337, 339, 349, 355, 375, 376, 378, 385, 388, 390, 396, 398, 403, 417, 421–423, 428, 433, 439, 450, 465, 470, 484, 502, 515, 516, 518, 522, 525, 529, 535, 545, 563, 579, 591, 594, 599, 603, 614 dynamism, 96, 99, 191, 353, 515

631 E Early Feng, 125, 126, 128–137, 140–143, 145, 148, 152, 153 East Asian Development Model, 561 East Asian economic miracle, 349, 356 Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (Dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue 中西文化及其哲學), 13, 72, 75, 76, 79 Eastern Miscellanies (Dongfang zazhi 東 方雜誌), 72 Egoism, 80, 131, 456, 527 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., 346, 357, 358 Elections, 120, 213, 214, 492, 494, 499, 501, 505, 576, 577 Ellul, Jacques, 14, 125, 139, 144 Elstein, David, 1–23, 199–218, 229, 244, 247, 271, 415–417, 440, 489–507, 541, 576, 587 Embodied recognition (tiren 體認), 15, 100, 209, 303, 455, 613–617, 619 emotions 情, 54, 58–62, 64, 83, 162, 166, 167, 181, 183, 187, 189–191, 236, 260, 284, 285, 288, 289, 291, 295, 317, 334, 401, 424, 439, 449, 454, 473, 516, 517, 520–522, 525, 526, 538, 571, 574, 575, 589, 591, 593, 594, 616 Empirical, empiricism, 3, 23, 76, 98, 201, 204, 205, 208, 209, 241, 265, 266, 302, 314, 401, 402, 463, 464, 469, 472–475, 485, 500, 504, 569, 578, 579, 611–613, 618, 620, 622, 624 end of philosophy, 154 energetic motion gāngjiàn yùndòng, 91 Engelhardt, Tristam, 435 Engels, Friedrich, 142, 143 enlightened mind, 102 enlightened wisdom bānruòzhì, 101 Enlightenment, 18, 44, 77, 81, 109, 166, 325, 328, 345, 348, 349, 357, 359, 360, 379, 449, 475, 563, 594, 622 Enlightenment mentality, 345, 348, 349, 357, 359, 360, 563 entire reality (quanti 全體), 64, 65 epistemology, 20, 74, 75, 93, 100, 103, 112, 204, 208–209, 225, 234, 242, 249, 317, 324, 325, 342, 415, 447–466, 547–549, 552, 553, 559 equality, 10, 212, 218, 313, 359, 460, 492, 493, 500, 503, 504, 507, 536, 563, 564, 577, 578, 597, 603–605 Erikson, Erik, 346

632 essential origins dàběndàyuán, 91 Essentials of Yogācāra 唯識述義, 72 Ethical Confucianism, 497, 498 ethical theory, 19, 394, 409–440, 485, 505, 552, 566, 573, 575, 581 ethic-based society (lunlibenwei de shehui 倫 理本位的社會), 78 ethics and morality, 461, 522, 594 Eurocentrism, 413 Everyday life, 65, 234, 243–247, 295, 454, 455, 518, 521, 522, 537 evidential investigation 考據學, 112, 609 existential realization, 355 existentialism, 351, 576 experience first-person, 10, 11, 20, 23, 403, 617, 623 experiential confirmation, 9, 236, 461, 469–486 experiential realization, 100, 475 See also embodied recognition tǐrèn external reality, 76, 449, 451, 453, 570 extremism, 125, 126, 139, 140, 144, 146, 152–154 F Fairbank, John King, 315, 346, 561 Familial partiality, 598 Fan Ruiping, 434 Fang, Thomé H. (Fang Dongmei), 3, 4, 14, 15, 17, 21, 159–172, 299, 316, 324, 451, 461, 513–517, 520, 521, 526, 532, 534, 537, 538, 588 feeling of value (Wertfühlen), 260 Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan) 馮友蘭 (1895–1990), 3, 7, 10, 13, 14, 23, 78, 80, 84, 90, 125–154, 185, 255, 277, 316, 331, 451, 452, 454, 455, 457, 559, 588, 609, 619–622 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 19, 109, 385, 387, 389–394, 400 fiduciary community, 349, 360, 562 Fighting League, 116, 121 Filial piety/ancestor worship 孝, 72, 182, 193, 289, 578, 602 Fingarette, Herbert, 22, 205, 424, 563–566, 568, 574 Flux liúxíng, 80, 97, 334, 340, 515 founding a lineage on separate stems, 261, 270 four buddings, 259, 260 four groups in three generations, 316 fourfold being, 265 fourfold non-being, 265, 266 four-sentence teaching, 147, 149, 264, 265

Index Freedom of speech, 214, 503, 504 Fu Sinian 傅斯年 (1896–1950), 112, 178, 201, 619 Function (yong 用), 35, 59, 61, 64, 95, 96, 190, 191, 238–240, 242, 450, 459 Function gōngnéng, 96–98 functional unity, 301, 302, 306, 310, 555 fundamental heart-mind běnxīn, 9, 54, 91, 258, 371, 401, 453, 465, 543, 612, 614–618 fundamental reality běntǐ, 13, 18, 76, 90–92, 98, 101, 327, 368–371, 377–381, 416, 614, 616–618 fundamental wisdom (genbenzhi 根本智; [mūla-jñāna]), 76 Fung, Edmund, 14, 79, 82, 105–122 Fung, Yiu-ming, 23, 203, 270, 609–624 G Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 17, 22, 153, 323, 325–329, 332, 333, 340, 543, 549, 554, 556, 571, 572 Gadamerian, 153, 325, 328, 333, 340, 571, 572 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 346 gan (feelings), 334, 340 Gan, Chunsong, 507 gantong 感通 (affective resonance), 16, 20, 92, 235–245, 247, 310, 401, 461, 481 See also transference Gaozi, 204, 208, 259, 260, 469–472, 477 Gentleman (junzi 君子), 210, 291, 591 German Idealism, 8, 19, 224, 257, 385–387, 395, 401 global ethic, 17, 300, 308–312, 318, 345, 349, 361, 554 GMD (Nationalist Party), 199, 200 God shàngdì, 94, 99, 149, 182, 184, 191, 203, 241, 242, 258, 263, 304, 309, 310, 375, 376, 386, 397, 399–401, 421, 479, 484, 514, 515, 522, 524, 532, 533, 535, 545, 567, 621 Gong Sunlong 公孫龍, 179 Gongduzi, 260 Gongneng 功能, 96–98, 301, 370 See also function Gongyang school of Confucianism, 595 good (homogenous versus heterogenous), 8, 30, 56, 91, 105, 130, 163, 189, 200, 258, 291, 301, 324, 355, 368, 386, 412, 459, 469, 492, 517, 564, 591, 618

Index Government; form, content, 216, 217 Great Cultural Revolution, 138, 140, 142, 144, 153 great function, the dàyòng, 64, 65, 96 Gu Hongliang 顧紅亮, 79, 82 guan (comprehensive observation), 238, 328, 333, 334 Guan, Dong, 348 Guanxi (social relations), 284, 290, 334, 575, 578, 597 Guishen, 143, 149 Guo Moruo 郭沫若, 73 Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇, 12, 13, 73, 82, 89–103, 223, 346, 588, 589, 593, 595, 600–603, 605 Guo Xiang 郭象, 95, 171 habituation (xunxi 熏習), 62, 63 H Hale, Christine A., 354 Hall, David, 22, 202, 215, 424, 428, 429, 505, 566–571, 576, 577, 610, 611 Han Feizi, 178–188, 193, 257, 261, 287, 549, 570, 598 Harmony, 15, 18, 21, 22, 29, 30, 36, 54, 80, 102, 108, 112, 160–163, 165, 166, 168, 171, 172, 281, 289, 295, 296, 305, 306, 317, 329, 431, 432, 505, 506, 515–518, 521, 526, 534, 538, 539, 571, 575, 589, 591–593, 596–598, 616 Harvard, 129, 324, 346–348, 361, 532, 562 Hawai’I, 324, 347, 348 He Lin 賀麟, 2, 3, 316, 451, 588 Heart-mind, heartmind (xin 心) and nature xīnxìng, 95, 101, 267, 316, 317, 471, 479, 544, 555, 595, 597 is pattern 心即理, 187, 188, 550 of ceyin, 472 inner 内心, 50, 183, 191, 192 Heaven, 91, 98, 470, 471, 479, 480, 555 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 14, 19, 110, 111, 125–127, 129, 131–133, 135, 138, 139, 151, 152, 155, 163, 171, 202, 210, 222, 224, 231–233, 240, 244, 271, 272, 374, 380, 385–394, 402, 520, 538, 552, 557, 615, 616, 623 Heidegger, Martin, 17, 19, 22, 172, 233, 236, 242, 258, 323–326, 341, 350, 351, 369, 396, 400–403, 455, 543, 549, 552–554

633 hermeneutics; epistemological hermeneutics, ontological hermeneutics, 8, 17, 18, 21, 22, 68, 269, 323–341, 391, 541–557 heterogenous harmony, 305 heteronomy, 16, 19, 260, 261, 270, 395, 397, 403, 416, 424 highest good, 91, 259, 262, 263, 266, 368, 377 highest intellectual-spiritual realm, the, 148 historian of Chinese philosophy/philosophical traditions, 43, 119, 127–137, 139, 140, 142–148, 150, 151, 153, 163, 169–171, 222, 241, 295, 324, 394, 439, 447, 458, 589, 599, 610 historical amnesia, 152 Historical-cultural legitimacy, 499 Historicism, 279 Hong Kong, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 89, 106, 116, 146, 178, 200, 221, 223, 256, 269, 270, 299, 316, 349, 434, 436, 513, 588, 6091 horizon, 11, 16, 18, 57, 63, 64, 135, 136, 147–150, 153, 154, 202, 217, 221–247, 303, 304, 312, 313, 326–329, 339–341, 358, 371–374, 376, 377, 379, 380, 387, 389, 390, 420, 461, 462, 480–485, 521, 554–556, 614 See also jingjie house arrest, 132, 140, 152 House of Confucian Tradition, 498–500 House of Cultural Continuity, 498, 499 House of people, 21, 504 House of the experienced, 21, 504 House of the People, 498, 499 Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962), 2, 5, 14, 23, 43, 44, 109, 111, 112, 129, 133, 178, 181, 201, 268, 278, 331, 490, 559, 610, 619, 622 Hu Wufeng (Hong) 胡五峰, 16, 261, 315, 376, 378, 388, 396 Hu Zhihong 胡治洪, 346 Huang Jinxing, 270, 411 Huang Yong, 207, 415, 427, 437, 587 Huang Yushun, 588, 600, 602 Huang Zongxi, 135, 300, 317–318 Huaxi daxue, 185, 256 Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism, 54, 171, 372–378, 380, 381, 394 hubris, 135 Hui Shi 惠施, 179 Human Mind and Human Life (Renxin yu rensheng 人心与人生), 73, 74, 80

634 Human nature is pattern 性即理, 58, 187 humaneness (ren 仁), 8, 27, 53, 54, 56, 63, 91, 118, 147, 182, 210, 232, 237, 259, 280, 288, 291, 301, 309, 311, 335, 345, 380, 401, 416–420, 424, 425, 461, 465, 470, 473, 475, 478, 485, 524, 526, 562, 564, 568, 573, 574, 589, 593, 616 See also benevolence Humanism, 18, 211, 288, 345, 349, 354, 359, 360, 390, 394, 465, 529, 533, 535, 554, 563, 594 Humanistic spirit, 202–204, 390 humanity, 11–15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 36–38, 43, 52, 77, 81, 94, 96, 99, 100, 103, 119–121, 127, 133, 148–150, 165, 172, 189–193, 202, 204, 228, 230, 232, 233, 235, 259, 260, 280, 282, 283, 300, 309–311, 324, 325, 330, 334–336, 338, 340, 345, 354, 355, 359, 380, 385, 400, 430, 456, 461, 466, 478, 482, 495, 498, 501, 514, 523, 525, 532, 533, 537, 564, 589–594, 616 humanization of nature自然的人化, 279, 286, 287, 291 Humanum, 309–311 Hume, David, 111, 207, 270, 422 Hung, Andrew T.W., 354 Hursthouse, Rosalind, 422 Husserl, Edmond, 79, 312, 402 Hutcheson, Francis, 270, 432 Hutton, Eric, 409, 423, 425, 440, 573 I Idealism, 8, 15, 19, 76, 95, 141, 209, 224, 231, 243, 257, 272, 312, 313, 379–381, 385–389, 395, 401, 402, 450 ideology/ideological, 7, 27, 28, 30, 31, 53, 81, 82, 125, 126, 132, 137–146, 152, 153, 161, 216–217, 278, 293, 315, 329, 489, 570, 587, 598, 604, 605 Ikeda, Daisaku, 348 immanent, 21, 168, 229, 241, 242, 246, 258, 305–307, 309, 314, 318, 403, 451, 461, 555, 556, 612, 613 Imperialists, 178, 294 independent reality shítǐ, 94, 369 Indian Buddhism, 71, 72 Indian culture, 160 Indian philosophy, 13, 72, 74, 97, 129, 458, 614 indirect connection, 492

Index individuality, 171, 227, 231, 232, 239, 354, 424, 516, 522, 525, 530, 534, 539, 549, 553 innate attachment to the self (jusheng wozhi 俱 生我執), 76 innate attachment to the world (jusheng fazhi 俱生法執), 76 innate moral awareness 良知, 10, 54, 91, 97, 185, 209, 226, 229, 233, 255, 258, 304, 369, 387, 391, 394, 401, 416, 449, 459, 464, 474–477, 551, 612, 618 See also liangzhi inner sageliness and outer kingliness (neisheng waiwang 內聖外王), 90, 148, 492, 595 instantaneous arising and passing away of all things chà nà shēng miè, 96 instantaneous transformation shùn xī biàn huà, 96 intellection, or biliang 比量, 75–77, 458 intellectual intuition, 8, 11, 16, 19, 209, 217, 258, 261, 271, 375, 376, 396, 398–402, 437, 455, 463–465, 535, 569, 570, 611–619 intelligence lǐzhì, 100, 200, 263, 353 Internal experience, 15, 209 International relations, 490, 500, 506 interreligious dialogue, 300, 308–312, 318 Intersubjectivity, 239, 246, 329 intuition, 8, 75, 100, 109, 189, 209, 258, 375, 396, 414, 448, 520, 545, 569, 612 intuitive understanding zhènghuì, 90, 101, 102, 371, 614 investigation of things 格物, 44, 188, 194, 264, 448 irony, 151–153 Ivanhoe, Philip J., 417, 421, 423–425, 434, 435, 570, 574 J James, William, 241 Japanese, 40, 52, 73, 89, 105, 106, 109–111, 114, 115, 135, 156, 177, 199, 256, 346, 347, 385, 415, 490, 498, 543, 599 Jewish people, 184 ji 即, 54, 59, 64, 72, 93, 95, 96, 355, 374, 458, 544, 592, 619 Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), 15, 73, 106, 109, 200 Jiang Qing, 21, 22, 82, 224, 273, 497–501, 503, 576, 589, 595–598 Jiang, Nianfeng, 63, 224, 272, 386, 387, 391

Index Jiangnan University, 177 Jiangsu 江蘇, 107, 176, 178 Jin Yuelin, 138, 146, 255, 450 Jing Haifeng 景海峰, 82, 99, 589 jingjie 境界, 96, 135, 136, 147, 223, 225, 235, 238, 239, 303, 304, 371, 461, 480, 591 See also horizon joy of Kǒngzǐ and Yán Yuān, the, 94, 103, 147, 416 Jullien, Francois, 572, 573 K Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), 4, 12, 15, 32–39, 64, 180 Kant, Immanuel, 256–264, 266, 268–272, 385–387, 390, 391, 393–403 Kapur, Jagdish Chandra, 348 Kierkegaard, Søren, 347, 350, 389, 391 Kim Sungmoon, 367, 437, 576–578, 603 knowing reality through phenomena yóu yǒng zhī tǐ, 96 Knowledge of virtue déxìng zhī zhī, 101 Kohlberg, Laurence, 420, 421 Kongzi (Confucius) 孔子 (479–551 BCE), 3, 27, 50, 74, 91, 129, 159, 175, 203, 261, 287, 307, 340, 349, 391, 413, 459, 498, 517, 541, 562, 590 Kupperman, Joel, 418 L Lao Siguang 勞思光, 212, 347, 394 Laozi, 135, 142, 166, 309, 389, 526, 527 Later Feng, 125, 126, 131–133, 144–151, 153 Law, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (176), 4, 58, 77, 93, 106, 144, 182, 213, 224, 260, 283, 313, 324, 350, 374, 397, 412, 463, 473, 490, 531, 555, 567, 589, 619 learning of pattern 理學, 40, 53, 96, 127, 185, 187, 402, 448, 609 learning of the heart-mind 心學, 53, 187, 193, 316, 401, 402, 448, 461, 550, 551, 609 learning to be human, 348, 349, 355, 361 leaves nothing undone wúbùwèi, 97, 99 Lee Kuan Yew, 490 Lee Ming-huei (Li Minghui) 李明輝, 6, 12, 16, 19, 255–272, 385–387,

635 401–403, 411, 416, 419, 424, 425, 493, 498, 505, 569, 574, 588 Lee Shui Chuen (Li Ruiquan), 271, 434, 437 leftist, 125, 126, 140, 144, 146, 525 Lenin, Vladimir, 142, 143 li (ritual), 6, 41, 47, 72, 159, 223, 277, 312, 385, 411, 448, 503, 516, 543, 569, 589 Li Chenyang, 159, 503, 574, 601–603 Li Yuanting, 47, 72 Li Zehou, 7, 16, 277–296, 457, 526, 538, 575, 589, 593, 594 Li Zhisui 李志綏, 281 Li, 6, 41, 47, 72, 159, 223, 277, 312, 385, 411, 448, 503, 516, 543, 569, 589 See also Pattern Liang Ji 梁濟, 72 Liang Peishu, 81, 84 Liang Qichao 梁启超 (1873–1929), 4, 34, 37–40, 107, 113, 177, 180, 385–387, 415, 416 Liang Shuming Rural Reconstruction Center 梁漱溟鄉村建設中心, 83 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟, 2, 3, 5, 9, 13, 20, 47, 71–84, 106, 111, 129, 160, 161, 165, 203, 278, 316, 391, 450, 451, 457–460, 588 liangzhi 良知 (innate moral awareness), 10, 54, 91, 100, 185, 209, 226–229, 255, 258, 264–266, 304, 369, 391, 401, 449, 454, 458, 459, 464, 474–476, 612, 613, 616–618, 623 Liberalism, 41, 49, 216, 272, 280, 294, 316, 491, 494, 503, 505 Life, 16, 57, 73, 130, 161, 189, 222, 256, 310, 371, 390, 480, 515, 547 Life-Existence and Horizons of Mind 生命存 在與心靈境界, 16, 223, 371, 390, 480 Lin Anwu 林安梧, 76, 77, 82, 496, 497 Lin Yusheng, 271 Liu Qingping, 601, 602 Liu Shu-hsien (Shuxian) 劉述先, 3, 8, 17, 21, 22, 47, 172, 299–318, 388, 420, 543, 552–557, 588 Liu Zongzhou (Jishan), 16, 261, 262, 315, 318, 388, 391, 394, 396 lixing 理性 as “moral reason”, 21, 66, 74–76, 80, 113, 222, 227, 244, 390, 457–459, 462, 492, 493, 525, 533, 536 Lo Ping-cheung, 434 Looking Back over Forty Years, 140

636 Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 (Jiuyuan), 16, 21, 50, 72, 261, 262, 315, 388, 396, 479, 543, 548–552, 556, 557, 600 Lujiang School for Traditional Culture and Education (Lujiang chuantong wenhuajiaoyu xuexiao 廬江傳統文 化教育學校), 82 M Ma Yifu馬一浮, 3, 12, 13, 47–69, 74, 316, 391, 588 Ma Yong, 81 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 412, 413, 422, 423, 425 Mādhyamaka, 368, 369 Mahood, George, 423 Mainland New Confucianism (MNC), 588 Makeham, John, 1–3, 5, 35, 54, 56, 58, 60, 74, 84, 90, 92, 96, 100, 135, 238, 371, 379, 380, 496 making reverence the master (zhujing 主 敬), 62–64 manifestation of reality through phenomena, the jí yǒng xiǎn tǐ, 96 “Manifesto to the People of the World on Chinese Culture”, 106, 116 See also “Declaration” Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893–1976), 73, 138, 140, 141, 144, 153, 178, 200, 201, 281 Maoist-Marxist, 125, 126, 135, 137–145, 147, 153 Marcel, Gabriel, 350, 351, 610 Marx, Karl, 7, 17, 120, 132, 143, 277–293 Marxism, 7, 17, 199, 231, 256, 277, 278, 280, 281, 288, 292–294, 386, 562, 593, 605 Marxist, 7, 14, 17, 73, 78, 90, 108, 125, 126, 132–135, 138–150, 153, 228, 279–281, 287, 292–294, 513, 538, 562 Marxist Feng, 125, 133, 138–141, 143–145, 147, 149, 150, 153 material nature, 476 material things wù, 98 Materialism, 109, 126, 132, 141, 146, 177, 228, 229, 450, 538 May Fourth movement, 2, 74, 83, 171, 313, 367, 587 memory 記憶, 102, 131, 189–192, 196, 236 Mengjizi, 260

Index Mengzi (Mencius) 孟子, 6, 29, 50, 91, 119, 135, 159, 179, 203, 221, 259, 307, 327, 347, 391, 411, 459, 469, 493, 525, 541, 563, 591 Mengzi, the, 6, 29, 50, 91, 119, 135, 159, 179, 203, 221, 259, 307, 327, 347, 391, 411, 459, 469, 493, 525, 541, 563, 591 Meritocracy, 10, 21, 22, 78, 113, 115, 489, 497–506, 576, 588, 596, 598, 603–605 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 351 Meta-ethics, 410, 421, 422, 429 Meta-philosophy, 224, 231 metaphysical method xuánxué fāngfǎ, 610, 612, 614, 619, 620, 623 metaphysical truth xuánxué zhēnlǐ, 334, 337, 548 metaphysical xíngérshàngxué, 14, 15, 23, 74, 76, 90, 101, 125, 134, 135, 145, 146, 163, 164, 202, 209, 217, 218, 222, 224, 234, 241, 261, 281, 304, 305, 317, 334, 337, 380, 394–396, 403, 421, 426, 434, 439, 452–455, 461, 464, 471, 484, 485, 494, 496, 500, 516, 569, 570, 574, 589, 594, 596, 610, 612, 614, 619, 620, 623 metaphysical xuánxué method, 610, 612, 614, 619, 620, 623 truth, 334, 337, 548 metaphysics xíngshàngxué, 9, 74, 92, 108, 136, 161, 186, 201, 257, 292, 304, 324, 368, 386, 415, 455, 471, 496, 555, 566, 593, 612 Meynard, Thierry, 13, 71–84, 203 Minben (people as foundation), 212, 604 Mind mind and (human) nature (xinxing 心性) (see Heart-mind and nature) Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 30, 131, 402, 448, 474 minimalist consensus, 308, 310, 311 modern Chinese philosophy, 1, 127, 137 modern consciousness, 14, 125–128, 131, 132, 134, 138, 149, 150, 152 modernity, modernities multiple, 356–358 Modernization, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 65, 69, 83, 107, 116–120, 122, 128, 160, 231, 266–269, 279, 356, 358, 447, 453, 456, 464, 465, 561, 587, 588, 598, 605

Index Moeller, Hans Georg, 136, 354 Mohists, 38, 177, 181, 193, 305, 448, 450, 571 Møllgaard, Eske J., 360, 361, 571, 572 Moltmann, Jürgen, 348 moral creativity, 376, 478, 479 Moral cultivation (gongfu), 13, 15, 29, 50, 56, 61, 202, 204, 264, 449, 526, 529, 535, 542, 588, 596, 597, 609, 610, 616, 619, 624 moral education, 347, 364, 409, 412, 437, 496, 504 Moral equality, 603 moral intuition, or zhijue 直覺, 75, 457, 458 moral luck, 417, 418 moral metaphysics, 94, 95, 217, 258, 261, 375, 378, 396–399, 403, 421, 471, 612, 618 Moral nature, 59, 202, 206, 290, 417, 418, 449, 495, 514 moral practice, 6, 19, 62, 97, 167, 239, 240, 246, 267, 416, 431, 474, 475, 481, 484, 485, 496, 543, 590, 591, 610, 612, 615, 616, 623 moral psychology, 317, 579, 611 moral self, 19, 92, 118, 211, 215, 222, 227, 261, 389–391, 393–395, 461, 462, 465, 505, 524 See also moral subject, subjectivity most philosophical philosophy, 134, 135 Mote, Frederick W., 353 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–95), (317) Mozi 墨子, 130, 166, 179, 450, 590 Mozi, 130, 166, 179, 450, 590 Murdoch, Iris, 412, 422 “music without sound” (wusheng zhi yue 無 聲之樂), 80 mysterious insight xuánlǎn, 101 mysticism, 125, 126, 131, 135, 136, 150, 153, 613, 624 N Nation, 4, 10, 12, 28, 31–44, 75, 79, 92, 105, 106, 109–115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 160, 165, 167, 255, 281, 348, 358, 361, 499, 518, 522, 534, 547, 552, 592, 593 National salvation, 105, 538 National self-sufficiency, 121 Nationalists, 9, 14, 15, 21, 31, 39–41, 52, 73, 79, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 115, 122, 135, 178, 199, 227, 294, 491, 516, 557 See also GMD

637 natural reality zìrán běntǐ, 91, 95, 516 “naturalization of humans” 人的自然化, 286, 287 naturally-so 自然, 187 nature (xing性), 51, 61, 186, 204, 259, 307, 317, 335, 454, 533 neisheng waiwang, 148, 492 See also Inner sageliness and outer kingliness Nelson, Benjamin, 347 Neo-Confucian(s), 3, 6, 13, 15–17, 22, 29, 35, 37, 38, 44, 54, 55, 59, 62, 63, 112, 116, 159, 161, 170, 171, 205, 210, 227, 280, 281, 291, 303, 314, 315, 318, 348, 349, 367, 416, 418, 421, 426, 427, 432, 449, 450, 452, 457, 464, 517, 536, 542, 563 Neo-Confucianism three-lineage doctrine, 388, 396 one lineage doctrine, 388 network of significance (yiyi xiluo 意義系絡), 17, 301, 303, 304, 312, 313 Neville, Robert Cummings, 314, 345, 562 new, 2, 30, 47, 75, 90, 105, 125, 159, 175, 201, 221, 255, 299, 324, 345, 367, 385, 409, 447, 469, 489, 528, 542, 560, 588, 609 New Asia College 新亞書院, 3, 6, 178, 221, 222 New Confucianism, 2, 3, 5, 15, 47, 48, 58, 61, 63, 68, 84, 90, 97, 116–119, 168, 175–195, 254, 256, 269, 271, 316, 345, 367–382, 387, 447, 469, 491, 496–498, 505, 588, 595, 596, 609, 611 New Confucians, 2, 47, 73, 95, 105, 159, 208, 223, 299, 349, 367, 387, 420, 459, 490, 537, 542, 563, 588 New Culture Movement, 12, 42, 43, 84, 561 New Edition of a History of Chinese Philosophy, 131, 146, 150, 152 New Principle/Pattern Learning (Xin Lixue), 14, 125, 127, 130, 134–139, 146–149, 152 New Text 今文, 15, 32, 33, 36, 37, 39, 44, 64, 179, 180, 193 Niebuhr, Richard, 346 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 422 Nihilism, 58, 75, 166, 532 Nishitani Keiji, 347 Nivison, David, 423 noetic repentance, 153 Non-action (wuwei), 117, 213

638 non-change (buyi 不易), 58–62, 64, 65, 332 non-dichotomous, 184, 185, 193, 194, 812 non-duality of reality and function, 90, 95–100 non-humans fēi rén, 100, 433 Normative ethics, 410, 411, 428, 438 Nussbaum, M., 413, 422, 439 Nuyen, A.T., 428, 432, 438 O obligation, 73, 414, 432, 500, 562, 602, 616, 624 Okada Takehiko (Gangtian Wuyan 岡田 武彥), 346 Olberding, Amy, 435, 436 Old Text 古文, 32, 39, 179 On Hillock Kong, 140, 142–144, 152 one pattern, many manifestations (liyi fenshu 理一分殊), 17, 300, 304–307, 309–311, 314, 318 One person-one vote (OPOV), 501, 503, 505, 577, 578, 604, 605 one reality, the yīběn, 93, 96 onto-hermeneutics; onto-generative hermeneutics, 8, 17, 18, 323–341 ontological assertion, 261, 355 ontological feeling, 260 Ontology, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 22, 61, 89–103, 160–166, 168, 170–172, 202, 203, 258, 304, 317, 324, 325, 329, 330, 335, 387, 394, 396, 450, 451, 455, 456, 461, 545, 547–549, 589, 593–595, 610 ordinary person 小人, 562 organicism, 163, 164, 168–172, 516 original feeling, 165, 473 original heart-mind, 20, 91, 95, 97, 99, 102, 453–456, 470, 472–475, 477, 478, 612, 614, 616 See also Fundamental heart-mind, benxin original knowing (liangzhi), 255, 257–259, 261, 264, 265, 267–269, 271, 616 See also Innate moral awareness Overseas New Confucianism (ONC), 15, 588, 595, 596 Outline of Indian Philosophy 印度哲學概論 (1919), 72, 74 Ouyang Jingwu 歐陽竟無, 89, 90, 368 P Pan-moralism, 206, 207, 304, 312, 495, 496, 533

Index paradigm shift, 308, 317, 318 Paramārtha, 368 Parsons, T., 346, 357 particularization, 227, 314 Pattern (li理 ), 61, 118, 162, 186, 189, 325, 452 pattern and vital energy lǐ qì, 97 pattern of two roads (liangxing zhi li 兩行之 理), 305, 307, 311 Peking (Beijing) University, 4, 6, 13, 52, 72, 89, 177, 221, 277, 368 perception, 19, 28, 30, 36, 37, 60, 62, 75, 77, 93, 190, 225, 233, 239, 241, 242, 285, 304, 334, 351, 371, 432, 448, 458, 460–464, 480, 481, 484, 515, 517, 534 perfect good, 16, 258, 259, 262–266, 377, 469–471 perfect teaching, 16, 18, 259, 262–266, 368, 374, 376–379, 381, 471 Personal cultivation, 17, 77, 81, 290, 291, 562, 564, 566, 569, 596 Philosophy as analytic philosophy, 23, 351, 352, 571, 611 as religiophilosophy, 18, 350–352, 360, 361 critique of, 258 and religion, 163, 221–247 as a way of life, 89, 339, 360, 579 of culture, 17, 48, 66, 77, 153, 159–172, 223, 300–302, 339, 390, 556 of interculturality, 339–341 of life, 15, 84, 159–172, 183, 184, 186, 189–193, 381 of symbolic forms, 17, 22, 301, 543, 552–557 replaces religion, 153 Plato, 130, 136, 151, 210, 222, 270, 326, 350, 353, 389, 391, 394, 395, 520, 566, 567 Political Confucianism, 22, 361, 497, 498, 500, 562, 589, 595–598 Political inequality, 603, 604 political participation, 79, 494, 500, 504, 577, 603–605 Political thought, 9, 10, 15, 105, 106, 117, 120, 121, 204, 211–218, 268, 271, 433, 489–507, 575–579 politicized Confucianism, 315 Popular Confucianism (minjian rujia 民間儒 家), 81–84, 315 Popular legitimacy, 498, 596

Index post-traditional, 125–127, 130–139, 147 Practice, 6, 52, 75, 92, 118, 132, 167, 179, 202, 234, 267, 278, 327, 351, 391, 414, 448, 474, 496, 527, 541, 562, 590, 610 See also Moral cultivation Prajñā, 49, 101, 148, 262, 375 “previous self” (qianci de wo前次的我), 75 prime symbol, 300, 301 Princeton, 347 Principle, 14, 35, 59, 79, 90, 113, 125, 162, 209, 257, 305, 334, 374, 385, 410, 447, 470, 496, 529, 549, 567, 592, 609 See also Pattern lǐ principle of governance/legitimation, 257, 267, 269 process ontology, 22, 610 professional philosopher, 71, 72, 129, 132, 133, 137, 141, 144, 146, 147, 293, 352 profit (or advantage; li 利), 121, 415, 419 Profound Learning, 95 See also Metaphysics xuanxue propaganda of integration, 14, 125, 139, 140, 144, 152 psychology, 100, 109, 163, 165, 209, 210, 279, 282, 285, 289, 317, 323, 412–414, 426, 579, 611 Q qi, 35, 38, 61, 62, 90, 118, 134, 186, 187, 303, 317, 325, 327, 349, 353, 394, 478, 525, 528, 619, 621 as modalities of being, 353 See also Vital force Qian Mu錢穆 (1895–1990), 3, 6, 15, 21, 175–195, 201, 221, 316, 513, 514, 518, 524, 526, 534, 537, 588 Qing dynasty (1644–1911), 2, 12, 29, 35, 39, 72, 146, 159, 205, 469, 549 Qinghua University, 129, 137, 177 Qualitative Knowledge xingzhi, 454–456 Quantitative Knowledge liangzhi, 454–456 Quasi-religion, 81 quiet observation jìngguān, 101 Quiet Thoughts at the Lake 湖上閒思錄, 189 Quiet-sitting, 544 R rationalism/istic, 125, 133, 136, 138, 402, 529, 559, 623

639 Rawls, John, 216, 272, 361, 412, 413, 432, 503 Reality tǐzhe, 97 reality zhēnqíng and function tǐ yòng, 61, 62, 64, 66, 90, 95–100, 371, 377–379, 381 and phenomena tǐ yòng, 13, 96, 97 and phenomenality jí tǐ jí yòng, 371 realization of truth through intuitive understanding míngwùzhènghuì, 90 reason, reasoning functional/constructive presentation of, 267, 268 instrumental, 207 intensional/extensional presentation of, 267 moral reasoning, 492, 493 theoretical reasoning, 493 reciprocity (shu 恕), 78, 359, 389, 398, 420 recognition, 15, 29, 74, 203, 209, 229, 232, 286, 295, 303, 332, 335, 359, 418, 448, 449, 452–455, 457, 460–464, 476, 507, 546, 563, 613, 614, 616–618 reconciliation 調和, 119, 128, 183, 194, 227, 245 reconstructive hermeneutics of accommodation, 269 re-education, 138, 145 reflect, 15, 77, 78, 112, 113, 117, 122, 147, 152, 161, 164, 165, 168, 282, 288, 291, 309, 332, 337, 350, 394, 414, 417, 460, 470, 475, 476, 480, 484, 489, 516, 519, 523, 531, 533, 550, 615, 618 reflective awareness nìjué, 101 reflective thinking, 131, 138, 146, 150, 154 regulative principle, 306, 312–314, 551, 555, 556 Reification, 55, 228, 229 Relationality, 426, 432, 505 relativism, 17, 209, 270, 310, 340, 432, 574, 597 religion, 27, 71, 132, 163, 177, 202, 224, 258, 300, 346, 389, 455, 499, 516, 553, 568, 592 Religiosity, 83, 84, 184, 202, 226, 229, 352 Religiousness through ultimate self-transformation as a communal act, 349 ren 仁 (benevolence), 8, 22, 37, 53, 91, 102, 118, 182, 184, 205, 207, 210, 223, 232, 233, 237, 288–291, 301, 305–307, 313, 317, 381, 401, 417, 470, 514, 524, 526, 530, 589, 593–595, 602, 603, 616, 617

640 “replacement of religion with morality” (yi daode dai zongjiao 以道德 代宗教), 80 Republican period, 12, 106, 107, 122 Restlessness, 150, 154 retrospective/tion, 127 revolution, 3, 10, 14, 16, 22, 48, 53, 71, 72, 74, 89, 90, 92, 96, 107–109, 111, 115, 132, 138–140, 142–144, 149, 152, 153, 200, 277–279, 458, 490, 525, 547 Ricoeur, Paul, 325 Right action, 412 rightness (yi 義), 205, 307, 412, 419, 470, 562 rights, 14, 27, 50, 77, 113, 139, 181, 206, 228, 259, 291, 307, 337, 355, 387, 410, 473, 492, 527, 555, 564, 591, 613 Ritual, 10, 17, 21, 22, 27, 29, 80, 176, 183, 203, 205, 213–215, 229, 246, 287–291, 306, 339, 345, 418, 419, 432, 444, 495, 505, 526, 534, 542, 555, 562–565, 569–571, 573–575, 577, 578 ritual propriety li 禮, 54, 176, 183, 205, 345, 495, 573, 578 “ritual without ritual” (wuli zhi li 無 禮之禮), 80 Roetz, Heiner, 269, 356, 420, 421, 424, 472 role ethics, 19, 20, 169, 355, 411, 412, 426–434, 438, 439, 575 Rorty, Richard, 351 Rosemont Jr., Henry, 19, 120, 126, 355, 411–414, 419, 420, 426, 428–432, 437–439, 574, 601 Rošker, Jana S., 8, 20, 172, 224, 278, 280, 316, 447–466 Rule by virtue, 208, 213–215, 494 Rule of law, 106, 112–115, 122, 213–215, 360, 491, 494, 504, 505, 507, 539 Rules, 29–31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 79, 106, 112–115, 117, 119, 122, 162, 167, 177, 189, 208, 213–215, 217, 287, 289, 295, 301, 305, 310, 311, 340, 360, 416, 420, 432, 435, 440, 491, 494–496, 504, 505, 507, 518, 539, 554, 567, 568, 576, 590, 598, 603 “rural compact” xiangyue 鄉約, 72 Russell Bertrand (1870–1972), 7, 110, 189, 257, 387, 388, 612, 622, 623 S Sacred legitimacy, 499, 596 sage 聖人, 6, 32, 34, 36, 144, 172, 192, 212, 214, 304, 313, 376, 379, 381, 400,

Index 479, 494–496, 537, 542, 555, 576, 595, 597, 598 Sandel, Michael, 277, 295 Sanlian Bookstore (Sanlian shudian三 聯書店), 73 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 203, 351 Scheler, Max, 103, 260, 401 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 161, 520 Schwartz, Benjamin I., 346, 347, 353, 567 science, 3, 35, 68, 74, 92, 106, 142, 160, 201, 243, 266, 277, 301, 328, 357, 385, 409, 451, 485, 489, 513, 553, 561, 587, 611 scientific truth, 100 Scientism, 100, 160, 201, 229, 456 Secular, 133, 139, 147, 149, 165, 243, 350, 500, 565 sedimentation 積澱, 283, 285, 291, 294 Seeds of democratic thought, 117 seeing the nature (jianxing 見性), 51, 55–57, 59, 64, 616 Self a dynamic process of spiritual development, 354–356 as center of relationships, 354 self-affirmation, 178, 185, 193 Self-Consciousness, 95, 96, 132, 135, 137, 140, 145–147, 149–151, 153, 230, 239, 243, 244, 360, 373, 374, 483, 615 self-criticism(s), 90, 139–142, 145 self-cultivation as a process of learning to be human, 349, 355, 361 self-denial, 178 Self-mastery, 204, 205 self-nature zìxìng, 55, 96, 368 self-negation of original knowing, 267–269, 271 See also Self-restriction self-reflective mode of study fǎn jǐ zhī xué, 100 self-restriction (ziwo kanxian 自我坎陷), 21, 244, 271, 387, 491–493, 495, 497 Self-Strengthening Movement, 4, 293 sensory knowledge jiànwén zhī zhī, 101 Sentiments (qing情), 61, 109, 110, 120, 135, 162, 187, 190, 236, 289, 317, 334, 413, 432, 435, 459, 515, 517, 522, 533, 576, 591, 601 settle ourselves and establish our lives (anshen liming 安身立命), 229, 302 shan, 189, 194, 224, 337, 355, 533, 591 Shang dynasty, 203 Shanghai National Affair Conference, 108

Index Shantung (Shandong) Rural Reconstruction Research Institute, 72, 255 Shao Zhengmao, 143 Shen, Vincent, 172, 425 Shengming cunzai yu xinling jingjie 生命存在 與心靈境界 (Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Mind), 16, 223, 371, 390, 480 shengren (sage), 6, 32, 34, 36, 144, 172, 192, 212, 214, 304, 313, 376, 379, 381, 400, 479, 494–496, 537, 542, 555, 576, 595, 597, 598 shi (勢 the propensity of things), 29, 67, 572 Shi Yuankang, 425 Shun Kwong-loi, 429 si duan, 355 significance structure (yiyi jiegou 意義結構), 301, 303, 304, 311 silent insight mòshí, 101 Sim, May, 423, 425, 426, 430, 437, 573 simplicity (jianyi 簡易), 58–65, 282, 332, 519, 528 simultaneous presence of both reality and phenomena jí tǐ jí yòng, 95 single substance benevolence yītǐ zhī rén, 91 Sinophone, 19, 20, 142, 269, 416, 420, 438, 439, 490, 505 Six Arts 六藝, 12, 13, 47–69, 74, 290, 391 Six Classics 六經, 50, 51, 63, 179, 542, 543 slave-owning class, 141 Slingerland, Edward, 423–425, 429, 464, 569, 571, 572, 611 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 346, 361, 575 Sociology, sociological perspective, 356–360, 533 Song dynasty (960–1279), 29, 34, 72, 151, 202, 205, 261, 394, 517, 520, 536, 541, 542 Song-Ming 宋明 Neo-Confucianism, 8, 16, 19, 53–55, 91, 92, 96, 159, 170, 171, 260, 262, 270, 281, 315, 318, 347, 348, 367, 380, 387, 388, 391, 393–396, 402, 483, 544–546, 552, 563, 598, 611, 617, 619 Spengler, Oswald, 300, 301 Spinoza, Baruch, 94, 136, 449 spirit jīngshén, 75, 98, 99, 112, 118, 131, 245 spiritual Confucianism, 314, 315 spiritual transference (gantong 感通), 16, 92, 236, 237, 239, 249, 310, 401, 461, 481 See also Affective resonance spoken language and script 語言和文字, 190 Spring and Autumn (770–481 BCE), 29, 31, 32, 36, 39, 50, 65, 66, 179, 182, 498

641 Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋, 32, 50, 65, 66, 182, 498, 542, 595 Stalin, Joseph, 108, 142, 143 Stanford, 116, 423, 425 State morality, 114 State of cultivation, 291, 591 State socialism, 114–115, 121, 122 studying substance jiūtǐ, 93 subjective—objective zhǔ kè, 102 subjectivity, 48, 79, 100, 161, 172, 208, 211, 217, 222, 227, 239, 243, 246, 259, 280, 296, 329, 354, 371, 373, 497, 527, 530, 549, 613, 618, 623 subject—object néng suǒ, 13, 18, 94, 102, 239, 242, 329, 333, 369, 373, 476, 520 Subject-object relation, 476 sublate/sublation, 126, 132, 144–151, 153, 240, 243 substance, 73, 91–93, 97, 102, 118, 162, 168, 172, 181, 187, 190, 191, 265, 293, 307, 315, 327, 331, 342, 370, 391–393, 401, 441, 450–452, 455, 462, 464, 479, 545, 553, 554, 567, 614, 616, 617 See also Reality tǐ substance and function 體用, 187, 327, 554 substance of benevolence réntǐ, 102, 401, 617 Substance of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi 中國文化要義), 73, 78–80, 84 Suchness (zhenru 真如), 55, 58, 60, 61, 76, 263, 373, 374 sudden enlightenment 豁然貫通, 102, 188, 379 Sullivan, Ian, 432 supra-rational chāo lǐzhì, 13, 100 Swanton, Christine, 422, 427, 428 Swidler, Leonard, 308 Symbolic monarch, 499 synthetic/synthesis, 115, 132, 133, 145–150, 152, 153, 161, 165, 171, 189, 262, 264, 267, 279, 306, 331, 368, 377–382, 400, 447, 456, 457, 460, 491, 526–530, 545–547, 554, 556, 612 systematic, 2, 37, 47, 49, 51, 52, 63, 66, 68, 127, 130, 134, 138, 141, 142, 152, 170, 217, 222, 223, 225, 240, 300, 302–304, 307, 308, 311–314, 318, 324, 329, 332, 333, 336, 352, 375, 423, 495, 514, 526, 529, 559, 569, 574, 600 systematic philosophy, 47, 300, 302–308, 311–314, 318

642 T Taibei, 222, 346 Taihu 太湖, 178 Taiwan, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 106, 160, 178, 200, 206, 222, 223, 256, 257, 269, 299, 316, 324, 346, 347, 349, 361, 385, 401, 434, 490, 491, 507, 513, 531, 576, 588, 609 Taizhou 泰州 School of Wang Gen 王艮, 72 Tan Sor-hoon, 215, 438, 505, 561, 573, 576, 577, 603 Tang Junyi 唐君毅, 1, 3, 6, 7, 9–11, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 48, 57, 66, 106, 112, 116, 149, 161, 163, 168, 169, 172, 200, 202, 217, 221–247, 266, 313, 316, 346, 347, 367, 371–374, 385–396, 402, 403, 451, 455, 461, 462, 469–486, 490, 491, 513, 514, 517, 519, 526, 534, 537, 543, 548–552, 556, 557, 588, 596, 609, 611–619 Tang Yijie, 22, 589–591 Tathāgatagarbha, 373, 375–377, 484 Taylor, Charles, 211, 340, 348, 438, 489 Teaching of the Six Arts 六藝論, 12, 13, 47–69, 74, 290, 391 Technology, 4, 35, 103, 112, 119, 161, 167, 267, 279, 280, 284–287, 291, 293, 300, 385, 433, 436, 455, 456, 579, 596 Teleology, 280, 412, 419, 574, 597 the good 善, 21, 91, 102, 119, 170, 194, 208, 211, 216, 258, 291, 295, 338, 419, 422, 424, 425, 472–474, 484, 500, 504, 526, 530, 533–537, 547, 564, 577–579, 591, 600 the heart-mind of culture 文化心, 183 the heart-mind of ren-yi, 470, 471, 473, 478 the heart-mind of the Way 道心, 183, 194, 465 the human heart-mind 人心, 15, 98, 183, 184, 187, 190, 261, 301, 303, 453, 459, 460, 462, 593 The Phenomenology of Spirit, 131, 232, 371, 374, 380, 387, 389 the reality of the benevolent heart-mind rénxīn běntǐ, 101 the Way and its virtue 道義, 187 theology, 421, 621 theories of knowledge, 447, 450 theory, 5, 30, 48, 74, 90, 113, 132, 163, 178, 200, 259, 279, 312, 324, 347, 368, 385, 409, 447, 485, 495, 516, 543, 562, 589, 610

Index theory of “developing democracy from Confucianism”, 269, 271 theory of being cúnyǒulùn, 92 Theory of harmony, 22, 589, 591–593 theory of reality běntǐlùn, 91–95, 100 Thinking Through Confucius, 424, 429 Third Force, 106, 115, 116, 122 this-worldliness, 182 Three Changes (sanyi 三易), 58–64, 68 Threefold legitimacy, 498 Three Greats (sanda 三大), 60, 389 Tian (天 heaven or cosmos), 28, 228, 234, 335, 559, 567–569, 589, 612, 613 tiandi jingjie, 136 tianming天命, 117, 143, 149, 569, 604, 612 tianren heyi 天人合一, 38, 280, 287, 338 Tiantai 天台 Buddhism, 16, 18, 49, 50, 262–264, 266, 270, 368, 372–378, 381 Tillich, Paul, 304, 309 tong (penetrative understanding), 328 traitor, 138, 139, 152 Transcendence, 22, 51, 56, 57, 75, 80, 168, 171, 192, 202, 240–243, 245, 372, 374, 381, 392, 451, 461, 462, 480, 520, 555, 556, 567, 569, 570, 612, 618 transcendent god chāorán de shàngdì, 99, 621 Transcendental, 20, 23, 80, 91, 168, 172, 204, 205, 224, 229, 236–238, 241, 245–247, 258, 259, 271, 281, 292, 315, 375, 380, 389, 391, 395, 404, 465, 472, 474, 479, 523, 560, 567, 569, 570, 596, 609–623 transcendental argument, 20, 23, 611, 617–620, 623 Transcendental ontology, 172 transcendental reflection, 611–619, 623 transcultural philosophy, 326 transference, 20, 236, 310, 312, 481–484 See also Affective resonance transformation through expansion and contraction xīpīchéngbiàn, 90, 98, 99 transformative mover néngbiànzhě, 99 transforming-through-expansion-andcontraction xīpìkāihé, 94 Transmission of the Way, 2, 159, 176, 185, 188, 193, 195 “Treatise on Finding the Foundation and Resolving the Doubt” (Jiuyuan jueyilun究元決疑論), 72 true meaning zhēndì, 49, 100, 596

Index true ruler zhēnzǎi, 94 true substance shítǐ, 118 truth zhēnxiàng, 93 Tsinghua University, 130 See also Qinghua University Tu Wei-ming (Du Weiming), 3, 7, 18, 83, 185, 303, 507, 562, 563, 565, 588 Tunghai University (Donghai Daxue), 308, 346, 347 Turnabout, 140 Tyrant, 149, 576 U ultimate concern, 92, 103, 304, 314, 556, 609, 612, 613, 623 understanding zhīxìng, 101 Unified Categorization of the Classics (Qunjing tonglei 群經統類), 292 United Nations (UN), 348, 358 unity of heaven and man, the, 94 Unity of knowledge and action, 119, 338, 589–591 Unity of knowledge and morality, 119 Unity of morality and law, 118, 120–124 unity of the good, the true, and the beautiful, the zhēn shàn měi de tǒngyī, 102, 526 Universalism, 30, 31, 36, 82, 109, 110, 227, 340, 358, 421, 430 University of Suzhou / Soochow (Dongwu) University, 177, 178 utilitarianism, 181, 412, 425 V Van Norden, Bryan, 413, 417, 423, 425, 570, 574, 575 veneration of life zūn sheng jiàn dòng, 94 Vienna School, 136 virtue, 10, 48, 100, 114, 182, 208, 233, 288, 302, 391, 411, 453, 481, 494, 514, 564, 593 virtue ethics, 19, 411, 413, 417, 419–427, 429, 430, 432–435, 437–439, 573–575 virtue of nature (xingde 性德), 48, 53, 54, 68 virtue theory, 215, 413, 423 virtuosity, 430, 439 visualizing substance jiàntǐ, 93 vital energy, see Vital force qì vital force 氣, 53, 58–64, 97, 118, 134, 186, 187, 303–305, 317, 325, 353, 394, 476, 478, 520, 525, 527, 528, 536, 619

643 vital impulse élan vital, 95 vital reality shēngmìng běntǐ, 91 vitalism, 457 vitality of reality běntǐ zhī jiàn, 98 vows to the Buddha (Fayuan wen 發源文), 74 W Wallace, W., 131 Walsh, Sean, 418, 440 Wáng Chuánshān (Fuzhi), 19, 31, 38, 96, 99, 394, 448 Wang Longxi 王龍溪, 265, 315, 376, 378, 379, 544 Wang Yangming 王陽明(Shouren 守仁) (1472–1529), 3, 6, 16, 19, 21, 50, 91, 179, 181, 207, 209, 257, 261, 264, 265, 268, 303, 313, 315, 317, 318, 327, 346, 348, 353, 355, 369, 378, 379, 385, 387, 388, 391, 393, 394, 396, 403, 416, 426, 448, 449, 455, 474, 475, 538, 543, 544, 550, 551, 590, 598, 609, 613, 618 Wang Zongyu, 81 Warring States period (403–221 BCE), 78, 179, 604 Watson, Gary, 413, 419 Way (dao 道) of focusing on the proper function zhì yòng zhī dào, 96 Weber, Max, 113, 114, 347, 561, 562 Weber, Ralph, 18, 345, 361 Wei Zhengtong, 496 Wesołowski, Zbigniew, 84 Western ethical theory, 430 Western ethics, 78, 422, 427, 428, 430, 437, 438 Western philosophical works, 72 Western Zhou dynasty, 203 Whitehead, Alfred North, 257, 568, 610 wholeness, 147, 353, 453, 454, 456 will actual, 75 impulse of the, 75 Williams, Bernard, 413, 414 Wilson, Stephen, 423, 424, 429 Wisdom, 15, 33, 37, 42, 44, 54, 76, 92, 100–102, 118, 162, 165–167, 170–172, 189, 192, 193, 205, 223, 240, 258, 292, 301, 305, 309–311, 314, 350, 352, 375, 381, 462, 463, 471, 472, 551, 555, 560, 574, 579, 600, 603, 610–612, 622, 624 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 257

644 worldview, 98, 125, 128, 139, 142, 153, 233, 294, 326, 352–356, 361, 448, 453, 459, 539, 567–569 Wu Guang吳光, 589 Wu, Teh Yao (Deyao), 346 wuwei無為, 117, 213, 564, 571 Wuxi 無錫, 176, 256, 306, 338, 535 X Xiang Xiu向秀, 171 Xie Teli, 138 Xie Wuliang謝無量, 49 Xie Xiaodong, 214 Xin, see Heart-mind xin lixue, see New Learning of Pattern/Principle Xin weishi lun 新唯識論 (New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness), 5, 13, 90, 93, 97, 223, 368, 453 xin xinxue, 609 xingju 性具, 378 xingqi 性起, 234, 378, 522 xingqing 性情 (feelings stemming from human nature), 234, 522 Xinhai revolution (1911), 72, 89, 92 Xiong Shili熊十力 (1883–1968), 2, 3, 5, 6, 8–10, 13, 18, 23, 47, 52, 61, 84, 89–103, 106, 112, 146, 181, 199, 200, 202, 204, 209, 217, 223, 255, 303, 316, 349, 354, 355, 367, 386, 388, 416, 451–457, 563, 588, 598, 609, 613 Xu Fuguan, 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, 15, 21, 116, 149, 168, 199–218, 229, 266, 292, 303, 316, 346, 347, 451, 461, 490, 491, 507, 513–515, 524, 526, 530, 537, 538, 543, 563, 588 Xuanzang 玄奘, 50, 368, 395 Xunzi, 39, 40, 135, 142, 143, 166, 193, 208, 209, 261, 391, 395, 449, 469, 541, 563, 589, 590, 598 Xunzi, the, 39, 135, 142, 143 Y Yan Fu, 4, 39–41 Yan Hui, 52, 417, 418, 542 Yan Yuan see Yan Hui Yang Zhu, 130, 135, 595 Yang Zebo, 270, 388 Yanjing University, 109, 177 Ye Zuowen葉左文, 51 Yearley, Lee, 423 Yi T'oegye 退溪, 349, 355

Index Yijing易經, 17, 90, 95, 98, 99, 202, 217, 236, 261, 325, 327, 328, 330–337, 339, 341, 369, 371, 379, 380, 492 yīn and yáng, 56, 66, 166, 187, 189, 202 Yin Haiguang, 206, 213, 268 ying (responses), 340 Yìzhuàn, 95, 170, 478 Yogācāra Consciousness-Only Buddhism Fǎxiāng wéishí zhī xué, 89, 97, 103 Yu Jiyuan, 425 Yu Ying-shih 余英時, 7, 178, 588 Yue Hua, 348 Z Zai Wo, 288, 419, 424 Zhang Dainian 張岱年, 293, 599 Zhāng Dōngsūn, 93 Zhang Fakui, 116 Zhang Foquan, 206, 268, 296 Zhang Huajuan, 84 Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (Carsun Chang); as a liberal émigré intellectual after 1949; early life; education in Japan; Germany experience; on a strong state, powerful government and the rule of law; on state socialism; on the idea of National Renaissance, 1, 8, 14, 15, 20, 73, 105–122, 161, 168, 256, 266, 268, 387, 449–451, 459, 491, 588 Zhang Liwen, 22, 589, 591–593 Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077), 38, 60, 149, 186, 261, 305, 315, 354, 388, 396 Zhang Shenfu, 255 Zheng Dahua 鄭大華, 82 Zheng Jiadong, 496, 599, 600 zhengming (rectification of names), 334 Zhi Dun支遁, 171 Zhongyong 中庸 (The Doctrine of the Mean), 29, 119, 142, 143, 165, 182, 203, 204, 261, 307, 336–338, 349, 389 Zhou Dunyi 周敦颐 (1017–1073), 147–149, 186, 261, 315, 388, 396 Zhou Wenjie, 346 Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), 3, 5, 6, 15, 16, 19, 21, 35, 50, 51, 60, 97, 98, 118, 125, 132, 175, 176, 181, 184–192, 194, 195, 207, 261, 270, 271, 280, 300, 305, 315, 317–318, 325, 388, 391, 394, 396, 397, 402, 403, 418, 426, 447–449, 543–548, 550, 552, 553, 555–557, 595, 598, 601, 609, 613

Index Zhuangzi, 102, 125, 130, 135, 136, 147, 148, 159, 166, 307, 386, 389, 516, 517, 526–530, 532, 555

645 Zhuangzi, the, 103, 130, 136, 147, 148, 517, 527, 529, 530 ziran, 148, 187, 279 Zuozhuan, 142, 143